Tashigang

Tashigang lies in the upper Indus valley of western Tibet, near the meeting of the Sengge Tsangpo and Gartang rivers. Its monastery stands in a region where the religious and political traditions of Ladakh and Tibet met. An early monastery was established here around the eleventh century; in the seventeenth century the Ladakhi king Sengge Namgyal sponsored a Drukpa establishment at Tashigang.

During the war between Ladakh and the Lhasa government, Tibetan and Mongol forces fought in western Tibet and advanced into Ladakh. After they were driven back, they took refuge in the fort at Tashigang. The settlement was also the meeting place of the lama sent from Lhasa to arrange peace; the 1684 agreement regulated the border, the wool trade and missions between the two countries. The monastery later became associated with the Gelug tradition.