spiritual over-lord

"The Buddhism of Tibet is not the pure original doctrine of the gentle Indian prince who lived and died six centuries before the birth of Christ. It is the usual degenerate form, full of devils and spooks, and it has forgotten a great many of the noble teachings of the founder of that great Asiatic faith. But Tibet has been a bulwark of Buddhism which has been of great help in preserving that religion against the attacks of the Mohammedans from the west and the pagan creeds of southern India....

"During the reign of Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan and an ardent convert to Buddhism, the abbots of an important Tibetan monastery were recognized as the political rulers of all Tibet. In return for this favor, the new Dalai Lama, in his quality of spiritual over-lord of the whole Buddhist world, officially crowned the Tartar Khan Emperor of Mongolia, just as Pope Leo III had crowned Charlemagne."


--Hendrik van Loon, Van Loon's Geography: The Story of the World We Live In, 1932

Origin Story

“A great turning-point in the religious history of Mongolia came a few years later when Altan Khan, a powerful prince who was descended from Genghis, invited a Tibetan lama to come and see him and bestowed upon this figure the rank of Dalai Lama. Hence it was a Mongolian prince who created this title for the highest office in the Tibetan Buddhist church, and thereafter the links between Mongolia and the Yellow Faith grew from strength to strength.”

--Nick Middleton, The Last Disco in Outer Mongolia, 1992

Life Goes On

"Tibet is lost. You have your freedom."

-Dalai Lama, in Mongolia, 2006 August

Lama News

Dalai Lama's travel plans to Mongolia kept secret