The region of Ladakh has attracted the attention of scholars in a number of disciplines, whose research has thrown light on many aspects of the land and its people. This is said to be the land of deep spiritual values where traditionally a contented peasantry pursued a sustainable agriculture, based on self-regulating systems organised in such a way as to regulating to minimize social and individual stress.

Buddhism is of critical importance for about half the Ladakhis; while the non-Buddhist communities, Shia and Sunni Muslims, and a small number of Christians in Leh. The diversity among the different regions of Tibet`s far greater area must surely be as marked as that which is so obvious in Ladakh. Buddhism, in both its First and Second Spreadings, reached Tibet from India, and the role played by Ladakh, along with the neighbouring kingdom Guge, in the Second Spreading. Central Ladakh was the bastion of Buddhism. But the religion of Ladakh`s earliest inhabitants was presumably some form of the Bon-chos, more a collection of cults than a unified religion, pantheistic and shamanistic, and perhaps including a form of ancestor worship. It is certain that Buddhism first entered the western parts of the contemporary Ladakh from Kashmir, perhaps as early as the first or second century AD, when there are indications that parts of the country may have been incorporated in the Kushan Empire. The Buddhist influence continued to filter in from Kashmir, which was one of its important centres.

Buddhism had been accepted as the state religion of Tibet only in the reign of Sron-tsan-gam-po in the seventh century; and even by the middle of the ninth century it had not gained undisputed hold throughout the country. Indeed, the collapse of the dynasty and the disintegration of the empire were due to religious friction between Buddhists and the adherents of the older Bon religion. King Lang-dar-ma, eighth in the line of succession from Sron-tsan-gam-po, abandoned the religion established by his forefathers, and made every effort to root out Buddhism in favour of the Bon-chos. After he was murdered by a holy hermit, who could find no other way to save the faith in Tibet, the political situation became confused. During this prolonged period of turmoil Lang-dar-ma`s great-grandson Nyima-Gon, accompanied by representatives of some of the `haute noblesse` of central Tibet, migrated westwards and established his rule, probably in the provinces immediately to the east of present-day Ladakh.

Of the three religions represented in Ladakh, the Christians form a tiny minority. Buddhists and Muslims are found in more or less equal numbers, with predominance of Buddhists in the north and east, and of Muslims to the south and west. The Muslim community is predominant in Kargil town, Drass, the Suru valley comprising Parkachik, Pashkyum and Shagkar-Chigtan. Mulbekh and Bodh Kharbu have mixed populations, with a distinct Buddhist majority. Zanskar, too, is basically a Buddhist area but there is a small Muslim community there. The Muslims here are the descendants of immigrants from the Jammu region who came in the wake of Zorawar Singh`s invasion. The Indus valley from Khaltse upstream and downstream on the right bank (where the Brokpa practise their own variant of the religion) is almost uniformly Buddhist, and so are Chang-thang and Nubra. The exceptions are a small but influential Muslim population in Leh itself and a few of the surrounding villages, and a few Muslims in the remote villages of Turtuk and Bogdang.

For centuries Ladakhi life and ways of thought have been moulded by Buddhism, particularly the Vajrayana Buddhism, which was prevalent in Tibet. At the approach to every village there are a number of chorten, the stupas of ancient Indian Buddhism, referring in their origin to the grave-mounds erected over the divided ashes of Gautama Buddha. Those in or near the gompas often contain sacred objects: block-printed scriptures, or clay images, or offerings of ritual cakes; while inside the temples, made of beautifully worked metal and precious stones, serve the purpose of reliquaries. Central to Buddhism in all its forms is the idea that every soul has the capacity to reach the state of enlightenment, and then proceed to `nirvana`.

This central principle is not difficult to grasp. But from it emanated a most complicated system of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas - Gautama Buddha or Sakyamuni, being considered as one of a series of historical Buddhas of different eras. In the earlier years of Buddhism, Sakyamuni was conceived of as the central one of a series of seven. Later came the idea of a thousand Buddhas, of whom Sakyamuni was the fourth and with the development of the Vajrayana School, tantric elements were adopted from Hinduism.

All these resulted in an immensely difficult and ramified system of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, gods and goddesses, beliefs and rituals, faith and reason, magic and mysticism, in which ultimately the entire cosmic order, and the human person in totality- body, spirit, senses, mind, emotions, are involved. There can be no short cut to the study and absorption of Tibetan Buddhism, and it is hardly surprising that the Buddhist laity seem for the most part to be content with an uncomprehending observance of outward forms, based on a few simplistic beliefs, and show little understanding (at an intellectual level at least) of the complexities of their faith.

The Muslim community of the Leh area has descended either from immigrants, or from marriages contracted by local women with Muslim merchants from Kashmir and Yarkand settled in Leh. This mixed community, the Arghons, Sunnis by persuasion, have an influence in the town out of all proportion to their fairly small numbers. The most important of the immigrant-descended groups is the Balti community of the large village of Chushot, across the Indus, about fifteen kilometres upriver from Leh. They are believed to have come from Baltistan as much as 350 years ago. Like the Kargil Muslims, the Chushot Baltis too are Shias, and many of them follow injunctions of their faith with uncompromising strictness. The Chushot Baltis as well as the Arghons, in all matters not directly governed by their religion, live in a way that is not so different from that of their Buddhist neighbours.

The Christian community lies in Leh and a few of the surrounding villages though the percentage of people of Christian community is comparatively fewer. Most of the people of this community belong to the top rungs of Ladakhi society and were converted by Moravian missionaries. Two major churches are built in and around Ladakh which are located in Leh and another in Shey.