The 13th Dalai Lama (born Thubten Gyatso; full spiritual name: Ngawang Lobsang Thupten Gyatso Jigdral Chokley Namgyal; Tibetan: ཐུབ་བསྟན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་, Wylie: Thub Bstan Rgya Mtsho) (12 February 1876 – 17 December 1933) was the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet enthroned during a turbulent modern era. He presided during the collapse of the Qing dynasty, and is referred to as "the Great Thirteenth", responsible for redeclaring Tibet's national independence, and for his national reform and modernization initiatives.
In 1878, he was recognized as the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. He was escorted to Lhasa and given his pre-novice vows by the Panchen Lama, Tenpai Wangchuk, and given the name "Ngawang Lobsang Thupten Gyatso Jigdral Chokley Namgyal". In 1879, he was enthroned at the Potala Palace, but did not assume political power until 1895, after he had reached his maturity.
Thubten Gyatso was an intellectual reformer and skillful politician. He was responsible for rebuilding Tibet's geopolitical position after the British expedition to Tibet, restoring discipline in monastic life, and increasing the number of lay officials to avoid excessive power being placed in the hands of the monks.
The 13th Dalai Lama was born in the village of Thakpo Langdun, one day by car, south-east from Lhasa, and near Samye Monastery, Takpo province, in June 1876 to parents Kunga Rinchen and Lobsang Dolma, a peasant couple. Laird gives his birthdate as 27 May 1876, and Mullin gives it as dawn on the 5th month of the Fire Mouse Year (1876).
Agvan Dorzhiev (1854–1938), a Khori-Buryat Mongol, and a Russian subject, was born in the village of Khara-Shibir, not far from Udinsk, to the east of Lake Baikal. He left home in 1873 at age 19 to study at the Gelugpa monastery, Drepung, near Lhasa, the largest monastery in Tibet. Having successfully completed the traditional course of religious studies, he began the academic Buddhist degree of Geshey Lharampa (the highest level of 'Doctorate of Buddhist Philosophy'). He continued his studies to become Tsanid-Hambo, or "Master of Buddhist Philosophy". He became a tutor and "debating partner" of the teenage Dalai Lama, who became very friendly with him and later used him as an envoy to Russia and other countries.
After the British expedition to Tibet by Sir Francis Younghusband in early 1904, Dorzhiev convinced the Dalai Lama to flee to Urga in Mongolia, almost 2,400 km (1,500 mi) to the northeast of Lhasa, a journey which took four months. The Dalai Lama spent over a year in Urga and the Wang Khuree Monastery (to the west from the capital) giving teachings to the Mongolians. In Urga he met the 8th Bogd Gegeen Jebtsundamba Khutuktu several times (the spiritual leader of Outer Mongolia). The content of these meetings is unknown. According to report from A.D. Khitrovo, the Russian Border Commissioner in Kyakhta, the Dalai Lama and the influential Mongol Khutuktus, high lamas and princes "irrevocably decided to secede from China as an independent federal state, carrying out this operation under the patronage and support from Russia, taking care to avoid the bloodshed". The Dalai Lama insisted that if Russia would not help, he would even ask Britain, his former foe, for assistance.
After the Dalai Lama fled, the Qing dynasty immediately proclaimed him deposed and again asserted sovereignty over Tibet, making claims over Nepal and Bhutan as well. The Treaty of Lhasa was signed at the Potala between Great Britain and Tibet in the presence of the Amban and Nepalese and Bhutanese representatives on 7 September 1904. The provisions of the 1904 treaty were confirmed in a 1906 treaty signed between Britain and China. The British, for a fee from the Qing court, also agreed not to annex Tibetan territory or to interfere in the administration of Tibet, while China agreed not to permit any other foreign state to interfere with the territory or internal administration of Tibet.
The Dalai Lama is thought to have been involved with the anti-foreign 1905 Tibetan Rebellion. The British expedition to Tibet had profound repercussions in the Tibetan Buddhist world, leading to heavy anti-Western and anti-Christian sentiment among Tibetan Buddhists. The expedition also led to a sudden and heavy-handed Chinese intervention in Tibetan areas, to develop, assimilate, and bring the regions under strong Qing central control. The Tibetan Lamas in Batang proceeded to revolt in 1905, massacring Chinese officials, French missionaries, and Christian Catholic converts. The Tibetan monks opposed the Catholics, razing the Catholic mission's Church, and slaughtering all Catholic missionaries and Qing officials. The Manchu Qing official Fengquan was assassinated by the Tibetan Batang Lamas, along with other Manchu and Han Chinese Qing officials and the French Catholic priests, who were all massacred when the rebellion started in March 1905. Tibetan Gelugpa monks in Nyarong, Chamdo, and Litang also revolted and attacked missions and churches and slaughtered westerners. Christian missionaries and Qing officials were linked in the eyes of the Tibetans as hostile foreigners to be attacked. Zhongtian (Chungtien) was the location of Batang monastery. The Tibetans slaughtered the converts, torched the building of the missionaries in Batang due to their xenophobia. Sir Francis Edward Younghusband wrote that At the same time, on the opposite side of Tibet they were still more actively aggressive, expelling the Roman Catholic missionaries from their long-established homes at Batang, massacring many of their converts, and burning the mission-house. There was anti-Christian sentiment and xenophobia running rampant in Tibet.
No. 10. Despatch from Consul-General Wilkinson to Sir E. Satow, dated Yünnan-fu, 28th April, 1905. (Received in London 14th June, 1905.) Pere Maire, the Provicaire of the Roman Catholic Mission here, called this morning to show me a telegram which he had just received from a native priest of his Mission at Tali. The telegram, which is in Latin, is dated Tali, the 24th April, and is to the effect that the lamas of Batang have killed PP. Musset and Soulie, together with, it is believed, 200 converts. The chapel at Atentse has been burnt down, and the lamas hold the road to Tachien-lu. Pere Bourdonnec (another member of the French Tibet Mission) begs that Pere Maire will take action. Pere Maire has accordingly written to M. Leduc, my French colleague, who will doubtless communicate with the Governor-General. The Provicaire is of opinion that the missionaries were attacked by orders of the ex-Dalai Lama, as the nearest Europeans on whom he could avenge his disgrace. He is good enough to say that he will give me any further information which he may receive. I am telegraphing to you the news of the massacre.
In October 1906, John Weston Brooke was the first Englishman to gain an audience with the Dalai Lama, and subsequently he was granted permission to lead two expeditions into Tibet. Also in 1906, Sir Charles Alfred Bell, was invited to visit Thubten Chökyi Nyima, the 9th Panchen Lama at Tashilhunpo, where they had friendly discussions on the political situation.
The Dalai Lama later stayed at the great Kumbum Monastery near Xining and then travelled east to the most sacred of four Buddhist mountains in China, Wutai Shan located 300 km from Beijing. From here, the Dalai Lama received a parade of envoys: William Woodville Rockhill, the American Minister in Peking; Gustaf Mannerheim, an Imperial Russian army colonel, who later became the Marshal of Finland and the 6th President of Finland; a German doctor from the Peking Legation; an English explorer named Christopher Irving; R.F. Johnson, a British diplomat from the Colonial Service; and Henri D'Ollone, the French army major and viscount. The Dalai Lama was mounting a campaign to strengthen his international ties and free his kingdom from Chinese rule.
In June 1908, C.G.E. Mannerheim met Thubten Gyatso in Wutai Shan during the course of his expedition from Turkestan to Peking. Mannerheim wrote his diary and notes in Swedish to conceal the fact that his ethnographic and scientific party was also an elaborate intelligence gathering mission for the Imperial Russian army. The 13th Dalai Lama gave a blessing of white silk for the Russian Czar. Worried about his safety, Mannerheim gave Tibet's spiritual pontiff a Browning revolver and showed him how to reload the weapon.