Tawang Thermal Springs

Tawang Thermal Springs are situated in Tawang District of Arunachal Pradesh, close to one of Buddhism's most significant institutions in the eastern Himalayan world — Tawang Monastery, the largest Buddhist monastery in India and the second-largest in Asia after the Potala Palace in Lhasa, founded in 1681 by Merak Lama Lodre Gyatso and set at 3,048 meters on a dramatic hilltop overlooking the valley town, its golden rooftops visible from miles away and its library preserving thousands of ancient Tibetan Buddhist texts. Tawang is also the birthplace of the 6th Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, and the district's territory is disputed between India and China, whose 1962 border war was fought partly across these mountains — the McMahon Line, drawn in 1914, forms India's claimed northeastern border here in a region China still considers part of its Tibet Autonomous Region. The hot springs here draw on geothermal activity in the Eastern Himalayan thrust belt, providing bicarbonate mineral bathing in one of Buddhism's most historically resonant and geopolitically sensitive highland landscapes.