Note {3} — Chapter XXXI

Note 3.—Though the earliest entrance of Buddhism into Tibet was from India Proper, yet Káshmir twice in the history of Tibetan Buddhism played a most important part. It was in Káshmir that was gathered, under the patronage of the great King Kanishka, soon after our era, the Fourth Buddhistic Council, which marks the point of separation between Northern and Southern Buddhism. Numerous missionaries went forth from Káshmir to spread the doctrine in Tibet and in Central Asia. Many of the Pandits who laboured at the translation of the sacred books into Tibetan were Kashmiris, and it was even in Káshmir that several of the translations were made. But these were not the only circumstances that made Káshmir a holy land to the Northern Buddhists. In the end of the 9th century the religion was extirpated in Tibet by the Julian of the Lamas, the great persecutor Langdarma, and when it was restored, a century later, it was from Káshmir in particular that fresh missionaries were procured to reinstruct the people in the forgotten Law. (See Koeppen, II. 12–13, 78; J. As. sér. VI. tom. vi. 540.)