The passing of the writer and historian Abdul Ghani Sheikh leaves an immense gap in the lives of his family and innumerable friends as well as the wider Ladakh studies community. Born in 1936, he was himself a witness to history in that he had lived through the traumas of Partition in 1947 and the period of accelerating political and social change that followed. In his short stories and in his historical research, he wrote with insight and compassion. To many of us, he served as a mentor and a friend. Here I would like to share a note about his association with the IALS.
Abdul Ghani Sheikh in 2009
In 1989, Sheikh Sahib travelled to the UK for the IALS conference at the University of Bristol, which was organised by Dr Henry Osmaston. Although this was the fourth in the series of Ladakh studies conferences, it was the first to be held specifically under the auspices of the IALS. Sheikh Sahib presented a paper on “A Brief History of Muslims in Ladakh”. The other Ladakhi contributors in Bristol were Jamyang Gyaltsen, Dr Nawang Tsering, Nawang Tsering Shakspo, and Sonam Wangchuk (SECMOL).
Abdul Ghani Sheikh presenting in Bristol in 1989. John Bray on the left, Nawang Tsering Shakspo on the right.
Thereafter, Sheikh Sahib became a regular presenter at IALS conferences both in Ladakh and abroad. The last international conference in which he participated was in Rome in 2007. Always eager to expand his international horizons, he managed to stop over in Istanbul on the return journey and made contact with a Uighur friend who lived in Turkey but had long family associations with Ladakh.
Shiekh Sahib’s list of IALS publications is representative of his special interests. By virtue of his background, he naturally placed a particular focus on the history of Ladakhi Muslims and on Ladakh’s relationships with Central Asia and other neighbouring regions. However, he always took a broad view of Ladakhi society. His other writings included a biography of the Ladakhi Buddhist leader Sonam Norboo (1909-1980) and he often expressed appreciation for the contributions of the Moravian community.
Abdul Ghani Sheikh with Radhika Gupta at the IALS conference in 2009. Christian Jahoda and Kurt Tropper in the background.
In the early 2000s, Sheikh Sahib served as the Hon Secretary of the IALS’s Ladakh Committee. I particularly remember working with him to secure the participation of two Balti scholars, Syed Bahadur Ali Salik and Ghulam Hasan Hasni, at the IALS conference in Kargil in 2005. This involved writing invitation letters and supporting documentation to the Indian High Commission in Islamabad as well as the Pakistani High Commission in New Delhi and – at the very last minute – the then Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh. Eventually, we were successful but the two Baltis only arrived in Kargil on the very last day of the conference.
Over the years, many of us benefitted from the hospitality of Sheikh Sahib and his family at the Yasmin Guesthouse, now the Grand Yasmin Ladakh, near Fort Road. Whether at his home or in one of Leh’s restaurants and coffee houses, it was always a delight to meet him. He was consistently unassuming, always perceptive, sometimes quite sharp in his observations. We have lost one of the best of friends.
Abdul Ghani Sheikh’s publications under the auspices of the IALS
1995. “A Brief History of Muslims in Ladakh.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 4 & 5, pp. 189-192. Edited by Henry Osmaston and Philip Denwood. London: School of Oriental and African Studies; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
1996. “Some Wellknown Adventurers of Ladakh.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 6, pp. 231-238. Edited by Henry Osmaston and Nawang Tsering. Bristol: Bristol University Press; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
1997. “Ladakh’s Relations with Central Asia.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 7, pp.447-456. Edited by Thierry Dodin and Heinz Räther. Ulmer Kulturanthropologische Schriften Band 8. Ulm: Abteilung Anthropologie, Universität Ulm.
1999. “Economic Conditions in Ladakh during the Dogra Period.” In Ladakh: Culture, History and Development, between Himalaya and Karakoram. Recent Research on Ladakh 8, pp. 339-349. Edited by Martijn van Beek, Kristoffer Brix Bertelsen and Poul Pedersen. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
2007. “Transformation of Kuksho Village.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 7, pp. 163-170. Edited by John Bray and Nawang Tsering Shakspo. Leh: Jammu & Kashmir Academy of Art, Culture & Languages.
2009. “Kargil from the Perspective of Historical Travellers and Government Officials.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 2009, pp. 39-45. Edited by Monisha Ahmed & John Bray. Kargil & Leh: International Association of Ladakh Studies.
2009. “The Traditions of Sufism in Ladakh.” In Mountains, Monasteries and Mosques. Recent Research on Ladakh and the Western Himalaya, pp. 131-139. Edited by John Bray & Elena De Rossi Filibeck. Supplement No. 2 to Rivista degli Studi Orientali 80 (New Series). Pisa & Rome: Sapienza, Università di Roma, Dipartimento di Studi Orientali.
Neil and Kath Howard with Erberto Lo Bue (left), Rome 2007.
Neil Howard, who passed away in January 2023, was an independent researcher specialising in the study of the military and architectural history of Ladakh.
Neil came late to the study of Ladakh and by chance. In the course of a trek through Ladakh in the early 1980s, he and his wife Kath noticed the many ruined forts above the region’s villages. Finding that little had been written about them, he decided to do the research himself. His first major publication was an article on the development of Ladakh’s military architecture, which appeared in the Italian journal East and West in 1989, and this is still an important reference source. His initial work on forts led naturally to further study on military campaigns in Ladakh, notably the invasion by Mirza Haider Dughlat in the 1530s and the Dogra invasion three centuries later. He also extended his geographical range to include Lahul and Kangra.
All Neil’s work shows the same qualities. Perhaps most importantly, his architectural and archaeological studies were based on careful on-the-ground observation. He weighed up the evidence as he saw it, and pushed his analysis as far as he reasonably could, but no further. Later, he worked with other colleagues, notably Philip Denwood of the School of Oriental and African Studies (London), to assess the written sources that might shed further light on his chosen themes.
I myself retain a happy memory of an occasion when I was able to perform a service as Neil’s research assistant. In 2005, together with our colleagues Abdul Ghani Sheikh and Ken Macdonald, I made an excursion to photograph the chortens and castle ruins of Gya. These later contributed to Neil and Kath’s article on Gya that appeared in 2014 (see bibliography).
Although Neil did most of the writing and much of the talking, he worked with Kath as a husband-and-wife team both on mountain treks and, later, on the conference circuit. Always forthright in his views on life’s ironies, he was generous and supportive in his friendships. In later years, he took pleasure in the publications of younger scholars who have deepened and extended his own research findings. His own carefully calibrated pioneering work remains an example to follow.
Publications
1984. “Castles of the Himalayas.” Popular Archaeology, April 1984, pp. 12-19. Hemel Hempstead.
1987. “Royal Fortresses of Ladakh.” Archaeology Today, May 1987, pp. 29-35. Frome, England.
1989. “The Development of the Fortresses of Ladakh c.9501650 AD.” East and West 39, Nos. 14, pp. 217-288. Rome: Istituto per il medio ed estremo oriente.
1990. “Inscriptions at Balukhar and Char Zampa and General Archaeological Observations on Balukhar Fort and its Environs.” With Philip Denwood. In Indo-Tibetan Studies: Papers in honour and appreciation of Professor David L. Snellgrove’s contribution to Indo-Tibetan Studies, pp. 81-88. Edited by Tadeusz Skorupski. Tring: Institute of Tibetan Studies.
1992. “The Dogra Forts in Greater Ladakh, North-west India.” Fort 20, pp. 7186.
1994. “The Trekking Route up the Tsarap River, Zangskar.” Ladakh Studies 7, pp. 9- 10.
1995 (a). “The Fortified Places of Zanskar.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 4 & 5, pp. 79-99. Edited by Henry Osmaston and Philip Denwood. London: School of Oriental and African Studies; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
1995 (b). “Military Aspects of the Dogra Conquest of Ladakh 18341839.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 4 & 5, pp. 349-361. Edited by Henry Osmaston and Philip Denwood. London: School of Oriental and African Studies; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
1996 (a). “What Happened Between 1450 and 1550 AD? And Other Questions from the History of Ladakh.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 6, pp. 121-138. Edited by Henry Osmaston and Nawang Tsering. Bristol: Bristol University Press; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
1996 (b). “Chronology of the Travels of G.T. Vigne in the Western Himalaya, 1835-1839 Ladakh Studies 8, pp. 27-30.
1999. “Ancient Painted Pottery from Ladakh.” In Ladakh: Culture, History and Development, between Himalaya and Karakoram. Recent Research on Ladakh 8, pp. 222-236. Edited by Martijn van Beek, Kristoffer Brix Bertelsen and Poul Pedersen. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press,
2002. “The Political Geography of South-east Zanskar, and a Reconsideration of the Royal Chronologies of Zanskar and Ladakh in the 15 th Century.” South Asian Studies 18, pp. 91-108. London: Society for South Asian Studies.
2005 (a). “Sultan Zain-ul Abidin’s Raid into Ladakh.” In Ladakhi Histories. Local and Regional Perspectives, pp. 125-145. Edited by John Bray. Leiden: Brill.
2005 (b). “The Development of the Boundary between the State of Jammu & Kashmir and British India, and its Representation on Maps of the Lingti Plain.” In Ladakhi Histories. Local and Regional Perspectives, pp. 217-234. Leiden: Brill.
2007. Things to do in Leh. A jeu d’esprit. Self-published pamphlet for private circulation.
2009. “Prince Peter’s Journey from Manali to Ladakh, 5 th June–22 nd August 1938.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 2009, pp. 55-71. With Poul Pedersen. Edited by Monisha Ahmed & John Bray. Kargil & Leh: International Association of Ladakh Studies.
2012. “The Tak House Maitreya and Some Corrections of the Later History of Ladakh.” Ladakh Studies 28, pp. 36-38.
2014. “Historic Ruins in the Gya Valley, Eastern Ladakh, and a Consideration of Their Relationship to the History of Ladakh and Maryul. With Kath Howard and an Appendix on the War of Tsede (rTse lde) of Guge in 1083 CE by Philip Denwood.” In Art and Architecture in Ladakh. Cross-Cultural Transmissions in the Himalayas and Karakoram pp. 68-99. Edited by Erberto Lo Bue and John Bray. Leiden: Brill.
2016. “Castles and Defensive Architecture in Purig: an Introduction, Survey and Preliminary Analysis.” In Visible Heritage. Essays on the Art and Architecture of Greater Ladakh, pp. 85-112. Edited by Rob Linrothe and Heinrich Pöll. New Delhi: Studio Orientalia.
2020. “The defences of Basgo revisited.” Études mongoles et sibériennes, centrasiatiques et tibétaines. With Quentin Devers. Online publication : http://journals.openedition.org/emscat/4257.
Forthcoming. “The Portal of the Leh Palace.” With Gerald Kozicz. Awaiting publication.
John Clarke, who passed away in September, spent his entire professional life at London’s Victoria and Albert (V&A) Museum. His special field of interest was the study of the art of metalworking in Ladakh and Tibet. With this note, I wish to celebrate his contribution and point to his academic legacy.
John joined the V&A in 1979. Alongside the day-to-day demands of his regular work, he was encouraged to conduct academic research, and between 1986 and 1991 made a series of visits to Ladakh, Dharamsala, Nepal, Tibet and Bhutan. His journey to Ladakh during this period served as the foundation of much of the rest of his life’s work. Crucially, he was able to travel to the village of Chiling on the Zangskar river. The village’s inhabitants are said to be the descendants of a group of Newari craftsmen who came to the region in the 17th century at the invitation of King Sengge Namgyal (r.1616-1642). Their first tasks included the construction of the copper-gilt images of the Maitreya at Basgo monastery and the Buddha in Shey. Ever since, Chiling craftsmen have specialised in the working of copper, bronze, silver and gold. They are particularly well-known for the production of spoons, ladles, teapots and beer jugs as well as religious objects such as copper-gilt chortens for monastic and family temples. John was able to observe their work at first hand.
I first met John in 1989 when IALS founder Henry Osmaston convened the fourth Ladakh Studies conference at the University of Bristol. Before the main conference, we organised a study day in London, and John arranged for us to see behind the scenes at the V&A. I remember being impressed at the sheer extent of the collection of Ladakhi and Tibetan artwork that is kept in storage, crammed closely together to save space. At the conference itself, John presented “A survey of metalworking in Ladakh”, and this was published in the conference proceedings in 1995. The paper discussed the roles of blacksmiths across Ladakh and of goldsmiths in Leh as well as the Chiling craftsmen. John noted that copper- and goldsmiths in Ladakh enjoyed a higher social status than their counterparts in Tibet. Strikingly, he was able to document the links between successive generations of Chiling craftsmen with key patrons, notably the Kalon family in Changspa.
John’s work on Ladakh evolved into a chapter of his Ph.D dissertation at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. The dissertation, which he defended in 1995, is available online at the British Library’s EThOS website, and carries the title “A Regional Survey and Stylistic Analysis of Tibetan Non-Scultural Metalworking, c.1850-1959.” It is based on a combination of field research, a close examination of metal artefacts from the region that are held in European museums, and a careful reading of travel accounts by Western travellers since the 19th century. The thesis covered a broad geographical range from Central and Southern Tibet to Kham and neighbouring regions in China and Mongolia, as well as Ladakh and Bhutan. John argued that the style of metalwork in these regions pointed to a broad cultural unity, but at the same time he was able to identify distinct regional variations in style.
In 1999 John made a further contribution to an IALS publication, a chapter on “The Tibetanisation of European Stoves in Ladakh”, which appeared in the proceedings of our eighth conference, which had been held in Aarhus (Denmark) two years earlier. Here he discussed the “hybridisation” of iron stoves introduced to Ladakh by Moravian missionaries. The original rather plain metal stoves have evolved into highly decorated artefacts decorated by local blacksmiths and goldsmiths using traditional motifs such as the ‘wish-fulfilling jewel’.
John made one more contribution to Ladakh studies with a chapter in Ladakh, Culture at the Crossroads, edited by Monisha Ahmed and Clare Harris (2005). Meanwhile, he continued to develop his expertise across the wider Tibetan cultural region, and his curatorial responsibilities extended beyond the Himalayas to Southeast Asia. He became the Lead Curator for the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation Buddhist Art Galleries. These first opened in 2009 but closed temporarily in 2013 ahead of an extended period of building work. In 2015 the V&A opened a new gallery devoted to the image of the Buddha, and the other galleries reopened in 2017. As John explained in a blog article, he gave careful consideration on how best to present the Buddhist religious heritage in the context of a secular museum. A key objective of the galleries is to make this heritage accessible to a wider Western audience without compromising the religious integrity of the artefacts displayed.
John was a regular contributor to academic seminars, conferences and workshops relating to Tibet and the Himalaya. He was himself the organiser of a major conference on Buddhist sculpture held at the V&A in 2010, and edited the proceedings. Other activities included serving as Visiting Professor at the University of Northumbria, which has become an important centre for the study of Asian art. Until his death, he was working on a proposed exhibition on the art of Buddhist Tantricism, to be held at the V&A in 2023.
At least two of his conference contributions are available online. The first is a brief presentation on “The Trance Walking Tradition of Tibet” presented at the Third International Conference on Vajrayāna Buddhism held in Bhutan in 2019. The second is a one-hour lecture on “Collecting Tibet at the South Kensington Museum: the legacy of the 1904 expedition and beyond,” which was presented to the Royal Asiatic Society in early 2019. In the Royal Asiatic Society lecture, John discusses the sensitivities associated with the provenance of the V&A’s Tibetan collection. Many of the most important items were acquired as a result of Col. Francis Younghusband’s military expedition to Lhasa in 1903-1904, though there have also been several other sources. His slides for the lecture include an image of a thangka from Western Tibet collected in the 1850s by the Schlagintweit brothers who spent several months in Ladakh during the same period. He also showed an image of an ornate teapot, originally from Hemis monastery, which came from the bequest of British viceroy Lord Curzon. As John briefly acknowledged, the teapot served as a reminder of his own earlier researches in Ladakh. He concluded the lecture by presenting an image of a 15th century Sino-Tibetan brass sculpture of the Mahasiddha Virupa, which he had himself been able to acquire for the V&A from a museum in the west of England. This lecture reflects John’s deep engagement with the V&A’s Tibetan and Himalayan collection over several decades. In that respect, it perhaps serves as a kind of colophon to his own career.
In the last 18 months John had to take frequent sick leave in order to receive treatment for lymphoma, a cancer of the blood cells. At first the treatment seemed to go well, and John responded with what one of his colleagues calls his “characteristic quiet resilience”. He was looking forward to returning to work. Sadly, this was never to be.
Select publications by John Clarke
1989. “Chiling, a Village of Ladakhi Craftsmen and their Products.” Arts of Asia 19, No. 3, pp. 128-141.
1992. “A Group of Sino-Mongolian Metalwork in the Tibetan Style.” Orientations 23, No. 5, pp. 65-75.
1995. “Survey of Metalworking in Ladakh.” In Recent Research on Ladakh 4 & 5, pp. 9-17. Edited by Henry Osmaston and Philip Denwood. London: School of Oriental and African Studies; Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
1995. A Regional Survey and Stylistic Analysis of Tibetan Non-Sculptural Metalworking, c. 1850-1959. 2 vols. PhD dissertation. London: School of Oriental and African Studies
1997. Tibet, Caught in Time. Reading: Garnet Publishing Ltd.
1998. “Hindu Trading Pilgrims.” In Pilgrimage in Tibet, pp. 52-70. Edited by Alex McKay. Richmond: Curzon.
1997. “Regional Styles of Metalworking”. In Tibetan Art, Towards a Definition of Style, pp. 278-289. Edited by Jane Singer and Philip Denwood. London: Calman and King.
1998. “Hindu Trading Pilgrims.” In Pilgrimage in Tibet, pp.5 52-70. Edited by Alex McKay. Richmond: Curzon.
1999. “The Tibetanisation of European Steel Stoves in Ladakh.” In Ladakh: Culture, History and Development, between Himalaya and Karakoram. Recent Research on Ladakh 8, pp. 58-71. Edited by Martijn van Beek, Kristoffer Brix Bertelsen and Poul Pedersen.Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.
2001. “Ga’u–The Tibetan Amulet Box.” Arts of Asia 31, No. 3, pp. 45-67.
2002. “Metalworking in dBus and gTsang, 1930-1977.” Tibet Journal 27, Nos 1-2, pp. 113-152.
2004. Jewellery of Tibet and the Himalayas. London: Victoria and Albert Museum.
2005. “Metalworking in Ladakh”. In Ladakh Culture at the Crossroads, pp. 44-55. Edited by Monisha Ahmed and Clare Harris. Bombay: Marg.
2011. “Non-sculptural Metalworking in Eastern Tibet 1930-2003.” In Art in Tibet, Issues in Traditional Tibetan Art from the Seventh to the Twentieth Century, pp. 171-182. Proceedings of the 10th seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies. Edited by Erberto Lo Bue. Leiden: Brill.
2013. “A New Image of the Mahasiddha Virupa: a Major Addition to the Corpus of early Fifteenth-century Bronzes.” Art of Merit. Studies in Buddhist Art and its Conservation: Proceedings of the Buddhist Art Forum 2012, pp. 241-250. Edited by David Park, Kuenga Wangmo and Sharon Cather. London: Archetype Publications
2017. “The New Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Galleries of Buddhist Art at the Victoria and Albert Museum.” Orientations 48, No. 5.
2019. “Introduction to Papers on Buddhist Sculpture Given at, or Arising from, the Buddhist Sculpture Symposium Held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2010.” Inner and Central Asian Art and Archaeology 2, 127-132. Special edition on New Research on Central Asian, Buddhist and Far Eastern Art and Archaeology. Edited by J.A. Lerner and A.L. Juliano. Turnhout: Brepols.
2020. “On the Road Back to Mandalay: The Burmese Regalia – Seizure, Display and Return to Myanmar in 1964.” In Returning Southeast Asia’s Past. Edited by Louise Tythacott and Panggah Ardiyansyah. Singapore: National University of Singapore Press.
“I am saddened to learn the passing away of Shri Tashi Rabgias, the patron of International Association for Ladakh Studies (IALS) this morning. I extend my most heartfelt sorrow and condolences on the loss of Ladakh’s historian and scholar whose contribution to language, literature and history of Ladakh is immense. It is an irretrievable loss to the people of Ladakh. May he attain Nirvana!”
International Association for Ladakh Studies (IALS) 