Tenzin Gyatso's Discovery

Tenzin Gyatso was raised in a farming community in northeastern Amdo in the village of Taktser. He had 15 siblings and his parents Choekyong and Diki Tsering. They were reasonably wealthy farmers making a living off of the land raising barley, buckwheat, and potatoes.

When he was two, there was a search party sent out to find the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama. One hint which indicated the direction in which the next Dalai Lama would be found was shown when the embalmed body of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, had mysteriously turned to face the northeast direction when it was originally facing the south. Another sign was when Regent Reting Rinpoche had a vision of a one-story house in Amdo. After much searching, they found a house that Reting’s vision. They then presented each of the younger children in the house with various toys, some belonging to the previous Dalai Lama, some not. Tenzin Gyatso immediately identified the toys owned by the previous Dalai Lama and stated “It’s mine! It’s mine!”

After this occurrence, Tenzin Gyatso was recognized as the rebirth of the Dalai Lama. In the West, he is often refered to as “His Holiness the Dalai Lama”. Tenzin Gyatso began his education at the age of six. At age 15, he was inaugurated as Tibet's Head of State.