Indian Tibet Tibetan India: The Cultural Legacy of the Western Himalayas

Inspired by August Hermann Francke’s first cultural expedition into the Western Himalayas in 1909, which resulted in the region being referred to as Indian Tibet, the author has travelled for years in the long-inaccessible Indo-Tibetan border regions after they were opened to the public at the beginning of the 1990s. In secluded and remote, high-altitude valleys of breathtaking grandeur, he documented some of the last refuges of Tibetan and early Indian culture, photographing people and the unique testimonies of their art, religion, and architecture. With the aid of rare archival and contemporary textual and visual materials, many of which are seen here for the first time, the author presents a comprehensive picture of the fascinating history of the exploration of the present Indian border region towards Tibet.