The Nathu La joins the Chumbi valley (Dromo) with the Lepcha country of Sikkim.
The Chumbi page names the pass only in nineteenth-century material; the road itself, from Gyantse and Phari through Dromo to the Lepcha valleys and the plains of Bengal, is the oldest trade route of the eastern Himalaya, and the Chumbi page mentions the lotsawa Yontendrak (born 973) as having control of the road to India (fourteenth-century texts). Tibet's border stands at the pass; no fort is known.
Who holds it
- Title
- Keepers of the pass road
- Since
- not pinned
- Confidence
- low
No source we opened names a toll-taker or a chief of this pass.
Overlord
none: no one rules Tibet in 1200; the house answers to its own patrons and to the custom of the valleys
How things stand that morning
A pass (la) on a caravan or valley road; no fort, no tollhouse is known.
Wealth
No source we could open gives figures; the usual base is estates and serfs, herds, pass tolls, trade in salt, wool, tea and barley, and the gifts of patrons.
Military
No standing army; the house or lord calls on retainers, tenants and kin. No troop numbers are given by any source we could open.
Council
none known; the place is governed by its lord or house, and no source we could open names a headman or judge
Communities
Tibetan; no other community is attested here
Fairs and markets
none known; pilgrims and caravans meet at the feasts of the temples, but no fair is dated
Walls and castle
none known; the dzong (fort) as an institution of the district lord belongs to the fourteenth century
Trade and crafts
wool, salt, yaks and barley south; rice, cotton cloth and metal north (the general pattern; no 1200 source)
Where the sources disagree
Evidence: Geography; the Chumbi page. Treasury of Lives, the Blue Annals, the Red Annals, Petech, Sorensen and Hazod and Davidson could not be opened in this session (treasuryoflives.org and rigpawiki.org refused the fetch; the archive.org full texts were refused or cut off), so facts marked 'recalled' are from memory of those works and unchecked.
Sources and studies
Last revised 4 November 2026. Published 4 November 2026. Suggest a correction on the OMNIA Discord.