The people of Kargil are generally quite different from those of the rest of India. Racially the people of Kargil have descended from the Mongols, the Dards of Central Asia and the Indo-Aryan Mon people. Some might even have Tibetan ancestors. Pashkum is believed to be the first village to be inhabited in all of ancient Purig.

But immigration from Tibet largely overwhelmed the culture of the Dards and obliterated their racial characteristics. In and around Kargil, the people's appearance suggests a mixed origin.

There are ancient Buddhist rock carvings all over the region, even in the areas like Drass and lower Suru Valley which today are inhabited by an exclusively Muslim population. The divide between Muslims and Buddhists Kargil passes through Mulbekh (on the Kargil-Leh road) and between the villages of Parkachik and Rangdum in the Suru Valley, though there are pockets of Muslim population further east, in Padum (Zanskar)

The people of Kargil like those of neighboring Leh district, were Buddhists till the 14th Century, when all the people of present day Kargil minus Zanskar and some bordering Leh, converted to Shia Islam. In the centuries immediately preceding this conversion Kargil's Buddhism like Leh's had come under the influence of Tibet.

[ Top ]