Dalai Lama is a title given by the Tibetan people for the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest of the classical schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso.
The Central Tibetan Administration, also known as CTA is an organisation based in India. It was originally called Tibetan Kashag Government in 1960, then later renamed to "the Government of the Great Snow Land". The CTA is also referred to as the Tibetan Government in Exile which has never been recognized by China. Its internal structure is government-like; it has stated that it is "not designed to take power in Tibet"; rather, it will be dissolved "as soon as freedom is restored in Tibet" in favor of a government formed by Tibetans inside Tibet. In addition to political advocacy, it administers a network of schools and other cultural activities for Tibetans in India. On 11 February 1991, the CTA became a founding member of the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO) at a ceremony held at the Peace Palace in The Hague, Netherlands.
Bon, also spelled Bön, is a Tibetan religion. According to traditional Bon beliefs and legends, the Bon religion predates the arrival of Buddhism in Tibet. According to the scholar and Buddhist master Chogyal Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche, there is clear manuscript evidence confirming the existence of fully articulated Bon doctrine and practice prior to the forcible annexation of the Bon kingdom of Zhangzhung in the 8th century CE by Tibetan king Trisong Deutsung: "It is very clearly stated in the ancient lineage-manuscripts of Bon, known as Srid-rGyud, during the reign of the Buddhist King Trisong Deutsen, that the tradition of Bon and its founder both first started [centuries earlier] in Zhangzhung." [This is disputed by some subsequent Buddhist commentators, e.g., by Sam van Schaik, "in truth the 'old religion' was a new religion." Its scriptures are derived primarily from termas and visions by tertöns such as Loden Nyingpo..]
Lhasa or Chengguan is a district and administrative capital of Lhasa City in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The inner urban area of Lhasa City is equivalent to the administrative borders of Chengguan District, which is part of the wider prefectural Lhasa City.
The Tibetan people are an ethnic group native to Tibet. Their current population is estimated to be around 6 million. In addition to living in Tibet, significant numbers of Tibetans live in other parts of China, as well as India, Nepal, and Bhutan.
The Panchen Lama is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in the Gelug tradition, with its spiritual authority second only to Dalai Lama. "Panchen" is an abbreviation of "Pandita" and "Chenpo", meaning "Great scholar".
Mount Kailash, is a 6,638 m (21,778 ft) high peak in the Kailash Range, which forms part of the Transhimalaya in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China.
Heinrich Harrer was an Austrian mountaineer, sportsman, geographer, and author. He is best known for being on the four-man climbing team that made the first ascent of the North Face of the Eiger in Switzerland, and for his books Seven Years in Tibet (1952) and The White Spider (1959).
Tibetan history, as it has been recorded, is particularly focused on the history of Buddhism in Tibet. This is partly due to the pivotal role this religion has played in the development of Tibetan and Mongol cultures and partly because almost all native historians of the country were Buddhist monks.
The Tibetan independence movement is a movement for the independence of Tibet and the political separation of Tibet from China. It is principally led by the Tibetan diaspora in countries like India and the United States, and by celebrities and Tibetan Buddhists in the United States, India and Europe. The movement is not supported by the 14th Dalai Lama, who although having advocated it from 1961 to the late 1970s, proposed a sort of high-level autonomy in a speech in Strasbourg in 1988, and has since then restricted his position to either autonomy for the Tibetan people in the Tibet Autonomous Region within China, or extending the area of the autonomy to include parts of neighboring Chinese provinces inhabited by Tibetans.
Songtsen Gampo, also Songzan Ganbu(Chinese: 松赞干布 Sōngzàn Gānbù), was the 33rd Tibetan king and founder of the Tibetan Empire, and is traditionally credited with the introduction of Buddhism to Tibet, influenced by his Nepali and Chinese queens, as well as being the unifier of what were previously several Tibetan kingdoms. He is also regarded as responsible for the creation of the Tibetan alphabet and therefore the establishment of Classical Tibetan, the language spoken in his region at the time, as the literary language of Tibet.
Thubten Gyatso was the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet.
The 1959 Tibetan uprising or the 1959 Tibetan rebellion began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet Area, which had been under the effective control of the People's Republic of China since the Seventeen Point Agreement was reached in 1951. Armed conflict between Tibetan guerillas and the People's Liberation Army (PLA) had started in 1956 in the Kham and Amdo regions, which had been subjected to socialist reform. The guerrilla warfare later spread to other areas of Tibet and lasted through 1962.
The incorporation of Tibet into the People's Republic of China,, was the process by which the People's Republic of China (PRC) gained control of Tibet. These regions came under the control of China after attempts by the Government of Tibet to gain international recognition, efforts to modernize its military, negotiations between the Government of Tibet and the PRC, a military conflict in the Qamdo area of Western Kham in October 1950, and the eventual acceptance of the Seventeen Point Agreement by the Government of Tibet under Chinese pressure in October 1951. In the West, it is generally believed that China annexed Tibet. The Government of Tibet and Tibetan social structure remained in place in the Tibetan Autonomous Region under the authority of China until the 1959 Tibetan uprising, when the Dalai Lama fled into exile and after which the Government of Tibet and Tibetan social structures were dissolved.
The 14th Dalai Lama is the current Dalai Lama. Dalai Lamas are important monks of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, which was formally headed by the Ganden Tripas. From the time of the 5th Dalai Lama to 1959, the central government of Tibet, the Ganden Phodrang, invested the position of Dalai Lama with temporal duties.
The nation state of Tibet from 1912 to 1951 came into being upon the aftermath of the collapse of the Qing dynasty in 1912, and lasted until the incorporation of Tibet into the People's Republic of China in 1951. The Tibetan Ganden Phodrang regime was a Protectorate of the Qing Dynasty until 1912, when the Provisional Government of the Republic of China replaced the Qing dynasty as the government of China, and signed a treaty with the Qing government inheriting all territories of the previous dynasty into the new republic, giving Tibet the status of a "Protectorate" with high levels of autonomy as it was Protectorate under the dynasty. At the same time, Tibet was also a British Protectorate. However, at the same time, several Tibetan representatives signed a treaty between Tibet and Mongolia proclaiming mutual recognition and their independence from China, although the Government of the Republic of China did not recognize its legitimacy. With the high levels of autonomy and the "proclaiming of independence" by several Tibetan representatives, this period of Tibet is often described as "de facto independent", especially by some Tibetan independence supporters, although most countries of the world, as well as the United Nations, recognized Tibet as a part of the Republic of China.
The Battle of Chamdo occurred from 6 through 19 October 1950. It was a military campaign by the People's Republic of China (PRC) to retake the Chamdo Region from a de facto independent Tibetan government after months of failed negotiations on the status of Tibet. At the time, most countries of the world, as well as the United Nations, recognized Tibet as a part of the preceding Republic of China (ROC). The campaign aimed not to invade Tibet per se but to capture the Lhasa army occupying Chamdo, demoralize the Lhasa government, and to exert pressure to get Tibetan representatives to agree to negotiations in Beijing and sign terms recognizing China's sovereignty over Tibet. The campaign resulted in the capture of Chamdo and further negotiations between the PRC and Tibetan representatives that eventually resulted in the incorporation of Tibet into the People's Republic of China.
The Sino-Nepalese War, also known as the Sino-Gorkha war, was an invasion of Tibet by Nepal from 1788-1792. The war was initially fought between Nepalese and Tibetan armies over a trade dispute related to a long-standing problem of low-quality coins manufactured by Nepal for Tibet. The Nepalese Army under Bahadur Shah plundered Tibet under Qing rule and Tibetans signed the Treaty of Kerung paying annual tribute to Nepal. However, Tibetans requested for Chinese intervention and Sino-Tibetan forces under Fuk'anggan raided Nepal up to Nuwakot only to face strong Nepalese counterattack. Thus, both countries signed the Treaty of Betrawati.
