Power struggles and the battle for sovereignty yield the most unexpected outcomes.
The 13th Dalai Lama began his temporal reign, reluctantly, at the age of 20, at a time when the British East India Company, Tsarist Russia, Qing China and Mongolia, put Tibet in a rather precarious situation.
The Tibetan Kanshag took advantage of these insecurities and permanently and completely sacked Tibetan political power bases such as the Tengyeling Monastery from where Demo Rinpoche (the Regent who traditionally administered Tibet before the Dalai Lamas reached maturity), and other key government officials came from by exile, murder, torture, and destruction.
When the Dalai Lama was 13 years old, he recorded a dream in which “a black man visited and told him that he would face many difficulties and that he would be forced to travel to Mongolia, China and India”. The figure in the dream also said that he would live longer then any other Dalai Lama.
By the time he passed away in 1993 at the age of 58, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Mongolian Revolution and the Communist Revolution in China had taken place, completely changing the face of political power in the region.
During those years, the 13th Dalai Lama himself eventually had to flee Tibet for the various countries foretold in the dream he had at 13.
When he passed away, the largest tomb ever for a Dalai Lama was built, slightly larger than the Fifth’s. His legacy was keeping Tibet largely in place and independent; and continue the spread of the Yellow Sect from Mongolia, China, to Russia.