6th July: Birthday of His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama, spiritual leader among Tibetans and head of the Tibetan Government in Exile was born on this date in 1935. He was proclaimed the tulku (rebirth) of the thirteenth Dalai Lama at the age of two and was enthroned as Tibet's Dalai Lama at 15, one month after the People's Liberation Army's invasion of Tibet. He is the first Dalai Lama to travel to the West. 10 things you may not know about the Dalai Lama.

1. The name Dalai Lama is a combination of the Mongol word dalai meaning "ocean" and the Tibetan word for guru, teacher or mentor.
2. The previous Dalai Lama died in 1933. Four years later, a search party was sent out to find his reincarnation. It is said that the embalmed head of Dalai Lama 13 turned to face north east, which was an indication as the direction in which they should look. Further clues came through the Regent's visions and dreams of a distinctive looking house in the region of Amdo - the one in which the 14th Dalai Lama was then living.
3. The name given to him at birth was Lhamo Thondup, and his family were farmers and horse traders. The test to determine that they had found the right person was to show the child a selection of items, some of which had belonged to the previous Dalai Lama. When the boy correctly identified those items, saying, "It's mine! It's mine!" they knew their search was over. Lhamo Thondup became Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, but was not officially enthroned until he was 15.
4. His eldest brother, Thupten Jigme Norbu, had been recognised at the age of eight as the reincarnation of the high Lama Taktser Rinpoche.
5. The Dalai Lama's escape from Tibet was assisted by the CIA. They helped him get to India, where a few years earlier, the then Prime Minister had discouraged the Dalai Lama from seeking political asylum because of the effect it would have on the peace of the area.
6. The Dalai Lama promotes vegetarianism whenever he can. His dietary preference would be to eat no meat, but his doctors have advised him that he should eat meat on alternate days for the sake of his health. When eating with non-vegetarians, he will decline the vegetarian menu and eat meat along with his hosts. Tibetan monks were not traditionally vegetarian as meat was the most commonly available food in Tibet in ancient times.
7. The position has been a political as well as a religious one since the 1630s. The current Dalai Lama has been no exception - he set up his government in exile in India where he worked tirelessly to help the Tibetan refugees, preserve their way of life and to protect their human rights, although he retired from political life in 2011.
8. He won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
9. Previous incarnations were not as clean living. The Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, for example, was known to enjoy wine, women and song.
10. The current Dalai Lama may be the last. He has said that he will take a view, when he is about 90, as to whether the institution of Dalai Lama should continue. As of 2011, he was undecided as to whether he wanted to incarnate again or not.