About Oddiyana

Oḍḍiyāna, a small country in early medieval India, is ascribed importance in the development and dissemination of Vajrayana Buddhism. It is conventionally placed in what is now the Swat District of Pakistan, although a case can also be made for its location in the Indian state of Odisha. Later Tibetan traditions view it as a beyul, a legendary heavenly place inaccessible to ordinary mortals. Padmasambhava, the eighth-century Buddhist master who was instrumental in the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, was believed to have been born in Oddiyana.