Tenzin, Lobsang

Lobsang Tenzin (born November 5, 1939 ) - Tibetan emigrant political and religious leader, prime minister (trip kalon) of the Tibetan government in exile in Dharamasla, India , in 2001-2011. He was elected to his post in 2001 during the first democratic elections in the Tibetan diaspora. He is a close friend of the Dalai Lama XIV .

Born in Yola, eastern Tibet. At the age of five, he was identified as the 4th reincarnation of Samdhong Rinpoche (one of the Tibetan religious titles) and transferred to the Gaden Dechenling Monastery in Yola . Two years later, he took a monastic vow and began religious studies at the Drepung Monastery in Lhasa , completing it at a Buddhist Madhyamak school. In 1959, he was forced to flee Tibet with the Dalai Lama.

Since 1960, he worked as a teacher in Tibetan religious schools in India, first in Shimla and then in Darjeeling . From 1965 to 1970 he was the director of the Tibetan school in Dalhusi, from 1971 to 2001 he headed the Central Institute of Tibetan Studies in Benares . Considered one of the largest modern Tibetan Buddhist scholars, he is also an authoritative specialist in the teaching of Mahatma Gandhi . Fluent in Hindi and English.

In 1991, he was appointed by the Dalai Lama as a member of the Assembly of Tibetan People’s Deputies , and later was unanimously elected its president. From 1996 to 2001, he was elected as a deputy of the Tibetan parliament in exile from Kham province and soon became its president.

In 2000, the Dalai Lama decided that the Tibetan diaspora should be able to elect its leaders, and in July 2001, Lobsang Tenzin received 29,000 votes in the election, that is, a total of 84%. Since 2001, he traveled a lot, trying to get support from the Tibetan government in exile and to notify the Dalai Lama about negotiating autonomy with the Chinese government.