1391
Pema Dorje (1391–1474), who would eventually be posthumously declared the 1st Dalai Lama, was born in a cattle pen in Shabtod, Tsang in 1391. His family were goatherders, but when his father died in 1398, his mother entrusted him to his uncle for education as a Buddhist monk. Pema Dorje was sent to Narthang, a major Kadampa monastery near Shigatse, which ran the largest printing press in Tibet. Its celebrated library attracted many scholars, so Pema Dorje received an education beyond the norm at the time as well as exposure to diverse spiritual schools and ideas.
1401
At the age of 10 with a large Mongol escort he travelled to Lhasa where he was enthroned. He studied at Drepung and became its abbot but being a non-Tibetan he met with opposition from some Tibetans, especially the Karma Kagyu who felt their position was threatened by these emerging events; there were several attempts to remove him from power. Seal of authority was granted in 1616 by Wanli Emperor of Ming. Yonten Gyatso died at the age of 27 under suspicious circumstances and his chief attendant Sonam Rapten went on to discover the 5th Dalai Lama, became his chagdzo or manager and after 1642 he went on to be his regent, the Desi.
1405
He studied Buddhist philosophy extensively. In 1405, ordained by Narthang's abbot, he took the name of Gendun Drup. He was recognised as an exceptionally gifted pupil, so the abbot tutored him personally and took special interest in his progress. In twelve years he passed the twelve grades of monkhood and took the highest vows. After completing his intensive studies at Narthang he left to continue at specialist monasteries in Central Tibet.
1408
In 1856, a child was born in south central Tibet with all the usual extraordinary signs. He came to the notice of the search team, was investigated, passed the traditional tests and was recognised as the 12th Dalai Lama in 1858. The use of the Chinese Golden Urn at the insistence of the regent, who was later accused of being a Chinese lackey, confirmed this choice to everyone's satisfaction. He was renamed Trinley Gyatso and enthroned on July 3, 1860, after the emperor's edict from Amban was announced. He underwent 13 years of intensive tutelage and training before becoming Tibet's ruler at age 17.
1408
Eventually the Third Reting Rinpoche was made Regent, and in 1855, Khedrup Gyatso, appearing to be an extremely promising prospect, was requested to take the reins of power at the age of 17. He was enthroned as ruler of Tibet in 1855, on orders of the Xianfeng Emperor. He died after just 11 months, no reason for his sudden and premature death being given in these accounts, Shakabpa and Mullin's histories both being based on untranslated Tibetan chronicles. The respected Reting Rinpoche was recalled once again to act as Regent and requested to lead the search for the next incarnation, the twelfth.
1411
In any case, Trinley Gyatso died within three years of assuming power. In 1873, at age 20, "he suddenly became ill and passed away". Accounts of his cause of death diverge. Mullin relates an interesting theory, based on Tibetan sources: out of concern for the monastic tradition, Trinley Gyatso chose to die and reincarnate as the 13th Dalai Lama rather than marry a woman called Rigma Tsomo from Kokonor and leaving an heir to "oversee Tibet's future". On the other hand, without citing sources, Shakabpa notes that Trinley Gyatso was influenced and manipulated by two close acquaintances who were subsequently accused of having a hand in his fatal illness and imprisoned, tortured, and exiled as a result.
1411
After 15 years of intensive studies and failing health he died, in 1837, at the age of 20 or 21. He identified with ordinary people rather than the court officials and often sat on his verandah in the sunshine with the office clerks. Intending to empower the common people he planned to institute political and economic reforms to share the nation's wealth more equitably. Over this period his health had deteriorated, the implication being that he may have suffered from slow poisoning by Tibetan aristocrats whose interests these reforms were threatening. He was also dissatisfied with his Regent and the Kashag and scolded them for not alleviating the condition of the common people, who had suffered much in small ongoing regional civil wars waged in Kokonor between Mongols, local Tibetans and the government over territory, and in Kham to extract unpaid taxes from rebellious Tibetan communities.
1412
At 17, when fighting broke out in Lhasa between Gelug and Kagyu parties and efforts by local lamas to mediate failed, Sonam Gyatso negotiated a peaceful settlement. At 19, when the Kyichu River burst its banks and flooded Lhasa, he led his followers to rescue victims and repair the dykes. He then instituted a custom whereby on the last day of Monlam, all the monks would work on strengthening the flood defences. Gradually, he was shaping himself into a national leader. His popularity and renown became such that in 1564 when the Nedong King died, it was Sonam Gyatso at the age of 21 who was requested to lead his funeral rites, rather than his own Kagyu lamas.
1414
Nevertheless, Jamphel Gyatso was said to possess all the signs of being the true incarnation of the Seventh. This was claimed to have been confirmed by many portents clear to the Tibetans and so, in 1762, at age five, he was enthroned as the Eighth Dalai Lama at the Potala Palace. At age 23 he was persuaded to assume the throne as ruler of Tibet with a regent to assist him and after three years of this, when the regent went to Beijing as ambassador in 1784, he ruled alone for four more years. But feeling unsuited to worldly affairs and unhappy in this role, he then retired from public office to concentrate on religious activities until his death in 1804. He is also credited with the construction of the Norbulingka "Summer Palace" started by his predecessor and with ordaining 10,000 monks in his efforts to foster monasticism.
1415
In 1415, Gendun Drup met Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa school, and became his student. After the death of Tsongkhapa's successor, the Panchen Lama Khedrup Je, Gendun Drup became the leader of the Gelugpa. He rose to become Abbot of Drepung, the greatest Gelugpa monastery outside Lhasa.
1417
Required to travel and teach without respite after taking full ordination in 1565, he still maintained extensive meditation practices in the hours before dawn and again at the end of the day. In 1569, at age 26, he went to Tashilhunpo to study the layout and administration of the monastery built by his predecessor Gendun Drup. Invited to become the Abbot he declined, already being Abbot of Drepung and Sera, but left his deputy there in his stead. From there he visited Narthang, the first monastery of Gendun Drup and gave numerous discourses and offerings to the monks in gratitude.
1419
First, Tsongkhapa established three great monasteries around Lhasa in the province of Ü before he died in 1419. The 1st Dalai Lama soon became Abbot of the greatest one, Drepung, and developed a large popular power base in Ü. He later extended this to cover Tsang, where he constructed a fourth great monastery, Tashi Lhunpo, at Shigatse. The 2nd studied there before returning to Lhasa, where he became Abbot of Drepung. Having reactivated the 1st's large popular followings in Tsang and Ü, the 2nd then moved on to southern Tibet and gathered more followers there who helped him construct a new monastery, Chokorgyel. He established the method by which later Dalai Lama incarnations would be discovered through visions at the "oracle lake", Lhamo Lhatso.
1440
The ambans and their garrison were reinstated to observe and to some extent supervise affairs. Their influence generally waned with the power of their empire, which gradually declined after 1792 along with its influence over Tibet, a decline aided by a succession of corrupt or incompetent ambans. Moreover, there was soon no reason for the Qing to fear the Dzungar; by the time the Seventh Dalai Lama died in 1757 at the age of 49, the entire Dzungar people had been practically exterminated through years of genocidal campaigns by Qing armies, and deadly smallpox epidemics, with the survivors being forcibly transported into China. Their emptied lands were then awarded to other peoples.
1441
At the age of 50, he entered meditation retreat at Narthang. As he grew older, Karma Kagyu adherents, finding their sect was losing too many recruits to the monkhood to burgeoning Gelugpa monasteries, tried to contain Gelug expansion by launching military expeditions against them. This led to decades of military and political power struggles between Tsangpa dynasty forces and others across central Tibet. In an attempt to ameliorate these clashes, Gendun Drup issued a poem of advice to his followers advising restraint from responding to violence with more violence and urged compassion and patience instead. The poem, entitled Shar Gang Rima, "The Song of the Eastern Snow Mountains", became one of his most enduring popular literary works.
1458
Gongma Gyaltsen Palzangpo of Khyomorlungand and his Queen, Sangyey Paldzomma, became his favorite patrons and disciples and he visited their area to carry out rituals as 'he chose it for his next place of rebirth'. He died in meditation at Drepung in 1542 at the age of 67 and his reliquary stupa was constructed at Khyomorlung. It was said that, by the time he died, through his disciples and their students, his personal influence covered the whole of Buddhist Central Asia where 'there was nobody of any consequence who did not know of him.' The Dalai Lama title was posthumously granted to Gedun Gyatso after 1578.
1474
Gendun Drup (1391–1474), a disciple of Je Tsongkapa, would eventually be known as the 'First Dalai Lama', but he would not receive this title until 104 years after he died. There was resistance to naming him as such, since he was ordained a monk in the Kadampa tradition and for various reasons, the Kadampa school had eschewed the adoption of the tulku system to which the older schools adhered. Therefore, although Gendun Drup grew to be an important Gelugpa lama, there was no search to identify his incarnation after his death in 1474.
1474
Gendun Drup's spiritual accomplishments brought him substantial donations from devotees which he used to build and furnish new monasteries, as well as to print and distribute Buddhist texts and to maintain monks and meditators. In 1474, at the age of 84, he went on a final teaching tour by foot to visit Narthang Monastery. Returning to Tashilhunpo he died 'in a blaze of glory, recognised as having attained Buddhahood'.
1487
Despite this, 55 years after Tsongkhapa, the Tashilhunpo monks heard accounts that an incarnation of Gendun Drup had appeared nearby and repeatedly announced himself from the age of two. The monastic authorities saw compelling evidence that convinced them the child in question was indeed the incarnation of their founder and felt obliged to break with their own tradition, and in 1487, the boy was renamed Gendun Gyatso and installed at Tashilhunpo as Gendun Drup's tulku, albeit informally.
1492
Tutored personally by the abbot, he made rapid progress, and in 1492 at the age of seventeen he was requested to teach all over Tsang, where thousands gathered to listen and give obeisance, including senior scholars and abbots. Two years later, he met some opposition from the Tashilhunpo establishment when tensions arose over conflicts between advocates of the two types of succession: the traditional abbatial election through merit and incarnation. He therefore moved to central Tibet, where he was invited to Drepung and where his reputation as a brilliant young teacher quickly grew. This move had the effect of shifting central Gelug authority back to Lhasa.
1498
Throughout Gendun Gyatso's life, the Gelugpa were opposed and suppressed by older rivals, particularly the Karma Kagyu and their Ringpung clan patrons from Tsang, who felt threatened by their loss of influence. In 1498, the Ringpung army captured Lhasa and banned the Gelugpa annual New Year Monlam Prayer Festival. Gendun Gyatso was promoted to abbot of Drepung in 1517 and that year Ringpung forces were forced to withdraw from Lhasa. Gendun Gyatso then went to the Gongma (King) Drakpa Jungne to obtain permission for the festival to be held again. The next New Year, the Gongma was so impressed by Gendun Gyatso's performance leading the festival that he sponsored construction of a large new residence for him at Drepung, 'a monastery within a monastery'. It was called the Ganden Phodrang, a name later adopted by the Tibetan Government, and it served as home for Dalai Lamas until the Fifth moved to the Potala Palace in 1645.
1509
In 1509, he moved to southern Tibet to build Chokorgyel Monastery near the 'Oracle Lake', Lhamo Latso, completing it by 1511. That year he saw visions in the lake and 'empowered' it to impart clues to help identify incarnate lamas. All Dalai Lamas from the 3rd on were found with the help of such visions granted to regents. He was invited back to Tashilhunpo and given the residence built for Gendun Drup, to be occupied later by the Panchen Lamas. He was made abbot of Tashilhunpo and stayed there teaching in Tsang for nine months.
1525
In 1525, already abbot of Chokhorgyel, Drepung and Tashilhunpo, he was made abbot of Sera monastery as well, and worked to increase the number of monks there. Based at Drepung in winter and Chokorgyel in summer, he spent his remaining years composing commentaries, making regional teaching tours, visiting Tashilhunpo, and acting as abbot of these four great monasteries. As abbot, he made Drepung the largest monastery in the whole of Tibet. He attracted many students and disciples 'from Kashmir to China' as well as major patrons and disciples such as Gongma Nangso Donyopa of Droda who built a monastery at Zhekar Dzong in his honour and invited him to name it and be its spiritual guide.
1542
Gendun Gyatso died in 1542, but the lineage of Dalai Lama tulkus became firmly established with the third incarnation, Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588), who was formally recognised and enthroned at Drepung in 1546. Gendun Gyatso was given the title "Dalai Lama" by the Tümed Altan Khan in 1578, and his two predecessors were then accorded the title posthumously, making Gendun now the third in the lineage.
1559
A brilliant scholar and teacher, he had the spiritual maturity to be made Abbot of Drepung, taking responsibility for the material and spiritual well-being of Tibet's largest monastery at the age of nine. At 10 he led the Monlam Prayer Festival, giving daily discourses to the assembly of all Gelugpa monks. His influence grew so quickly that soon the monks at Sera Monastery also made him their Abbot and his mediation was being sought to prevent fighting between political power factions. At 16, in 1559, he was invited to Nedong by King Ngawang Tashi Drakpa, a Karma Kagyu supporter, and became his personal teacher.
1577
At the second invitation, in 1577–78 Sonam Gyatso travelled 1,500 miles to Mongolia to see him. They met in an atmosphere of intense reverence and devotion and their meeting resulted in the re-establishment of strong Tibet-Mongolia relations after a gap of 200 years. To Altan Khan, Sonam Gyatso identified himself as the incarnation of Drogön Chögyal Phagpa, and Altan Khan as that of Kubilai Khan, thus placing the Khan as heir to the Chingizid lineage whilst securing his patronage. Altan Khan and his followers quickly adopted Buddhism as their state religion, replacing the prohibited traditional Shamanism.
1578
The Dalai Lama (.mw-parser-output .IPA-label-small{font-size:85%}.mw-parser-output .references .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .infobox .IPA-label-small,.mw-parser-output .navbox .IPA-label-small{font-size:100%}UK: /ˈdælaɪ ˈlɑːmə/, US: /ˈdɑːlaɪ/; Tibetan: ཏཱ་ལའི་བླ་མ་, Wylie: Tā la'i bla ma [táːlɛː láma]) is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" (圣 识一切 瓦齐尔达喇 达赖 喇嘛) given by Altan Khan, the first Shunyi King of Ming China. He offered it in appreciation to the Gelug school's then-leader, Sonam Gyatso, who received it in 1578 at Yanghua Monastery. At that time, Sonam Gyatso had just given teachings to the Khan, and so the title of Dalai Lama was also given to the entire tulku lineage. Sonam Gyatso became the 3rd Dalai Lama, while the first two tulkus in the lineage, the 1st Dalai Lama and the 2nd Dalai Lama, were posthumously awarded the title.
1579
In 1579, the Ming allowed the third Dalai Lama to pay regular tribute. Returning eventually to Tibet by a roundabout route and invited to stay and teach all along the way, in 1580 Sonam Gyatso was in Hohhot [or Ningxia], not far from Beijing, when the Chinese Emperor summoned him to his court. By then he had established a religious empire of such proportions that it was unsurprising the Emperor wanted to summon him and grant him a diploma.
1582
Through Altan Khan, the 3rd Dalai Lama requested to pay tribute to the Emperor of China in order to raise his State Tutor ranking, and the Ming imperial court of China agreed with the request. In 1582, he heard Altan Khan had died and invited by his son Dhüring Khan he decided to return to Mongolia. Passing through Amdo, he founded a second great monastery, Kumbum, at the birthplace of Tsongkhapa near Kokonor. Further on, he was asked to adjudicate on border disputes between Mongolia and China. It was the first time a Dalai Lama had exercised such political authority.
1585
Arriving in Mongolia in 1585, he stayed 2 years with Dhüring Khan, teaching Buddhism to his people and converting more Mongol princes and their tribes. Receiving a second invitation from the Emperor in Beijing he accepted, but died en route in 1588. As he was dying, his Mongolian converts urged him not to leave them, as they needed his continuing religious leadership. He promised them he would be incarnated next in Mongolia, as a Mongolian.
October 1587
Mongol law was reformed to accord with Tibetan Buddhist law. From this time Buddhism spread rapidly across Mongolia and soon the Gelugpa had won the spiritual allegiance of most of the Mongolian tribes. As proposed by Sonam Gyatso, Altan Khan sponsored the building of Thegchen Chonkhor Monastery at the site of Sonam Gyatso's open-air teachings given to the whole Mongol population. He also called Sonam Gyatso "Dalai", Mongolian for 'Gyatso' (Ocean). In October 1587, as requested by the family of Altan Khan, Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso was promoted to Duǒ Er Zhǐ Chàng (Chinese:朵儿只唱) by the emperor of China, seal of authority and golden sheets were granted.
1616
In 1616, the Ming Government granted the title "Universally Holding Vajra Buddha (普持金刚佛)".
1617
The death of the Fourth Dalai Lama in 1617 led to open conflict breaking out between various parties. Firstly, the Tsangpa dynasty, rulers of Central Tibet from Shigatse, supporters of the Karmapa school and rivals to the Gelugpa, forbade the search for his incarnation. However, in 1618 Sonam Rabten, the former attendant of the 4th Dalai Lama who had become the Ganden Phodrang treasurer, secretly identified the child, who had been born to the noble Zahor family at Tagtse castle, south of Lhasa. Then, the Panchen Lama, in Shigatse, negotiated the lifting of the ban, enabling the boy to be recognised as Lobsang Gyatso, the 5th Dalai Lama.
1618
Also in 1618, the Tsangpa King, Karma Puntsok Namgyal, whose Mongol patron was Choghtu Khong Tayiji of the Khalkha Mongols, attacked the Gelugpa in Lhasa to avenge an earlier snub and established two military bases there to control the monasteries and the city. This caused Sonam Rabten who became the 5th Dalai Lama's changdzo or manager, to seek more active Mongol patronage and military assistance for the Gelugpa while the Fifth was still a boy. So, in 1620, Mongol troops allied to the Gelugpa who had camped outside Lhasa suddenly attacked and destroyed the two Tsangpa camps and drove them out of Lhasa, enabling the Dalai Lama to be brought out of hiding and publicly enthroned there in 1622.
1634
During the 1630s Tibet was deeply entangled in rivalry, evolving power struggles and conflicts, not only between the Tibetan religious sects but also between the rising Manchus and the various rival Mongol and Oirat factions, who were also vying for supremacy amongst themselves and on behalf of the religious sects they patronised. For example, Ligdan Khan of the Chahars, a Mongol subgroup who supported the Tsang Karmapas, after retreating from advancing Manchu armies headed for Kokonor intending destroy the Gelug. He died on the way, in 1634.
1636
In 1636 the Manchus proclaimed their dynasty as the Qing dynasty and by 1644 they had completed their conquest of China under the prince regent Dorgon. The following year their forces approached Amdo on northern Tibet, causing the Oirat and Khoshut Mongols there to submit in 1647 and send tribute. In 1648, after quelling a rebellion of Tibetans of Gansu-Xining, the Qing invited the Fifth Dalai Lama to visit their court at Beijing since they wished to engender Tibetan influence in their dealings with the Mongols. The Qing were aware the Dalai Lama had extraordinary influence with the Mongols and saw relations with the Dalai Lama as a means to facilitate submission of the Khalka Mongols, traditional patrons of the Karma Kagyu sect.
1637
His vassal Choghtu Khong Tayiji, continued to advance against the Gelugpas, even having his own son Arslan killed after Arslan changed sides, submitted to the Dalai Lama and become a Gelugpa monk. By the mid-1630s, thanks again to the efforts of Sonam Rabten, the 5th Dalai Lama had found a powerful new patron in Güshi Khan of the Khoshut Mongols, a subgroup of the Dzungars, who had recently migrated to the Kokonor area from Dzungaria. He attacked Choghtu Khong Tayiji at Kokonor in 1637 and defeated and killed him, thus eliminating the Tsangpa and the Karmapa's main Mongol patron and protector.
1639
Next, Donyo Dorje, the Bönpo king of Beri in Kham was found writing to the Tsangpa king in Shigatse to propose a co-ordinated 'pincer attack' on the Lhasa Gelugpa monasteries from east and west, seeking to utterly destroy them once and for all. The intercepted letter was sent to Güshi Khan who used it as a pretext to invade central Tibet in 1639 to attack them both, the Bönpo and the Tsangpa. By 1641 he had defeated Donyo Dorje and his allies in Kham and then he marched on Shigatse where after laying siege to their strongholds he defeated Karma Tenkyong, broke the power of the Tsang Karma Kagyu in 1642 and ended the Tsangpa dynasty.
1642
Apparently by general consensus, by virtue of his position as the Dalai Lama's changdzo (chief attendant, minister), after the Dalai Lama became absolute ruler of Tibet in 1642 Sonam Rabten became the "Desi" or "Viceroy", in fact, the de facto regent or day-to-day ruler of Tibet's governmental affairs. During these years and for the rest of his life (he died in 1658), "there was little doubt that politically Sonam Chophel [Rabten] was more powerful than the Dalai Lama". As a young man, being 22 years his junior, the Dalai Lama addressed him reverentially as "Zhalngo", meaning "the Presence".
1642
In this way, Güshi Khan established the Fifth Dalai Lama as the highest spiritual and political authority in Tibet. 'The Great Fifth' became the temporal ruler of Tibet in 1642 and from then on the rule of the Dalai Lama lineage over some, all or most of Tibet lasted with few breaks for the next 317 years, until 1959, when the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India. In 1645, the Great Fifth began the construction of the Potala Palace in Lhasa.
1645
The Fifth Dalai Lama began construction of the Potala Palace on this site in 1645, carefully incorporating what was left of his predecessor's palace into its structure. From then on and until today, unless on tour or in exile the Dalai Lamas have always spent their winters at the Potala Palace and their summers at the Norbulingka palace and park. Both palaces are in Lhasa and approximately 3 km apart.
1645
The first Dalai Lama was based at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, which he founded. The Second to the Fifth Dalai Lamas were mainly based at Drepung Monastery outside Lhasa. In 1645, after the unification of Tibet, the Fifth moved to the ruins of a royal fortress or residence on top of Marpori ('Red Mountain') in Lhasa and decided to build a palace on the same site. This ruined palace, called Tritse Marpo, was originally built around A.D. 636 by the founder of the Tibetan Empire, Songtsen Gampo for his Nepalese wife. Amongst the ruins there was just a small temple left where Tsongkhapa had given a teaching when he arrived in Lhasa in the 1380s.
1650
The Shunzhi Emperor was then 16 years old, having in the meantime ascended the throne in 1650 after the death of Dorgon. For the Qing, although the Dalai Lama was not required to kowtow to the emperor, who rose from his throne and advanced 30 feet to meet him, the significance of the visit was that of nominal political submission by the Dalai Lama since Inner Asian heads of state did not travel to meet each other but sent envoys. For Tibetan Buddhist historians, however, it was interpreted as the start of an era of independent rule of the Dalai Lamas, and of Qing patronage alongside that of the Mongols.
1653
However, despite such patronising attempts by Chinese officials and historians to symbolically show for the record that they held political influence over Tibet, the Tibetans themselves did not accept any such symbols imposed on them by the Chinese with this kind of motive. For example, concerning the above-mentioned 'golden seal', the Fifth Dalai Lama comments in Dukula, his autobiography, on leaving China after this courtesy visit to the emperor in 1653, that "the emperor made his men bring a golden seal for me that had three vertical lines in three parallel scripts: Chinese, Mongol and Tibetan". He also criticised the words carved on this gift as being faultily translated into Tibetan, writing that "The Tibetan version of the inscription of the seal was translated by a Mongol translator but was not a good translation". Furthermore, when he arrived back in Tibet, he discarded the emperor's famous golden seal and made a new one for important state usage, writing in his autobiography: "Leaving out the Chinese characters that were on the seal given by the emperor, a new seal was carved for stamping documents that dealt with territorial issues. The first imprint of the seal was offered with prayers to the image of Lokeshvara ...".
1653
Similarly, since the Tibetan Gelugpa were keen to revive a priest-patron relationship with the dominant power in China and Inner Asia, the Qing invitation was accepted. After five years of complex diplomatic negotiations about whether the emperor or his representatives should meet the Dalai Lama inside or outside the Great Wall, when the meeting would be astrologically favourable, how it would be conducted and so on, it eventually took place in Beijing in 1653.
1654
In 1654 AD, the Qing government granted the title "Freedom Buddha of the Great Goodness of the Western Paradise Leading the World of Buddhism Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama (西天大善自在佛所领天下释教普通瓦赤喇怛喇达赖喇嘛)".
1655
Güshi Khan died in 1655 and was succeeded by his descendants Dayan, Tenzin Dalai Khan and Tenzin Wangchuk Khan. However, Güshi Khan's other eight sons had settled in Amdo but fought amongst themselves over territory so the Fifth Dalai Lama sent governors to rule them in 1656 and 1659, thereby bringing Amdo and thus the whole of Greater Tibet under his personal rule and Gelugpa control. The Mongols in Amdo became absorbed and Tibetanised.
1658
After Desi Sonam Rapten died in 1658, the following year the 5th Dalai Lama appointed his younger brother Depa Norbu (aka Nangso Norbu) as his successor. However, after a few months, Norbu betrayed him and led a rebellion against the Ganden Phodrang Government. With his accomplices he seized Samdruptse fort at Shigatse and tried to raise a rebel army from Tsang and Bhutan, but the Dalai Lama skilfully foiled his plans without any fighting taking place and Norbu had to flee. Four other Desis were appointed after Depa Norbu: Trinle Gyatso, Lozang Tutop, Lozang Jinpa and Sangye Gyatso.
1661
The 17th-century struggles for domination between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the various Mongol groups spilled over to involve Tibet because of the Fifth Dalai Lama's strong influence over the Mongols as a result of their general adoption of Tibetan Buddhism and their consequent deep loyalty to the Dalai Lama as their guru. Until 1674, the Fifth Dalai Lama had mediated in Dzungar Mongol affairs whenever they required him to do so, and the Kangxi Emperor, who had succeeded the Shunzhi Emperor in 1661, would accept and confirm his decisions automatically.
1674
For the Kangxi Emperor, the alliance between the Dzungar Mongols and the Tibetans was unsettling because he feared it had the potential to unite all the other Mongol tribes together against the Qing Empire, including those tribes who had already submitted. Therefore, in 1674, the Kangxi Emperor, annoyed by the Fifth's less than full cooperation in quelling a rebellion against the Qing in Yunnan, ceased deferring to him as regards Mongol affairs and started dealing with them directly.
1682
The Fifth Dalai Lama died in 1682. Tibetan historian Nyima Gyaincain points out that the written wills from the fifth Dalai Lama before he died explicitly said his title and authority were from the Emperor of China, and he was subordinate of the Emperor of China .
1682
The Fifth Dalai Lama's death in 1682 was kept secret for fifteen years by his regent Desi Sangye Gyatso. He pretended the Dalai Lama was in retreat and ruled on his behalf, secretly selecting the 6th Dalai Lama and presenting him as someone else. Tibetan historian Nyima Gyaincain points out that Desi Sangye Gyatso wanted to consolidate his personal status and power by not reporting the death of the fifth Dalai Lama to the Emperor of China, and also collude with the rebellion group of the Qing dynasty, Mongol Dzungar tribe in order to counter influence from another Mongol Khoshut tribe in Tibet. Being afraid of prosecution by the Kangxi Emperor of China, Desi Sangye Gyatso explained with fear and trepidation the reason behind his action to the Emperor.
1685
The Sixth Dalai Lama (1683–1706) was born near Tawang, now in India. After death of the 5th Dalai Lama, the regent Desi Sangye Gyatso kept death of the 5th Dalai Lama a secret, this allowed him to continue to use the authority of the Fifth Dalai Lama to manage the affairs of the Gelug. Tsangyang Gyatso was picked out in 1685, but his parents were not informed. In 1696, while suppressing the Dzungar rebellion, Kangxi Emperor accidentally learned from the captives that the 5th Dalai Lama had died many years ago. Kangxi severely rebuked the regent for his mistake, the regent admitted his mistake and sent people to Monpa to welcome the reincarnated soul boy in 1697. After 16 years of study as a novice monk, in 1702 in his 20th year he rejected full ordination and gave up his monk's robes and monastic life, preferring the lifestyle of a layman.
1703
In 1703 Güshi Khan's ruling grandson Tenzin Wangchuk Khan was murdered by his brother Lhazang Khan who usurped the Khoshut Khanate's Tibetan throne, but unlike his four predecessors he started interfering directly in Tibetan affairs in Lhasa; he opposed the Fifth Dalai Lama's regent, Desi Sangye Gyatso for his deceptions and in the same year, with the support of the Kangxi Emperor, he forced him out of office. When Lhazang was requested by the Tibetans to leave Lhasa politics to them and to retire to Kokonor like his predecessors, he quit the city. Desi Sangye Gyatso decided to kill Lhazang, he secretly sent someone to poison the food of Lhazang, but was discovered. Lhazang was furious and immediately mobilized a large army to defeat the Tibetan army and killed Desi Sangye Gyatso. In 1705, he wrote a letter to the Qing government, reporting Desi Sangye Gyatso's rebellion and that the sixth Dalai Lama, appointed by Desi Sangye Gyatso, was addicted to wine and sex and ignored religious affairs. He reported the Dalai Lama was not a real Dalai Lama and requested emperor to demote and revoke him. He used the Sixth's escapades as an excuse to seize full control of Tibet. Most Tibetans, though, still supported their Dalai Lama despite his behaviour and deeply resented Lhazang Khan's interference. But Emperor Kangxi then issued an edict: "Because Lhazang Khan reported to depose the sixth Dalai Lama appointed by Desi Sangye Gyatso, the sixth Dalai Lama is ordered to be sent to capital Beijing." In 1706 with the compliance of the Kangxi Emperor, the Sixth Dalai Lama was deposed and arrested by Lhazang who considered him to be an impostor set up by the regent. Lhazang Khan, now acting as the only outright foreign ruler that Tibet had ever had, then sent him to Beijing under escort to appear before the emperor but he died mysteriously on the way near Lake Qinghai, ostensibly from illness, he was 24 years' old.
1705
In 1705, Desi Sangye Gyatso was killed by Lha-bzang Khan of the Mongol Khoshut tribe because of his actions including his illegal action of selecting the 6th Dalai Lama. Since the Kangxi Emperor was not happy about Desi Sangye Gyatso's action of not reporting, the Emperor gave Lha-bzang Khan additional title and golden seal. The Kangxi Emperor also ordered Lha-bzang Khan to arrest the 6th Dalai Lama and send him to Beijing, the 6th Dalai Lama died when he was en route to Beijing. Journalist Thomas Laird argues that it was apparently done so that construction of the Potala Palace could be finished, and it was to prevent Tibet's neighbors, the Mongols and the Qing, from taking advantage of an interregnum in the succession of the Dalai Lamas.
1705
In 1705, the Kangxi Emperor revoked Tsangyang Gyatso's Dalai Lama title. Tsangyang Gyatso died while being sent to Beijing.
1707
Having discredited and deposed the Sixth Dalai Lama, whom he considered an impostor, and having removed the regent, Lhazang Khan pressed the Lhasa Gelugpa lamas to endorse a new Dalai Lama in Tsangyang Gyatso's place as the true incarnation of the Fifth. They eventually nominated one Pekar Dzinpa, a monk but also rumored to be Lhazang's son, and Lhazang had him installed as the 'real' Sixth Dalai Lama, endorsed by the Panchen Lama and named Yeshe Gyatso in 1707. This choice was in no way accepted by the Tibetan people, however, nor by Lhazang's princely Mongol rivals in Kokonor who resented his usurpation of the Khoshut Tibetan throne as well as his meddling in Tibetan affairs.
June 1707
There was also a non-recognised Dalai Lama, Ngawang Yeshe Gyatso, declared 28 June 1707, when he was 25 years old, by Lha-bzang Khan as the "true" 6th Dalai Lama. He was never accepted as such by the majority of the population.
1708
In 1708, in accordance with an indication given by the 6th Dalai Lama when quitting Lhasa, a child called Kelzang Gyatso had been born at Lithang in eastern Tibet who was soon claimed by local Tibetans to be his incarnation. After going into hiding out of fear of Lhazang Khan, he was installed in Lithang monastery. Along with some of the Kokonor Mongol princes, rivals of Lhazang, in defiance of the situation in Lhasa the Tibetans of Kham duly recognised him as the Seventh Dalai Lama in 1712, retaining his birth-name of Kelzang Gyatso. For security reasons he was moved to Derge monastery and eventually, in 1716, now also backed and sponsored by the Kangxi Emperor of China.
1710
The Kangxi Emperor concurred with them, after sending investigators, initially declining to recognize Yeshe Gyatso. He recognized him in 1710, after sending a Qing official party to assist Lhazang in 'restoring order'. These were the first Chinese representatives of any sort to officiate in Tibet. At the same time, while this puppet 'Dalai Lama' had no political power, the Kangxi Emperor secured from Lhazang Khan in return for this support the promise of regular payments of tribute; this was the first time tribute had been paid to the Manchu by the Mongols in Tibet and the first overt acknowledgment of Qing supremacy over Mongol rule in Tibet.
1717
In any case, the Kangxi Emperor took full advantage of having Kelzang Gyatso under Qing control at Kumbum after other Mongols from the Dzungar tribes led by Tsewang Rabtan who was related to his supposed ally Lhazang Khan, deceived and betrayed the latter by invading Tibet and capturing Lhasa in 1717.
1717
These Dzungars, who were Buddhist, had supported the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent. They were secretly petitioned by the Lhasa Gelugpa lamas to invade with their help in order to rid them of their foreign ruler Lhazang Khan and to replace the unpopular Sixth Dalai Lama pretender with the young Kelzang Gyatso. This plot suited the devious Dzungar leaders' ambitions and they were only too happy to oblige. Early in 1717, after conspiring to undermine Lhazang Khan through treachery they entered Tibet from the northwest with a large army, sending a smaller force to Kumbum to collect Kelzang Gyatso and escort him to Lhasa.
1718
When the Dzungars had first attacked, the weakened Lhazang sent word to the Qing for support and they quickly dispatched two armies to assist, the first Chinese armies ever to enter Tibet, but they arrived too late. In 1718 they were halted not far from Lhasa to be defeated and then ruthlessly annihilated by the triumphant Dzungars in the Battle of the Salween River.
1720
Critics, including Sam van Schaik, contend that the theory oversimplifies the situation and often obscures the political dominance more powerful states exert over Tibet. Historians such as Melvyn Goldstein have called Tibet a vassal state or tributary, subject to external control. During the Yuan dynasty, Tibetan lamas held significant religious influence, but the Mongol Khans had ultimate political authority. Similarly, under the Qing Dynasty, which established control over Tibet in 1720, the region enjoyed a degree of autonomy, but all diplomatic agreements recognized Qing China's sovereign right to negotiate and conclude treaties and trade agreements involving Tibet. Since the 18th century, Chinese authorities have asserted the right to oversee the selection of Tibetan spiritual leaders, including the Dalai and Panchen Lamas. This practice was formalized in 1793 through the "29-Article Ordinance for the More Effective Governing of Tibet".
1722
Having vanquished the Dzungars, the Qing army withdrew leaving the Seventh Dalai Lama as a political figurehead and only a Khalkha Mongol as the Qing amban or representative and a garrison in Lhasa. After the Kangxi Emperor died in 1722 and was succeeded by his son, the Yongzheng Emperor, these were also withdrawn, leaving the Tibetans to rule autonomously and showing the Qing were interested in an alliance, not conquest. In 1723, after brutally quelling a major rebellion by zealous Tibetan patriots and disgruntled Khoshut Mongols from Amdo who attacked Xining, the Qing intervened again, splitting Tibet by putting Amdo and Kham under their own more direct control.
1727
Continuing Qing interference in Central Tibetan politics and religion incited an anti-Qing faction to quarrel with the Qing-sympathising Tibetan nobles in power in Lhasa, led by Kanchenas who was supported by Polhanas. This led eventually to the murder of Kanchenas in 1727 and a civil war that was resolved in 1728 with the canny Polhanas, who had sent for Qing assistance, the victor. When the Qing forces did arrive they punished the losers and exiled the Seventh Dalai Lama to Kham, under the pretence of sending him to Beijing, because his father had assisted the defeated, anti-Qing faction. He studied and taught Buddhism there for the next seven years.
1735
In 1735 he was allowed back to Lhasa to study and teach, but still under strict control, being mistrusted by the Qing, while Polhanas ruled Central Tibet under nominal Qing supervision. Meanwhile, the Qing had promoted the Fifth Panchen Lama to be a rival leader and reinstated the ambans and the Lhasa garrison. Polhanas died in 1747. He was succeeded by his son Gyurme Namgyal, the last dynastic ruler of Tibet, who was far less cooperative with the Qing. He built a Tibetan army and started conspiring with the Dzungars to rid Tibet of Qing influence. In 1750, when the ambans realised this, they invited him and personally assassinated him. Despite the Dalai Lama's attempts to calm the angered populace, a vengeful Tibetan mob assassinated the ambans, along with most of their escort.
1750
After him [the 8th Dalai Lama, Jamphel Gyatso], the 9th and 10th Dalai Lamas died before attaining their majority: one of them is credibly stated to have been murdered and strong suspicion attaches to the other. The 11th and 12th were each enthroned but died soon after being invested with power. For 113 years, therefore, supreme authority in Tibet was in the hands of a Lama Regent, except for about two years when a lay noble held office and for short periods of nominal rule by the 11th and 12th Dalai Lamas. It has sometimes been suggested that this state of affairs was brought about by the Ambans—the Imperial Residents in Tibet—because it would be easier to control the Tibet through a Regent than when a Dalai Lama, with his absolute power, was at the head of the government. That is not true. The regular ebb and flow of events followed its set course. The Imperial Residents in Tibet, after the first flush of zeal in 1750, grew less and less interested and efficient. Tibet was, to them, exile from the urbanity and culture of Peking; and so far from dominating the Regents, the Ambans allowed themselves to be dominated. It was the ambition and greed for power of Tibetans that led to five successive Dalai Lamas being subjected to continuous tutelage.
1751
According to Mullin, despite living through such violent times Kelzang Gyatso was perhaps 'the most spiritually learned and accomplished of any Dalai Lama', his written works comprising several hundred titles including 'some of Tibet's finest spiritual literary achievements'. Despite his apparent lack of zeal in politics, Kelzang Gyatso is credited with establishing in 1751 the reformed government of Tibet headed by the Dalai Lama, which continued over 200 years until the 1950s, and then in exile. Construction of the Norbulingka, the 'Summer Palace' of the Dalai Lamas in Lhasa was started during Kelzang Gyatso's reign.
1758
The Eighth Dalai Lama, Jamphel Gyatso, was born in Tsang in 1758 and died aged 46 having taken little part in Tibetan politics, mostly leaving temporal matters to his regents and the ambans. The Emperor of China exempted him from the lot-drawing ceremony of the Golden Urn. Qianlong Emperor officially accepted Gyiangbai as the 8th Dalai Lama when the 6th Panchen Erdeni came to congratulate the emperor on his 70th birthday in 1780. The emperor granted the 8th Dalai Lama a jade seal of authority and jade sheets of confirmation of authority. The confirmation of authority says:
1793
His second Regent Demo Tulku was the biographer of the 8th and 9th Dalai Lamas and though the 9th died at the age of 9, his biography is as lengthy as those of many of the early Dalai Lamas. In 1793 under Manchu pressure, Tibet had closed its borders to foreigners. In 1811, a British Sinologist, Thomas Manning became the first Englishman to visit Lhasa. Considered to be 'the first Chinese scholar in Europe' he stayed five months and gave enthusiastic accounts in his journal of his regular meetings with the Ninth Dalai Lama whom he found fascinating: "beautiful, elegant, refined, intelligent, and entirely self-possessed, even at the age of six". Three years later in March 1815 the young Lungtok Gyatso caught a severe cold and, leaving the Potala Palace to preside over the Monlam Prayer Festival, he contracted pneumonia from which he soon died.
1805
Born in Kham in 1805–6 amidst the usual miraculous signs the Ninth Dalai Lama, Lungtok Gyatso was appointed by the 7th Panchen Lama's search team at the age of two and enthroned in the Potala in 1808 at an impressive ceremony attended by representatives from China, Mongolia, Nepal and Bhutan. Exemption from using Golden Urn was approved by the Emperor. Tibetan historian Nyima Gyaincain and Wang Jiawei point out that the 9th Dalai Lama was allowed to use the seal of authority given to the late 8th Dalai Lama by the Emperor of China
1838
Born in Gathar, Kham in 1838 and soon discovered by the official search committee with the help of the Nechung Oracle, the Eleventh Dalai Lama was brought to Lhasa in 1841 and recognised, enthroned and named Khedrup Gyatso by the Panchen Lama on April 16, 1842, seal of authority and golden sheets were granted on the same date. Sitting-in-the-bed ceremony was held in July 1844. After that he was immersed in religious studies under the Panchen Lama, amongst other great masters. Meanwhile, there were court intrigues and ongoing power struggles taking place between the various Lhasa factions, the Regent, the Kashag, the powerful nobles and the abbots and monks of the three great monasteries. The Tsemonling Regent became mistrusted and was forcibly deposed, there were machinations, plots, beatings and kidnappings of ministers and so forth, resulting at last in the Panchen Lama being appointed as interim Regent to keep the peace.
1862
But according to Smith, during Trinley Gyatso's minority, an alliance of monks and officials called Gandre Drungche (Ganden and Drepung Monks Assembly) deposed the regent in 1862 for abuse of authority and closeness with China; this body then ruled Tibet for ten years until it dissolved when a National Assembly of monks and officials called the Tsongdu was created and took over. Smith makes no mention of Shetra or Dondrup acting as usurpers and despots in this period.
1862
His minority seems to have been a time of even deeper Lhasan political intrigue and power struggles than his predecessor's. In 1862 Wangchuk Shetra, a minister the regent had banished for conspiring against him, led a coup. Shetra contrived to return, deposed the regent, who fled to China, and seized power, appointing himself "Desi", or Prime Minister. He then ruled with "absolute power" for three years, quelling a major rebellion in northern Kham in 1863 and reestablishing Tibetan control over significant Qing-held territory there. Shetra died in 1864 and the Kashag reassumed power. The retired 76th Ganden Tripa, Khyenrab Wangchuk, was appointed regent but his role was limited to supervising and mentoring Trinley Gyatso.
1868
In 1868 Shetra's coup organiser, a semi-literate Ganden monk named Palden Dondrup, seized power in another coup and ruled as a cruel despot for three years, putting opponents to death by having them "sewn into fresh animal skins and thrown in the river". In 1871, at the request of officials outraged after Dondrup had done that to one minister and imprisoned several others, he was ousted and committed suicide after a counter-coup coordinated by the supposedly powerless regent Khyenrab Wangchuk. As a result, Tibetans fondly remember Khyenrab Wangchuk, who died the next year, as saviour of the Dalai Lama and the nation. The Kashag and the Tsongdu or National Assembly were reinstated, and, presided over by a Dalai Lama or his regent, ruled without further interruption until 1959.
1877
In 1877, request to exempt Lobu Zangtab Kaijia Mucuo (Chinese: 罗布藏塔布开甲木措) from using lot-drawing process Golden Urn to become the 13th Dalai Lama was approved by the Central Government. The 13th Dalai Lama assumed ruling power from the monasteries, which previously had great influence on the Regent, in 1895. Due to his two periods of exile in 1904–1909 to escape the British invasion of 1904, and from 1910–1912 to escape a Chinese invasion, he became well aware of the complexities of international politics and was the first Dalai Lama to become aware of the importance of foreign relations. After his return from exile in India and Sikkim during January 1913, he assumed control of foreign relations and dealt directly with the Maharaja, with the British Political officer in Sikkim and with the king of Nepal – rather than letting the Kashag or parliament do it.
1904
In 1904, the Qing Government temporarily revoked Thubten Gyatso's Dalai Lama title.
1908
In 1908, the Qing Government granted the title "Sincere Obedient and Praised the Freedom Buddha of the Great Goodness of the Western Paradise (诚顺赞化西天大善自在佛)".
1912
From 1642 and the 5th Dalai Lama until 1951 and the 14th Dalai Lama, the lineage was enjoined with the secular role of governing Tibet. During this period, the Dalai Lamas or their Kalons (or regents) led the Tibetan government in Lhasa, known as the Ganden Phodrang. The Ganden Phodrang government officially functioned as a protectorate under Qing China rule and governed all of the Tibetan Plateau while respecting varying degrees of autonomy. After the Qing dynasty collapsed in 1912, the Republic of China (ROC) claimed succession over all former Qing territories, but struggled to establish authority in Tibet. The 13th Dalai Lama declared that Tibet's relationship with China had ended with the Qing dynasty's fall and proclaimed independence, though this was not formally recognized under international law. In 1951, the 14th Dalai Lama ratified the Seventeen Point Agreement with China. In 1959, he revoked the agreement. He initially supported the Tibetan independence movement, but in 1974, he rejected calls for Tibetan independence. Since 2005 he has publicly agreed that Tibet is part of China and not supported separatism.
1912
The Qing sent yet another force 'to restore order' but when it arrived the situation had already been stabilised under the leadership of the 7th Dalai Lama who was now seen to have demonstrated loyalty to the Qing. Just as Güshi Khan had done with the Fifth Dalai Lama, they therefore helped reconstitute the government with the Dalai Lama presiding over a Kashag of four Tibetans, reinvesting him with temporal power in addition to his already established spiritual leadership. This arrangement, with a Kashag under the Dalai Lama or his regent, outlasted the Qing dynasty which collapsed in 1912.
1913
The Great Thirteenth Thubten Gyatso then published the Tibetan Declaration of Independence for the entirety of Tibet in 1913. Tibet's independence was never recognized by the Chinese (who claimed all land ever administered by the Manchus) but was recognized by the Kingdom of Nepal, who would use Tibet as one of its first references regarding its independent status when submitting an application to join the UN in 1949. According to a Tibetan website, Nepal listed Tibet as a country just as independent and sovereign, with no mention of Chinese 'suzerainty'. Its relations with Tibet were apparently second in significance only to its relations with Britain, and even more significant than its relations with the USA or even India. Nepal established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China in 1955 and recognized Tibet as a part of China.
1933
Furthermore, Tibet and Mongolia both signed the Treaty of friendship and alliance between the Government of Mongolia and Tibet. Neither countries' independence statuses were ever recognized by the KMT government in China, who would continue to completely claim both as Chinese territory. He expelled the ambans and all Chinese civilians in the country and instituted many measures to modernize Tibet. These included provisions to curb excessive demands on peasants for provisions by the monasteries and tax evasion by the nobles, setting up an independent police force, the abolition of the death penalty, extension of secular education, and the provision of electricity throughout the city of Lhasa in the 1920s. He died in 1933.
July 1935
The 14th Dalai Lama was born on 6 July 1935 on a straw mat in a cowshed to a farmer's family in a remote part of Tibet. According to most Western journalistic sources he was born into a humble family of farmers as one of 16 children, and one of the three reincarnated rinpoches in the same family. On 5 February 1940, the Central Government approved the request to exempt Lhamo Thondup (Chinese: 拉木登珠) from the lot-drawing process to become the 14th Dalai Lama.
November 1950
The 14th Dalai Lama was not formally enthroned until 17 November 1950, during the Battle of Chamdo with the People's Republic of China. On 18 April 1959, he issued a statement that in 1951, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government were pressured into accepting the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet by which it became formally incorporated into the People's Republic of China. The United States informed the Dalai Lama in 1951 that in order to receive its assistance and support he must leave Tibet and publicly disavow "agreements concluded under duress" between Tibetan and Chinese representatives. Fearing for his life in the wake of a revolt in Tibet in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India, where he led a government in exile.
1959
Since the time of the 5th Dalai Lama in the 17th century, the Dalai Lama has been a symbol of unification of the state of Tibet. The Dalai Lama was an important figure of the Gelug tradition, which was dominant in Central Tibet, but his religious authority went beyond sectarian boundaries, representing Buddhist values and traditions not tied to a specific school. The Dalai Lama's traditional function as an ecumenical figure has been taken up by the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who has worked to overcome sectarian and other divisions in the exile community and become a symbol of Tibetan nationhood for Tibetans in Tibet and in exile. He is Tenzin Gyatso, who escaped from Lhasa in 1959 during the Tibetan diaspora and lives in exile in Dharamshala, India.
1970
The Tibetans asked Dzungars to bring a true Dalai Lama to Lhasa, but the Manchu Chinese did not want to release Kelsan Gyatso to the Mongol Dzungars. The Regent Taktse Shabdrung and Tibetan officials then wrote a letter to the Manchu Chinese Emperor that they recognized Kelsang Gyatso as the Dalai Lama. The Emperor then granted Kelsang Gyatso a golden seal of authority. The Sixth Dalai Lama was taken to Amdo at the age of 8 to be installed in Kumbum Monastery with great pomp and ceremony.
1995
In 1995, the Dalai Lama chose to proceed with the selection of the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama without the use of the Golden Urn, while the Chinese government insisted that it must be used. This has led to two rival Panchen Lamas: Gyaincain Norbu as chosen by the Chinese government's process, and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as chosen by the Dalai Lama. However, Nyima was abducted by the Chinese government shortly after being chosen as the Panchen Lama and has not been seen in public since 1995.
2001
With the aim of launching guerrilla operations against the Chinese, the Central Intelligence Agency funded the Dalai Lama's administration with US$1.7 million a year in the 1960s. In 2001, the 14th Dalai Lama ceded his partial power over the government to an elected parliament of Tibetan exiles. His original goal was full independence for Tibet, but by the late 1980s he sought high-level autonomy instead. He continued to seek greater autonomy from China, but Dolma Gyari, deputy speaker of the parliament-in-exile, said: "If the middle path fails in the short term, we will be forced to opt for complete independence or self-determination as per the UN charter".
September 2007
In September 2007, the Chinese government said all high monks must be approved by the government, which would include the selection of the 15th Dalai Lama after the death of Tenzin Gyatso. Since by tradition, the Panchen Lama must approve the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, that is another possible method of control. Consequently, the Dalai Lama has alluded to the possibility of a referendum to determine the 15th Dalai Lama.
2014
In 2014 and 2016, he said that Tibet wants to be part of China but China should let Tibet preserve its culture and script.
2018
In 2018, he said that "Europe belongs to the Europeans" and that Europe has a moral obligation to aid refugees whose lives are in peril. He added that Europe should receive, help, and educate refugees but that they should ultimately return to develop their home countries. He made similar comments in an interview the next year. He also said that a female Dalai Lama "should be more attractive" because if she looked a certain way people would "prefer not see … that face".
2019
In 2019, the Dalai Lama spoke out about his successor, saying that after his death he is likely to be reincarnated in India. He also warned that any Chinese interference in succession should be considered invalid. The Dalai Lama's succession also involves Mongolia, given its strong Tibetan Buddhist ties. The Jebtsundamba Khutuktu, the latest one chosen from Mongolia, is the third most important figure in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy, and plays a significant role in the recognition of the next Dalai Lama.
2020
In 2020, the Dalai Lama said he did not support Tibetan independence and hoped to visit China as a Nobel Prize winner. He said "I prefer the concept of a 'republic' in the People's Republic of China. In the concept of a republic, ethnic minorities are like Tibetans, Mongols, Manchus, and Xinjiang Uyghurs. We can live in harmony".
2021
In 2021, he praised India as a role model for religious harmony in the world.
2023
In 2023, a video showed the Dalai Lama in the city of Dharamshala, India, asking a boy for a kiss on the lips, and then to suck his tongue. He later apologized and expressed regret through a statement that claimed he "often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras" and "regrets the incident".
