Tobdan

Tobdan originally belongs to the Tod valley of the Lahaul division of the Lahaul and Spiti district, Himachal Pradesh.{{Cite web |title=Ancient Lahul and Himalaya > Tobdan {{!}} Saujanya Books |url=https://www.saujanyabooks.com/details.aspx?id=44636 |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=www.saujanyabooks.com}}{{Cite web |title=Shakspa in Shashur |url=https://www.filminglahaul.com/shakspa-in-shashur/#more-37 |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=filminglahaul |language=}} He is a retired bank official.{{Cite book |last=Stutchbury |first=Elizabeth Anne |title=Rediscovering Western Tibet: Gonpa, Chorten, and the Continuity of Practice with a Tibetan Buddhist Community in the Indian Himalaya. |publisher=PhD diss. at the Australian National University |year=1991 |pages=34}}{{Cite web |date=2017-09-22 |title=Speak up, India |url=https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/blink/cover/speak-up-india/article9867684.ece |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=www.thehindubusinessline.com |language=en}} He lives in the Kullu valley, Himachal Pradesh.{{Cite web |last=Joshi |first=Sriniwas |title=Need to preserve rare manuscripts of Himachal |url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20110406/himplus.htm#7 |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=www.tribuneindia.com}} Tobdan is multilingual. He is fluent in his native sTodpa, Hindi, English, and Punjabi, and is conversant in most of the languages spoken in Himachal Pradesh, Ladakh, and Spiti.{{Cite book |title=People's Linguistic Survey of India: The Languages of Himachal Pradesh (Volume 11, Part 2) |publisher=Orient Blackswan |year=2017 |editor-last=Tobdan |editor-first=Tobdan |location=Delhi}}

Tobdan's work as a historian has focused on the western Himalayan regions of Lahaul, Kullu, and Kinnaur, and the trans-Himalayan regions of Spiti and Ladakh. As a linguist he specializes in the Tibetic languages of the Lahaul and Spiti district (see Bibliography).

Tobdan was among the founder-members of the non-governmental organization 'Society for Conservation and Promotion of Culture in Lahaul & Spiti', and the chief editor of its annual, and later bi-annual magazine Kunzom, which was published from 2005 to 2014.{{Cite book |last= |first= |title=Kunzom |publisher=Society for Conservation and Promotion of Culture in Lahaul & Spiti |year=2006 |location=Kullu }}{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/kunzom-vol-04-2010 |title=Kunzom, Vol. 4 (2009-10) |date=2010 |publisher=Society for Conservation and Promotion of Culture in Lahaul & Spiti |others=Tobdan }} Kunzom published short stories, poems, folksongs and grammatical sketches in various languages spoken in the Lahaul and Spiti district.

Tobdan writes in English, Hindi, and Tibetan.{{Cite web |title=kaveribooks.com: Ancient Lahul and Himalaya Tobdan Hardbound 9789386463142 |url=http://www.kaveribooks.com/index.php?p=sr&Uc=9789386463142 |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=www.kaveribooks.com}}

• Tobdan supports the claim that Buddhism was present in Lahaul before the advent of Tibetan Buddhism, and discusses them in some of his Lahaul-based works.{{Cite book |last=Tobdan |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jroeAAAAMAAJ |title=History & Religions of Lahul: From the Earliest to Circa A.D. 1950 |date=1984 |publisher=Books Today |pages=87 |language=en}}{{Cite journal |last=Berti |first=Daniela |date=2001 |title=Book review of Joshi et al (eds.) 'Himalaya: Past and Present Vol IV, 1993-94 |journal=European Bulletin of Himalayan Research |volume=20 |issue=1 |pages=228–232}}
• In 2010, he opposed diverting water from natural water channels for hydroelectric dams in the Lahaul region.{{Cite web |last=Chauhan |first=Kuldeep |date=July 14, 2010 |title=Tribals up in arms over Jispa Dam |url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/2010/20100715/himachal.htm |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=www.tribuneindia.com}}
• In a 2021 interview, he expressed support for the preservation of the near-extinct Tankri script of the western Himalayas.{{Cite web |last=Sharma |first=Sarika |title=Reviving Takri, Himachal's lost script |url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/features/reviving-takri-himachals-lost-script-343544 |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=Tribuneindia News Service |language=en}}
• In another 2021 interview, Tobdan opined that compared to its neighboring valley Spiti in the Lahaul and Spiti district, Lahaul had received very little scholarly attention. He had intended to bridge that knowledge gap through his body of work and particularly his then-recent book Ancient Lahul and Himalaya.{{Cite web |last=Thakur |first=Kesang |date=December 14, 2021 |title="Ancient Lahul and Himalaya": In Conversation with Mr. Tobdan – FILMING लाहुल |url=https://www.filminglahaul.com/ancient-lahul-and-himalaya-in-conversation-with-mr-tobdan/ |access-date=2022-12-29 |language=en-US}}

Tobdan's works have been cited by many academics and independent scholars as important secondary sources on the histories, languages, and cultures of regions in Himachal Pradesh like Kullu, Lahaul, Spiti, and Kinnaur. These include Moran (2013),{{Cite journal |last=Moran |first=Arik |date=2013 |title=Toward a history of devotional Vaishnavism in the West Himalayas: Kullu and the Ramanandis, c. 1500–1800 |url=http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0019464612474165 |journal=The Indian Economic & Social History Review |language=en |volume=50 |issue=1 |pages=1–25 |doi=10.1177/0019464612474165 |s2cid=144329273 |issn=0019-4646|url-access=subscription }} Tsering (2014),{{Cite journal |last=Tsering |first=Tashi |date=2014 |title=On the Unknown History of a Himalayan Buddhist Enclave: Spiti Valley before the 10th Century |journal=Journal of Research Institute: Historical Development of the Tibetan Languages |volume=51 |pages=523–551}} Bellezza (2015),{{Cite web |last=Bellezza |first=John Vincent |title=June 2015 {{!}} Tibet Archaeology |url=http://www.tibetarchaeology.com/june-2015/ |access-date=2022-12-29 |language=en-US}} Rahimzadeh (2016),{{Cite web |last=Rahimzadeh |first=Aghaghia |date=2016 |title=Mountain Livelihoods in Transition: Constraints and Opportunities in Kinnaur, Western Himalaya |url=https://escholarship.org/content/qt5t29j6n5/qt5t29j6n5.pdf |website=UC Berkeley PhD diss}} Bhattacharya (2017),{{Cite book |last=Bhattacharya |first=Himika |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xm8kDwAAQBAJ&dq=himika+bhattacharya+narrating+love+and+violence&pg=PT4 |title=Narrating Love and Violence: Women Contesting Caste, Tribe, and State in Lahaul, India |date=2017-12-28 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=978-0-8135-8955-8 |language=en}} Chamberlain and Chamberlain (2019),{{Cite book |last1=Chamberlain |first1=Brad |url=https://www.sil.org/system/files/reapdata/14/18/32/141832844209183669770425266092693708252/silesr2019_006.pdf |title=A Sociolinguistic Survey of Lahul Valley, Himachal Pradesh |last2=Chamberlain |first2=Wendy |publisher=SIL International |year=2019}} and Halperin (2019).{{Cite book |last=Halperin |first=Ehud |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mw22DwAAQBAJ&dq=halperin+hadimba&pg=PA161 |title=The Many Faces of a Himalayan Goddess: Hadimba, Her Devotees, and Religion in Rapid Change |date=2019-10-15 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-091359-5 |language=en}}

Elizabeth Anne Stutchbury, who conducted her doctoral research in Lahaul in the early 1980s, appreciated Tobdan's early initiative, as a Lahauli local, of studying and documenting his homeland, while decrying the general lack of any in-depth anthropological research on Lahaul at that point of time.{{Cite book |last=Stutchbury |first=Elizabeth Anne |title=Rediscovering Western Tibet: Gonpa, Chorten, and the Continuity of Practice with a Tibetan Buddhist Community in the Indian Himalaya. |publisher=PhD diss. at the Australian National University |year=1991 |pages=43}}

John Bray commends Tobdan and Dorje's book on the Moravian missionaries in western Himalayas (2008) as a valuable contribution that makes information from disparate sources on this subject more readily available.{{Cite journal |last=Bray |first=John |date=2008 |title=Review of 'Moravian Missionaries in Western Trans-Himalaya (Lahul, Ladakh and Kinnaur)' by Tobdan and C. Dorje |url=https://ladakhstudies553872937.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/ls22.pdf |journal=Ladakh Studies |volume=22 |pages=55–57}}

• Tobdan was the editor of the Himachal Pradesh volume of the People's Linguistic Survey of India, which was led by G.N. Devy (who was also the series editor).{{Cite web |title=PLSI Associates |url=https://bhasha.frappe.cloud/plsi/associates |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=bhasha.frappe.cloud |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=The complete list of volumes of the People's Linguistic Survey of India |url=https://www.orientblackswan.com/downloads/PLSI_Volumes_List.pdf |access-date=December 29, 2022 |website=orientblackswan}}
• He has been the member of the Governing Body of the Himachal Pradesh Academy of Arts, Culture, and Languages.
• He was among the main contributors of the Academy's 2011 volume (in Hindi) on the life and cultures of Lahaul and Spiti district.{{Cite web |last=Joshi |first=Sriniwas |title=Unfolding the mystical Lahaul-Spiti |url=https://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111102/himplus.htm#top |access-date=2022-12-29 |website=www.tribuneindia.com}}
• Some volumes of the Kunzom magazine's have been digitally archived on archive.org.{{Cite book |url=http://archive.org/details/kunzom-volume-01-2005 |title=Kunzom, Vol. 1 (2005) |date=2005 |publisher=Society for Conservation and Promotion of Culture in Lahaul & Spiti |others=Tobdan}}

As of 2021, Tobdan had written the following books:

1. Tobdan. 1984. History and Religions of Lahul: From The Earliest To Circa A.D. 1950.  Delhi: Books Today.
2. Tobdan. 1993. The People of the Upper Valley: The Stodpas of Lahul in the Himalayas. Delhi: Book India Publishing.
3. Tobdan, and Chhering Dorje. 1996. Historical Documents from Western Trans-Himalaya. Lahul, Zanskar and Ladakh. Delhi: Book India Publishing.
4. Tobdan. 2008. Cultural History of Western Trans-Himalayas: Bashahar Kinnaur. Aryan Books.
5. Tobdan. 2008. Moravian Missionaries in Western Trans-Himalaya: Lahul Ladakh and Kinnaur. Delhi: Kaveri Books.
6. Tobdan. 2011. Exploring Malana: An Ancient Culture Hidden in the Himalayas. Indus Publishers.
7. Tobdan. 2015. Nathapanth in Western Himalaya. Delhi: Kaveri Books.
8. Tobdan. 2015. Spiti: A Study in Socio-Cultural Traditions. Delhi: Kaveri Books.
9. Tobdan. 2015. A Grammar of sTodpa (A Language of Lahul in the Western Himalaya). Kaithal: Amrit Books.
10. Devy, G.N., and Tobdan, eds. 2017. The Languages of Himachal Pradesh: People’s  Linguistic Survey of India. Volume Eleven. Orient Blackswan.
11. Tobdan. 2019. Zong Gonpa of Village Tinno. New Delhi: Kaveri Books.
12. Tobdan. 2020. sTodpa Language of Lahul in the Himalaya. Delhi: Kaveri Books.
13. Tobdan. 2020. Bhoti Parichay: Vyakaran aur Anuvad (in Hindi). Delhi: Kaveri Books.
14. Tobdan. 2021. Ancient Lahaul and Himalaya. Delhi: Kaveri Books.
15. Tobdan. 2022. The Brave Soldiers of Lahaul - the Saviours of Ladakh in 1948. Delhi: Kaveri Books.

{{authority control}}

Category:People from Lahaul and Spiti district

Category:Scholars from Himachal Pradesh

Category:20th-century Indian historians

Category:21st-century Indian historians

Category:20th-century Indian linguists

Category:21st-century Indian linguists

Category:People from Kullu district

Category:1944 births

Category:Living people

Category:Tibetologists

Category:Himalayan studies

Category:People from Punjab Province (British India)