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The Thirteenth Dalai Lama (Thubten Gyatso)

The Thirteenth Dalai Lama (Thubten Gyatso)

1876 CE1933 CE · Modern · Thakpo Langdun (Dakpo)

1876–1933 CE

Thubten Gyatso (1876–1933 CE), the 'Great Thirteenth,' was the major reforming and modernizing Dalai Lama and—after a century of short-lived predecessors—a long-reigning ruler who took the actual reins of power. Born in south-central Tibet and enthroned in 1879, he assumed full authority in 1895 and navigated Tibet through the rivalry of the British and Russian empires (the 'Great Game'), the British military expedition of 1904, and the collapse of the Qing dynasty, twice fleeing into exile (to Mongolia and to British India) before returning and, in 1913, proclaiming Tibet's independence. He worked to restore monastic discipline, broaden the lay administration, build a modern army, and open limited contacts with the wider world. The immediate predecessor of the present Dalai Lama, he is one of the most consequential and best-documented figures of modern Tibetan history.

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Thakpo Langdun (Dakpo)

What they did here

DOCUMENTED ORIGIN: born to a farming family at Thakpo Langdun in south-central Tibet, southeast of Lhasa near Samye, and recognized as the reincarnation of the Twelfth Dalai Lama.

About Thakpo Langdun (Dakpo)

Thakpo Langdun, in the Dakpo (Dagpo) region of south-central Tibet, was the birthplace, in 1876, of Thubten Gyatso, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, the reformist ruler who declared Tibet's independence and modernised aspects of its government in the early twentieth century.

See other sages who lived in Thakpo Langdun (Dakpo)

The world in their lifetime

Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with The Thirteenth Dalai Lama (Thubten Gyatso)’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.

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