7 Dalai Lama XIV 7Life in Tibet
The 13th Dalai Lama died in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, on
Dec. 17, 1933. According to custom, executive authority
was given to a regent, whose chief task was to identify and
educate the next Dalai Lama, who would typically assume
control at about the age of 20. After consulting various
oracles, the regent sent out search parties to locate the
child. One party made its way to Amdo, in the far north-
east region of the Tibetan cultural domain, where it
encountered a young boy named Lha-mo-don-grub, the
son of a farmer. After passing a number of tests (including
the selection of personal items that had belonged to the
13th Dalai Lama), he was proclaimed the next Dalai Lama.
But before he and his family could leave for Lhasa, they
were held for ransom by a powerful Chinese warlord, Ma
Bufeng. The ransom was paid by the Tibetan government,
and the child and his family made the long trip, where he
was enthroned on Feb. 22, 1940.
Ordained as a Buddhist monk, the young Dalai Lama
moved (without his family) into the vast Potala Palace—
the residence of the Dalai Lamas and the seat of Tibetan
government—where he began a rigorous monastic educa-
tion under the tutelage of distinguished scholars. Affairs
of state remained, however, in the hands of the regent.
The Dalai Lama assumed his full role as ruler of Tibet on
Nov. 17, 1950, at age 15. A month later he fled the advance
of the Chinese armies, which had invaded Tibet in 1949.
He returned to Lhasa in 1951 and spent several unsuccess-
ful years attempting to make a peaceful and workable
arrangement with China.
As tensions continued to escalate, rumours that
Chinese authorities planned to kidnap the Dalai Lama led
to a popular uprising in Lhasa on March 10, 1959, with