Tenzin Gyatso - 14th Dalai Lama, by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

Tenzin Gyatso (born 6 July 1935) is the fourteenth and current Dalai Lama, and as such, is often referred to in Western media simply as the Dalai Lama, without any qualifiers. The fifth of sixteen children of a farming family in the Tibetan province of Amdo, he was proclaimed the tulku (rebirth) of the thirteenth Dalai Lama at the age of two. On 17 November 1950, at the age of fifteen, he was enthroned as Tibet's Head of State and most important political ruler, while Tibet faced occupation by the forces of the People's Republic of China.