11th Dalai Lama

Khedrup Gyatso (1 November 1838 – 31 January 1856) was the 11th Dalai Lama of Tibet. He was recognised as the Eleventh Dalai Lama in 1840, having come from the same village as Kelzang Gyatso, the seventh Dalai Lama, had in 1708. In 1841, Palden Tenpai Nyima, 7th Panchen Lama, gave him the pre-novice ordination, cut his hair and gave him the name Khedrup Gyatso. In 1842, he was enthroned in the Potala Palace and, in 1849, at the age of eleven, he took the novice vows of monkhood from Palden Tenpai Nyima, 7th Panchen Lama. He wrote a book of stanzas, Story of the Monkeys and Birds. It is an allegory of the war at the end of the 18th century between the Tibetans and the Gurkhas ('birds' and 'monkeys' respectively). During the life of Khedrup Gyatso, wars over Ladakh weakened the lamas' power over the Tibetan Plateau and the First and Second Opium Wars as well as the Taiping Rebellion simultaneously weakened Qing Empire's influence on Tibet. In the last years of his reign the Nepalese invaded Tibet, but were defeated in the Nepalese-Tibetan War (1855–1856). He died suddenly in the Potala Palace, Lhasa, Tibet, on 31 January 1856.