Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche

[1] "[Shenrab Miwo] occupies a position very similar to that of Śākyamuni in Buddhism, but ... we have no available [or pre-10th century] sources with which to establish his historicity, his dates, his racial origin, his activities, and the authenticity of the enormous number of books either attributed directly to him or believed to be his word.

[3] According to Bon doctrine, Tonpa Shenrab lived 18,000 years ago, predating Gautama Buddha.

Tonpa Shenrab renounced his royal inheritance at the age of thirty-one to travel the path to enlightenment.

Tonpa Shenrab embraced the life of a renunciate and commenced austerities, spreading the doctrine of Bon; at length, he arrived in the land of Zhangzhung near what is widely held to be Mount Kailash.

The first and second of the accounts are held to be terma discovered by tertön in the 10th or 11th century; the third is part of the oral lineage (Wylie: snyan brgyud) transmitted from teacher to disciple.