Political ruler of Tibet from 1940 until 1959, when he went into exile in protest against Chinese annexation and oppression. He has continued to campaign for self-government; Nobel Peace Prize 1989. Tibetan Buddhists believe that each Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of his predecessor and also of Avalokitesvara. Dalai Lama is the title of the second hierarch of the Gelugpa monastic order. Tenzin Gyatso was chosen to be the 14th Dalai Lama in 1937 and enthroned in Lhasa 1940. He temporarily fled 1950-51 when the Chinese overran Tibet, and in March 1959 - when a local uprising against Chinese rule was suppressed - made a dramatic escape from Lhasa to India. He then settled at Dharmsala in the Punjab. The Chinese offered to lift the ban on his living in Tibet, providing he would refrain from calling for Tibet's independence. His deputy, the Panchen Lama, has cooperated with the Chinese but failed to protect the monks. The Dalai Lama has in fact limited himself to pressing for self-government in internal affairs and the cessation of forcible Sinification in Tibet. He concerns himself closely with the welfare of the many Tibetans who have fled into exile. In the 15th century, when the office was founded, Dalai Lama was purely a religions title. The fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682) united Tibet politically and assumed temporal as well as spiritual powers.
