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,
Buddhism and Jainism community (or Jain "sangha") consists of monastics, "muni"s (male ascetics) and "aryika"s (female ascetics) and householders, "śhrāvak"s (laymen) and "śrāvakī"s (laywomen). Buddhism has a similar organization: the community consists of renunciate bhikkhus and bhikkhunis and male and female laypersons, or "śrāvaka"s and "śrāvika"s, who take limited vows. Jainism has developed and refined the non-violence ("'Ahimsa") doctrine to an extraordinary degree where it is an integral part of the Jain culture. Jain vegetarianism, for example, is driven by the principle of not harming any animals and both lay and mendicants are predominantly vegetarian. In Buddhism, Mahayana monks in China, Japan (see