Keylong

Keylong lies above the Bhaga River in Lahaul, on the route between the Rohtang and Baralacha passes. This setting connects the village with a chain of Himalayan valleys and mountain crossings rather than with the plains alone. Its religious landscape includes monasteries on both sides of the river. Shashur, on the hill beyond Keylong, was founded in the seventeenth century by Deva Gyatso. A small patch of woodland distinguished its site from the sparsely wooded surroundings. Across the Bhaga, Kardang formed another monastic centre, described in the district census handbook as a late-medieval foundation. These establishments place Keylong's surroundings within the religious networks of Lahaul well before the nineteenth-century expansion of modern administration. The monasteries stood apart from the village on opposing slopes, making religious sites as well as the river and passes prominent features of the local landscape.