Who is the Dalai Lama?

The Dalai Lama is considered the political ruler and the spiritual leader of Tibet. The Panchen Lama is another high spiritual leader.

Both the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama are thought to have power to be reincarnated, into another body that they choose.

Tibetans believe that when the Dalai Lama or the Panchen Lama dies, he changes into a woman and is reincarnated with all his powers in the person of a child some where in Tibet.

The first Dalai Lama was Gendun Drup,he was born in 1391.

The thirteenth Dalai Lama died in 1933, and the current Dalai Lama (who is in the picture above) is the fourteenth Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama was born in Lhasa and ruled Tibet from the Potala (the palace in Lhasa) until 1959 when he was forced out of the country by the Chinese occupying forces.

He lives and is the leader of the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala, India. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for his commitment to nonviolence.

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