14th Dalai Lama
Tenzin Gyatso, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, who fled to India in 1959 after the failed Tibetan uprising and led the Tibetan exile government.
Biography
Tenzin Gyatso was born to a farming family in Amdo and was recognised at the age of two as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama. He was enthroned in Lhasa in 1940 and took on political power in 1950, as Chinese forces entered Tibet.
After years of uneasy coexistence with Chinese rule, he fled to India during the Tibetan uprising of 1959. He settled in Dharamshala, where he set up a government-in-exile, and has lived there since.
He has travelled widely, promoting Buddhism and a "middle way" of real autonomy for Tibet within China rather than independence. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. In 2011 he gave up his political role to an elected Tibetan leader in exile.
