Born in 1935 into a farming family in northeastern Tibet, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama was recognized early in his life as a reincarnation of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama. By age four, he was enthroned in Lhasa. During the 1950s, the political stability of Tibet was threatened when China's People's Liberation Army entered the country and established a military presence. Increased tensions put the life of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in danger, and in 1959, he fled the country at night to Dharamsala, India, where he established the Tibetan government in exile.
