introduction 11
ca. 620 AD, that Buddhism aroused some interest. At the same time, a
script suitable for the Tibetan language was brought back from India,
a fact that bene ted the spread of Buddhist ideas. Roughly a century
later, under the reign of Khri-srong-lde-btsan (730–796), Buddhism
was rmly established in Tibet. It was the time when Tibet reached
its largest expansion. Buddhist masters, mainly Indian masters, were
invited to the royal court at Lhasa and Indian Mahyna and tantric
ideas were propagated. Chinese masters, too, played a signi cant role. In
fact, when Indian monks brought Buddhism to Tibet, Buddhism was in
all probability not a new religion, but was already well known through
Chinese and Central Asian mediation. And even after the arrival of the
Indian monks, Chinese in uence remained substantial. Tibet was thus
in no way a secluded country, and the in uence of the surrounding
regions is noticeable in textual and archaeological sources. Like many
other countries, the state promotion of Buddhism led to a growing
proximity between state affairs and the Buddhist sagha. Particularly
in the early ninth century, the shift of power from the secular to the
clerical clearly increased at the expense of the Tibetan nobility. The
subsequent opposition of this nobility, anxious to preserve its privileges
eventually lead to a temporary halt for Buddhism in the middle of the
ninth century, a situation that was to change again a century and a half
later, when a second spread of the dharma was inaugurated.
The second or “later spread” of Buddhism is discussed by Sven
Bretfeld. The term “later spread” usually refers to missionary move-
ments in Tibet from the late tenth century to around the thirteenth
century, the formative period of Tibetan Buddhism as we know it today.
In Tibetan sources this period is commemorated as a religious past
that by its symbols explains the present, socially, culturally, as well as
religiously. As pointed out by Sven Bretfeld, Tibetan Buddhism is not
a homogeneous entity, but a conglomeration of very divergent opin-
ions, also concerning both its history and what Buddhism actually is.
One of the points under discussion is how far-reaching the extinction
of Buddhism in the ninth century actually was. For the rNying-ma-pa
masters (“the Old Ones”) there is even no such thing as extinction.
Instead they claim that their texts and practices have survived without
interruption since the time of the rst introduction of Buddhism in
Tibet. On the other hand, it cannot be denied that, starting from the
late tenth century, there was a revival of Buddhism, stimulated by the
activities and the nancial support of the kings of Western Tibet. From
the west, it spread to the rest of the country. Very successful in his