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 the United States Mahayana, and Vajrayana Buddhism, it does not espouse any particular school or schools of Buddhism. It respects all Buddhist traditions as equal, and encourages unity of Buddhism in thought and practice. It states that a different, American, form of Buddhism is possible, and that the cultural forms attached to the older schools of Buddhism need not necessarily be followed by westerners. Rita M. Gross, a feminist religious scholar, claims that many people converted to Buddhism in the 1960s and '70s as an attempt to combat traditional American values. However, in their conversion, they have created a new form of Buddhism