Buddhism

There is a substantial amount of archaeological evidence to confirm that Buddhism was once quite widespread in the territory that is now Kyrgyzstan. The village of Tamga on the southern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul has a carved stone in a valley nearby that has the legend Om Maui Padme Hum inscribed in it in Tibetan script. There are more Tibetan inscriptions at Issyk-Ata near Bishkek (which also became the home of a well-known Uzbek female shaman in the 1950s and a place of pilgrimage) and remains of a Buddhist temple at Ak-Beshim near Tokmok. Buddhist practices have little bearing on contemporary Kyrgyzstan but there are small numbers of Kyrgyz in China and the Central Tien Shan region of Kyrgyzstan that continue to observe a form of Tibetan Buddhism rather than Islam.