Tibetan monks

Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, the regions surrounding the Himalayas and much of Central Asia. It derives from the latest stages of Indian Buddhism and preserves "the Tantric status quo of eighth-century India." Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body.

Tibetan Buddhism has religious texts and commentaries that comprise the Tibetan Buddhist canon, such that Tibetan is a spiritual language of these areas. Tibetan Buddhism has four major schools, namely Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug (developed out of Sakya). The Jonang is a smaller school, and the Rimé movement is an eclectical movement involving the Sakya, Kagyu and Nyingma schools. Among the prominent exponents of Tibetan Buddhism are the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama, the leaders of Gelug school in Tibet.

Westerners unfamiliar with Tibetan Buddhism initially turned to China for an understanding. There the term used was "lamaism" (literally, "doctrine of the lamas": lama jiao) to distinguish it from a then traditional Chinese form (fo jiao). The term was taken up by western scholars including Hegel, as early as 1822. Insofar as it implies a discontinuity between Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, the term has been discredited.

Another term, "Vajrayāna" is occasionally used mistakenly for Tibetan Buddhism. More accurately, it signifies a certain subset of practices included in, not only Tibetan Buddhism, but other forms of Buddhism as well.

The native Tibetan term for all Buddhism is "doctrine of the internalists" (nang-pa'i chos: …of those who emphasise introspection).

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