Hidden City Mustang

Nepal is known in the world for its highest mountain peaks. Eight peaks of top ten highest peaks are located in Nepal. Mustang District of Dhaulagiri zone is called as Country beyond the Himalayas. In this District there is hidden kingdom called Lo-Menthang. It is called hidden kingdom because little people used to know about this kingdom but now it is open for all the tourist and it is out now in media too but it is hard to reach nowadays also because of geographical difficulties. so that's why it is hidden kingdom. Most of the upper mustang parts are hidden from the outside world. Still today their lofty peaks keep hidden many mysteries. It is hard to believe but most of the Mustange also don't have visited all the villages of the mustang district mainly upper mustang. So that's why I like to call upper mustang as hidden world.

As for the area’s identity as a kingdom, this too seemed unreal, but its status was supported by brief references to it in the literature on the Himalayas. Mustang was first mentioned in English literature in 1793, by the first Englishman to visit Nepal, W.J. Kirkpatrick. In his book recording his travels, Kirkpatrck mentions having been told of the river Kali Gandaki; he notes: ‘The source of the river is said to be situated to the northward of Mookti, in the direction of Moostang’. To this he adds, ‘Moostang is a place of some note in upper Tibet or Boot’. In 1802 F.Buchanan mentions ‘Mastang a Lordship in Tibet’, and he explains these are ‘the territories of a Bhotia (Tibetan) chief called the Mastang Raja. From that time onward the word ‘Mastang’, which after 1852 was spelled ‘Mustang’, crops up occasionally. All these references indicated the independent status of the mysterious ‘King, or Raja of Mustang who is a Tibetan’. King of Mustang is known as Lo Gyalpo in Tibetan language. Gyalpo in Tibetan means king.


Kagbeni, Tiri, Tangbe, Tethang, Chhomnang, Tsele, Ghyakar, Samar, Bhenya, Zhaangpochhe, Gherlung, Ghemi, Dhakmar, Charang, Zhurkhang, Yara, Dhi, Lo-menthang, Thiggar, Kima, Nyamdo, Garphu, etc. are the big villages of upper mustang. From 2760 m up to 4210 m from sea level village are situated. Upper mustang people have their own language, own culture and own dress. Two kind of language are found in upper mustang, top part and base part of upper mustang people speak Tibetan language and people of Chusang village mix language of Tibetan and Tamang. All follow the Buddhism and worship Guru Rinpochhe as main. Upper mustang most of part is full of story of Guru Rinpochhe as like - Salt mine come to existence when Guru Rinpochhe sit there and have his meal and drop some salt brought from Tibet. There are many old monasteries up to 1400 years old monasteries are found there. These monasteries are full of wall arts of different Buddha, guru Rinpochhe, different avatar of Tara and other goddess. As you enter these monasteries you will be surprised by wall arts and the statue of goddess and some monasteries are made in such a place that you can't imagine. You can see the skill of the artist in those monasteries of that age. Due to migration of monks to the urban monasteries, some village monasteries are abandoning. Most of the holy books are damaged due to lack of good care and also holy places of that part. I found most of the wall paintings of monasteries are damaged due to water through wall of monastery. Himalayan foundation of America is retouching the painting for preservation for future generation. Only few monasteries are under in project. I found Ghyakar village monastery is totally damaged and will came down soon. There are cracks on the walls and most of paintings are erased by water that passes through roof in rainy season and in winter season water of melting snow.


Most of the villages of upper mustang have local electricity only the Chhuk-sang village doesn’t have. Before it has local electricity but after the failure of local hydro project people of Chhuk-sang village use solar power as electricity. Mainly village of upper mustang are situated near the Kali Gandaki bank. May be Kali Gandaki bank are fertile so most of them choose to live at those banks. We only find greenery in spring and rainy season only in village area. Most of parts of upper mustang are totally desert. If you go there in winter you will like to call it as cold desert. It is hard to find trees in that part. Upper part of Chusang and near Sa-mar village there is lot of juniper trees.

Although it is very cold area we can found different species of animals, birds, reptile and insects (like wild horse, snow leopard, jackal, vulture, musk deer, eagle, grasshopper, crow, etc.). Different kinds of vegetables and crops are grown here (like cabbage, cauliflower, pea, tomato, maize, wheat etc.) Japanese has grown rice in his green house in Ghemi village. I think that this is the world record. He is growing other crops too and he also introduces a flower to upper mustang you can see that flower from the start of upper mustang to end. I don't know the name exactly but local youngster tell I love you flower. Specialty of mustang product is apple. Mustang is totally famous for its apple products. As, it is very cold area different kinds of apples are grown in this area. In local language apple is called as "Kushu".


Horse, donkey, ass and yak are main means of transportation. But some part of Upper mustang is touch by road so motorbike, tractor and jeep are also used as means of transportation in some of the part of the Upper mustang. Most of the necessary things are imported from the Tibet region. Garments product, utensils, gas, noodles, Horse, donkey, ass, yak, mountain goats and many more things are sold in this upper mustang by Tibetans who come through open borders towards Tibet. Mountain goats supplied in great festival Dhashain to surroundings of Pokhara came from the Choser village and also from China.

They have different festival and event as season changes. They celebrate Yartung after rainy season. In this all the people of a village line up in a line, girls and women on foot at first and boys and men on horse at last and go to their holy place. They dance all together and men used have horse racing. Losar is the New Year for them. Losar is like New Year of China. All people stay together and have party and wish each other. Dajyang, it is celebrated after the winter gone. In this festival people join together in local community house. Men play with bow and arrow with bet to get target at center and women are busy in cooking. Thar-chhyang is an event; it is celebrated when people reach to age of 60. People from different village come to celebrate this event. This event last for many days minimum day is 6 days. I am able to participate in this event at Ghyager village. Yartong festival is now in process of extinction because Upper mustang few villages only celebrate this festival now and other have left it from more then 15 years ago. For my shooting in Chusang village people of that village manage all things as it done real Yartung. I found very exciting about this culture. I asked them why you left this festival and one of old villager told me that they don't have time and it's too long way to reach to Muktinath. People from this village went to Muktinath to celebrate and they round Muktinath and came back to Chusang village and they dance and race there. It is almost 8 hrs by foot to reach. As the outsider started to reach that place there we can see changes that are good as well and bad too. Education, Health and civilization are doing well but in the field of culture we can see bad effects. People used to happy with their traditional folk song and with their typical dance "Zshyapdro". But nowadays youngsters are happy with Hindi songs and disco beats. They almost forget the traditional songs and dances of their ancestor. It’s hard to believe that they even don't know how to wear their traditional dress. Some of them know few words of their language and few don't know how to speak also.

In most of the mountains you could see caves in height. It is now hard to reach most of the caves. We are told that these caves are meant for meditation purposes. I and my team inspected these caves too. We found monastery in one of the cave and some of the caves are meant to live also. We found pieces of different kind of utensils and other thing that prove that people used to stay as home too not only for meditation. The great prove is Choser region Jhong cave. Whole village used to leave for safety. It is thought that it is 2500 years old and we can find 108 rooms and different instrument, clothes and utensils that are used by people that live there. We found a story about that cave too. Which is as follow: “Hajigawa (a Tibetan terrorist gang) had attacked the village? The villages escaped from there and hide themselves inside the Dzong Cave. The terrorist came to know about it and tried to capture it. They tried hard to enter the cave but were unable. So, when there was no way out they blocked the water supply. The villagers suffered a lot. They couldn’t quench their thirst. Soon the room was full of bad aroma. But they didn’t withes and were not ready to surrender. They all were united and thought of an idea. There was plenty of mustard oil which gave them hope. They all washed their heads with the mustard oil and allowed that oil to pass out from the cave. When the terrorist saw that, they were appalled. The crackpots thought there were other sources of water inside the cave. Then, the terrorist had to return empty handed coz there was no other way out. So, the villages were able to save their lives.” Most of the houses of that Tsho-shar region are made attached to cliff and most of the rooms are craved inside those mountains. We feel that as we are in ancient time watching those houses. Really, mustang is a hidden world most of the villages are not revealed yet. There is lot of things to be study about. We can find the human civilization through studying different caves of that part. There is much more to do in that Hidden world.