Buddhism
Buddhism came to Tibet from India in the 7th — 8th centuries A.D. and gradually, though not without difficulties, started to prevail in this region. With the influence of the indigenous Bon religion, the Tibetan Buddhism was formed.
There were over 6,000 monasteries in Tibet, and nearly all were ransacked and destroyed by the Chinese communists (many of them young ethnic Tibetan Red Guards), mainly during the Cultural Revolution. Most of the major ones have been at least partially re-established but many still remain in ruins.
Read more about this topic: Religion In Tibet
Famous quotes containing the word buddhism:
“A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of mankind if presented only as a system of metaphysics. Buddhism owed its success to its catholic spirit and its beautiful morality.”
—W. Winwood Reade (1838–1875)