Tonpa Shenrab is held to have visited the kingdom of Zhangzhung (an area in western Tibet

around Mount Kailash),[35] where he found a people whose practice involved spiritual appeasement
with animal sacrifice. He taught them to substitute offerings with symbolic animal forms made from
barley flour. He only taught according to the student's capability and thus he taught these people the
lower vehicles to prepare them for the study of sutra, tantra and Dzogchen in later lives.[36] It is only
later in life that he became a celibate ascetic and it is during this time that he defeated his main
enemy, the prince of the demons.[34]
After Tonpa Shenrab's paranirvana, his works were preserved in the language of Zhangzhung by
ancient Bon siddhas.[37] Most of these teachings were said to have been lost in Tibet after the
persecutions against Bon, such as during the time of Trisong Detsen.[38] Bon histories hold that some
of Tonpa Shenrab's teachings were hidden away as termas and later re-discovered by Bon treasure
revealers (tertons), the most important of which is Shenchen Luga (c. early 11th century).[38]
In the fourteenth century, Loden Nyingpo revealed a terma known as The Brilliance (Wylie: gzi brjid),
which contained the story of Tonpa Shenrab. He was not the first Bonpo tertön, but his terma
became one of the definitive scriptures of Bon.[39]