Atīśa was a Buddhist religious leader and master from Bengal. He is generally associated with his work carried out at the Vikramashila monastery in Bihar. He was one of the major figures in the spread of 11th-century Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism in Asia and inspired Buddhist thought from Tibet to Sumatra. He is recognised as one of the greatest figures of medieval Buddhism. Atiśa's chief disciple, Dromtön, was the founder of the Kadam school, one of the New Translation schools of Tibetan Buddhism, later supplanted by the Gelug tradition in the 14th century which adopted its teachings and absorbed its monasteries.

Bengal or endonym Bangla is a historical geographical, ethnolinguistic and cultural term referring to a region in the eastern part of the Indian subcontinent at the apex of the Bay of Bengal. The region of Bengal proper is divided between modern-day sovereign nation of Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal.