IOverview
Old Bön is the scholarly name for the religion of the Tibetan plateau before Buddhism arrived in the 7th and 8th centuries. The Tibetologist Per Kværne distinguishes three senses of the word Bön, and Old Bön is the first. The second is Yungdrung Bön, the present day tradition with its canon and monasteries. The third is the folk religion shared by Tibetans generally.
No community today calls itself Old Bön. It is an object of historical study, not a living branch. Followers of Yungdrung Bön do not separate the two layers: they see their faith as that very ancient religion, which declined and was restored.
IIWhat the Sources Show
The main sources for Old Bön are Tibetan documents found in the Dunhuang caves, dating from roughly the 8th to the 10th centuries. They mention ritual specialists called bon po and gshen, who conducted funerals and sacrifices for the court and the nobility. One frequently cited text, Pelliot tibétain 1042 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, describes royal funeral rites and was published by Marcelle Lalou in 1953.
According to Jean-Luc Achard, among the priests of that era was a class called sku gshen, priests of the body, who performed rites for the king himself. Wikipedia summarises research suggesting that their rituals sought to placate local spirits and guide the dead through ceremonies toward a good afterlife, possibly including animal sacrifice and elaborate rites at the royal tombs.
- Before the 7th centuryPriests of the Yarlung kingsBon po and gshen performed funerals and sacrifices for the court.
- By traditionKing Drigum TsenpoBön sources tell of a first persecution under this king.
- 8th centuryKing Trisong DetsenBuddhism gained strong royal patronage. Bön sources tell of a second persecution and the hiding of texts.
- 8th to 10th centuriesThe Dunhuang documentsSurviving records of the rites of the bon po and gshen.
- 1953Marcelle Lalou publishes Pelliot tibétain 1042A starting point for the study of ancient royal funeral texts.
IIIWorldview
From the few surviving documents, researchers picture a world full of powers with their own domains: mountain gods, earth spirits, water spirits and beings linked to the royal line. The king was imagined to have a special bond with the heavens. Much ritual centred on death, since the dead were understood to need guidance and provision for the journey after death. These features reappear later in Tibetan folk religion and in the first Ways of Yungdrung Bön.
Many popular books describe Bön in general as a shamanic religion of sacrifice. That conflates Old Bön with today's Yungdrung Bön. The sacrificial rites recorded in the ancient documents belong to the pre-Buddhist layer. Yungdrung Bön, through its own account of Tonpa Shenrab, replaced live offerings with dough figures, and Bön monastic rules forbid killing.
IVDecline and Traces
From the 8th and 9th centuries, as Buddhism won royal patronage, the old religion gradually lost its central place. After the Tibetan empire broke up in the mid 9th century, what remained of it merged into folk religion, and part of it was taken up again by Yungdrung Bön within its own framework. Some researchers suggest that certain rituals in remote Himalayan areas preserve traces of this ancient layer, but linking them to Old Bön remains a hypothesis.
Scholars still debate whether bon po in the ancient documents denotes a systematic religion or simply a class of ritual specialist. In the mid 20th century Helmut Hoffmann read Old Bön as an animistic religion. Later researchers have been more cautious, because the evidence is thin and much of it comes from Buddhist texts that criticised it.
VIn Vietnam
Not applicable. Old Bön is a lost religious layer of the Tibetan plateau, with no community or trace in Vietnam.
VISymbol of the Branch
No symbol of its own is recorded with a source for this branch, so the library uses the common symbol of the path.
VIIOther Branches of Bön
Yungdrung Bönགཡུང་དྲུང་བོན་ g.yung drung bonThe main living tradition, tracing its teachings to Tonpa Shenrab through Zhangzhung, with its own canon, monasteries and Nine Ways.Zhangzhung Nyengyudཞང་ཞུང་སྙན་རྒྱུད་ zhang zhung snyan rgyudOne of the three Bön Dzogchen lineages, held to be an unbroken oral transmission, including the master Tapihritsa.Uses the common symbol of the path
A-triཨ་ཁྲིད་ a khridOne of the three Bön Dzogchen lineages, meaning instruction on the letter A, codified by Meu Gongdzo (1038 to 1096).Dzogchen Yangtse Longchenརྫོགས་ཆེན་ཡང་རྩེ་ཀློང་ཆེན་ rdzogs chen yang rtse klong chenThe third Bön Dzogchen lineage, based on a treasure text said to have been discovered in 1080.Uses the common symbol of the pathNew Bönབོན་གསར་ bon gsarA movement from the 14th century centred on Drenpa Namkha, Tsewang Rigdzin and Padmasambhava, blending Eternal Bön with Tibetan Buddhist elements.Uses the common symbol of the pathOld Bönབོན་རྙིང་ bon rnying, also གདོད་མའི་བོན་ gdod ma'i bonThe pre-Buddhist religion of the Tibetan plateau, linked to the early kings.Uses the common symbol of the pathBön Centres in the WestNo shared original name. Centre names: Ligmincha, Shenten Dargye LingSince the late 20th century Bön teachers have founded centres in Europe and the Americas, notably Ligmincha (founded 1992 by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche) and Shenten Dargye Ling in France.Uses the common symbol of the pathVIIISources
The library cross-checks the sources below. Where they disagree, the page gives both.
?Quick Questions
Does Old Bön still exist?
No community calls itself Old Bön. Some rituals in remote Himalayan areas are thought to preserve traces of it, but that is a hypothesis.
How does Old Bön differ from Yungdrung Bön?
Old Bön is the pre-Buddhist religion known to historians only through a few documents. Yungdrung Bön is a tradition with a canon and monasteries, clearly attested from the 10th and 11th centuries. Its followers see the two as one continuous stream.
How do we know about Old Bön?
Mainly from Tibetan documents found at Dunhuang, dating from roughly the 8th to the 10th centuries, and from later accounts by both Buddhists and Bönpos.