Norbulingka stands on terraced ground in the Kangra Valley below the hill-station of Dharamsala, in the mountainous north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. Dharamsala denotes a place of shelter, usually for pilgrims. During the British Raj, it was host to ailing soldiers and administrative officers and British wives and children escaping the heat of the plains in the summer. At independence in 1947, India was partitioned and many people left Dharamsala for the newly created Pakistan, while others travelling in the opposite direction settled in Dharamsala and rebuilt their lives. Barely twelve years later, in 1960, His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet was invited to take up temporary residence in Dharamsala and eventually it became the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile.