Lhasa Newar

[3][4] The thousand-year-old Lhasa Newar tradition came to an end after the caravan route linking India and Tibet through Sikkim was shut down by the Sino-Indian War in 1962.

The history of the Lhasa Newars officially dates from the seventh century with the marriage of Nepalese Princess Bhrikuti with Tibetan King Songtsän Gampo.

The traders and artisans who accompanied Bhrikuti to Lhasa as part of her retinue established commercial and cultural ties between Nepal and Tibet.

Metal utensils, sacred statues and rice from Nepal, and textiles and other factory products from India were the main exports to Tibet.

The Lhasa Newars brought back gold dust, wool, musk pods, pelts and yak tails which were forwarded to Kolkata.

A few business houses also maintained shops in Leh, Ladakh which lies on the caravan route to Kashgar in Chinese Central Asia.

Lhasa Newar artisans created statues, painted paubhas and frescoes and built temples in Tibet and other parts of Central Asia,[12] and were instrumental in the spread and development of Buddhist art throughout the region.

French missionary traveller Évariste Régis Huc has written that it is they who construct for the Buddhist temples those fine roofs of gilt plates, which resist all the inclemencies of the seasons and always retain a marvellous freshness and glitter.

[18] Lhasa Newars have been the subject of ballads, epic poetry and novels in Nepal Bhasa and other languages, mostly on the theme of loneliness and couples forced to endure long periods of separation.