Ladakh

The Ladakhi are a Tibetan-speaking people of the high Indus valley in the western Himalaya, centred on Leh, Shey and Basgo. Around 900 Kyide Nyimagon, a prince of the Tibetan royal line, founded a kingdom in western Tibet, and his son Lhachen Palgyigon received Ladakh, then called Maryul; this dynasty ruled for five centuries and carried the second diffusion of Buddhism into the region.

In 1460 King Bhagan overthrew the king of Leh and founded the Namgyal dynasty. Sengge Namgyal in the early seventeenth century restored the monasteries and built Leh Palace and Hemis. The Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal war of 1679 to 1684 ended with the Treaty of Tingmosgang, fixing the kingdom's borders and obliging it to pay tribute to the Mughals.

In 1834 the Dogra general Zorawar Singh invaded and annexed Ladakh to Jammu, ending Namgyal rule. Ladakhi life rested on barley farming, trans-Himalayan trade and Buddhist monasticism.