To trace the origins of the Tibetan people's belief in Buddhism we need to go back 1,300 years into the past. Buddhism has not always existed on the Tibetan plateau. Prior to the advent of Buddhism, the native religion of the Land of Snows which flourished more than 1,300 years ago was Bonism, founded by Shenrab Miboche, born in Tsada Dzong of present-day Ngari Prefecture. It is traditionally said that not long after Sakyamuni had passed into Nirvana, there lived a young boy named Shen who was kidnapped by a demon at the ago of thirteen and was not released for another thirteen years. When the boy returned at the age of twenty-six, he was found to have miraculous abilities with the powers of prophecy and exorcism. People named him Shenrab (Great Teacher) and respected him as an immortal. This Shenrab, the founder of Bon, brought with him neither scripture nor doctrine, but simply taught the people to worship gods, to pray, to drive out ghosts, to subdue demons and so on.

Primitive Bon religion shared similarities with animist religions still in existence in some regions of the world. In those days because of man's lack of under-standing of natural phenomena such as the movement of the sun, moon and stars, the peculiar shapes of the mountains and rivers, and various climatic phenomena, in the minds of the people these things became invest-ed with divinity, resulting in the worship of the sun, moon and stars, and even animals such as the beginnings of Bonism. The Bon religion divided the universe into three worlds: Heaven, Earth and the Underworld. In order to ward off harm from the spirits, people commonly smeared red dye on their faces, and in dealing with and sort of mystery, rituals were per-formed such as "avoiding misfortune by praying" the consultation of oracles, and exorcism. This primitive stage of Bon is known to historians as Dolbon.

A second wave of Bon exponents came from the west when after the assassination of the eighth Tubo Tsanpo, Drigum Tsanpo, his descendants invited some Bon followers from Kashmir, Drusha and Shangshung, with the aim of avenging Drigum's murder. Later, a Bon scholar named Pandita Shamthab Ngonpo introduced the doctrines of the six different philosophic schools, also known as the doctrines of the Six Non-Buddhist Masters, and combined them with the native Bon religion to form the complete Bon doctrine of the Tubos, Known as the Kyarbon.