ABSTRACT
Until the recent military occupation of Tibet by the Chinese, the history of Tibetan thought is to all intents the same as the history of Tibetan Buddhism, which has greatly overshadowed the native Tibetan religion of Bönism. Buddhism was diffused in Tibet over a long period, from the eighth to the thirteenth centuries CE, generally subdivided by its historians into two phases. The first phase, dated approximately from the founding of the first Buddhist monastery at Bsam-yas in the late eighth century, involved influences from both India in the West and China in the East. This process was disrupted by the political disintegration of the country in 842 CE. It was only when stability returned with the establishment of a new royal dynasty towards the end of the tenth century that the ‘second diffusion’ of Buddhism in Tibet could begin. This phase differed from the first in that the influences were entirely Indian in origin.
