After the Lhasa uprising fails, the fourteenth Dalai Lama escapes across the Himalayas to India and establishes his exile home at Dharamsala; Tibetan Buddhism, carried by its refugees, takes root across the world in the decades that follow.
Tagged: Buddhist Tibetan Buddhism Vajrayana
The Event
- Date
- 1959 (exact)
- Also called
- Tibetan diaspora begins
- Era
- Modern; Standard periodization of Buddhist history
- Location
- Lhasa to Dharamsala; today Tibet and Himachal Pradesh, India
- Traditions
- Buddhism
- Streams
- Vajrayana, Tibetan Buddhism
- Key figures
- Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama
Connections
- Tsongkhapa founds Ganden Monastery; descends from
Primary Sources
- Dalai Lama, My Land and My People (1962)
Secondary Sources
- Powers, Introduction to Tibetan Buddhism (Snow Lion, 2nd ed. 2007)
- Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (Cambridge, 2nd ed. 2013)
Provenance: HIST-0435; confidence 0.95; accessed 2026-10-27.
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- Tsongkhapa founds Ganden Monastery History Event