The Fifth Dalai Lama

The Fifth Dalai Lama, Lobzang Gyatso (1617-1682) is one of only two Dalai Lamas who are referred to as The Great. The Gelukpa dignitaries discovered the child Yonten Gyatso at age two in Chhonggye, in the U region of Tibet in 1619. The discovery was kept secret until 1620 however, and he was enthroned as the Fifth Dalai Lama at the Depung Monastery in 1625.

The stirrings of Tibetan political and military controversy began with the reign of Lobzang Gyatso, the Fifth Dalai Lama. While Tibet was in the hands of the power-hungry regent Desi Tsangpa, several Mongol tribes, including the Khoshot, the Bonpo, and the Khalkha, converged on the city of Lhasa. Chieftain Gushi Khan of the Khoshot defeated the other tribes, executed Desi Tsangpa and declared himself Po Gyalpo, King of Tibet. He recognized the Dalai Lama as both the secular and the spiritual leader of Tibet, and the head of all Buddhist sects in Asia.

With his renewed authority, Lobzang Gyatso, the Fifth Dalai Lama, defined the lineage of both the Dalai Lama and the kings of ancient Tibet, beginning with Srongsten Gampo (605-49), as the incarnation of the founder of the Tibetan race, which according to legend, sprang from the union of Chenrezig, the Buddha of Compassion in the form of a monkey, and Dolma, a feminine deity of wisdom in the form of an ogress.

Lobzang Gyatso also declared the city of Lhasa, founded by King Srongsten Gampo, to be the political capital of Tibet. He based the new Tibetan government on the concept of Chhosi Shungdel, the integration of religion and politics, with clergy and laymen sharing power over the country, for which he established two training schools, the Tsedung and Shodung.

The Fifth Dalai Lama ordered the construction of the great Potala Palace on the crown of Red Hill overlooking the city of Lhasa, built on the ruins of the ancient temple where Buddhism was first introduced to Tibet. The Fifth Dalai Lama relocated his residence from the Ganden Phodang, the Palace of Joy in the Depung Monastery to the Potala Palace in 1649, however, the Potala was not completed until 1695.

Using his alliance with Gushi Khan, the Fifth Dalai Lama also reclaimed the regions of Nyanam on the Nepal border, which had been seized by Raja Pratap Malla of Nepal in the early 17th century, as well as the kingdoms of Ngari and Ladakh. He formed an alliance with the Nepalese region Sikkim, and visited the Manchurian court of child Emperor Shun Chin in Peking in 1652.

Lobzang Gyatso was also a prolific scholar, who composed volumes of history, poetry, and religious mysticism, including the biographies of the Third and Fourth Dalai Lamas, a history of Tibet, his autobiography, and a code of studies, rituals, and behavior for monastic orders that remain in effect today. Having successfully unified the nation of Tibet, toward the end of his reign, Lobzang Gyatso, the Fifth Dalai Lama, withdrew from public life. He relinquished the affairs of Tibet to his regent Desi Sangay Gyatso, who later concealed the death of the Fifth Dalai Lama in 1682 for 15 years, ostensibly to maintain the stability of the country and to preserve the Fifth Dalai Lama's many enhancements to Tibetan culture.