bon

Bon, also spelled Bön (Tibetan: བོན་, Wylie: bon, Lhasa dialect: [pʰø̃̀]) is considered to be the native pre-Buddhist religious tradition of Tibet. A distinction is sometimes made between:

the Old Bon or Bön nying (Wylie: bon rnying), dating back to the pre-dynastic era;
the Eternal Bon or Yungdrung Bön (Wylie: g.yung drung bon), the classical Bon tradition (which emerged in the 10th–11th centuries); and
the New Bon or Bonsar (Wylie: bon gsar), a late syncretic movement dating back to the 14th century and active in eastern Tibet.The relationship between Bon and Tibetan Buddhism has been a subject of debate. Followers of Bon, known as Bonpos (Wylie: bon po), believe that the religion originated in a land called Takzig (Wylie: stag gzig, i.e. "Tajik"), identified by scholars variously as Tajikistan, other parts of the Persian Empire or perhaps also the area around Mount Kailash in the west of the Tibetan Plateau. Bonpos identify Shenrab Miwo (Wylie: gshen rab mi bo) as Bon's founder, although there are no available sources to establish this figure's historicity. From Tazig, Bon was brought first to Zhang Zhung, a kingdom to the west of the Tibetan Plateau, and then to Tibet. Western scholars have posited several origins for Bon, and have used the term Bon in many ways.
Tibetan Buddhist scholarship tends to cast Bon in a negative, adversarial light, with derogatory stories about Bon appearing in a number of Buddhist histories. The Rimé movement within Tibetan religion 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 English scholar David Snellgrove's work. 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. Today, Bon is practiced by Tibetans both in Tibet and in the Tibetan diaspora, and there are Bonpo centers in cities around the world.

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