ABSTRACT
Tibet is identified as a pacific Buddhist nation in popular imagination, and the journey to Buddhism was prefaced by syncretism of the earlier Bon religion and in terms of political ideology meant a transition from a warrior nation to a pacific Buddhist nation. A geographic introduction to Tibet would serve to elaborate the context. In the contemporary historical discourse, Tibet has come to signify a geographical region in Inner Asia/Central Asia bordered by China and India and identified by Buddhism as one of the central and inseparable features of this vast landscape. However, to the academic observer, the cartographic eye unravels Tibet on a journey to the highlands of the Tibetan culture area spanning vast and diverse regions in China, India, Nepal, Bhutan and extending to Mongolia and Russia. While the narrative of Tibet as a region that transcends national borders is best expressed by the geographical continuity of the Tibetan plateau, the cultural continuity is expressed by the spread of Buddhist monasteries which disseminated the Tibetan culture, and the political continuity is broken and has been changing from time to time depending on larger historical developments.
