Himalaya

The mountain country around Rutok belongs to western Tibet's Ngari region, near the routes leading toward Ladakh. High ridges and enclosed basins separated grazing grounds and settlements, while the movement of wool connected the plateau with markets beyond it. The political significance of these routes became especially clear after the Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal war of the late seventeenth century, when access to western Tibetan commerce formed part of the peace settlement.

The terms recorded for the Treaty of Tingmosgang in 1684 reserved participation in the Ngari wool trade to Ladakhis and restricted entry into Rudok to the Ladakhi court's royal trader. They also provided for an annual trading caravan from Lhasa to Ladakh carrying two hundred horse-loads of tea, and a periodic mission from Leh to Lhasa bearing gifts. These arrangements placed merchants, court representatives and religious obligations within the same mountain economy. The surrounding heights remained difficult country to cross, but their passes joined pastoral production to an organized system of diplomatic and commercial journeys linking western Tibet, Ladakh and the wider Himalayan world.