Atisa was a prince of a small kingdom in Bengal. Since his childhood he had studied the Brahmin vedas and the Buddhist five sciences. He once studied with the well-known scholars such as Naropa, Santipa, Jetari，and Rahulagupt. Therefore, he was well versed in the various scriptures, especially the sabdarvidya. On his master's behalf, he once debated with tirthyas by using the problems of sabdavidya to subdue the opponents. He was ordained at 29. At 31，he went abroad to Suvarnadvipa to study Abhidhammas with Dhamma kirti, especially the various common and unique methods of making bodhicitta. Twelve years later，he returned to India and was invited to Vikramasila Temple by the King. He expounded widely the teachings of the making of bodhicitta. Due to his reputation，in 1040 A.D.，he already held 800 keys of temples and ruled a lot of monasteries. He was called the "Optimum Serenity" of India.
The original religion in Tibet was Bonism which had deeply gone into the imperial court and citizen，posing a heavy pressure to Tibetan kings. Therefore，the Tibetan Kings brought the new religion，"Buddhism"，from India to counterbalance. Accordingly，Padmasambhava and others went into Tibet. This was the "previous period" of Tibetan Buddhism. In 842 A.D.，Tibetan King Glan-dar-ma destroyed Buddhism and was then assassinated. Tibet was thus splitted into small kingdoms and abundant of robbery. This was the so-called "Dark Age" in history. After 912 A.D. Buddhism and Bonism was widely spread again. Because the intermingling of the two teachings was hard to distinguish, king ye shes'od，byang chub 'od (耶協沃 絳曲沃)of mnga'ris (阿里)couldn't bear the decaying of Buddhism and spent immeasurable manpower and money to invite pandita from India. In 1042 A.D.，Atisa arrived in mnga'ris(阿里). Three years later，he went to many places of dBus and gTsang to lecture on sutras and abhidhammas and to transmit tantra. He lived in Tibet for 13 years (1042-1054). His disciples scattered over the three regions of dBus and gTsang. Finally，he passed away in sNye thang leaving the essentials of the teachings descending from 157 masters to Tibetan people. In 1965，the Pakistan government (at that time Bangladesh was not yet independant from Pakistan) even asked the Red China government to bring back part of Atisa's relics for worship.
