ABSTRACT
Tibetan culture—whether speech, writing, a particular form of Buddhism, architecture, painting, sculpture, or music—extends far beyond the region often called the “roof of the world.” For centuries, the peoples of this Himalayan region traveled up and down the Himalayan mountain chain. Today they live in India (Ladakh, Zangsdkar, Spiti, Lahul, Sikkim), Nepal (Humla, Dolpo, and Mustang districts, sherpa country), or Bhutan. Precise population statistics are lacking, but many Tibetan-speaking people live in these areas; they practice Tibetan Buddhism and the native Bon religion, and are ethnically and culturally Tibetan. When China occupied Tibet in 1959, waves of Tibetan refugees flooded out, about one hundred thousand according to standard estimates. Following the fourteenth Dalai Lama, they arrived in camps created specifically for them in India, and in Nepal to a lesser degree, and with the help of religious communities reestablished in exile they managed to find new ways to live. An especially large number of Tibetan refugees live in the northwest Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, where Dharamsala serves as the exiles’ capital city and the home of the Dalai Lama. Refugees also live in Orissa and Karnataka in South India, on lands placed at their disposal by the Indian government. It is thus quite legitimate to speak of a Tibetan presence in South Asia today.
