Dalai Lama

📍Tsuglagkhang Complex, Temple Road, McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh 176219, India

“Tenzin Gyatso, the fourteenth Dalai Lama, has lived in McLeod Ganj, above Dharamsala in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, since 1960, the year after he fled Tibet following the failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959. India offered him and thousands of Tibetan refugees asylum, and McLeod Ganj, a former British hill station at about 1,450 metres in the foothills of the Dhauladhar range, became the seat of the Tibetan government in exile. Around his residence and the Tsuglagkhang temple complex grew a community known as Little Lhasa, with monasteries, schools, a medical institute, archives and craft workshops preserving Tibetan culture. He has described himself as a simple Buddhist monk, and he is known for rising early to pray and meditate. In 1989 he received the Nobel Peace Prize, and in July 2026 he marked his ninety-first birthday in exile.”

Sources: Dalai Lama. Freedom in Exile (1990), HarperCollins; Iyer, P. The Open Road (2008), Knopf