The Spread of Buddhism

the buddhist way into tibet 337

15. Conclusion

We have seen that Buddhism penetrated into Tibet in diverse ways and
under highly complex socio-political circumstances. The new religion
was not simply introduced from India around the seventh century, but
probably found its way to the Tibetan plateau much earlier, in all prob-
ability from China and the Buddhist oasis states of Central Asia. The
amount of early Tibetan translations of Buddhist texts from the Chinese
and Khotanese languages con rm this assumption. For a long time
Tibetologists suspected that Buddhism at the time of Srong-btsan-sgam-
po and his immediate successors was limited to the court and the small
circle of the nobility. In the light of the new evidence that emphasises
the advanced and widespread administrative structures of the Buddhist
institution we have to reconsider this opinion. Buddhism even in these
early times was more widespread than hitherto assumed and perhaps
also more engrained in the lives of the people. This assumption is sup-
ported, in my opinion, by the  ndings in Dunhuang. Many fragments
in Old Tibetan were nothing else than writing exercises by members
of the Tibetan troops stationed in East Turkestan, pointing at a wide-
spread literacy among the Tibetans during these times. We cannot say
to what degree people adhered to Buddhist religious ideas and rituals,
but we have to stress the fact that the new religion was able to establish
its monastic communities and temples even in remote corners of the
Tibetan empire in the royal period, apparently  nding donors (yon-
bdag) among the local nobility or the common people. Maybe further
research will highlight the role the common Tibetan people played in
the establishment of Buddhism during the royal period.

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