Sanskrit Royal Culture Spreads into the Himalayas

Largely untouched by political conflicts elsewhere in the subcontinent, various kingdoms begin to emerge across the Himalayas and the Tibetan plateau, often adopting elements of royal culture from the mainland. The Kumaon kingdom, across the western and central Himalayas, comes under the control of the Katyuri dynasty. By the ninth century, the independent Garhwal kingdom emerges in the eponymous region, legitimising itself through an adherence to Puranic narratives and the patronage of newly converted shrines at Badrinath and Kedarnath, around which temples are built in the Nagara style and dedicated to Hindu deities. Simultaneously, elites adopt Buddhism in the neighbouring Tibetan region, primarily by way of present-day Nepal and Bengal, between the seventh and ninth centuries .