Monpa & Tawang Belt · Eastern Himalaya & Brahmaputra Belt
This belt had no king, and any account that gives it one is wrong. Authority here was monastic and collegiate: after Tawang Monastery was founded in 1680–81 the valleys it reached were administered as a monastic estate, with revenue collected and disputes settled by a council of six known as the Trukdri, whose members held the title Kenpo, sitting alongside two monk officials called Nyetsangs and two Dzongpen. On the southern shelf, below the temperate forest, small chiefships of the Miji and Aka held their own ground, and the Sherdukpen went down to the Assam plains every winter to trade. The periodisation follows from that. The medieval period begins in the seventeenth century, when Gelugpa institutions and direct authority from Lhasa were established here, rather than with anything happening in the Indian plains; and the modern period begins in 1826, when the Treaty of Yandabo brought Assam under British rule and put a new kind of state at the foot of these valleys. Even then the belt lay beyond the Inner Line and was never administered as ordinary British territory. The narrative here stops in 1947.
Periodisation is regional, not national — the medieval period does not begin in the same century here as it does elsewhere in India.
Tibetan sources call the country south of the Himalayan crest Mon, and the people of it Monpa. A polity called Lhomon or Monyul is spoken of as having existed between roughly 500 BCE and 600 CE, centred in what is now Bhutan, but this belongs to tradition and to later chronicle rather than to dated record, and no archaeology from these valleys confirms it. What is physically present is older building: ruins at Bhalukpong on the foothill shelf assigned to the tenth to twelfth centuries, and the Lhagyala Gompa at Morshing, attributed to a figure remembered as the Kachen Lama and traditionally placed very early. From the eleventh century Nyingma and Kagyu lineages were established in the valleys. Everything about the region in this period is a question of what came over the passes, because nothing came up from the plains.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| c. 500 BCE – 600 CE (tradition) | A polity called Lhomon or Monyul is described in later chronicle as having existed in the Mon country, centred in present-day Bhutan. It is tradition rather than attested history. |
| 7th–9th centuries | The Tibetan empire's expansion brings Buddhism and Tibetan administrative forms into the valleys south of the crest. |
| early, undated | The Lhagyala Gompa at Morshing is attributed to a figure remembered as the Kachen Lama; the tradition places it very early and it is not independently dated. |
| 10th–12th centuries | The fortress ruins at Bhalukpong, on the foothill shelf, are assigned to this period. |
| 11th century | Nyingma and Kagyu lineages establish themselves in the valleys, the layer of practice that the Gelugpa would later be laid over rather than replace entirely. |
From the fourteenth century the Mon country came under steadily heavier Tibetan influence, and in the seventeenth century that became direct authority from Lhasa. The decisive event is the founding of Tawang Monastery in 1680–81 by Merak Lama Lodre Gyatso at the direction of the fifth Dalai Lama. What was established was not a diocese but an estate: the monastery collected revenue from the valleys, its council of six settled disputes, and the two Dzongpen and two Nyetsangs formed the rest of the administration. Two years after its founding a Monpa child was born at Urgelling below Tawang who would be recognised as the sixth Dalai Lama - the one instance of this small belt supplying the head of the Tibetan Buddhist world. On the southern shelf, where the monastery's reach ended, Miji and Aka chiefships held the forest and the Sherdukpen moved down to Doimara each winter to trade for rice. Dirang Dzong, built in the seventeenth century, is the surviving physical form of that administration.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 14th century onward | Monyul comes under increasing Tibetan political and cultural influence; local monks at Tawang hold the substantive political authority. |
| 17th century | The Gelugpa school is established in these valleys, brought in part by missionaries educated in Bhutan, and direct authority from Lhasa is established over the Mon country. |
| 1680–1681 | Tawang Monastery, Galden Namgye Lhatse, is founded by Merak Lama Lodre Gyatso at the behest of the fifth Dalai Lama. It becomes the administrative as well as religious centre of the valleys. |
| 1 March 1683 | Tsangyang Gyatso is born at Urgelling, below Tawang, to Lama Tashi Tenzin and Tsewang Lhamo, a Monpa woman of Bekhar village. |
| 8 December 1697 | Tsangyang Gyatso is enthroned as the sixth Dalai Lama; he was deposed and disappeared in November 1706, and the circumstances remain uncertain. |
| 17th century | Dirang Dzong is built, the fortified administrative form that gives the middle valleys their surviving landmark. |
| through this period | On the foothill shelf, small chiefships of the Miji and the Aka hold their own ground outside monastic authority, and the Sherdukpen descend annually to Doimara in the Assam plains to trade. |
The change came from below rather than from above. The Treaty of Yandabo in 1826 transferred Assam to British rule, and for the first time the plain at the foot of these valleys was held by a state with surveyors, a revenue system and an appetite for defining frontiers. But it did not come up the hill. The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873 drew an Inner Line beyond which British subjects could not pass without a permit, and the belt stayed outside ordinary administration - toured occasionally by officers, never settled, never assessed. The Simla Convention of 1913–14 saw a boundary alignment negotiated between British and Tibetan representatives, and in 1919 the frontier country north of Assam was constituted as the Balipara Frontier Tract with its headquarters at Charduar, down in the plains; in 1946 this part of it became the Sela Sub-Agency, still administered from Assam. Through the whole period the working authority in the valleys remained the monastery and its council. Almost nothing about daily life here - the crop, the calendar, the paper, the courts of first instance - was altered by the colonial century.
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| 1826 | The Treaty of Yandabo transfers Assam to British rule; the plain below these valleys becomes British territory for the first time. |
| 1873 | The Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation establishes the Inner Line north of Assam; the hill country beyond it is left outside ordinary administration. |
| later 19th century | Punitive expeditions are mounted into the Aka and Miji foothills after raids on the plains; an Aka chief remembered as Tagi Raja was imprisoned, an episode preserved in Aka tradition without a securely attested date. |
| 1913–1914 | The Simla Convention meets from October 1913 to July 1914; a boundary alignment for the eastern Himalayan frontier is negotiated between the British and Tibetan representatives and initialled on 27 April 1914. |
| 1919 | The frontier country north of Assam is constituted as the Balipara Frontier Tract, with headquarters at Charduar in the plains. |
| 1946 | This part of the tract becomes the Sela Sub-Agency, still administered from Assam. |
Rulers and commanders
Ordered the founding of Tawang Monastery and directed the people of the area to assist it. The tradition that he set its extent by giving the founder a ball of yarn, the length of which was to mark the limit of the monastery, is how the foundation is remembered locally.
Seat: Lhasa
Founded Galden Namgye Lhatse at Tawang in 1680–81 and established the Gelugpa institution that became the administrative as well as the religious authority of the valleys. The monastery is three storeys high within a compound wall of some 282 metres, with sixty-five residential buildings and a library of Kangyur and Tengyur manuscripts.
Seat: Tawang
Born at Urgelling below Tawang on 1 March 1683 to a Monpa mother, recognised and enthroned on 8 December 1697, deposed and disappeared in November 1706. He is the only figure from these valleys to have held the highest office in the Tibetan Buddhist world, and his short love poems are still sung across it.
Seat: born at Urgelling, near Tawang; enthroned at Lhasa
The actual government of the Tawang valleys, and the reason this belt has no king list. A council of six collected the monastic estate's revenue, heard disputes and dealt with the villages. Authority here was collegiate and clerical rather than dynastic, and it outlasted every change of overlord above it.
Seat: Tawang
The rest of the working administration alongside the Trukdri: two Nyetsangs, monk officials, and two Dzongpen holding the fortified administrative sites. Dirang Dzong, built in the seventeenth century, is the surviving example of what a Dzongpen held.
Seat: Tawang and the dzongs
Credited in local tradition with building the Lhagyala Gompa at Morshing, held to be among the earliest Buddhist foundations in this belt. The attribution and its dating are traditional and are given here as tradition.
Seat: Morshing
Small chiefships outside the monastery's reach, holding the forest shelf between the high valleys and the Assam plain and controlling the routes through it. They were the belt's southern authority, and they were the part of it the colonial state actually collided with.
Seat: the Kameng foothills
The history of Monpa & Tawang Belt from ancient through medieval to modern times, and the rulers, commanders and administrators who shaped it. (7)