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In 1846, the whole Alpine Panjab from the Ravi to the Indus, including Ladakh
and Spiti, was transferred in perpetual sovereignty to Raja Gulab-Singh of Jammu, but in
the same year Spiti was exchanged for other territory and added to Kulu, with the object
of securing a road to the wool districts of Chang-Thang in Tibet proper. In the autumn of
1846, Sir (then Captain) A. Cunningham and Mr. Vans Agnew fixed the boundary between Spiti
and Ladakh and Eastern Tibet, the mountainous and uninhabited territory to the cast of the
Baralacha and north of the Parang passes being attached to Spiti.
The boundary run from west of the Baralacha
pass, crosses the Lingti plain, and passes eastward to the south of the Tsomoriri Lake,
and thence south to the Satluj, touching Tibet proper on the way. This area is called
Tsarab or Tsarab-Lingti. Hinduism has always been there in this heterodox conglomeration
of humanity. Siva as typified by the lofty snowymountain peaks as his divine abode has
always excited the Paharis and at this end of India the people combined worship of Lord
Siva with the worship of the many malevolent and benevolent spirits that could be
conceived of.
The inclemency of weather, the Nature's mighty forces as seen
in the blizzards, snow-storms, cloud-bursts, torrential flow of the mighty rivers that
shrink and freeze up in other seasons have had their toll on the human nature of the
simple folks that live in very scattered hamlets in Lahul and Spiti. Hinduism was also not
propped up by temples or the Brahmin Priests. The latter class is almost absent.The
economic exigencies stood on the way of elaborate rituals go when Buddhism came followed
by Lamaism and a number of later Buddhist deities Eke Avolokiteswar, Hariti, Trilochon
etc., were brought from Tibet side and installed, the Paharis found a bigger source to
appease their sense of religion.
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