Protests and uprisings in Tibet since 1950 The minor kingdoms and tribal states of the region were first united under Songtsen Gampo to form the Tibetan Empire in the seventh century CE Under the influence of his Chinese bride and first Nepali wife Bhrikuti, the Emperor converted to Buddhism and established it as the religion of Tibet. An influx of Chinese culture, the Indian alphabet, and Buddhist monks followed, combining with the native customs and animistic religion Bön to give birth to what has become today's ethnic Tibetan people and Tibetan Buddhism, also known as Lamaism, After the break-up of the Tibetan Empire in the mid-9th century,
Greco-Buddhism art, Bodhidharma is depicted as a rather ill-tempered, profusely bearded and wide-eyed barbarian, and he is referred as "The Blue-Eyed Barbarian" () in Chinese Chan texts. In 485 AD, according to the 7th century Chinese historic treatise Liang Shu, five monks from Gandhara travelled to the country of Fusang ("The country of the extreme East" beyond the sea, probably eastern Japan), where they introduced Buddhism: Two half-brothers from Gandhara, Asanga and Vasubandhu (4th century), created the Yogacara or "Mind-only" school of Mahayana Buddhism, which through one of its major texts, the Lankavatara Sutra, became a founding block of Mahayana, and