Dalai Lama as temporal ruler of Tibet | |
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![]() Flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile | |
Style | His Holiness |
Residence | Potala Palace Norbulingka |
Seat | Lhasa |
Term length | Life tenure |
Formation | 1642 |
First holder | 5th Dalai Lama |
Final holder | 14th Dalai Lama |
Abolished | 23 May 1951 (Seventeen Point Agreement) |
This is a list of Dalai Lamas of Tibet. There have been 14 recognised incarnations of the Dalai Lama.
There has also been one non-recognised Dalai Lama, Ngawang Yeshe Gyatso (declared in 1707), by Lha-bzang Khan as the "true" 6th Dalai Lama – however, he was never accepted as such by the majority of the Tibetan people. [1] [2] [3]
Title | Portrait | Name (Lifespan) | Tibetan Wylie transliteration | Dalai Lama from | Dalai Lama until |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1st Dalai Lama | ![]() | Gedun Drupa (1391–1474) | དགེ་འདུན་གྲུབ་པ། dge 'dun grub pa | N/A | 1474 |
2nd Dalai Lama | ![]() | Gedun Gyatso (1475–1542) | དགེ་འདུན་རྒྱ་མཚོ། dge-'dun rgya-mtsho | N/A | 1542 |
3rd Dalai Lama | ![]() | Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588) | བསོད་ནམས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ bsod nams rgya mtsho | 1578 | 1588 |
4th Dalai Lama | ![]() | Yonten Gyatso (1589–1617) | ཡོན་ཏན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ yon tan rgya mtsho | 1601 | 1617 |
5th Dalai Lama | ![]() | Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso (1617–1682) | ངག་དབང་བློ་བཟང་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ Ngag-dbang blo-bzang rgya-mtsho | 1642 | 1682 |
6th Dalai Lama | | Tsangyang Gyatso (1683–1706) | ཚངས་དབྱངས་རྒྱ་མཚོ tshangs-dbyangs rgya-mtsho | 1697 | 1706 |
7th Dalai Lama | ![]() | Kelzang Gyatso (1708–1757) | བསྐལ་བཟང་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ bskal bzang rgya mtsho | 1720 | 1757 |
8th Dalai Lama | | Jamphel Gyatso (1758–1804) | འཇམ་དཔལ་རྒྱ་མཚོ 'jam dpal rgya mtsho | 1762 | 1804 |
9th Dalai Lama | ![]() | Lungtok Gyatso (1805–1815) | ལུང་རྟོགས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ lung rtogs rgya mtsho | 1810 | 6 March 1815 |
10th Dalai Lama | ![]() | Tsultrim Gyatso (1816–1837) | ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ tshul khrim rgya mtsho | 1826 | 30 September 1837 |
11th Dalai Lama | ![]() | Khedrup Gyatso (1838–1856) | མཁས་གྲུབ་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ mkhas grub rgya mtsho | 1842 | 31 January 1856 |
12th Dalai Lama | ![]() | Trinley Gyatso (1857–1875) | འཕྲིན་ལས་རྒྱ་མཚོ། 'phrin las rgya mtsho | 1860 | 25 April 1875 |
13th Dalai Lama | ![]() | Thubten Gyatso (1876–1933) | ཐུབ་བསྟན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ thub bstan rgya mtsho | 31 July 1879 | 17 December 1933 |
14th Dalai Lama | ![]() | Tenzin Gyatso (born 1935) | བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho | 22 February 1940 (de jure) | Incumbent |
17 November 1950 (de facto) [4] |
Dalai Lama is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and incumbent Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso, who lives in exile as a refugee in India. The Dalai Lama is also considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed to be incarnations of Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion.
Sonam Gyatso was the first to be named Dalai Lama, although the title was retrospectively given to his two predecessors.
The Panchen Lama is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The Panchen Lama is one of the most important figures in the Gelug tradition, with its spiritual authority second only to the Dalai Lama. Along with the council of high lamas, he is in charge of seeking out the next Dalai Lama. Panchen is a portmanteau of Pandita and Chenpo, meaning "great scholar".
While the Tibetan plateau has been inhabited since pre-historic times, most of Tibet's history went unrecorded until the introduction of Tibetan Buddhism around the 6th century. Tibetan texts refer to the kingdom of Zhangzhung as the precursor of later Tibetan kingdoms and the originators of the Bon religion. While mythical accounts of early rulers of the Yarlung Dynasty exist, historical accounts begin with the introduction of Buddhism from Nepal in the 6th century and the appearance of envoys from the unified Tibetan Empire in the 7th century. Following the dissolution of the empire and a period of fragmentation in the 9th-10th centuries, a Buddhist revival in the 10th–12th centuries saw the development of three of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
The Potala Palace is a dzong fortress in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region in China. It was the winter palace of the Dalai Lamas from 1649 to 1959, has been a museum since then, and a World Heritage Site since 1994.
A tulku is a distinctive and significant aspect of Tibetan Buddhism, embodying the concept of enlightened beings taking corporeal forms to continue the lineage of specific teachings. The term "tulku" has its origins in the Tibetan word "sprul sku", which originally referred to an emperor or ruler taking human form on Earth, signifying a divine incarnation. Over time, this term evolved within Tibetan Buddhism to denote the corporeal existence of highly accomplished Buddhist masters whose purpose is to ensure the preservation and transmission of a particular lineage.
Altan Khan of the Tümed, whose given name was Anda, was the leader of the Tümed Mongols and de facto ruler of the Right Wing, or western tribes, of the Mongols. He was the grandson of Dayan Khan (1464–1543), a descendant of Kublai Khan (1215–1294), who had managed to unite a tribal league between the Khalkha Mongols in the north and the Chahars (Tsakhars) to the south. His name means "Golden Khan" in the Mongolian language.
Tsangyang Gyatso was the 6th Dalai Lama. He was an unconventional Dalai Lama that preferred a libertine lifestyle to that of an ordained monk. His regent was killed before he was kidnapped by Lha-bzang Khan of the Khoshut Khanate and disappeared.
Yonten Gyatso or Yon-tan-rgya-mtsho (1589–1617), was the 4th Dalai Lama, born in Tümed on the 30th day of the 12th month of the Earth-Ox year of the Tibetan calendar. Other sources, however, say he was born in the 1st month of the Earth Ox Year.
Khedrup Gyatso was the 11th Dalai Lama of Tibet.
Kelzang Gyatso, also spelled Kalzang Gyatso, Kelsang Gyatso and Kezang Gyatso, was the 7th Dalai Lama of Tibet, recognized as the true incarnation of the 6th Dalai Lama, and enthroned after a pretender was deposed.
Gedun Gyatso, also Gendun Gyatso Palzangpo, was considered posthumously to have been the second Dalai Lama.
Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso was the 5th Dalai Lama and the first Dalai Lama to wield effective temporal and spiritual power over all Tibet. He is often referred to simply as the Great Fifth, being a key religious and temporal leader of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet. Gyatso is credited with unifying all Tibet under the Ganden Phodrang after a Mongol military intervention which ended a protracted era of civil wars. As an independent head of state, he established relations with the Qing empire and other regional countries and also met early European explorers. Gyatso also wrote 24 volumes' worth of scholarly and religious works on a wide range of subjects.
Khedrup Gelek Pelzang, 1st Panchen Lama – better known as Khedrup Je – was one of the main disciples of Je Tsongkhapa, whose reforms to Atiśa's Kadam tradition are considered the beginnings of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism.
Palden Tenpai Nyima (1782–1853) was the 7th Panchen Lama of Tibet.
Nechung Monastery, Nechung Gompa or Nechung Chok, is the seat of the State Oracle of Tibet. It is also referred to as Sungi Gyelpoi Tsenkar, the "Demon Fortress of the Oracle King."
Lha-bzang Khan was the ruler of the Khoshut tribe of the Oirats. He was the son of Tenzin Dalai Khan (1668–1701) and grandson of Güshi Khan, being the last khan of the Khoshut Khanate and Oirat King of Tibet. He acquired effective power as ruler of Tibet by eliminating the regent (desi) Sangye Gyatso and the Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, but his rule was cut short by an invasion by another group of Oirats, the Dzungar people. At length, this led to the direct involvement of the Chinese Qing dynasty in the Tibetan politics.
The 14th Dalai Lama, known to the Tibetan people as Gyalwa Rinpoche, is, as the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibet. He is considered a living Bodhisattva; specifically, an emanation of Avalokiteśvara in Sanskrit, and Chenrezig in Tibetan. He is also the leader and a monk of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, formally headed by the Ganden Tripa. The central government of Tibet, the Ganden Phodrang, invested the Dalai Lama with temporal duties until his exile in 1959.
The Khoshut Khanate was a Mongol Oirat khanate based in the Tibetan Plateau from 1642 to 1717. Based in modern Qinghai, it was founded by Güshi Khan in 1642 after defeating the opponents of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism in Tibet. The 5th Dalai Lama established a civil administration known as Ganden Phodrang with the aid of Güshi Khan. The role of the khanate in the affairs of Tibet has been subject to various interpretations. Some sources claim that the Khoshut did not interfere in Tibetan affairs and had a priest and patron relationship between the khan and Dalai Lama while others claim that Güshi appointed a minister, Sonam Rapten, as de facto administrator of civil affairs while the Dalai Lama was only responsible for religious matters. In the last years of the khanate, Lha-bzang Khan murdered the Tibetan regent and deposed the 6th Dalai Lama in favor of a pretender Dalai Lama.
Tibet under Qing rule refers to the Qing dynasty's rule over Tibet from 1720 to 1912. The Qing rulers incorporated Tibet into the empire along with other Inner Asia territories, although the actual extent of the Qing dynasty's control over Tibet during this period has been the subject of political debate. The Qing called Tibet a fanbu, fanbang or fanshu, which has usually been translated as "vassal", "vassal state", or "borderlands", along with areas like Xinjiang and Mongolia. Like the preceding Yuan dynasty, the Manchus of the Qing dynasty exerted military and administrative control over Tibet, while granting it a degree of political autonomy.