Dromtön in the context of Reting Monastery

Atish Dipankar Shrijnan (Sanskrit transliteration: Atīśa Dīpaṅkara Śrījñāna) (c. 982–1054 CE) was a Bengali Buddhist religious teacher and leader. He is generally associated with his body of work authored at Vikramaśīla Monastery in modern day Bihar, India. He was a major figure in the spread of 11th-century Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Asia and traveled to Sumatra and Tibet. Atiśa, along with this chief disciple Dromtön, is regarded as the founder of the Kadam school, one of the New Translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism. In the 14th century, the Kadam school was supplanted by the Gelug tradition, which adopted its teachings and absorbed its monasteries.

The Kadam school (Tibetan: བཀའ་གདམས་པ་, Wylie: bka' gdams pa) of Tibetan Buddhism, or Kadampa was an 11th century Buddhist tradition founded by the great Bengali master Atiśa (982–1054) and his students including Dromtön (1005–1064), a Tibetan Buddhist lay master. The Kadampa stressed compassion, pure discipline and study. By the 15th century, Tsongkapa is credited with synthesizing and folding Kadampa lineages into the Gelug school.

The most evident teachings of that tradition were the graduated teachings on the Mahayana path. These special presentations became known as lojong (mind training) and lamrim (stages of the path). Kadam masters like Atiśa also promoted the study of madhyamaka philosophy. According to Ronald M. Davidson, "Atiśa's coming to Tibet in 1042 was the threshold moment in the efflorescence of Buddhism and provided a stable foundation for monastic scholarship for the next thousand years."