Spiti
Legend & lore

Its starkness leaves you staggering, spellbound and wanting more. The harsh terrain comes as a sharp contrast to its hospitable inhabitants and rich culture and heritage. Kishore Thukral’s recently published book captures the spirit, story and form of Spiti, the heavenly valley in the western Himalayas. Exclusive excerpts

For administrative purposes, Spiti has traditionally been divided into five kothis. "Sham comprises the lower part of the valley, on both sides of the Spiti river before its confluence with the Pin," Dorje (the driver-cum-guide I hired in Manali) told me. it includes Sumdo, Lari, Tabo, Poh and quite a few other villages. The second of course is Pin valley, which by itself is a separate kothi. Then there’s which by itself is a separate kothi. Then there’s Barshik or the middle valley. That covers the area on both sides of the main river, north of its junction with the Pin, right up to Kaza. It also includes villages along the Lingti nala. And then, north of Kaza is the kothi we call Totpa that embraces the villages on the right bank of the main river, like Rangril, Sumling and Morang. And the ones on the left, further up in the mountains, for instance Key, Kibber and a few more. Finally we have Chhoji. The name can be broken up into two parts. Chho means religion, and ji means connected. So Chhoji contains villages or houses that are attached to a monastery."

"Are we going to travel through all five of them?" I asked.

"Four," Dorje replied, "because Chhoji in fact comprises villages or portions of villages that may fall in Sham, Barshik or Totpa. It isn’t a geographical division."

"So, we’re entering Sham now," I noted as we halted at the Sumdo checkpoint.

There were a few foreigners at Sumdo, and the guards there were examining their passports and Inner Line Permits. There had been a similar checkpost the previous day at Kippa (Jangi), about an hour short of Pooh, but no one there seemed to have been bothered by anyone’s complexion or tongue.

Not that it should have mattered. After all Spiti is no longer barricaded behind an imaginary Inner Line that forbids non-local Indians from entering without a special permit, and foreigners altogether.

The ice-hard Pare chhu glacier welcomes the rare visitor.
The ice-hard Pare chhu glacier welcomes the rare visitor.

"Old habits die hard," Dorje mocked, out of hearing of the uniformed men. "During the ’62 war with China, the authorities placed Spiti in the Inner Line because of its proximity to Tibet. Thirty years passed before the powers that be realised that the line had outlived its purpose. Then they wiped it off the map and, except for a small part, opened the area up for all and sundry."

Dorje halted by a relatively straight stretch of the dry serpentine road. He stepped out, took in a draught of the crisp air, and flailed his arms like an impresario. "Welcome to my land," he said.

The fringes of Kinnaur district had prepared me for the starkness of Spiti. The last patch of green had been a little oasis on the slope running down to our lift, just after Maling nala. Thereafter, through Chango, Shalkhar and Sumdo, there had been hardly a hint of grass to embellish the mountain. The river flowed in a canyon, intimidating and captivating at the same time. At times it was invisible, yet its roar was audible even over the second-gear vociferations of the jeep.

A few kilmoetres inside Spiti, at a certain bend that looped left, Dorje swerved right, off the highway, on to a dirt road.

Excerpted with permission from Spiti: Through Legend and Lore. Text and photos by Kishore Thukral. Mosaic Books. Pages 100
Excerpted with permission from
Spiti: Through Legend and Lore. Text and photos by Kishore Thukral. Mosaic Books. Pages 100

I checked the speedometer. We were travelling at fifteen kilometres an hour. "Quite a road," I remarked. "By the way, where are we going?"

"Gue," he said. "It’s a surprise."

We bounced alongside the Gue nala, upstream. It was a sprightly tributary, fairly voluminous and very swift. Some way up the valley suddenly acquired a green coat, its fields lush with barley.

"See that," Dorje pointed to a patch of crop in the distance, boasting small plants with yellow flowers. "That’s green pea. The government introduced it some time ago."

"What happened to your traditional black pea?" I asked.

He shrugged. "This definitely fetches better money."

"Cash crop," I said to myself. I defied the jouncing and made a hasty note in my diary.

The fields running along the road down to the river, now flowing at a fair distance, led us to Gue village. Its houses — white walls, blue or yellow square windows, with blackened lopped branches stacked on the roofs — stood picturesquely, some clustered, others apart. A stroke of ochre, mostly about a foot in width, ran the length of the walls just beneath the roof.

"These houses are gorgeous," I stated, alighting from the jeep. "Completely suited to the climate, I’m sure."

Dorje nodded distractedly. "That mountain there," he said, indicating one with his chin and raised eyebrows, "separates us from Tibet." It was a soaring mountain that rose steeply like a one-dimensional triangle. "The first village across is called Tsurup Sumgy! The last one on our side is Kaurik."

Much as I tried, I couldn’t perceive a single dwelling on its slop. I made to take out my binoculars.

"Don’t," Dorje stopped me. "This is sensitive area."

Just then, as though in testimony, a soldier appeared, attired in battle fatigues, a gun slung upon a shoulder. Approaching us, he greeted my escort. "Juley." They proceeded to shake hands. "How’ve you been, Dorje bhai?"

Pleasantries exchanged, Dorje turned to me. "My friend here’s with the Indo-Tibet Border Police," he explained. "The ITBP, as you’ll soon realise, is omnipresent in Spiti." "Just doing our duty," the soldier expounded, "otherwise who wants to keep vigil in minus fifteen, that too in the open?"

"It’s plus thirty right now," I said, searching for a shaded spot.

"Not quite," the soldier disagreed, "but yes, this is the height of summer."

* * *

The valley opened up as we headed northwest, and what greeted us now was quite unlike anything I had seen or imagined — barren scarps sweeping down on either side, a wide expanse of azure sky overhead, and a wisp of cloud on the horizon. The river, meandering, diverging, merging, adorned the broad valley floor.

"This is breathtaking," I gasped. "Martian."

"Have you been to Mars?" Dorje teased.

"Not yet."

"Anyway, I’d rather call this moonscape."

I leapt at the opportunity. "You’ve been to the moon, of course."

He laughed. "You got me."

Compared to Poh, Shichling was a small village, more by the road than away. Dorje told me the population was approximately eighty, so it was fairly large by Spitian standards. A tiny dhaba stood invitingly to one side, and I asked Dorje if we could stop for tea. He braked and pressed the klaxon, and almost immediately the dhaba owner was out. He shook hands with Dorje, shared a joke in Bhoti and guffawed before departing to prepare our tea.

We alighted and stretched ourselves. "You seem to know everyone in Spiti," I observed.

"Everyone knows everyone," Dorje said casually, "and if you don’t know someone, then you know someone who knows that someone."

* * *

The road shot up suddenly from the highway, and in a trice we had left the vast valley floor so that we could see every single channel the river broke into.

Dangkhar is dramatic, even from a distance, perched as it is on a spur three hundred metres high. Dang means cliff, and khar means fort, and hence the name. But apart from the fort there is also a monastery there whose lamas claim it is older than Tabo.

"Why would anyone build a gonpa here?" I asked Lotey Lama as he escorted us to the old guest house. A new one, complete with attached bathrooms, kitchen, dining hall, et al., was reserved for the special visitor.

"Dangkhar was at one time the capital of Spiti," he said.

"Before it was shifted to Kyuling some two or three hundred years ago," Dorje added.

"Right," the lama said. "Now coming back to your question. Legend has it that before constructing the gonpa, the faithful sent a question to the spiritual head in Lhasa, asking him where to build. The reply came — build on a high mountain where you find laphhel."

"A grass," Dorje explained. "In Spiti we call it laut. You’ll find it growing everywhere in the valley."

Lotey Lama smiled. "And that’s why if you ask me why this particular cliff was chosen, I’ll tell you I don’t know. Perhaps the Nono ordered its construction here, just below the fort." That sounded reasonable. After all, history is replete with instances of clergy and royalty wanting to combine spiritual and temporal powers.

* * *

Back in Kaza, inside the local chapter of the Tangyud monastery, we sat along the wall, on the slightly raised and covered platform that served as a bench, and inhaled the fragrance of incense. Across the hall, the lamas seemed to be nearing the end of an hour-long prayer during which they had chanted and played their drums and their giant cymbals and trumpets. Through most of it Dorje had his eyes shut as through he wanted the prayer to seep into him. I kept mine open so that my mind could ingest the images because I knew that no camera, no matter how good, could have captured that aura`85.

The construction of the Tangyud gonpa was undertaken more than seven centuries ago, under the supervision of Lama Chhopel Zangpo, and sponsored partly by the king of Ladakh, Tashi Namgyal, and partly by the Dharmaraja of the Tibetan kingdom of Gu-ge. The village, Gomic, was inhabited only after the gonpa was built.

The monastery, with nearly a hundred and fifty lamas on its rolls, continued to function from Gomic for over three centuries. It suffered earthquakes and attacks by invaders in the meantime, and each time any part of the structure fell, lamas and villagers would come together to rebuild it.





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