quently encountered myth, the first king of Tibet descended
from heaven (“the sky”) and alighted on the summit of a
mountain (according to later sources, he made the descent
by means of a supernatural rope or ladder). At the foot of
the mountain he was received by his subjects. The earliest
kings were believed to have ascended bodily to heaven by the
same means, thus leaving no corpse behind. Furthermore,
the king was assimilated to the sacred mountain itself, just
as in later popular religion the distinction between a sacred
mountain and the deity residing on it was often blurred.
The myth relates that when the seventh king was killed,
funerary rites had to be performed for the first time, In fact,
in historical times (i.e., from the sixth century CE onward)
huge funerary mounds were erected, assimilated both to the
sacred mountains and to the kings, the tombs being given
names that consisted of the same elements as those found in
the names of the kings themselves. The death of a king was
surrounded by elaborate rituals: processions, sacrifices, and
the depositing on a lavish scale of all sorts of precious objects
in the burial chamber. The officiating priests were known ge-
nerically as bon pos, but apparently there were numerous spe-
cialized subgroups. Animals were sacrificed: in particular,
sheep, horses, and yaks. The sacrificial sheep seem to have
had an important role as guides for the deceased along the
difficult road leading to the land of the dead—a land appar-
ently conceived of in terms analogous to that of the living,
Servants and officials, perhaps also members of the family,
were assigned to the dead king as his “companions”; it is un-
certain, however, whether they, too, actually accompanied
him to the grave, or, as certain later sources suggest, only
lived within the precincts of the tomb for a specified period.
A surviving early text outlines an eschatological cosmol-
ogy that embodies a cyclical view of time. In a “golden age”
plants and animals are transposed from their celestial home
to the earth for the benefit of humanity. Virtue and “good
religion” reign supreme. However, a demon breaks loose
from his subterranean abode and causes a general decline in
morals as well as in the physical world. Those who neverthe-
less follow the path of virtue and honor the gods are led after
death to a land of bliss. In the meantime, the world rapidly
reaches a point at which everything is destroyed, whereupon
a new golden age begins in which the virtuous dead are re-
born. Thus the cycle presumably—the text is not explicit—
repeats itself.
Little is known of the pantheon of the pre-Buddhist reli-
gion. The universe was conceived of as having three levels:
the world above (the sky), inhabited by gods (lha); the mid-
dle world (the earth), the abode of human beings; and the
world below (the subterranean world, conceived of as aquat-
ic), inhabited by a class of beings known as klu (and later as-
similated to the Indian na ̄gas).
According to some sources, the heavenly world above
had thirteen levels, inhabited by a hierarchy of male and fe-
male deities. Both Chinese sources and epigraphic evidence
speak of the sun, the moon, and the stars being invoked as
guardians and guarantors of treaties. Sacrifices in the form
of various animals were made at the conclusion of the treaty
of 822 between China and Tibet. By this time, however,
Buddhism had appeared on the scene and the Three Jewels
of Buddhism (i.e., Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha) were also
invoked. A Buddhist monk with the rank of minister was at
the head of the Tibetan delegation.
The subterranean beings, the klu, posed a constant dan-
ger to humanity, since they were particularly prone to be an-
noyed by activities that interfered with the surface of the
land, such as plowing and digging. The klu could cause the
eruption of diseases, especially leprosy and dropsy, that could
only be cured through rites of atonement and propitiation.
However, in determining the details of these rites and in ob-
taining specific information about the host of demons pre-
sumably populating the supernatural world of the ancient
Tibetans we are to a large extent reduced to speculation on
the basis of later, popular religious practices. Likewise, we
meet with the names of various types of deities that are of
great importance in later, popular religion: warrior god (dgra
bla), god of the fireplace (thab lha), life god (srog lha), god
of the land (yul lha), and so on.
It is difficult to establish which elements in the pre-
Buddhist religion are truly indigenous, The later sources in-
sist that many of the Bon priests came from countries border-
ing Tibet, in particular, areas to the west. After Buddhism
had triumphed, the Tibetans themselves speculated whether
the Bonpos were S ́aiva adepts from Kashmir. Possible influ-
ences emanating from the Iranian world have also been the
subject of speculation by Western scholars, so far without
conclusive evidence. On the other hand, the importance of
the Chinese influence, long ignored, has now been firmly es-
tablished. The royal tombs have obvious Chinese prototypes,
as does the sacredness of the king: he is “god son” (lha sras),
corresponding to the Chinese emperor, the “Son of Heaven”;
he is “sacred and divine” (Dphrul gyi lha), corresponding to
the Chinese sheng-shen. This sacredness is manifested in a su-
pernormal intelligence and in the power to act, politically as
well as militarily.
It has been suggested that the pre-Buddhist religion was
transformed into a coherent political ideology in the seventh
century, modeled on the Chinese cult of the emperor. This
royal religion was, according to this view, referred to as gtsug
or gtsug lag, a word that was defined as “the law of the gods.”
However, the later sources, Buddhist and Bonpo, unani-
mously refer to the ancient religion as Bon, a claim that is
supported by recent research. In any case, the cult of the di-
vine kings disappeared together with the organized priest-
hood.
BUDDHISM. Buddhism was established in Tibet under royal
patronage in the eighth century. In the preceding century,
Tibet had become a unified state and embarked upon a poli-
cy of military conquest resulting in the brief appearance of
a powerful Central Asian empire. The introduction of Bud-
dhism was certainly due to the need to provide this empireTIBETAN RELIGIONS: AN OVERVIEW 9183