Tibetan Buddhism. In Japanese， also Chibetto Bukkyo^. Tibet bordered directly on India， and although the spread of Buddhism into that area was continuous， it was not until the seventh century that a solid Buddhist element had developed. Tibet was an isolated mountain country and also possessed a well-established native tradition in the Bon religion. Nonetheless， through the eighth and ninth centuries Buddhism grew in influence， and sects began to form as the Tripitaka was translated into the Tibetan language. The eleventh century was a period of significant growth for Tibetan Buddhism through the influence of three major teachers of the period， Atis!a （982-1054）， Marpa （1012-1097）， and Milarepa （1040-1123）. The origins of Tibetan Buddhism's most well-known sect， the Gelukpa （"Partisans of Virtue"）， can be traced back to its influential teacher， Tsong-kha-pa （1357-1419）. It was Tsong-kha-pa and his school who implemented the famous geshe training system， wherein monks study at a Buddhist monastic college until they attain the equivalent of a Ph.D. in Buddhist philosophy. To this day Gelukpa monks are trained in accordance with this geshe system， accounting for the strong level of scholastic discipline for which this sect is famous. Tsong-kha-pa's line is also associated with the development of a custom familiar to many modern people--the Dalai Lama system. The term lama 喇嘛 means "spiritual guide" and is equivalent to the Sanskrit term， guru. The Dalai Lama line started in the fifteenth century with the third successor in Tsong-kha-pa's line， his nephew Gendun Truppa， who was believed to be an incarnation of the great bodhisattva Avalokite/svara. Since the time of this first Dalai Lama， the Dalai Lamas have been considered to be the ongoing reincarnation of Avalokite/svara， who is repeatedly found as a baby born forty-nine days after the death of the prior incarnation. The present Dalai Lama is the fourteenth incarnation in this line.
In terms of doctrine and practice， Tibetan Buddhism has been developed primarily out of three major streams that it received from India: Ma^dhyamika 中观派， Yoga^ca^ra 瑜伽行派 and Vajraya^na 密教. Developments in Tibet of the latter school have been especially pronounced， as the tendencies of indigenous Tibetan shamanic practice thought provided much additional impetus to the Vajrayana tradition that had been developed by the Indians. Thus， Tibetan Buddhism is up to the present distinguished by its extensive use of mantras， ritual， iconography and its precise documentation of esoteric matters such as the passage of the spirit to its next destination after death.