Photos from the Field

Ladakh-Changthang

Anonymous — Sat, 22 Jun 2024 20:15:24 +0000

Ladakh-Changthang Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 06/22/2024 - 14:15

Emily T. Yeh

In June 2024 I visited Ladakh (see also the photo essay by Sierra Gladfelter and Eben Yonetti) as a participant in a short program run by the Modern Tibetan Studies program at Columbia University focused on ��rural green entrepreneurship.�� From Leh, the capital, we drove along the Leh-Manali highway to the village of Gya, staying at the guest house of filmmaker Stanzin Dorje. There we had the opportunity to visit his sister Tsering, the subject of his award-winning documentary The Shepherdess of the Glaciers, at their winter pasture.

We then proceeded to drive toward Hanle, in the Changthang region of Ladakh, stopping at several Tibetan villages and Tibetan Children��s Village schools on the way there and back to Leh. Livelihoods are shifting rapidly throughout the region as education draws children away from home and towards Leh or other urban centers in India. This trend is even more pronounced for Tibetan refugee communities, who in some cases must pay their host villages a grass fee for the livestock they raise, and who face barriers such as the inability to own land and obtain government jobs. The Tibetan settlement at Nyoma, for example, counts 223 community members, but only around 50, all elderly, reside in the village, with the remaining away at school, working in Delhi or elsewhere in India, or abroad. One young Tibetan woman explained that youth like herself don��t even want to return to the grasslands on summer holidays. Specialists in fiber arts on our trip asked middle-aged women about whether they had passed on their skills in weaving carpets but were told that their children had no interest.

The decline in labor availability as children leave for other places has contributed to changing herd composition. Many households have given up horses and yaks, once used for transportation, now that motorized vehicles are available. Sheep, once useful for making woolen clothing and carpets, are on the decline as well given globally low market prices for wool, and the influx of commodified synthetic clothing. On the other hand, the number of goats has significantly increased due to the growing demand for pashmina shawls. At the same time, seasonal mobility has been significantly reduced as tourism and service provision have encouraged sedentarization, and as traditional grazing areas have been lost due to the border conflict, military use of land, and soon, solar PV plants. Declining precipitation due to climate change exacerbate these challenges, making herding ever more difficult.

We spent two nights at Hanle, a large village close to the border with Tibet, which is now doubly gazetted as part of the Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary as well as the Hanle Dark Sky Reserve. Tourists are attracted to Hanle for bird and other wildlife viewing, astrotourism, and in many cases to drive on what is billed as the world��s highest motorable world, over the 5883 meter (19,300) feet Umling La pass close to the border. Tsewang Namgail, director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy India Trust, took us to look for Tibetan gazelles and Pallas��s cat (alas, we spotted neither), and introduced us to a group of young Ladakhi nature guides, who are seeking to lessen the impact of tourism on wildlife. Homestays are seen as both useful for attracting tourists and generating income, but also potentially harmful. A new government program to promote homestays provides subsidies, but also enforce requirements which are ecologically inappropriate for the area.

Our trip to Ladakh took place during the last phase of the Indian general election. This was the first election since the BJP��s 2019 abrogation of Article 370, which revoked the special status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakhis briefly celebrated their long-standing demand for separation from Jammu and Kashmir, but skepticism quickly grew as Ladakh was turned into a Union Territory without a legislative assembly or elected government. The BJP has also reneged on its initial promise to give Ladakh autonomous tribal district status. Thus protestors called for statehood in the name of climate change, and the need for local control to put safeguards on the types of development and land grabbing (eg through mass tourism or mining) that could further exacerbate the vulnerabilities already created by global climate change. Reflecting these concerns, an independent candidate won the Ladakh seat, beating both the BJP and Congress party candidates.

Off

Traditional

White

Ladakh��s Artificial Glaciers, Ice Stupas, and Other Attempts to Survive a Warming Planet

Anonymous — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 17:13:57 +0000

Ladakh��s Artificial Glaciers, Ice Stupas, and Other Attempts to Survive a Warming Planet Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 03/11/2018 - 11:13

A photo essay by Sierra Gladfelter and Eben Yonnetti

A land of glaciated peaks and windswept valleys situated in the Himalayas�� vast rain shadow, Ladakh has long been home to a hearty people who devised complex systems of irrigation and agriculture to survive and even thrive in this high-desert landscape. Located on the western edge of the Tibetan Plateau, this region of only several hundred thousand people was once a crossroads of cultures and regional trade hub. After it was absorbed into the Republic of India in 1947 and its borders with Pakistan and Tibet were closed, however, Ladakh became little more than a strategic defense area for the rest of India. Its place on the periphery only changed after Ladakh was opened to tourism in 1974 and later idolized in the 2009 Bollywood blockbuster Three Idiots. Now, with hundreds of thousands of tourists each year, unprecedented rates of rural to urban migration, and the Indian military continuing to expand its border presence, Ladakh has struggled to deal with the growing demands placed upon its natural resources.

In addition to social and political changes, climate change has transformed Ladakh into a landscape in environmental crisis. In just the last six decades, the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir of which Ladakh is a large part, has lost 20% of its permanent ice reserves (Clouse et al., 2017). Considering that 85 to 90% of Ladakhi villages depend completely on glacier and snow-fed catchments for their water and that annual average rainfall is less than two inches (Norphel & Tashi, 2014), rising temperatures and dwindling snowfall do not bode well for the region��s future water needs. Moreover, what precipitation does occur is increasingly received in the destructive form of short and intense cloudbursts that the landscape cannot absorb (Dorjai & Mordelet, 2012).

In response to these intense environmental and social changes various non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government agencies, and even religious groups are mobilizing local peoples to build a more climate resilient Ladakh. Rather than mitigating scarcity through efforts to reduce use, however, many interventions attempt to capture Ladakh��s shrinking water resources before they are ��lost�� downstream through the construction of various water harvesting technologies like ��artificial glaciers.�� These structures are essentially human-made ice banks designed to collect and store water in the winter for spring and summer agriculture, and in some cases, are even used to irrigate and ��green�� the desert.

Although ice reservoirs were built traditionally using various techniques in the Ladakh-Baltistan region, their contemporary form as ��artificial glaciers��(AGs) was pioneered by civil engineer Chewang Norphel in the late 1980s. Norphel��s AGs are built as a series of terraced ice fields in or along a stream channel. One method involves diverting a portion of a stream to a shaded bank where it is forced through a series of check dams that slow its flow and increase surface area to expedite freezing. In another, the dams are built directly in the streambed to achieve similar results. First built by Ladakh��s Rural Development Department and the Leh Nutrition Project in a handful of water scarce villages, AGs are now receiving interest and investment especially among corporate donors. In 2017, for example, the Tata Trusts (which have already built five AGs around Leh) began assessing the feasibility of constructing AGs in 34 potential villages.

Inspired by Norphel��s work, Ladakhi engineer and social reformer Sonam Wangchuk invented another type of ice reservoir he dubbed the ��Ice Stupa.�� The name comes from its conical shape, which resembles a traditional Buddhist stupa or reliquary mound, and allegedly can be built at lower elevations since it melts slower than terraced AGs due to its shape and smaller surface area. After constructing a prototype in the winter of 2013/2014, Wangchuk��s work was recognized by the Tibetan Buddhist leader, His Holiness Drikung Chetsang Rinpoche, who offered funds, labor, and land near Phyang Monastery to support a scaled-up version. The next year, Wangchuk and his team constructed a larger Ice Stupa near the village of Phyang to irrigate a plantation of 5,000 trees planted by Chetsang Rinpoche��s environmental organization, Go Green, Go Organic. In the years since, the Ice Stupa Project has continued to experiment with different materials and construction techniques to improve their technology so that it can become applicable and affordable for villages on a large scale.

Most recently, with direction from Chetsang Rinpoche, two monks from Lamayuru Monastery have also started to work with villages in Ladakh��s Sham Valley to experiment with low-tech ice reservoirs. Compared to Norphel��s AGs and Wangchuk��s Ice Stupa, these small-scale ��artificial icefall glaciers�� are less expensive and technical, involving little more than a pipe laid out between a spring and a shaded cliff face. The water conveyed is sprayed onto the rock wall below to form a frozen waterfall. First built in the village of Kuksho in the winter of 2016/2017, the project has since expanded into two nearby villages.

While much of the world is looking to Ladakh and its AGs for inspiration, it seems that a more critical look at these interventions is warranted. Maintenance, for example, has been a challenge since Norphel built his first AG. With little budget for follow-up visits or maintenance, most AGs are essentially abandoned after construction for local villagers to maintain. However, many of these structures are built far above villages and as external interventions have eroded collective-labor practices, repairs initiated by locals are rare. This might explain why more than half of Norphel��s earliest AGs have either gone completely or partially defunct (Clouse et al., 2017). The monks initiating the artificial icefall glaciers have been able to partially avoid these challenges by capitalizing on villagers�� devotion to Chetsang Rinpoche to recruit volunteers to monitor and maintain these structures. Nevertheless, the demands that religious leaders can make of their followers�� time and labor have a limit. Even devotion can only be stretched so far.

Most importantly, Ladakh��s ice reservoirs, in any form, are not a solution to climate change or scarcity in the long-term as they only preserve, for a few months, water that is already present in the mountains. No matter how high-tech AGs become, they can do little if Ladakh��s natural glaciers continue to disappear and the skies refuse to snow. Humility, however, is often lacking in interventions. The Ice Stupa Project, for example, invites visitors on its website to ��join Ladakh as it gears up to fight climate change and melting glaciers.�� The reality, however, is that AGs are not a weapon to combat climate change, but are rather a way for Ladakhis to cope with its most immediate effects and to try to hold on, at least for now, to life in this landscape.

This photo-essay captures the dreams and realities surrounding AGs in Ladakh. Informed by three months of preliminary research in Ladakh, it presents some visual evidence to accompany the authors�� reflections while on Fulbright-Nehru Student Research grants in India.

References

Clouse, C., Anderson, N., & Shippling, T. (2017). Ladakh��s artificial glaciers: climate-adaptive design for water scarcity. Climate and Development, 9 (5): 428-438.
Dorjai (Gya), S. & Mordelet, C. (Directors). (2012). Jungwa, the Broken Balance. France: Latosensu Productions.
Norphel, C. & Tashi, P. (2014). Snow Water Harvesting in the Cold Desert in Ladakh: An Introduction to Artificial Glacier. In Mountain Hazards and Disaster Risk Reduction. Nibanupudi, H.K. & Shaw, R. (Eds.), pp. 199�C210. Tokyo: Springer Japan.

Please note: While the content above was generated through research funded by the Fulbright Nehru Student Research Grant program, the views expressed are entirely those of its authors and do not represent the views of the Fulbright Program, the U.S. Department of State, or any of its partner organizations.

Off

Traditional

White

Folk Songs in Nubri

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Jan 2018 00:13:43 +0000

Folk Songs in Nubri Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 01/21/2018 - 17:13

Photo essay by Mason Brown.

Nubri is an ethnically Tibetan valley in Nepal��s Gorkha District. It runs parallel to the Tibetan border in the deep valley of the Budhi Gandhaki river between the Himalayan peaks of Manaslu and Serang Himal. Nubri��s four main and eight lesser villages vary in elevation from 4,460 meters at Samdo to 2,130 meters at Bihi village. In November and December 2016, I spent five weeks traveling the valley to record folk songs for my dissertation research (funded by a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship).

For the first three weeks, I traveled in a research party with Geoff Childs and E.A. Quinn as they collected breast milk and measured babies for their ongoing longitudinal study of high-elevation human adaptation. We visited villages of Sama, Lho, Li, Sho, Namrung, Ghap, Tsak, Prok, Bihi, and Gyayul. After they finished their work, I remained with friend and well-known singer Pema Dhondrup at his home in Tsak village. In addition to meeting and recording singers in Sama and Prok, I witnessed the dumche (grub mchod), or harvest-season prayer festival in Namrung, as well as a similar one in Tsak. At these festivals, after the lamas (priests) do pujas (ceremonies) all day in the gompa (temple), the villagers stay up all night singing, dancing, and imbibing arak, the local distilled spirit.

Nubri was historically part of the Western Tibetan kingdom of Ngari, and this influence is still reflected in their dialect and lifeways. Among the songs I collected were several t?shay (stod gzhas) songs from Western Tibet, as well as a number of changl�� (chang glu), or beer-drinking songs. Even though these songs are customarily sung while celebrating and drinking, their subject matter is primarily Buddhist, evincing the deep religious faith of the Nubri people. While there are now several monasteries in Nubri, they have traditionally adhered to the Nyingma school of Tibetan Buddhism. Within this sect, it is common for ngakpa (married lamas) to perform priestly functions in village temples rather than monasteries. Each village in Nubri still has its village gompa and ngakpas who do rituals to bless houses and fields, heal the sick, and propitiate local mountain spirits and protectors.

The traditional lifeways of Nubri are now under serious pressure to change under forces of globalization and modernization. Up to seventy percent of Nubri youth are now growing up in Kathmandu and India, where parents send them for education. Thus, they are not learning cultural traditions from childhood, as they would have in earlier times. In Kathmandu, many Nubri youth, as well as youth of other indigenous Tibeto-Burman Nepali groups, are learning traditional cultural practices with the exiled community of Tibetan refugees, who are seen as knowledgeable culture-bearers. This causes some tension as the Himalayan Nepalis jealously guard their local identities and resist being labeled as ��Tibetan�� even as they put themselves under the tutelage of diasporic Tibetans in such sites as the Nepal Tibetan Lhamo Association, or Lhamo Tshokpa (Tibetan Opera Association) in Boudha, Kathmandu. After collecting songs in Nubri I have followed Nubri and other Nepali Himalayan youth as they learn Tibetan opera at the Lhamo Tshokpa.

Off

Traditional

White

Lurol at Sadjyel Village 2010-2017

Anonymous — Sat, 02 Dec 2017 16:45:24 +0000

Lurol at Sadjyel Village 2010-2017 Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 12/02/2017 - 09:45

???????????????? ????????????????

ͬ�� ĺϼ�� »� 2010-2017

Photo essay by Andrew Grant.

During the sixth lunar month of the Tibetan calendar, usually the middle of July, villages around Tongren County Town (also known as Rebgong ????????? in Tibetan) in Qinghai Province/Amdo Tibet come alive with festivals that include feasting, dancing, and La ba (lha pa ????), the trance medium that is temporarily inhabited by a local mountain god. In the village of Sadjye (Sa dkyel ???????) near to the heart of Rebgong, the important deity is Anye Shachong (A mye Bya Khyung ???????????????). During the three days of the festival, he is carried on a wooden palanquin and will convey messages to villagers through the La ba. The photos in this essay all occur during the final day of the festival, called Lurol Chenmo (Klu rol chen mo ??????????????). I attended the festival in 2010, 2014, and 2017 and took photos during each visit. The images with the swirl effect are from 2017 and clean digital images are from 2014.

The final day of the festival is broken into a series of dances and performances. It also includes music, flowers, and offerings of alcohol, yogurt, grain, paper, and incense. These activities all occur in the courtyard of a temple built where the village abuts the mountain side. Since I first visited the festival in 2010, Sadjye village��s temple has been drastically rebuilt. The burnt offering altar above the temple entryway has been reconstructed, a beautiful wooden veranda that shields villagers and tourists from the sun has been expanded, and a painted model of the mountain has replaced a simple drainage grill as the place to accept liquid offerings of yoghurt and alcohol.

The festival is not an instance of traditional culture surviving into the present. Since the Reform period of the PRC began in the late 1970s, more freedom to exercise religion and practice local customs has returned to a degree in Tibetan regions of China. Villages near Rebgong began to celebrate the Lurol festival again, but the practice couldn��t help but be drastically transformed in its revival. Today many of its participants live in urban housing, indeed the village of Sadjye itself is rapidly changing as the Chinese state promotes the urbanization and marketization of Tibetan regions. Villagers also innovate by adding dances and practices to the Lurol festival.

Finally, Lurol occupies an exceptional position in the religious and political life of the Rebgong area. Lurol festival cannot be called a Tibetan Buddhist practice, yet it is influenced by Tibetan Buddhism. It is situated between orthodox religion and lay customs. It also generates a center of power and authority that is outside of state-imposed political structures in farming villages and the urbanized neighborhoods that they are becoming. Of particular importance here is the figure of the La pa who, as an embodiment of the mountain deity, has political power. He can mediate village conflict as well as mete out punishment. Because of this, his position troubles the two dominant social structures of monastic power and sanctioned state power in the region.

I would like to thank Zonthar Gyal (Jerry, Suantairijia) for his help with this essay and for encouraging me to take these photos over the years.

Sources and further reading:

Makley, Charlene E. 2014. ��The Amoral Other: State-Led Development and Mountain Deity Cults among Tibetans in Amdo Rebgong.�� In Mapping Shangrila: Contested Landscapes in the Sino-Tibetan Borderlands, edited by Emily Yeh and Chris Coggins, 299�C254. Seattle, Wash.: University of Washington Press.
Suantairijia, 2014. The Study of Sa dkyi Klurol from a Sociological Perspective. BA thesis. Nationalities Teachers�� College, Qinghai Normal University.

Off

Traditional

White

Circumambulation of Mount Kailash

Anonymous — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 17:20:47 +0000

Circumambulation of Mount Kailash Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/06/2017 - 10:20

Photo essay by Emily Yeh.

Mount Kailash, or Gang Rinpoche (Gangs rin po che), is associated with Mt. Meru, the axis mundi or center of the world, and is thus considered one of the world��s most sacred mountains. Four major rivers �C the Indus, Sutlej, Brahmaputra, and Karnali �C originate in the four cardinal directions nearby. As such, it is a destination for pilgrimage and circumambulation for Tibetan Buddhists, Bonpos, Hindus, and Jains. Tibetan Buddhists consider it a dwelling place of Demchog (Chakrasamvara) and for Hindus it is the abode of Lord Shiva. For Jains, it is the place where the first Tirthankara attained enlightenment, and for Bonpos, Mt Kailash is a nine-story swastika mountain that is the seat of spiritual power. Moreover, the region of the mountain and nearby Lake Manasarovar is where Thonpa Sherab founded and disseminated Bon.

Located in western Tibet, near the contemporary borders of the PRC, Nepal, and India, the symmetrical cone-shaped Mount Kailash, at 6638 meters (21,778 feet), rises alone above the rugged landscape. Tibetan pilgrims typically complete the 52-kilometer circumambulation route over the 5600-meter (18,500 feet) Dolma La pass in 15 hours, rising at 3am and finishing at 6pm. Most do more than one circuit; we met quite a few groups of pilgrims who had done or were planning to complete 13 circumambulations. One Bonpo pilgrim in his 50s, a former businessman who had renounced everything, had walked the circuit 800 times over five years and was planning to complete 1000 circumambulations altogether. Still others complete the circuit doing full-body prostrations. Whereas Buddhists and Hindus circumambulate clockwise, Bonpo pilgrims circumambulate counter-clockwise.

At the time of our visit, most Tibetan Buddhist pilgrims we met were from Ngari prefecture, especially from Gerze, Gegye, and Tsochen counties. We also met pilgrims from Nyingtri, Dechen (Yunnan) and Kyirong. The Tibetan Bonpos we met were mainly from Bachen County in Nagchu and Dengchen County in Chamdo. Passing each other as they walked in opposite directions, they greeted each other with ��blessings�� (byin rlabs byed) or ��Tsering!�� (��long life,�� a common greeting in Nagchu).

There is now a government agreement in place that allows Indian pilgrims to visit Kailash and Manasarovar. However, the quota to come directly from India, which requires a long trek, is very limited and so most Indian pilgrims instead fly through Kathmandu and visit through private tour operators. Upon arrival in Simikot, they take a 15-minute helicopter ride to the border (in contrast to our many-day walk) and then head directly for a ritual bath in the waters of Manasarovar. Because of their sudden arrival at very high altitudes, twelve pilgrims had already died in 2016 when we visited.

Along the route, Tibetan pilgrims visit monasteries and other important sites. Among these are a number of footprints, including those of Milarepa, the Buddha, and Gyalwa Gotsangba (who ��opened�� the circumambulation path in the thirteenth century), as well as numerous self-arisen forms, including a saddle of King Gesar, the Karmapa��s black hat, and prayer beads. Pilgrims touch the various manifestations with their own prayer beads or bow to touch their foreheads upon them. In still other places pilgrims test their level of merit, sin, and fortune through physical encounters with the landscape.

Lake Manasarovar (ma pham g.yu mtsho, the Unconquerable Turquoise Lake) lies at 4590 meters and is located to the south of Mount Kailash. Pilgrims also circumambulate the lake, which is eighty-eight kilometers in circumference. This is now possible by car as well as foot. For Hindus, bathing and drinking from the lake cleanses all sins and guarantees going to the abode of Shiva after death. Though Kailash is now the more important focus for Tibetans, there is considerable historical evidence that the earliest sacrality was of the lake rather than the mountain. Indeed, Alex McKay has found that as late as the early 1900s, Kailash was more an ideal heavenly place than one associated with any particular place on the earth��s surface. He finds little evidence that the earthly mountain was considered sacred until the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, or that Kailash was considered the premier pilgrimage site of Tibet until the twentieth century. Its emergence as sacred in the 12^th/13^th centuries was related to a power struggle between Buddhism and B?n, now told as a contest between the magical powers of Milarepa and Naro B?nchung.

Our visit to Kailash, Manasarovar, and the associated sacred site of Tirthapuri was motivated by a proposal by ICIMOD to have Nepal, India, and China nominate the larger Kailash Sacred Landscape as a transboundary World Heritage Site. Our goal was to understand historical pilgrimage routes, document the cultural landscape, assess current tourism, and seek to understand what effects such a designation, were it to come to pass, might be.

Off

Traditional

White

Humla, Western Nepal

Anonymous — Mon, 17 Oct 2016 04:23:35 +0000

Humla, Western Nepal Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 10/16/2016 - 22:23

Photo Essay by Emily Yeh.

In July-August 2016, I was very fortunate to be able to join the Sacred Himalaya Initiative of the India-China Institute at The New School, in a trip through Humla to Mount Kailash. Led by Ashok Gurung, we were a crew of Americans, Nepalis, and Indians supported by a number of cooks and porters. Although the centerpiece of the journey was Mount Kailash, we spent much more of our time walking through Humla District in the Karnali Zone and in the northwestern corner of Nepal, much of which was once part of Ngari in western Tibet. Its district headquarters, Simikot, is currently accessible only by plane or foot. We spent five days walking in the Tibetan Buddhist Nyin valley to the east, home of Tshewang Lama, a former politician as well as lama, businessman, and organic intellectual who accompanied us throughout the trip. Then after returning to Simikot, we split into two groups, one taking the shorter route to the border at Hilsa through Muchu and Tumkot, and the other (including me) the longer northern route over the Nyalu pass through the isolated Limi Valley.

Humla is home to both Hindu (Chhetri and Thakuri) and Tibetan Buddhist communities, with the former living in the south and the latter mostly to the north in and past Dharapuri. The region was once quite prosperous from the trade that brought salt from Tibet in exchange for grain from lower Nepal. With the change in border policies and broader shifts in the political economy (including the advent of iodized salt), however, Humla has now become a food deficient region, and one of the poorest and least developed districts of Nepal. Consequently, Simikot is home to many international and Nepali NGOs and receives considerable food aid.

Our initial primary goal during the more than two weeks we spent in Humla was to better understand the region��s pilgrimage routes and other connections to Kailash and Manasarovar, both past and present. In the course of our walking and conversations with Humla residents, though, we also learned about road building and shifting livelihoods, particularly with increasing labor outmigration.

Off

Traditional

White

Historical Artists of Bhutan

Anonymous — Mon, 22 Feb 2016 06:21:15 +0000

Historical Artists of Bhutan Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 02/21/2016 - 23:21

Photo essay by Ariana Maki

Traditional Bhutanese art��and the artists who created it��has remained markedly understudied in comparison to that of neighboring Tibet, Nepal, and India. To the field of Himalayan art history as a whole, Bhutanese art has often been treated as a comparatively static offshoot of Tibetan art. Yet Bhutan��s monasteries, community temples, museums, and private collections hold remarkable works that attest to the development and diffusion of distinct iconographies, painting traditions and workshops.

This photo essay documents research on precisely this body of material, spanning mural paintings, sculptures, thangkas, ritual items, and in some cases, relics from the artists themselves. The project, Historical Artists of Bhutan, is a collaborative effort between Dr. Yonten Dargye of the National Library and Archives and myself. Study began in earnest in 2013, with fieldwork most recently supported by an International Collaborative Research Grant awarded by the American Academy of Religion. These images share some of the discoveries we made at ten sites in western and central Bhutan during summer 2015.

A key figure in the development and transformation of Bhutanese art was Tsang Khenchen Palden Gyatso (1610-1684). Tsang Khenchen followed the Tenth Karmapa Choying Dorje into exile in Bhutan ca. 1645 and stayed in the region at the behest of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal (1594-1651), who was in the midst of consolidating the nascent nation. Tsang Khenchen, and the students he trained in western Bhutan, constitutes the foundation of what can be termed ��Bhutanese�� art on a national scale. Surviving works from Tsang Khenchen and his atelier constitute the core of this study, which at its conclusion, plans to offer abundant evidence of the ways Bhutanese art evolved and adapted to fit the needs of new leadership in 17th century Bhutan, and how the resulting works cultivated and disseminated a distinctly ��Bhutanese�� identity amongst the populace.

Off

Traditional

White

Circumambulating Khawakarpo

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Jan 2016 06:30:34 +0000

Circumambulating Khawakarpo Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/15/2016 - 23:30

Photo Essay by Emily Yeh

Khawa Karpo (Kha ba dkar po), in the southeastern corner of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning what is now the boundary of Yunnan province and the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), is many things: one of the most sacred mountains of Tibetan Buddhism, a major pilgrimage site, a biodiversity hotspot, a tourism destination, the centerpiece of a prominent protected area, the Meili Snow Mountain National Park, and a rich source of minerals. At 6740 meters, it has never been climbed, a fact that is at the forefront of the minds of many residents in the context of the region��s fraught ontological and environmental politics. In 1991, when a Sino-Japanese climbing team approached the peak, hundreds of Tibetan villagers gathered at a nearby temple in protest of the deity��s submission to the mountaineers. The next morning, an avalanche swept away all seventeen climbers. Several years later, villagers�� ongoing opposition to climbing garnered the attention of Chinese environmentalists who petitioned the government, which banned mountaineering on the peak.

Pilgrims to Khawakarpo undertake both the inner circumambulation path, or kora (skor ra), and a much longer outer circumambulation. The inner route is associated with the village of Lekbam (Gleg bam) or Yubeng in Chinese, beyond which lies a sacred waterfall as well as numerous treasures (terma) buried by Padmasambhava as well as footprints, handprints and springs that mark the activities of the 2nd and 3rd Karmapas. It also includes two temples (lhakhang) above Melong village near the rapidly retreating Melong glacier. This area has become particularly popular with tourists, and was the site of many of The Nature Conservancy��s conservation efforts from roughly 2000-2009.

The outer kora, 150 kilometers in length, crosses over seven passes, including the Doker la (4080 meters) and the highest Shola (4800 meters), going from east to west and west to east, respectively, and crosses from the Mekong River on the Yunnan side to the Nujiang (Salween) river in Tsawarong, in the TAR. The well-trodden footpath brings pilgrims through old-growth forest with gnarled conifers hosting epiphytes and masses of hanging lichens, deep valleys, scree-laden passes, lush pastures, clear streams, big river, and in view of many glaciated peaks. The region��s extreme altitudinal gradients make it an epicenter of biodiversity, home to more than 6000 species of plants, many endemic. It is particularly well known as a source of rhododendrons, and ��plant hunters�� Joseph Rock, F. Kingdon Ward, and George Forrest all based themselves in the region and traveled the outer kora in their explorations.

The pilgrimage route has a history of at least seven hundred years, and is said to have been ��opened�� either by Namkha Chogyi Gyatso, or the 2nd or 3rd Karmapas, Karma Pakshi and Rangjung Dorje. It is particularly important to circumambulate during the Year of the Sheep, the zodiac year of the mountain deity Khawakarbo. In 2003, the first Sheep Year since the founding of the PRC when the pilgrimage was allowed and in addition the particularly auspicious water-sheep year (which occurs only every 60 years), more than 60,000 pilgrims performed the outer circumambulation.

This photo-essay documents my participation in the inner kora and outer kora in the summer of 2015, another Year of the Sheep. I was particularly interested in learning more about local conservation efforts in the area, as well as about accounts of the agency of the mountain and its political ontology vis-��-vis reports of a dispute between villagers and the government over gold mining along the circumambulation route. Since 2003, the network of simple shelters along the circumambulation route had become more developed, but this has also resulted in large piles of plastic beverage containers, ramen bowls, and other garbage along the route, particularly on the TAR side of the path, where garbage bins and organized collection were absent. Given the ongoing political crackdown across the Tibetan Plateau, the pilgrimage was much more tightly controlled than in 2003. Tibetan villagers from the Yunnan side were required to apply for Tibet Entry Permits to complete the circumambulation, cadres from the TAR were reportedly not allowed to travel there, and foreigners were checked and denied entry at multiple checkpoints. Some pilgrims now do the stretch of the route from Aben to Chawalong and then to Gebu via shared mini-van, cutting down the total time of the circumambulation, though it still takes them six very long days. Planned dams on the upper Salween may eventually flood this lower section of the route where there is now a road. Another relatively recent development, particularly on the Yunnan side, is the intensification of the Shugden controversy which has led to bitter animosities within villages.

Off

Traditional

White

A Himalayan Border Trilogy: Trade and Infrastructure Development at the Nepal-China Borderlands

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 04:15:32 +0000

A Himalayan Border Trilogy: Trade and Infrastructure Development at the Nepal-China Borderlands Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/07/2015 - 22:15

Photo Essay by Galen Murton

This photo essay illustrates and contrasts the infrastructure and operations of three international border posts between Nepal and China. Located at Kodari-Zhangmu, Rasuwaghadi-Kyirong, and Neychung-Likse, these borders represent the only motorable crossings between Nepal and China and comprise half of the six official, open borders recognized by Kathmandu and Beijing. As China is now Nepal��s number one source of foreign direct investment (FDI) and international trade, humanitarian aid, and tourism traffic expands annually, these points of contact are increasingly potent symbols of the ongoing evolution in Sino-Nepal relations. Because each crossing is also located at Nepal��s border with the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), each site exhibits a complex politics of identity, citizenship, and mobility with respect to the movement and control of local traders, Tibetan exiles, the Nepali Army, and the Chinese State Police.

Kodari-Zhangmu is the first and still largest border crossing between Nepal and China. Opened in the 1960s with the construction of the Arniko Highway and the Nepal-China Friendship Bridge, this post handles more than 80% of transnational trade between China and Nepal. Transferring an array of household, commercial, and industrial goods destined for Kathmandu, on a daily basis dozens of Chinese trucks unload cargo in Zhangmu (also known as Khasa and/or Dram), a critical step in an international trade that is 90% import and only 10% export for Nepal. Operating well over capacity and severely disrupted by natural disasters in recent years, infrastructure at this border is being expanded with new dry port facilities below Kodari while new border crossings are concurrently developed across the Nepal Himalaya.

Rasuwaghadi-Kyirong is the most recent major border post to facilitate trade, tourism, and foreign aid between Nepal and China. Opened for traffic in August 2014 to relieve trade emergencies when monsoonal landslides blocked roads to Kodari-Zhangmu, Rasuwaghadi-Kyirong was officially inaugurated as Nepal and China��s newest border crossing in December 2014. Building on an illustrious history of national defense when the Rasuwaghadi fort defended Nepal against Tibetan invasions in the 16th �C 18th centuries, this border is projected to soon serve the largest single corridor of transnational trade across the Himalaya via Tibet and Rasuwa. The crossing also supported significant Chinese relief efforts in response to the Nepal earthquakes of April-May 2015.

Neychung-Likse and the Kora-la is one of the oldest formal border crossings in the Tibet-Himalaya region and for centuries served as the primary route for the Trans-Himalayan Salt Trade. Closed to trans-border traffic in the 1960s as a result of Tibetan guerrilla resistance operations based in Mustang, the border has become increasingly active following the construction of an international motor road in the early 2000s. Although Chinese authorities fenced the border in 1999 after the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa��s flight into exile from Tibet to India via Mustang, the crossing above the Kora la is currently opened just twice per year for semi-annual trade fairs held in the TAR for Nepali and Tibetan merchants. Belying this mixed legacy, Nepali customs houses, immigration facilities, and police stations are now being constructed at the border to facilitate new levels of international trade and tourism between Tibet and Mustang and, more broadly, China and Nepal.

Off

Traditional

White

Living with Floods in Nepal��s Karnali River Basin

Anonymous — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 03:15:05 +0000

Living with Floods in Nepal��s Karnali River Basin Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/07/2015 - 21:15

Photo Essay by Sierra Gladfelter

Climate change is expected to express itself in South Asia in numerous ways, including through an increasingly unpredictable and more intense monsoon. Already, floods triggered by relentless rainfall, associated landslides, and the failure of man-made dams, account for a greater proportion of deaths and damages than any other natural disaster in the Himalaya.

Rajapur, an island that sits between two flood-prone arms of western Nepal��s Karnali River just a few miles above the Indian border, is no exception to this trend. In August of 2014, an unprecedented flood struck Nepal��s Bardiya and Darchula districts, claiming 100 lives, destroying over 14,500 homes, and displacing nearly 80,000 people. While many individuals have still not directly received assistance in recovery, the Nepali government has responded by initiating a multi-year river training project to embank over 40 kilometers of the Karnali��s bed. Non-governmental organizations have also funded interventions in the region, including an early warning system that relays river level and rainfall data from an upstream gauging station to vulnerable communities downstream via mobile phone. This network, which serves 52,000 people in Nepal��s lower Karnali basin alone, is also being extended across the border into India to support rural communities living on the margins of Uttar Pradesh.

These photos, taken during fieldwork for my Master��s thesis in July 2015, document the impacts of inundation in the Kanali River Basin and the creative ways people have adapted to live with floods. While both embankments and early warning systems each have a role to play in mitigating the impacts of flooding, they certainly do not solve everything. My goal then��in both this essay and my broader project��is to identify the places where people remain very much on their own in adapting to floods, while also seeking to understand the complicated ways in which the impacts of climate change and development become entangled in a specific place.

Off

Traditional

White

Photos from the Field

Ladakh-Changthang

Off

Ladakh��s Artificial Glaciers, Ice Stupas, and Other Attempts to Survive a Warming Planet

Off

Folk Songs in Nubri

Off

Lurol at Sadjyel Village 2010-2017

???????????????? ????????????????

ͬ���� �ĺϼ��� ���»� 2010-2017

Off

Circumambulation of Mount Kailash

Off

Humla, Western Nepal

Off

Historical Artists of Bhutan

Off

Circumambulating Khawakarpo

Off

A Himalayan Border Trilogy: Trade and Infrastructure Development at the Nepal-China Borderlands

Off

Living with Floods in Nepal��s Karnali River Basin

Off

ͬ�� ĺϼ�� »� 2010-2017