Bon
Tibetan religion / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Bon or Bön (Tibetan: བོན་, Wylie: bon, ZYPY: Pön, Lhasa dialect: [pʰø̃̀]), also known as Yungdrung Bon (Tibetan: གཡུང་དྲུང་བོན་, Wylie: gyung drung bon, ZYPY: Yungchung Pön, lit. 'eternal Bon'), is the indigenous Tibetan religion which shares many similarities and influences with Tibetan Buddhism.[1] It initially developed in the tenth and eleventh centuries[2] but retains elements from earlier Tibetan religious traditions.[3][4] Bon is a significant minority religion in Tibet, especially in the east, as well as in the surrounding Himalayan regions.[1][4]
The relationship between Bon and Tibetan Buddhism has been a subject of debate. According to the modern scholar Geoffrey Samuel, while Bon is "essentially a variant of Tibetan Buddhism" with many resemblances to Nyingma, it also preserves some genuinely ancient pre-Buddhist elements.[1] David Snellgrove likewise sees Bon as a form of Buddhism, albeit a heterodox kind.[5] Similarly, John Powers writes that "historical evidence indicates that Bön only developed as a self-conscious religious system under the influence of Buddhism".[6]
Followers of Bon, known as "Bonpos" (Wylie: bon po), believe that the religion originated in a kingdom called Zhangzhung, located around Mount Kailash in the Himalayas.[7] Bonpos hold that Bon was brought first to Zhangzhung, and then to Tibet.[8] Bonpos identify the Buddha Shenrab Miwo (Wylie: gshen rab mi bo) as Bon's founder, although no available sources establish this figure's historicity.[9]
Western scholars have posited several origins for Bon, and have used the term "Bon" in many ways. A distinction is sometimes made between an ancient Bon (Wylie: bon rnying), dating back to the pre-dynastic era before 618 CE; a classical Bon tradition (also called Yungdrung Bon – Wylie: g.yung drung bon) which emerged in the 10th and 11th centuries;[10] and "New Bon" or Bon Sar (Wylie: bon gsar), a late syncretic movement dating back to the 14th century and active in eastern Tibet.[11][12][13]
Tibetan Buddhist scholarship tends to cast Bon in a negative, adversarial light, with derogatory stories about Bon appearing in a number of Buddhist histories.[14] The Rimé movement within Tibetan Buddhism encouraged more ecumenical attitudes between Bonpos and Buddhists. Western scholars began to take Bon seriously as a religious tradition worthy of study in the 1960s, in large part inspired by the work of English scholar David Snellgrove.[15] Following the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, Bonpo scholars began to arrive in Europe and North America, encouraging interest in Bon in the West.[16] Today, a proportion of Tibetans – both in Tibet and in the Tibetan diaspora – practise Bon, and there are Bonpo centers in cities around the world.