The Treasury of Lives

The Dalai Lamas are a Geluk incarnation line whose Ganden Podrang government ruled Tibet from the seventeenth to the mid-twentieth century. It was the Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso, who was given the title of Dalai Lama by the leader of the Tumet Mongols, Altan Khan, which was posthumously applied to his previous incarnations, Gendun Drub and Gendun Gyatso. The Fourth Dalai Lama's Mongolian heritage cemented the Geluk-Mongol alliance, and with the Fifth Dalai Lama, the governance of Tibet by the Dalai Lamas began. It was the Fifth who also shifted the Dalai Lama’s residence from Ganden Podrang at Drepung Monastery to the newly constructed Potala Palace in Lhasa, henceforth the seat of the Tibetan government. The Thirteenth Dalai Lama declared independence from Beijing and ruled as head of a sovereign state. In 1950 Chinese forces occupied the country and the Fourteenth Dalai Lama fled to India, where he still lives in exile.