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Gartok (Tibetan: སྒར་ཐོག, Wylie: sGar-thog),[lower-alpha 1] is made of twin encampment settlements of Gar Günsa and Gar Yarsa (Tibetan: སྒར་དབྱར་ས, Wylie: sGar-dbyar-sa, Wade–Giles: Ka-erh-ya-sha) in the Gar County in the Ngari Prefecture of Tibet. Gar Gunsa served as the winter encampment and Gar Yarsa as the summer encampment. But in British nomenclature, the name Gartok was applied only to Gar Yarsa and the practice continues till date.[3]

Gartok Gar Yarsa
Gartok
Coordinates: 31.7280°N 80.3371°E / 31.7280; 80.3371
Country	People's Republic of China
Province	Tibet Autonomous Region
Prefecture	Ngari Prefecture
County	Gar County
Elevation	4,450 m (14,600 ft)
Time zone	UTC+8 (CST)

Gartok was established as Lhasa's administrative headquarters for Western Tibet (Ngari) after it conquered it from Ladakh in 1684. A senior official called Garpön was stationed here. Gartok (Gar Yarsa) also served as Western Tibet's principal trade-market. But the village itself was small and said to have been quite poor. After the Chinese annexation of Tibet, the headquarters of Western Tibet was moved to Shiquanhe.

Gar Yarsa is situated on the bank of the Gartang River, one of the headwaters of the Indus River, at the base of the Kailash Range, at an elevation of 4,460 metres (14,630 ft).

Name

Gar (Wylie: sGar) means "encampment". During the 15th and 16th centuries, the Karma Kagyu lamas moved through the length and breadth of Tibet in "Great Encampments" or garchen.[4][5] The term is also used often for military camps.[6][7]

British sources interpreted "Gar Yarsa" as the "summer camp".[8][9] However, the ninth century bilingual text Mahāvyutpatti translated yarsa as Sanskrit वार्षिकावासः (vārṣikāvāsaḥ), literally, the residence of the rainy season.[10][lower-alpha 2] Even though Gar Yarsa has acquired the name "Gartok" in popular parlance, officially, "Gartok" consists of both Gar Yarsa and Gar Gunsa (the "winter camp"). The latter is forty miles downstream on Gartang at a lower altitude.[3]

The Lhasan administrators of Western Tibet based at Gartok were called Garpöns.[11] They lived in Gar Gunsa for nine months in the year, and stayed at Gar Yarsa during August–October.[12]

Description

Gar Yarsa lies on the road between Ladakh and Shigatse,[lower-alpha 3] northeast of the present day Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, all of which it has had trade relations with.[14][15] William Moorcroft regarded the Gar Valley as being part of Changtang, whose main occupation is the production of pashmina wool.[2]

By all accounts, Gar Yarsa appears to have been a small village. Moorcroft wrote that it was little more than an encampment, with a number of blanket tents and a few houses built with sun-dried bricks.[13] Ladakhi envoy Abdul Wahid Radhu stated that nomad tents outnumbered solid houses.[16] British explorer Cecil Rawling stated that Gartok had only "three good sized houses and twelve miserable hovels". The Garpons resided there for three months in a year, during which time Gartok became a busy centre of commerce.[12] No less than 500 nomads and merchants would collect at the location at any given time.[17]

The village also has a small temple referred to "Gar Yarsa gompa".[16]

History

Tibet–Ladakh-Mughal War

The rise of Gartok as the seat of Lhasa's authority in western Tibet occurred after the Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal War (1681–1684). Prior to this, the Gar Valley was part of Guge, which was either independent or under the control of Ladakh. In 1630, Ladakh had annexed the entire kingdom of Guge, including the Gar Valley. Through the war, Central Tibet based in Lhasa challenged Ladakh's supremacy.

During the war, the large of army of Galdan Chhewang, Tibet's general, is said to have encamped in the Gar Valley.[18] The first clash with the Ladakhi forces took place near the confluence of the Gartang and Sengge Zangbo, with the locations Langmar and Rala mentioned in the sources.[19]

After the end of the war, Galdan Chhewang organised the administration of the new province Ngari, and appointed bLo bzaṅ padma as governor (gZim-dpon) before returning to Lhasa.[20][lower-alpha 4] The Tibetan government appointed prefects (rdzoṅ‐sdod) to the traditional districts of Purang, Tsaparang and Tashigang.[22] But eventually Tashigang lost its importance, with Gartok taking its place. Lhasa-appointed governors for the whole of Ngari, called Garpons, took their seat at Gartok.

Commercially, Gartok had the advantage of being equidistant between the Changthang, whose shepherds brought pashmina wool for sale, and their buyers in Ladakh and Bashahr.

19th century

William Moorcroft was the first British official to set foot in western Tibet. He arrived in Daba in 1812, along with another adventurer Hearshey, disguised as an Indian gosain merchant. He was hoping to find Central Asian horses for East India Company's stud as well as any other profitable merchandise such as the pashmina wool. The officials in Daba sent him on to Gartok. The Garpon received them civilly and agreed to sell the goods they wanted. He was later punished by Lhasa with three years imprisonment, for permitting foreigners into the country.[23]

The prohibition against foreigners did not apply to customary traders from Indian borderlands. However the sale of pashmina wool was limited to Ladakhis, as per the Treaty of Tingmosgang of 1684.[23] Some wool did make it to Bashahr, which was an ally of Tibet during the Tibet–Ladakh–Mughal War, as well as Zanskar (along with its territories of Lahul and Spiti), which was part of the family of west Tibetan kingdoms. The British tried to exploit these connections later for acquiring pashmina wool.

In 1817, after the Anglo-Nepalese War, W. J. Webb, the East Indian Company's surveyor of Kumaon and Garhwal, also made efforts to enter Tibet for the purpose of surveying. He earned the trust of the Tibetan officials and was permitted limited entry, beyond which the officials said permission would be needed from Lhasa and Peking.[24]

20th century

In accordance with the Treaty of Lhasa in 1904, Gartok, together with Yatung and Gyantse, was thrown open to British trade. On the return of the column from Lhasa in that year, Gartok was visited by a party under Captain C. H. D. Ryder, who found only a few dozen people in winter quarters, their houses being in the midst of a bare plain. In summer, however, all the trade between Tibet and Ladakh passed through it.[14]

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Handa, O. C. (2001), Buddhist Western Himalaya: A politico-religious history, Indus Publishing, ISBN 978-81-7387-124-5
• Lange, Diana (2020), An Atlas of the Himalayas by a 19th Century Tibetan Lama: A Journey of Discovery, BRILL, ISBN 978-90-04-41688-8
• Meyer, Karl E.; Brysac, Shareen Blair (2009), Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game and the Race for Empire in Central Asia, Basic Books, ISBN 978-0-7867-3678-2
• Moorcroft, William; Trebeck, George (2004), Travels in the Himalayan Provinces of Hindustan and the Punjab in Ladakh and Kashmir: In Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz and Bokhara from 1819 to 1825, Volume 1, London: John Murray, ISBN 978-81-206-0497-1 – via archive.org
• Petech, Luciano (September 1947), "The Tibetan-Ladakhi Moghul War of 1681-83", The Indian Historical Quarterly, 23 (3): 169– – via archive.org
• Petech, Luciano (1977), The Kingdom of Ladakh, c. 950–1842 A.D. (PDF), Instituto Italiano Per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente – via academia.edu^{[dead link]}
• Rawling, C. G. (1905), The Great Plateau, being an Account of Exploration in Central Tibet, 1903, and of the Gartok Expedition, 1904—1905, London: E. Arnold – via archive.org

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