In Central Asian Buddhist countries, it has been widely believed for the last millennium that Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, has a special relationship with the people of Tibet and intervenes in their fate by incarnating as benevolent rulers and teachers such as the Dalai Lamas. He left home in 1873 at age 19 to study at the Gelugpa monastery, Drepung, near Lhasa, the largest monastery in Tibet. Having successfully completed the traditional course of religious studies, he began the academic Buddhist degree of Geshey Lharampa (the highest level of 'Doctorate of Buddhist Philosophy'). But the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso (1876-1933), was a true temporal and spiritual leader who guided his people through a firestorm of challenges to the survival of Tibet. This is according to The Book of Kadam, the main text of the Kadampa school, to which the 1st Dalai Lama, Gendun Drup, first belonged. The events of the Great Thirteenth's reign are critical to understanding today's controversy over Tibet's occupation by China. He continued his studies to become … Agvan Dorzhiev (1854–1938), a Khori-Buryat Mongol, and a Russian subject, was born in the village of Khara-Shibir, not far from Ulan Ude, to the east of Lake Baikal. In fact, this text is said to have laid the foundation for the Tibetans' later identification of the …