Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir and Luhul & Spiti and Kinnaur districts of Himachal Pradesh combined together form a distinct religio-cultural segment of the Western Himalayan region. In this region, Buddhism has been a living religion of the majority of the population. In Buddhist Western Himalaya, a result of the strenuous efforts of the author for many years, an attempt has been made to piece together all the available source material - literary, archaeological and traditional - to construct a cogent and well-reasoned account of the historical events in this Himalayan Shangri-la of Buddhism. Towards that end, the histories of the neighbouring kingdoms and powers, which influenced the course of history of this region, have also been correlated so that the historical events of this region are integrated into the wider socio-cultural, religious and political format of the entire Western Himalayan region. It is for the first time that an integrated socio-political and religious history of this region has been attempted. |