The third school of Buddhism is called Vajrayana or the Thunderbolt vehicle. This philosophy was developed over a thousand years after the death of the Buddha, in the eighth century. It began in the monasteries of eastern India like Vikramshila and Nalanda and it was greatly influenced by the mystic and occult practices of Tantra. The Hindu Tantric school worships Shiva and Shakti and these Hindu deities and esoteric rituals also entered the Vajrayana religious practices. Vajrayana is very different from the simple teachings of the Buddha and its rituals include the chanting of mysterious mantras, mudras, mandalas, complex rituals and even the worship of a pantheon of gods and goddesses called Bodhisattvas like Manjusri, Amitabha and Padmapani. There are four main orders of Vajrayana Buddhism – Nyingma which is the oldest and said to be founded by Padmasambhava or Guru Rinpoche, Sakya, Kagyu that is headed by the Karmapa and Gelug that is headed by the Dalai Lama.

The monks of the Vajrayana School travelled from Bengal and Bihar to Tibet in the eighth century and introduced Buddhism there. The first teacher was Padmasambava who was given the title of Guru Rinpoche and he is worshipped by Buddhist in Tibet, Bhutan, Ladakh and Sikkim as a god.

Padmasambhava is so revered he is also referred to as the second Buddha. Later another Indian monk Atisa Dipankara also spread the religion in Tibet.

Very little is known about Padmasambhava except that he arrived in Tibet in the eighth century during the reign of King Trisong Detsen and the king was converted to the Buddhist faith. The life of the Buddhist master is full of many legends and stories of magic and miracles. Padmasambhava means ‘lotus born’ so he is always portrayed sitting on a lotus. He is also referred to as Guru Rinpoche, Vajra Guru and Guru Padma Siddhi. When praying to Padmasambhava devotees chant the mantra, ‘Om Ah Hum Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hum’.

As Tibet became Buddhist a huge programme was initiated by the kings to translate sacred Buddhist texts in Sanskrit into Tibetan. By the twelfth century Buddhism had vanished from India, famous libraries like those at Nalanda University had been destroyed by Muslim invaders and these precious Buddhist manuscripts were believed to be lost. Then in the nineteenth century British scholars of the Asiatic Society discovered them in Tibetan and Sri Lankan monasteries and the teachings of the Buddha were once again revived in India.

Today the most famous head of the Vajrayana order is the Dalai Lama who lives in exile in India. Other religious leaders from Tibet are the Panchen Lama and the Karmapa. From Tibet the religion reached Sikkim much later in the seventeenth century with the arrival of three Tibetan monks.