Ladakh Tibetan Buddhism

It is early July 2007. On the way to the village of Sumur in the region of Ladakh, driving across the rocky desert plain, we see men constructing a simple prayer gate across the road. It consists of just two tall poles, decorated with banners - but in the middle of this wilderness, any activity is remarkable. What is going on?
We are also surprised to find, on reaching Samstaling monastery, just outside the village, that some heavy road-mending machines are being employed to renew its battered old access-track. In a place where things do not change for decades, to see two such signs of activity is even more remarkable. A sense of excitement fills the air.
In the temple, a young, nervous monk tells us the cause of the commotion. The spiritual leader of his Buddhism – the Dalai Lama - is coming to visit here, within one month!

But does the Dalai Lama come to witness growth in local Buddhism – or the beginning of its slow death?


“Little Tibet”

Central Ladkah, on the far eastern side of the state of Jammu & Kashmir, is almost India’s most northerly point. Hidden behind two huge mountain ranges, in one of the world’s highest habitable regions, for centuries it was virtually untouched; the British, for instance, did not colonise here. But it is not a hospitable place for visitors anyway. For a start, its weather is weird.
For only two to three months of the year it has a growing season, when the sun bakes down on its desert landscape. For the rest of the year, it endures freezing cold and snow. Rainfall is minimal. The air is so thin here that visitors can often suffer altitude sickness. Unsurprisingly then, the population of this part of Ladakh is tiny - just barely over one hundred thousand.

Yet this small area, no bigger than England, is now the last free bastion of traditional Tibetan-style Buddhism, and it is for this, as well as the trekking opportunities, that tourists are coming in increasing numbers. The thirty or so great monasteries (known as gompas) that line the Indus valley in central Ladakh contain some of the finest and last-remaining treasures of the thousand year-old culture. And, unlike the situation in neighbouring Tibet, where it’s estimated the Chinese have destroyed nearly 6000 religious sites, the great monasteries of Ladakh are being preserved – partly due to tourist revenues.
But is tourism destroying or helping Ladakhi Buddhism?


Commercialism

Tsering is a young monk who has just completed his degree in education in Jammu. For extra funds to support his studies, he works in the summer as a guide, doing “the gompa tour”, with groups of tourists. In fact, his knowledge is essential to the tourist. Without people like him to do the explaining, the strange and beautiful art-works of the monasteries, with their depictions of literally hundreds of different deities, lords, disciples, great monks and manifestations of Buddha, would be incomprehensible.

We met Tsering as we were heading toward the Hemis Monastery Festival, probably the biggest and most well-attended religious festival in the region, when, for two days in June every year, monks dressed as various masked demons and deities enact the slow and mysterious dance-dramas of the tradition. Was he coming? we asked. He shook his head. No, he didn’t like it any more, he said - it was too commercial, with too many tourists.
This opinion shocked us. The festivals have been, from the time they started, the way in which the monks present religious stories to the local villagers and communities around them, and are solemn undertakings – how could this festival be “commercial”? Tsering told us we would see when we got there.
Are you pessimistic about the future of local Buddhism then? I asked him. He was quiet for a moment, and then explained that it was his vocation to settle again in Ladakh after his studies and teach the young people how properly to understand the Tibetan language (which is very similar to the local Ladakhi or ‘Bhoti’ tongue). Though the Buddha’s teachings were first expressed in India in Sanskrit, he said, subsequent Hindu and Muslim waves had caused that Indian tradition to be lost. The Tibetan translation of the Sanskrit original, he claimed, was now the only authentic language in which to understand the Buddha’s teachings – and without knowledge of the language, the truth would be lost a second time.
Was that really a possibility? I asked. He sighed, and then replied: “Our birth-rate is now so low – so families no longer give a younger son to the monasteries, as they used to. Where will the new monks come from? And without monks to carry out the rituals of life – what will happen to Ladakh? And the present Dalai Lama is an old man – what will happen to us all when he dies?”
We made our way to Hemis in sombre mood.

Tsering was right about the festival. Though there were many Ladakhis squeezed into the square in the centre of the monastery, they were all forced to sit on the ground in the sun. All of the shaded side of the square was “reserved” for tourists, nearly all of them rich Europeans in designer sunglasses, who sat in a specially guarded grandstand, cameras at the ready.
Instead of an authentic ritual, the performance had the air of one of those sad ‘cultural’ events enacted in a luxury hotel. It felt all wrong.


Gompa tourism

Is the Buddhist establishment itself to blame for commercialism? Do places like Hemis invite their own downfall?
For five days, another Ladakhi - Dawa - accompanied us round the monasteries. A devout Buddhist, in each temple, he would join his hands and prostrate himself. Yet he told us he was disgusted by the way the monasteries now sought “admission fees” from tourists. (In most gompas, it was true, one monk always seemed to produce a ticket book, and would demand a fee of around 25 rupees.)
But why not? we asked Dawa. The wall paintings are often in poor repair, and though the very dry air in this region will preserve them a little longer than in most climates, we were happy to contribute to their upkeep. In the offering bowls before the Buddha statues in each temple, it was clear others thought like us – alongside 5 or 10 rupee notes from the faithful were often US dollar-bills. But Dawa only frowned, and said that no one had ever asked for money years ago when he was a boy.

There is a dilemma here. Should the monasteries be solely for silent and spiritual devotions? Should they cut themselves off, and refuse to admit tourists? Or are these superb buildings the heritage of all of us, Buddhist or non-Buddhist?

The gompas in Ladakh are most often in remote and isolated sites.
One thinks of Basgo, which, only a few years ago, could only be reached by a tortuous and dusty donkey-track that climbed the edge of a mountainside for two kilometres.
One thinks of Lamarayu, which you can see across the desert from miles away, as it perches high on its craggy peak.
Or inaccessible, mysterious Phugtal, which is near no roads at all and can only be reached by hard hiking. The founders of these sites deliberately built them to be as secluded from the rest of the world as possible.

Yet… Basgo now has built a mortorable road up the steep hillside, which now can take tourists to within a hundred yards of the temples; Lamarayu even has a brand spanking new “guest-house” and café for visitors; and Phugtal is now listed as a popular stopover point on one of the area’s trekking routes.
The monasteries are the richer for it, and can make the repairs that have been needed for centuries – but they are not as ‘unworldly’ as they used to be.

In Basgo gompa, an old monk indicates to us he would like a lift down the mountain. We are happy to oblige, but before setting out, he asks us to take tea and tsampa (ground barley) with him in his cell. The cell comprises both a small stone room, barely big enough for his mattress, and a tiny open balcony-area where are stored some of the sacred texts, and which (by the way) just happens to have a superb view over the snow-topped mountain range. (I must admit I kept thinking how freezing in winter it must be for him here!).
Before tea is finished, I sense he is anxious about something, and it appears he can’t find his key in order to lock up his room. I can’t help but laugh: no burglar is ever going to bother climbing all this way for what few possessions he has… surely? But he grimaces at me, and I know what his thought is – tourists, few as they are, will take anything.


Fragile Ladakh

Buddhism in Ladkah is a fragile flower. The very isolation of this area (the nearest train station to Leh is two days away over the mountains), and the fact that the military authorities kept this place closed to the rest of the world until as little as thirty years ago, protected the unique customs and culture as though they were in a sealed compartment.
Unlike Nepal, where Buddhism has a history of competing with another, dominant religion, Buddhism in central Ladakh has had it easy. The minority Muslim population has never attempted to do anything more than keep a low profile and maintain a peaceful co-existence, and apart from a few ill-judged incidents over the past decades, that tacit agreement has held. Buddhism here has not faced a strong challenge since the time of Aurangzeb; and it is not prepared for it.

Almost to prove the point, authorities admit that the fantastic lure of easy tourism money has upset the balance of the ancient communities here. NGOs such as the ISEC, which is based in Leh, has been set up to try to give support to the old ways, but admit that the trend is against their work – that “modern” thinking is inexorably taking hold. At one of their workshops, an old man illustrates what is going on… first he chants and sings to himself as he fingers the prayer-beads in his hands; then he stops and puts down the beads; and then starts to make a similar but different action, that of texting on a mobile phone. His point is clear – the new ways are supplanting the old ways.
But – at the same workshop – it was admitted that more government money is coming into Ladakh to sustain this new economy of tourism. New housing, new water supplies and new roads are signs of that.
However Dawa and I were able to contribute a story that showed how this money, welcome as it is, is sometimes misplaced. Dawa and I had visited a group of chortens (whitewashed, Ladakhi versions of sacred stupa-style shrines) in Hunder village in the Nubra Valley. Now, it is essential to Buddhists that they walk clockwise round sacred sites… yet someone had built a new tarmac path right through the centre of this group! I was surprised, and asked Dawa, how this could happen? He shook his head: “Only one developer could do this – a developer who is not Ladakhi…”


The Future

The landscape and the heritage of Ladakh are proving a strong a pull for the rest of the world. The hushed, often dark and remote temples with their fantastic depictions and marvellous treasures are so romantic and so exotic that the tourists – some 20,000 a year - will continue to arrive in droves, no matter how primitive the infrastructure is (and it is bad; some of the B-grade hotels are truly dreadful, and the shed that is Leh airport is chaotically disorganised).
What’s more, the appeal of the landscape with its truly stunning forms and unique profiles contributes to the tourists’ sense of satisfaction – even a drive of two hours from one gompa to the next can hardly be tedious when you have such incredible natural visions before you.

Next month, the Dalai Lama too will see those same landscapes, and there is no doubt that, despite the changes wrought by modernity, the vast majority of the population of Ladakh will still turn out to see him, and attend his teachings.
But it will be a time of reflection. The seventy-two year-old leader is hale and hearty, but he must know that the real future of his religion is now in the hands of this present generation. How will they handle it?


Modern times

In one monastery, we heard the profoundly moving tones of a traditional “gyaling” pipe being played. As we climbed up the stone steps, it seemed to become the sound of the mountain itself, yet, inside the small temple at the top, we realised it was just a young monk, “practising” as he said. Then I noticed his MP3 Player. What had he been listening to before – was it Hindi film music perhaps? Or classic western rock? Or even Buddhist chants perhaps? He seemed surprised that I had not realised what to him could be the one and only response: “I listen to Ladakhi folk-music, the music of my people”.
Maybe there is a lesson in that incident – the trappings of modernity don’t necessarily mean you abandon your roots.
But the next twenty to thirty years will surely be crucial for Ladkah.

{A version of this article first appeared in the Hindustan Times}

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Sources & Links
Dalai Lama's Website, Ladakh Ecological Development Group (LEDeG), and Ladakh Buddhist Association (Wikipedia entry)

Incidentally, getting to Central Ladakh is tough, unless you fly - even then bad weather will halt flights. A bus service runs from Manali in Himachal Pradesh – but takes 2 days and the road is mostly closed October to May! The nearest railhead is at Jammu – from where it is another 2-day road-journey via Srinagar. So - good luck.