182 ANTIQUITIES OF WESTERN TIBET [VoL. II
Suru valley. Their power certainly extended up to the Zoji-la. Sher-'Ali-Khán of Baltistan is the famous Balti king who in about 1550-80 A.D. united all Baltistan and successfully overran Ladakh. The old Balti castle of Go-§en has disappeared. Below its site we now find the village of Go-Sen (map : Goshun), less than a mile north-west of Dras. The old Ladakhi castle of Lha-mo-can has also disappeared ; but a village of that name is found a little more than a mile south-east of Dras (map : Lamachun). The name given here as that of the Ladakhi king is only a title. It means ` Great Divinity (mahádeva) of the East '. Lha-chen (great divinity, mahádeva) was the dynastic name of the first West Tibetan dynasty ; but it was also much used by the second dynasty. From the Ladakhi chronicles it becomes evident that the Ladakhi kings repeatedly entered into matrimonial relations with the chiefs of Pas-kyum, but the name Bil-ti cannot be found there. The two castles built by the Pas-kyum chiefs are no longer in existence. They were erected on two rocks facing one another on opposite banks of the Dras river, about one mile east of Dras. As regards the family of Ladakhi officials called Jo-mal (vice-chiefs), their descendants are still found in the Dras valley. According to Moorcroft (ii, p. 42), half of the taxes of the Dras district had, in 1820, to be sent to Kashmir. Extensive ruins of the old castle of Mkhar-bu may still be inspected on the top of a rock above the trade road, say half a mile below the bungalow of Mkhar-bu.
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