Alchi Monastery topographic conditions, only two survived, one of them the esteemed scholar and translator Rinchen Zangpo who established Buddhist activity in the Ladakh region and other areas of India including Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim. During his sojourn there, he also went to the neighbouring countries of Nepal, Bhutan and Tibet. Zangpo became known by the epithet "Lohtsawa" or the "Great Translator"; he is credited with building 108 monasteries in the trans-Himalayan region in his quest to disseminate Buddhism. He institutionalized Buddhism in the region; these monasteries are considered the mainstay of Vajrayana of Tibetan Buddhism (also known as Lamaism). Zangpo engaged
Buddhism in Bulgaria several centers spread over the country. Shechen has a mountain retreat center not far away from Sofia; access is granted to members, and it is not generally open to the public. Buddhism in Bulgaria Buddhism is a small minority religion in Bulgaria, with about a thousand practitioners. The Vietnamese community in Bulgaria traditionally practices Mahayana Buddhism alongside Ancestor Worship, but the population of this community, which mostly hails from North Vietnam, has declined from tens of thousands before 1990 to around 1,000 now. Some Buddhist believers in Bulgaria are of Chinese descent. A small number of native Bulgarians are converts