4th Dalai Lama

Who was 4th Dalai Lama?

Yonten Gyatso or Yon-tan-rgya-mtsho was the 4th Dalai Lama, born in Mongolia on the 30th day of the 12th month of the Earth-Ox year of the Tibetan calendar. As the son of the chieftain of the Chokur tribe, Tsultrim Choeje, and great-grandson of Altan Khan of the Tümed Mongols and his second wife PhaKhen Nula, Yonten Gyatso was a Mongolian, making him the only non-Tibetan to be recognized as Dalai Lama other than the 6th Dalai Lama, who was a Monpa—but Monpas can be seen either as a Tibetan subgroup or a closely related people.

The Nechung, state oracle of Tibet, and Lamo Tsangpa, another oracle, had both predicted the next reincarnation would be born in Mongolia. About this time, the chief attendant of the Third Dalai Lama, Tsultrim Gyatso, sent a letter informing the authorities in Tibet that the reincarnation had been born and details of some of the wonders accompanying his birth.

Yonten Gyatso left for Tibet in 1599 when he was already ten years old, with his father, Tibetan monks and officials, and a thousand Mongol cavalry. They arrived in 1603 after stopping at all the major monasteries on the route.