Monastery Of Thikse, Ladakh, India Stock Photo

In the broad vally of the Indus in the upper north-west region of India, between the Tibetan border and Kashmir, visitors come across a lot of important buddhist monasteries. They all belong to the same streaming of buddhism as the Tibetan form, the Gelukpa Order. The architecture of the buildings is also almost the same as people may find in the neighbouring country. It explaines the nickname of Ladakh, this distant but beautiful region in the northwestern Indian Himalayas: Little Tibet. The monastery on this picture is called the Thikse Gompa. It was build around 1430 AD. It is still populated by approximately 80 monks.