Bhutia

The Bhutia (བོད་རིགས; Drenjongpa/Drenjop; ; "inhabitants of Sikkim".) are a community of Sikkimese people living in the state of Sikkim in northeastern India, who speak Drenjongke or Sikkimese, a Tibetic language fairly mutually intelligible with standard Tibetan. In 2001, the Bhutia numbered around 60,300. Bhutia here refers to people of Tibetic ancestry. There are many clans within the Bhutia tribe and Inter-Clan marriages are preferred rather than marriages outside of the tribe. This page specifically talks about the “Sikkimese Bhutia’s” and not the wider group of communities spread throughout India & Nepal known as Bhotiya. The language spoken by the Bhutias in Sikkim is Sikkimese, which is 75% mutually intelligible with Tibetan and Dzongkha, the language of Bhutan. Most Bhutias practice the Nyingma school, followed by the Kagyu school of Tibetan Buddhism. History of Sikkim From the 8th century, people migrated from Tibet to Sikkim in small numbers. But during the 13th century many clans came with Gyed Bum Sa, and thereafter there was a series of Lamas who visited southwards, because of the constant conflicts between Red hat and Yellow Hat in Tibet. With the final victory of the Yellow hats in the mid-1600s. There was a mass persecution of the followers of the Red hat sect by the victorious Güshi Khan and his Gelug allies. Many fearing the same fate as their Red hat brethren fled southwards towards Sikkim and Bhutan. In consequence, there are Red hat majorities in both Bhutan and Sikkim to this day. They migrated through the different passes ("La" in Tibetan means "hill") in the Himalayas. Geographical indications in the Bhutias' last names are common. In Northern Sikkim, for example, where the Bhutias are the majority inhabitants, they are known as the Lachenpas or Lachungpas, meaning inhabitants of Lachen (; "big pass") or Lachung (; "small pass") respectively. Bhutia aristocrats were called Kazis after similar landlord titles in neighboring regions, especially in modern-day Bangladesh.