Dharmapala Thangka CentreSchool of Thangka Painting

This scroll painting shows Ngawang Losang Gyatso, known as the Great Fifth Dalai Lama. He is one of the central figures of the Tibetan history. He was born in 1617 as the fifth reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. His father was a famous Nyingmapa Lama of aristocrartic line, age. During his youth, Tibet was torn by strife instigated by various aristocratic factions, which aligned themselves with various orders. These troubles were resolved in his twenty-fith year, and he was elevated to become the supreme spiritual teacher and secular ruler of Tibet. He was an charismatic figure for both Geluk and Nyingma orders.

As ruler of all Tibet, he thought to distance himself from being narrowly identified with the Geluk Order.

On the twenty-fifth day of the third month of the Wood-Bird year [1645], he began construction of the Potala palace on the Red Mountain in Lhasa, the site of the original palace of Songsten Gambo, the first Religious King of Tibet [r. 627-648]. He then [ca. 1695] moved out of the Drepung monastic university and took up residence there.

The Potala stands unsurpassed today as the foremost monument of distinctively Tibetan architecture. A combination of fort, monastery, palace, and temple, it has become the universally recognised emblem of the Tibetan nation and its Buddhist civilisation.