Shey

Shey was an early royal centre of Ladakh, overlooking the Indus valley near Leh. Its palace rose on a hill above the settlement, and its royal monastery houses a great image of Shakyamuni Buddha. The hilltop palace became a model for later royal building in Leh and Tsaparang. During the sixteenth-century invasion of Ladakh, the Moghul commander Mirza Haidar Dughlat stayed at Shey. In 1655 King Deldan Namgyal ordered a later palace and monastery built below the older royal residence in memory of his father, Sengge Namgyal. The monumental Buddha image made for the monastery joined the royal family with the religious traditions they patronised in Ladakh.