Following the Muslim conquest of northern India in the 12th century Buddhism ceased to function as an organized religion there. By that time thousands of texts from India had been carried over the Himalayas and were being translated into the Tibetan language. Soon Tibetan scholars set about  assessing, systematizing and developing further the Indian heritage in fields such as philosophy, ethics, psychology, medicine, astronomy, administration, poetics, arts and crafts. This engagement yielded not only a rich literature and original syntheses with m ...