Upper Dolpo Trekking

In historical records since 8th century. In the time from the 6th century to the 8th century the Tibetan Yarlung dynasty conquered most Tibetan-speaking territories. This seems to have caused a southward migration towards Dolpo and the peripheral areas along the upper Kali Gandaki River .In 842, Tibet fell apart, and Dolpa fell under the kingdom of Purang. Purang and Dolpa became temporarily part of the kingdom of Guge in the 10th century, but soon became separate again when King sKyid lde Nyi ma mgon divided Guge among his three sons.

The latter then reunited both the Dolpo and Serib and classified them among one of three provinces of mNga. In the 14th century Dolpo fell under its eastern neighbor the Kingdom of Lo Monthang , which controlled the trans-Himalayan trade route through the Kali Gandaki Gorge. The Dolpo had to pay tax and travel to Lo Monthang to provide manual labor. For some time between the 15th century to 16th century, Dolpo was temporarily independent and ruled by a king from the Ra nag dynasty. In 1769, the Gorkhas conquered Kathmandu and established the Kingdom of Nepal, which would soon reach more or less the country’s modern extent. In 1789, Nepal swallowed the Lo kingdom and with it Dolpo.

The Dolpo are generally adherents of Bon, a religion whose origins predate Buddhism but whose modern form is officially accepted as a fifth school of Tibetan Buddhism. The remote region has preserved its Tibetan culture in relatively pure form, making it attractive to Westerners. Dolpa was the location for the 1999 Oscar-nominated film Himalaya and recently for the German documentary Dolpo Tulku. The 2009 documentary Dolpo Tulku accompanies Sherap Sangpo (born 1981 in the Tarap Valley) on his journey from India back to his home region and his first steps as a Buddhist spiritual leader of the Dolpa. At the age of ten, he had pilgrimaged to India and after meeting the Dalai Lama had decided to become a monk. In Ka-Nying Monastery in Kathmandu he was soon recognized as the reincarnation of Lama Nyinchung and sent to Namdroling Monastery in Karnataka. After 16 years in southern India his education was finished, and in 2008 he returned to his home region to take over the responsibilities of his predecessor as a Buddhist spiritual leader of the Dolpa and in particular the monasteries in Dho-Tarap, Namgung and Saldang.