Buddhism: How the Dalai Lamas Ruled Tibet

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How the Dalai Lamas Ruled Tibet Mar 6th 2013, 17:19 Awhile back I decided to write something about each of the fourteen Dalai Lamas, even if just a sentence or two. I'm not quite finished; the 13th Dalai Lama has turned into a three-part project, and I haven't written part three yet. But I've learned a lot. For example, there's a common misconception that the Dalai Lamas were absolute, autocratic rulers of Tibet before the Chinese invasion. Is that ever not true. In fact, only two -- the Fifth and the Thirteenth -- functioned as real heads of the government. And even those two were far from dictators. The rest of them either had no political power (the First through the Fourth), or they were mostly figureheads who left the governing thing to others, or they didn't live long enough to assume their roles as heads of the government. The Fifth was the first Dalai Lama to rule Tibet. The unconventional 6th Dalai Lama was kidnapped by a Mongol warlord and died in captivity at the age of 24.  Political upheavals prevented the 7th Dalai Lama from being anything but a figurehead until the last few years of his life.  By all accounts the 8th Dalai Lama was a quiet man, devoted to meditation and study, who preferred to let others govern. Or, the Eighth might have thought governing Tibet would be bad for his health, so to speak.  The long stretch of time between the death of one Dalai Lama and the adulthood of the next allowed for power struggles and corruption. The Ninth through the Twelfth all died young -- it is assumed that some or all of them were assassinated -- so for most of the 19th century Tibet was ruled by a loose assortment of ministers and other high lamas. During those years, some of the Panchen Lamas exercised more political control of Tibet than did the Dalai Lamas. Attempts were made on the life of the Thirteenth, but he was shrewd and careful enough to stay alive. The Thirteenth wanted to modernize Tibet and initiated some much-needed reforms. Unfortunately, most of his reforms were un-reformed as soon as he died. Bottom line, "Dalai Lama" seems to be a really bad career choice.

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