History of Western Tibet

Here is a unique feat in historiography of one of the most inhospitable and inaccessible regions of the East. The author reconstructs the history of Western Tibet and Ladakh region from primitive local records, edicts and folklore. Among the available sources, on the one hand there was purely subjective account documented by the court poets or writers in praise of their masters utterly exaggerating their martial exploits, on the other hand, there were accounts recorded by the foreign, mostly Westerns, not much familiar with the language, custom, mythological references, and socio- cultural jargon. Yet the author strikes a credible and creditable balance. He has presented here a coherent, interesting and generally reliably history of the region amply substantiated by maps, photographs and illustrations. The wars, migrations, religious battles, conversions, ethnic changes and influences spread over a vast span of time (B.C. 200-1900 A.D.) are as far as possible remarkably put into a historical sequence.