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".
Heinrich Harrer was an Austrian SS sergeant, mountaineer, explorer, writer, sportsman, and geographer. He was a member of the four-man climbing team that made the first ascent of the North Face of the Eiger, the "last problem" of the Alps, in July 1938. Harrer and the team flew the Nazi flag atop the mountain. Harrer had joined the Nazi Party shortly after the annexation of Austria in March 1938, and was personally received by Hitler after the climb. A year later in 1939, he and the climbing team went on an expedition to the Indian Himalayas, where they were arrested by British forces because of the outbreak of World War II. He eventually escaped to Tibet, staying there until 1951 and never seeing active combat from that point onwards. He wrote the books Seven Years in Tibet (1952) and The White Spider (1959).
Peter Aufschnaiter was an Austrian mountaineer, agricultural scientist, geographer and cartographer. His experiences with fellow climber Heinrich Harrer during World War II were depicted in the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet.
The 5th Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso was recognized as the 5th Dalai Lama, and he became the first Dalai Lama to hold both Tibet's political and spiritual leadership roles. He is often referred to simply as the Great Fifth, being the key religious and temporal leader of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet. He is credited with unifying all of Tibet under the Ganden Phodrang, after Gushri Khan's successful military interventions. As an independent head of state, he established priest and patron relations with both Mongolia and the Qing dynasty simultaneously, and had positive relations with other neighboring countries. He began the custom of meeting early European explorers. The 5th Dalai Lama built the Potala Palace, and also wrote 24 volumes' worth of scholarly and religious works on a wide range of subjects.
The Third Eye is a book published by Secker & Warburg in November 1956. It was originally claimed that the book was written by a Tibetan monk named Lobsang Rampa. On investigation the author was found to be one Cyril Henry Hoskin (1910–1981), the son of a British plumber, who claimed that his body was occupied by the spirit of a Tibetan monk named Tuesday Lobsang Rampa. The book is considered a hoax.
Jetsun Pema is the sister of the 14th Dalai Lama. For 42 years she was the President of the Tibetan Children's Villages (TCV) school system for Tibetan refugee students.
Seven Years in Tibet is a 1997 American biographical war drama film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud. It is based on Austrian mountaineer and Schutzstaffel (SS) sergeant Heinrich Harrer's 1952 memoir of the same name, about his experiences in Tibet between 1944 and 1951. Seven Years in Tibet stars Brad Pitt and David Thewlis, and has music composed by John Williams with a feature performance by cellist Yo-Yo Ma.
Taktser or Tengtser or Hongya Village is a village in Shihuiyao Township, Ping'an District, Haidong, in the east of Qinghai province, China. Tibetan, Han and Hui Chinese people populate the village which is notable as the birthplace of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso.
Thubten Jigme Norbu, recognised as the Taktser Rinpoche, was a Tibetan lama, writer, civil rights activist and professor of Tibetan studies and was the eldest brother of the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. He was one of the first high-profile Tibetans to go into exile and was the first to settle in the United States.
Kumbum Monastery, also called Ta'er Temple, is a Tibetan gompa in Lusar, Huangzhong County, Xining, Qinghai, China. It was founded in 1583 in a narrow valley close to the village of Lusar in the historical Tibetan region of Amdo. Its superior monastery is Drepung Monastery, immediately to the west of Lhasa. It is ranked in importance as second only to Lhasa.
Kyirong or Gyirong County, also known by its Chinese name Jilong, is a county of the Shigatse Prefecture, Tibet Autonomous Region, China. It is famous for its mild climatically conditions and its abundant vegetation which is unusual for the Tibetan plateau. The capital lies at Zongga (Gungthang). Its name in Tibetan, Dzongka, means "mud walls".
Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme was a Tibetan senior official who assumed various military and political responsibilities both before and after 1951 in Tibet. He is often known simply as Ngapo in English sources.
Chagpori, Chakpori, Chokpori, Chagpo Ri is a spirit-mountain of Vajrapani in Lhasa, Tibet. It is south of Potala and just to the left when one is facing the Potala. It is considered to be one of the four holy mountains of central Tibet.
Robert Webster Ford CBE was a British radio officer who worked in Tibet in the late 1940s. He was one of the few Westerners to be appointed by the Government of Tibet in the period of de facto independence between 1912 and the year 1950 when the Chinese army marched on Chamdo. He was arrested and jailed for five years by the Chinese. In 1994, he declared that he "had the opportunity to witness and experience at first hand the reality of Tibetan independence." In 1956 he was appointed at the British Diplomatic Service and served in the Foreign Office.
The serfdom in Tibet controversy is a prolonged public disagreement over the extent and nature of serfdom in Tibet prior to the annexation of Tibet into the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1951. The debate is political in nature, with some arguing that the ultimate goal on the Chinese side is to legitimize Chinese control of the territory now known as the Tibet Autonomous Region or Xizang Autonomous Region, and others arguing that the ultimate goal on the Western side is to weaken or undermine the Chinese state. The argument is that Tibetan culture, government, and society were feudal in nature prior to the PRC takeover of Tibet and that this only changed due to PRC policy in the region. The pro-Tibetan independence movement argument is that this is a misrepresentation of history created as a political tool in order to justify the Sinicization of Tibet.
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, also known as Tenzin Gyatso; né Lhamo Thondup; is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. Before 1959, he served as both the resident spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, and subsequently established and led the Tibetan government in exile represented by the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India. The adherents of Tibetan Buddhism consider the Dalai Lama a living Bodhisattva, specifically an emanation of Avalokiteśvara or Chenrezig, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, a belief central to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and the institution of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama, whose name means Ocean of Wisdom, is known to Tibetans as Gyalwa Rinpoche, The Precious Jewel-like Buddha-Master, Kundun, The Presence, and Yizhin Norbu, The Wish-Fulfilling Gem. His devotees, as well as much of the Western world, often call him His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the style employed on his website. He is also the leader and a monk of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, formally headed by the Ganden Tripa.
Tsarong Dasang Dramdul (1888–1959), commonly known mononymously as Tsarong or by his title Tsarong Dzasa, was a Tibetan politician and general in the Tibetan Army. He was a close aide of the 13th Dalai Lama and played an important role in the early twentieth century politics of Tibet. Eager to accelerate economic progression and pursue the modernization of Tibet, Tsarong believed that the old order in Tibet had to be broken by hierarchical reforms to prepare the way for a more modern society which would be compatible with the outside world. In his efforts to build up Tibet's defense systems and relations with European powers as well as to facilitate trade and strengthen the Tibetan currency, he made a series of diplomatic visits to British India. His diplomatic skills came to see him regarded by the British as being, "the most powerful friend of His Majesty's Government in Tibet."
The 1910s saw an attempt to turn four young Tibetans – the Four Rugby Boys – into the vanguard of "modernisers" through the medium of an English public school education.
Prostitution in Tibet is thought to have existed for centuries. Testimonies of its existence were provided by outside visitors in the first half of the twentieth century. According to the British writer Christopher Hale, due to the practice of polyandry in Tibet, many women were unable to find a husband and moved to villages and towns, where they fell into prostitution. Their clients came from the caravans crossing the Tibetan plateau, and also from the monasteries.
Lobsang Samten Taklha was a Tibetan politician and one of three elder brothers of the 14th Dalai Lama. In 1978 he helped found and eventually became the director of the Tibetan Medical Institute in Dharamsala, India, where the Dalai Lama still lives in exile.
