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.
Biographies
The First Dalai Lama, Gendun Drub
b.1391 - d.1474
Gendun Drub was a close disciple of Tsongkhapa, after first ordaining and training in the great Kadam monastery of Nartang. Gendun Drub was instrumental in spreading the new Geluk tradition in Tsang; he founded the great monastery Tashilhunpo in 1447 and was its first abbot, until 1484. He was posthumously identified as the First Dalai Lama, a previous incarnation of the third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso, who first held the title. Gendun Drub was identified as an emanation of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion believed to be embodied in the Dalai Lama incarnation line.
The Second Dalai Lama, Gendun Gyatso
b.1476 - d.1542
Gendun Gyatso was the reincarnation of Gendun Drub. He served as abbot of three of the most powerful Geluk monasteries in both U and Tsang, significantly contributing to the spread of the Geluk tradition. Gendun Gyatso retained relations to his family’s religious traditions, which included Nyingma, Shangpa Kagyu, and Sakya teachings. He built the Ganden Podrang at Drepung around the year 1530, which came to be the residence of the Dalai Lamas and the seat of their government of Tibet in later centuries. His abbacies occurred during a time of intermittent war between the Kagyu rulers of Tsang and the Geluk leaders of Lhasa.
The Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso
b.1543 - d.1588
Sonam Gyatso 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. A tireless missionary of the Geluk teachings, he was instrumental in what is known as “the second conversion of the Mongols”, bringing the Geluk teachings to the region. Sonam Gyatso founded several important Geluk monasteries, including Kumbum, Litang Ganden Tubchen Chokorling, and Namgyel Monastery. in 1581 he served as the thirteenth throne-holder of Chamdo Jampa Ling for six months.
The Fourth Dalai Lama, Yonten Gyatso
b.1589 - d.1617
Yonten Gyatso, the Fourth Dalai Lama, was born in Mongolia, the grandson of the successor to Altan Khan, who had invited the Third Dalai Lama to Mongolia. Although he died young, his Mongolian heritage cemented the Geluk-Mongol alliance, allowing the heirarchs in Drepung to exerted considerable power in Tibet.
The Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso
b.1617 - d.1682
The Fifth Dalai Lama, Ngawang Lobzang Gyatso, popularly known "The Great Fifth", was the first Dalai Lama to assume political rule of Tibet, forging lasting alliances with Mongol armies and the Qing court in China. He was both a brilliant tactician and a religious thinker, authoring numerous commentaries and ritual manuals, as well as histories and biographies. Although responsible for considerable sectarian violence and Geluk hegemony, including the suppression in Tibet of the Jonang tradition and the forcible conversion of many monasteries to the Geluk faith, the Fifth Dalai Lama never abandoned his family’s Nyingma affiliations, and he sponsored the establishment or renovation of several Nyingma monasteries. The great palace of Potala that he built as his residence and seat in Lhasa was named after that bodhisattva’s pure land, Potalaka, a naming that contributed to the dissemination of the identification of the Dalai Lama as an emanation of Avalokiteśvara.
