Religion pervades many aspects of Tibetan life and culture, and the dominant, institutional religious system of Tibet is Buddhism (sangs rgyas kyi bstan pa). The Tibetan Bon religion, in its organized, clerical dimension, is a form of Buddhism whose first human teacher, Ston pa Gshen rab (Tönpa Shenrab), is always referred to by the Bon po as a buddha (sangs rgyas) who lived long before Śākyamuni. Bon, like the other forms of Buddhism in Tibet, embraces a wide-ranging sphere of cultural and religious activity, whose elaborate traditions of ritual, art, and learning derive from both indigenous sources and the ancient religious matrices of India, Iran, and China.

Besides the originally "foreign" traditions of Buddhism and Bon, Tibetan religions embrace a broad range of beliefs, practices, and specialist practitioners that appear to be of autochthonous origin. These may be found in both Bon po...