Tenzin Gyatso

by Claude B. Levenson

"In 1938, a group of emissaries in search of the fourteenth reincarnation of the Dalai Lama followed signs from visions and prophecies to a village in the south-east corner of Tibet. There, a lively three-year-old peasant boy declared to them in the elegant dialect of Lhassa that he was a lama from Sera and was eager to return to his monastery. This biography describes the Dalai Lama's rigorous education and his full assumption of power at the age of fifteen following the Chinese invasion in 1950. Though Tibetan tradition holds that the Dalai Lama is a reincarnation of his predecessors, one still marvels at the level of responsibility, maturity, and wisdom he possessed at a very young age. He maintained a policy against violence and retaliation despite increasing repression by the Chinese. In 1959, the Dalai Lama was forced to flee Tibet and began his dangerous journey into exile from his homeland. While working for the freedom of the Tibetan people, the Dalai Lama has become one of th