Kullu

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Kullu, once known as Kul-anti-peetha - "the end of the habitable world", is the capital town of the Kullu District, in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. It is located on the banks of the Beas River in the Kullu Valley about ten kilometres north of the airport at Bhuntar.Kullu is a broad open valley formed by the Beas river between Manali and Largi. This valley is famous for the beauty and its majestic hills covered with Pine and Deodar Forest and sprawling Apple Orchards.The course of the Beas river presents a succession of magnificent, clad with forests of Deodar, yowering above trees of Pine on the lower rocky ridges. Kullu valley is sandwiched between the Pir Panjal, Lower Himalayan and Great Himalayan range.

History

Kullu (1220m) was once known as Kulanthpitha - `the end of the habitable world`. Beyond rose the forbidding heights of the Greater Himalayas, and by the banks of the shining river Beas, lay the fabled `Silver Valley`.

The Chinese pilgrim monk Xuanzang visited the Kullu Valley in 634 or 635 CE. He describes it as a fertile region completely surrounded by mountains, about 3,000 li in circuit, with a capital 14 or 15 li in circumference. It contained a tope built by Ashoka said to mark the place where the Buddha preached to the local people and made conversions. There were some twenty Buddhist Monasteries, with about 1,000 monks, most of whom were Mahayanist....
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