Atisha was a Buddhist teacher who brought Mind Training teaching from Sumatra to India and then transmitted it to Tibet, founding one of the major strands of Tibetan Buddhism.

He was born in India in 982 CE. He was first initiated into, and became an adept in, the esoteric and magical practices of Tantra, which were very popular in India at the time, and supposedly caused the end of Indian Buddhism. He laid the foundation of what later became known as the Kadam tradition, which evolved into the Gelugpa tradition under Tsongkhapa.