Samten Gyaltsen Karmay, M. Phil. (1975) in History of Religions; Ph.D. (1985) in Philosophy, University of London, is Director of Research emeritus at National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris. He has published books dealing with the religions, history and anthropology of Tibet including The Great Perfection, (Brill 1988);Secret Visions of the Fifth Dalai Lama, The Gold Manuscript of the Fournier Collection (Serindia, London 1988) andThe Arrow and the Spindle (Mandala, Kathmandu 1988, 2005).

About the Book The first part of this book contains studies of historical documents such as royal decrees of the 10th and 11th centuries A.D. The second part deals with the history of Bon monastic establishment, the question of codification of the Bon Canonical texts as well as recent discoveries of ancient manuscripts of the Bon tradition that focus on the early Tibetan concepts of ritual practices. The third part is devoted to a short presentation of a personal letter of Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgyal, founder of the modern state of Bhutan