14th Dalai Lama

Born Lhamo Thondup on 6 July 1935 in Amdo, he was selected as the tulku of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1937 and enthroned in Lhasa in 1940. After PRC forces annexed Central Tibet in the Battle of Chamdo, he assumed temporal power at fifteen in 1950. The 1959 Tibetan uprising sent him across the border; he established a government in exile in Mussoorie that April, then moved it to Dharamsala in 1960. He has advocated the Middle Way Approach since the early 1970s - seeking autonomy within China rather than independence - and retired as political head in 2011 to make way for democracy. He taught worldwide until his mid-80s, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, and was named by Time as Gandhi's spiritual heir to nonviolence. Since 2018 he's taught on a reduced schedule from India, his work spanning interfaith dialogue, neuroscience, and the environment.