Leh and Ladakh in short :

 


Ladakh region in general and Leh town in particular are two amazing place to visit especially at the end of summer and during the onset of monsoons. This mountainous region has enchanting beauty of the landscape and holidaying here is being in the lap of the nature fairly distant from your usual moorings and in the midst of an entire different civilization.

Leh is the capital city of Ladakh, while Ladakh is the plateau with interspersing valleys lying close to the Greater Himalayas. There are several ways by how you can reach there depending on the route that would be open. Srinagar and Manali are two major gateways to Leh, Ladakh.


Ladakh is alluring with its altitude of at least 9,000 feet overlooking the Kargil and Tibet border. There are also many longer trekking trails to choose from, such as the ones from Likir to Temisgam, and Markha Valley from Spituk.

Rock carvings found in many parts of Ladakh indicate that the area has been inhabited from Neolithic times. Ladakh's earliest inhabitants consisted of a mixed Indo-Aryan population of Mons and Dards, who find mention in the works of Herodotus, Nearchus, Megasthenes, Pliny, Ptolemy, and the geographical lists of the Puranas.Around the 1st century, Ladakh was a part of the Kushana empire. Buddhism spread into western Ladakh from Kashmir in the 2nd century when much of eastern Ladakh and western Tibet was still practising the Bon religion. The 7th century Buddhist traveler Xuanzang describes the region in his accounts.

In the 8th century, Ladakh was involved in the clash between Tibetan expansion pressing from the East and Chinese influence exerted from Central Asia through the passes. Suzerainty over Ladakh frequently changed hands between China and Tibet. In 842 Nyima-Gon, a Tibetan royal representative annexed Ladakh for himself after the break-up of the Tibetan empire, and founded a separate Ladakhi dynasty. During this period Ladakh acquired a predominantly Tibetan population. The dynasty spearheaded the second spreading of Buddhism, importing religious ideas from north-west India, particularly from Kashmir. The first spreading of Buddhism was the one in Tibet proper.

According to Rolf Alfred Stein author of Tibetan Civilization, the area of Zhangzhung was not historically a part of Tibet and was a distinctly foreign territory to the Tibetans. According to Rolf Alfred Stein.