Bön

Bön is said to have come from the old kingdom of Zhangzhung. Before Buddhism arrived, priests called bon performed rites for the Yarlung kings. Bonpos trace their faith to the Buddha Tönpa Shenrab, and hold that it was driven underground, its scriptures hidden as termas for later discovery.

The organised tradition known as Yungdrung Bön took shape in the tenth and eleventh centuries, from the same circles of tantric ritualists that produced the Nyingma school. The monk Nyammé Sherab Gyaltsen founded Menri Monastery in 1405 and gave Bön its monastic curriculum. Pushed to the margins by the Buddhist schools, Bön survived chiefly in Kham and Amdo. The Fifth Dalai Lama formally recognised it as a Tibetan religion.