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Likir Gompa, situated in a tranquil valley off the main road, is famous for its huge statue of the Buddha Maitreya

The earliest Buddhists probably came to Ladakh in the third century BC. Later the Ghandaran civilisation from Taxila in northwest Pakistan influenced Ladakh with its links to the ancient Buddhas of Bamiyan. Buddhism spread all along the Silk Route into China, and superseded the old Tibetan Bon faith on the plateau itself. In the second century AD, the Kushana kings of the Kashmir region ruled over the predominantly Buddhist region that extended into Ladakh; King Kanishka probably constructed a chorten in Zanskar. As early as the fifth century AD, the cult of Maitreya Buddha was found in Ladakh, according to the celebrated Chinese monk explorer Fa Hsien.

During the eighth century the spread of Tantric ideas – emanating from an inter-religious spiritual movement that arose in medieval India in the fifth century – began to influence Buddhist traditions, heralding Buddhism’s eventual decline across India, as Hinduism gained in popularity.