The historical Buddha Śākyamuni, born in Lumbinī and raised in Kapilavastu, both in present-day Nepal, must have often set his eyes on the slopes and peaks of the Himalaya, the "abode of snow," which can be seen on clear days from either of these places. Some 2,500 years after his birth, the Himalayan regions from Ladakh in the northwest across to Bhutan in the southeast are still suffused with the cultural practices of the Buddhist religion—its manifold rites, practices, and doctrines, its symbols and institutions, all reflecting with great clarity the different waves of the spread of the Buddha's teaching to the Himalaya.

Patrons and Preceptors

The region of Kashmir, where Buddhism was first diffused about 250 BCE, on the orders of King Aśoka, later became one of the gateways through which monastic and tantric lineages entered Tibet, especially during the so-called second spread (phyi dar...