Ladakhi society in slight depth

Ladakhi society in slight depth

As a Ladakhi I always wonder how we are different from the rest of the world ethically and morally.I mean i am so grateful to exist in a society which consist not only of our family but also our environment, our neighbours, friends and relative ,flora and fauna, nature in more sort of prominent way.Ladakhi community is very much dissolved in its own, its culture is unique and harmonious ,though its tradition shares with that of tibet ,but as an observer point of view there is huge variation in culture and tradition between the tibetans and the one exist in ladakh.Even the language is technically different but one can understand tibetan or ladakhi vice a versa.As the script were written in tibetan(Bothi).Monasteries,stupas and various heritage sites such as monasteries were mainly influenced from Tibet and art and painting from Kashmir.
      

Ladakh has a very vast and rich culture in the world.People of Ladakh has always been known for  its warmth heart and compassion towards each other.Ladakh is also known for 'land of beautiful faces'.traditionally every Ladakhi village or a community has its own form of local government lead by the Goba of the village elected either by voting or by volunteering which happens in most cases.
Goba-
The elected Goba is the supreme of person of the village and has been treat with huge respect.He has a great role to play in community like in ladakh.He is the one who look after all issues related to his region.He has to resolve the hurdles and problems among the community peacefully.
Goba has to attend many function such as weddings,archery festival or various other festivals for which he is always invited as an important guest.He has the right to conduct nay sort of meetings and discussion including various intellectual person of the village.So basically its the goba who deal with the development of once village.
      

Silk Route via Leh-ladakh

Ladakh, a word which means "land of high passes", is an area of Northern India sandwiched in between the Karakoram in the north and the Himalaya in the south. Ladakh was the connection point between Central Asia and South Asia when the Silk Road was in use. The sixty-day journey on theLadakh route connecting Amritsar and Yarkand through eleven passes was frequently undertaken by traders till the third quarter of the 19th century.Another common route in regular use was the Kalimpong route between Leh and Lhasa via Gartok, the administrative centre of western Tibet. Gartok could be reached either straight up the Indus in winter or through either the Taglang la or the Chang la. Beyond Gartok, the Cherko la brought travelers to the Manasarovar and Rakshastal lakes, and then to Barka, which is connected to the main Lhasa road. These traditional routes have been closed since the Ladakh-Tibet border was sealed by the Chinese government. Other routes connected Ladakh to Hunza and Chitral but, as in the previous case, there is no border crossing between Ladakh and Pakistan.
 The original silk route.

Ladakh's history And Culture

Ladakh's culture, economy and society has been shaped by many factors - the fact that Ladakh neighbors Tibet in the east, in the north by the Xiniang province of China, in the northwest by Pakistan, in the west by Kashmir and in the south by the Lahaul and Spiti valleys of Himachal Pradesh, also Central Asia further a field - how all these areas have influenced and shaped the culture and society that has developed in Ladakh over the years to the present day.
    
Along the long established trade routes through Tibet, Central Asia, Kashmir and the plains of northern India, came not only goods but also ideas. Despite its harsh terrain and remoteness from urban centres, Ladakh has long been a location where people, commerce and cultures intermingled and its art forms therefore reflect influences from many other places. Records and monographs left by European travelers - the first Europeans to reach Leh in 1631were the Portuguese priests Francisco de Azevedo and John de Oliveira. Then in 1820 the two Englishmen William Moorcroft and George Trebeck, who worked for the East India Company - they had come to Ladakh in the course of a journey to central Asia in search of horses for the East India Co - were kept in Leh for two years waiting for permission to go to Yarkand, and which was eventually denied them. It was during this two-year wait that they observed and wrote about life in Ladakh, trade, clothes, religion, etc.

Ladakh is one of the few places in the world for endless exploration.

MONASTERIES OF LADAKH.

Locally known as Gompa ,the monasteries of Ladakh have been sanctuaries of Buddhist learning as well as repositories of Buddhist arts and artifacts, both imported and indigenously created in ancient times when Kashmir was the Buddhist kingdoms, Buddhism reached Ladakh and, ever since Buddhism continued its presence uninterruptedly even after its disappearance from Kashmir and the setbacks it suffered in Tibet, the two main regions of Buddhist knowledge and arts in the Himalayas.

Tibetan-Buddhism or Ladakhi culture owes almost everything to Buddhism, which was probably brought first to Tibet in the early 7th century of the Christian Era, which finally became a national religion in the 11th century and later flourished in all the Himalayan Buddhist Kingdoms including Ladakh. Tibetan monks meticulously and assiduously translated texts from Sanskrit to their mother tongue, and today many works originally composed in Sanskrit exist only in these Tibetan translations. Thus the canons of Tibetan-Buddhism are very important for the study of Buddhism in general. The existing monasteries of Ladakh fortunately possess hundreds of Buddhist artifacts from Kashmir and Tibet and all the monasteries are affiliated to one of the four major order of Tibet-Buddhism- Nyigmapa, Saskyapa, Gelukpa, and Kargyudpa.

Monasteries of Ladakh belong to different time period, some dating back to 11th century, like Alchi, Mangue and Sumdah-chun which belong to the same architectural tradition of Gandhara art. Besides that rest of the monasteries dated back to 16th century however unfortunately some of the monasteries dating back to 15th century were destroyed by Muslim invasion. Monastery in Ladakh, Tibet and whole Himalayan Buddhist Kingdoms are known by Gompa, Gompa meant sacred solitary or meditation place for monks and the treasures house of frescos painting of various meditational deities, Mandalas and statues of various Bodhisattvas, an endless exploration of Buddhist philosophy which embodied in its Arts and Artifact.
Source-Dlonpo Travelhttp://www.dlonpotravels.com/culture_tour.php