5th Dalai Lama

Who was 5th Dalai Lama?

Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso was the 5th Dalai Lama: a key religious and temporal leader of Tibet who lived from 1617 to 1682. Gyatso is credited with unifying central Tibet after a protracted era of civil wars. As an independent head of state, he established diplomatic relations with China and also met with early European explorers. Gyatso – who wrote 24 volumes' worth of scholarly and religious works on a wide range of subjects – was the first Dalai Lama to wield effective temporal power over all of central Tibet, and is very frequently referred to simply as the Great Fifth.