The original inhabitants of Sikkim were the Lepchas. The Lepchas have no written records, but their rich heritage of colourful legends and imaginative myths help to reconstruct their past. This oral tradition talks of various Lepcha chieftains going back to 1400 AD when Tur-ve Pa-no ruled the land.

It was in the fifteen country, during the rule of Lepchas chief Thekung Tek, that the first major migration of the Tibetan Kham people into Sikkim took place. Legend has it that a mighty Kham King, Kye Bhumsa, and his wife, remained childless for many years and were atlast advised by lamas to seek the advice of Thekung Tek, who had the reputation of being a ser. Accoedingly, Key Bhumsa, with a small group of followers, crossed the Yak-la and Pelong mountains and reached Sat-la near Rangpo. Bearing many gifts, he sought the audience of Thekung Tek in the dwelling in the deep jungles. He was told that he would father three sons. In due course this prophecy came true. A blood-brotherhood was sworn between Kye-Bhumsa, his sons, and Thekung Tek and his wife. With this, the Lepchas agreed that the Bhutias could settle in Sikkim and the two tribes would live harmoniously as friends. The Lepcha chief erected nine stones facing Mount Kanchendzonga at Kabi to mark tha pact and invoked all the guardian deties of Sikkim as witnesses. The nine stones marking the first pact between the Lepchas and the Bhutia Longstok and to this day the Sikkimese celebrate the anniversary of the pact on the fifteenth day of the ninth month of the Tibetan calendar.

Kye Bhumsa’s second son, Mipon- Rab , settled in Gangtok. His Tibetan Kinsmen inter-married With the local Lepcha Population and despite the agreement that the two groups should enjoy perfect parity, the settler were soon the dominant power and their religion, Buddhism, gradually began establishing its hegemony over the entire population.
The Consolidation of the Bhutia’s superior position in Sikkim occurred with the crowing of Mipon-Rab’s, Phuntsog Namgyal, as the King of Sikkim in 1642. According to Sikkim lore, three lamas trevelling along different mountain paths convened at Yoksam in West Sikkim. The triumvirate debated the ned for Sikkim to have a temporal and spiritual head who would actively propagate Buddhism among the people. Messengers were then sent to gangtok to summon Phuntsog Namgyal to Yoksam. And at Yoksam, he was consecrated by the learned priests as the first Chogyal of Sikkim.Namgyal