Dalai Lama [key] [Tibetan,=oceanic teacher], title of one of the main leaders of Tibetan Buddhism. Believed like his predecessors to be the incarnation of the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, 1935–, was installed in 1940. In 1959, following a Tibetan revolt against Chinese rule (see Tibet), he fled into exile. He has traveled widely, pleading the Tibetan cause, and was the recipient of the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize and the 2012 Templeton Prize. He stepped down as the political leader of the Tibetan government-in-exile in 2011.
See the 14th Dalai Lama's autobiography (1990) and biography by A. Norman (2020); studies by P. Iyer (2008) and T. Johnson (2011).
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