Dalai Lama
The Dalai Lama is the head of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The term is part of the full title "Holiness Knowing Everything Vajradhara Dalai Lama" given by Altan Khan. 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.
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 uprising and lives in exile in Dharamshala, India.
From 1642 to 1951, the Dalai Lama led the secular government of Tibet. During this period, the Dalai Lamas or their Kalons 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 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.
The extent and nature of the Dalai's secular and religious power remains contested. One common interpretation is the mchod yon, often translated as "priest and patron relationship". It describes the historical alliance between Tibetan Buddhist leaders and secular rulers, such as the Mongols, Manchus, and Chinese authorities. In this relationship, the secular patron provides political protection and support to the religious figure, who in turn offers spiritual guidance and legitimacy. Proponents of this theory argue that it allowed Tibet to maintain a degree of autonomy in religious and cultural matters while ensuring political stability and protection.
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".
According to Tibetan Buddhist doctrine, the Dalai Lama chooses his reincarnation. In recent years, the 14th Dalai Lama has opposed Chinese government involvement, emphasizing that his reincarnation should not be subject to external political influence.
Names
"Dalai Lama" is part of the full title "圣 识一切 瓦齐尔达喇 达赖 喇嘛" given by Altan Khan. "Dalai Lama" combines the Mongolic word dalai and the Tibetan word . The word dalai corresponds to the Tibetan word gyatso or rgya-mtsho,'''' and, according to Schwieger, was chosen by analogy with the Mongolian title Dalaiyin qan or Dalaiin khan. Others suggest it may have been chosen in reference to the breadth of the Dalai Lama's wisdom. The Dalai Lama is also known in Tibetan as the Rgyal-ba Rin-po-che or simply the Rgyal-ba.History
Origins in myth and legend
Since the 11th century, it has been widely believed in Central Asian Buddhist countries that Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, has a special relationship with the people of Tibet and intervenes in their fate by incarnating as benevolent rulers and teachers such as the Dalai Lamas. The Book of Kadam, the main text of the Kadampa school from which the 1st Dalai Lama hailed, is said to have laid the foundation for the Tibetans' later identification of the Dalai Lamas as incarnations of Avalokiteśvara. It traces the legend of the bodhisattva's incarnations as early Tibetan kings and emperors such as Songtsen Gampo and later as Dromtönpa. This lineage has been extrapolated by Tibetans up to and including the Dalai Lamas.Thus, according to such sources, an informal line of succession of the present Dalai Lamas as incarnations of Avalokiteśvara stretches back much further than the 1st Dalai Lama, Gendun Drub; as many as sixty persons are enumerated as earlier incarnations of Avalokiteśvara and predecessors in the same lineage leading up to Gendun Drub. These earlier incarnations include a mythology of 36 Indian personalities, ten early Tibetan kings and emperors all said to be previous incarnations of Dromtönpa, and fourteen further Nepalese and Tibetan yogis and sages. In fact, according to the "Birth to Exile" article on the 14th Dalai Lama's website, he is "the seventy-fourth in a lineage that can be traced back to a Brahmin boy who lived in the time of Buddha Shakyamuni."
Avalokiteśvara's "Dalai Lama master plan"
According to the 14th Dalai Lama, long ago Avalokiteśvara had promised the Buddha to guide and defend the Tibetan people. In the late Middle Ages, his master plan to fulfill this promise was the stage-by-stage establishment of the Dalai Lama institution in Tibet.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.
The 3rd built on his predecessors' fame by becoming Abbot of the two great monasteries of Drepung and Sera. The Mongol leader Altan Khan, first Ming Shunyi King, hearing of his reputation, invited the 3rd to Mongolia, where he converted the King and his followers to Buddhism, covering a vast tract of central Asia. This brought most of Mongolia into the Dalai Lama's sphere of influence, founding a spiritual empire which largely survives to the modern age. After being given the Mongolian name 'Dalai', he returned to Tibet to found the great monasteries of Lithang in Kham, eastern Tibet and Kumbum in Amdo, north-eastern Tibet.
The 4th was then born in Mongolia as the great-grandson of Altan Khan, cementing strong ties between Central Asia, the Dalai Lamas, the Gelugpa and Tibet. The 5th in the succession used the vast popular power base of devoted followers built up by his four predecessors. By 1642, with the strategy provided by his chagdzo Sonam Rapten and the military assistance of Khoshut chieftain Gushri Khan, the 'Great 5th' founded the Dalai Lamas' religious and political reign over Tibet that survived for over 300 years.
Establishment of the Dalai Lama lineage
Gendun Drup, 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.
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.
Gendun Gyatso died in 1542, but the lineage of Dalai Lama tulkus became firmly established with the third incarnation, Sonam Gyatso, 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.