Atisha, an Indian monk of royal birth, who was born in 980 A.D., entered Tibet in the year 1038 and died near Lhasa in 1052 A.D. The author of a great number of learned works and founder of the Kadampa sect from which the present-day Gelugpa sect is derived, he is so profoundly reverenced for his wisdom that Tibetans regard him as an incarnation of Manjushri Bodhisattva. Above all he is honored for purifying Tibetan Buddhism of certain doubtful tendencies and restoring the great Mahayana doctrine in its pristine purity.