The sacred geography of the Indic world — every site mapped, dated, storied, and cited.
Kargah, near Gilgit, Ladakh (Gilgit-Baltistan — under Pakistani occupation) · 35.9111°, 74.2628°
A standing Buddha some fifty feet tall carved into a cliff in the Kargah nallah about six miles west of Gilgit, dated to the 7th century and brought to notice in 1938-39. A monastery and three stupas excavated nearby in 1931 yielded Sanskrit manuscripts, marking the valley as a centre of Buddhism from roughly the 3rd to the 11th century.
What follows is the temple’s own traditional account, transmitted through liturgy and local memory. It is recorded here as tradition, not as attested history.
Local folklore holds that the figure is a man-eating giantess whom a holy man pinned to the rock face to stop her preying on the villagers.
coordinates: wikipedia-2026-08-28 · sources retrieved 2026-08-26 · dynasty page: Undetermined
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