To understand the context within which the Dalai Lama institution came to hold temporal power in Tibet during the lifetime of the 5th, it may be helpful to review not just the early life of Lobsang Gyatso but also the world into which he was born, as Künga Migyur.

The child who would become the 5th Dalai Lama was born in the Chonggye Valley in Ü, south of the Yarlung Tsangpo River[2] and about two days' journey south-east of Lhasa,[3] to a prominent family of nobles with traditional ties to both Nyingma and Kagyu lineages.

[15] Tseten Dorje established his residence at Samdruptse castle, also called Shigatse, near the Gelug monastery of Tashilhunpo, and together with his nine sons, eventually extended the reach of his power over both of Tibet's central provinces of Ü and Tsang.

[16] The secular government of King Tseten Dorje and his descendants enjoyed general support from the Sakya, Jonang, and Kagyu schools, while maintaining somewhat tense but cordial relations with his Gelug neighbours at Tashilhunpo.

[23] Although the 5th Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatso, completed all his formal monastic training as a Gelugpa, proving to be an exceptional scholar, he also studied Nyingmapa doctrines, and took Nyingma tantric empowerments.

Although Güshi Khan's descendants (who would come to be known as the Upper Mongols) showed little interest in the administration of Tibet, they did appoint a regent for a while to act on their behalf in Lhasa, and gradually assimilated certain aspects of Tibetan culture into their own.

[16] Administrative authority was vested in the person of the Desi, while military power remained the special domain of Güshi Khan,[38] whom the 5th Dalai Lama acknowledged as king of the Dzungar Upper Mongols in Kokonor.

[16] The Fifth Dalai Lama began construction of the Potala Palace in 1645[39] after one of his spiritual advisors, Konchog Chophel (d. 1646), pointed out that the site would be an ideal seat of government, situated as it is between Drepung and Sera monasteries, and overlooking Songtsen Gampo's old capital city of Lhasa.

Nechung – which, translated literally, means "small place" – was a shrine dedicated to Pehar, located about ten minutes east on foot from Drepung monastery near Tibet's newly declared capital city of Lhasa.

[citation needed] Some contemporary scholars and the current 14th Dalai Lama would appear to agree: Lobsang Gyatso specifically states that a gyalpo (Tibetan: རྒྱལ་པོ་, Wylie: rgyal-po: a particular type of "very powerful, perfidious spirit") in the area of Dol Chumig Karmo[44] had "...been harming the teaching of the Buddha and sentient beings in general and in particular" since at least the fire-bird year of 1657 (CE).

[46] At any rate: confronted with the death of both people and cattle combined with harsh, unpredictable weather in an atmosphere of political intrigue and diplomatic insecurity, Gyatso undertook a specific course of action which might be considered somewhat unconventional, even for a religiously affiliated head of state.

At the end of the earth-bird year of 1669 (CE), a special crypt was constructed, and offerings placed within it in hopes that it might serve as a home in which the disturbed spirit of Drakpa Gyaltsen – an iconoclastic tulku and rival scholar who had died under mysterious circumstances at a time of considerable political turmoil – might finally settle.

[44][46] Reportedly, though, the evil spirit's harmful activities only intensified, manifesting (in part) as atmospheric disturbances including hailstorms, but also causing both people and cattle to fall prey to disease.

[45] It was only later that Dolgyal would come to be identified with Dorje Shugden (Tibetan: རྡོ་རྗེ་ཤུགས་ལྡན་, Wylie: rDo-rje Shugs-ldan) through conflation with a much older Sakya protector of the same name[47] associated with the remote Nepali village of Tsap.

Combined with the performance of many far more complex tantric rituals, the coordinated efforts reached eleven separate district capitals, and spread through no fewer than seventy monasteries including Dorje Drag, Sera, and Drepung.

The entire cycle was concluded with an elaborate fire puja offering in which the "perfidious spirit" was ritually burnt by seven different groups of practitioners, led by the Dalai Lamas' personal monastery (already known as Namgyal by that time).

The growth of the 19th-century nonsectarian Rime movement served in part to expose and exacerbate political tensions within the Gelug hierarchy as it had come to organize itself in the centuries following the 5th Dalai Lama's death.

In reply, Phabongka (who is better remembered for his teachings on the graded stages of the path and reputation of conferring Kalachakra empowerments to large crowds of laypeople regardless of his having enthusiastically propitiated Shugden) acknowledged his "error".

[54] The current 14th Dalai Lama, for his part, continues to maintain it was the Fifth's intent to appease the interfering spirit of the Gyalpo class from Dol Chumig Karmo – hence his insistence on using the name "Dolgyal" to disambiguate a practice he disrecommends from one of a protector of the Sakya school to which he's tied through prior incarnations.

[60] According to Snellgrove and Richardson, it was a difference in philosophy that caused a bitter schism to arise with the Gelugpa,[61] however Samten Karmay maintains that the 5th Dalai Lama's negative attitude towards the Jonangpa was determined by political rather than philosophical or religious considerations.

[62] In any case, it was during Lobsang Gyatso's rule after the civil wars and rebellions of 1640-1643 that Jonangpa institutions, teachings and followers were banished and moved out of central Tibet to be re-established in Amdo for allying with the Tsangpa and fighting against the Ganden Phodrang.

Then in 1658 the main Jonang monastery Takten Damchö Ling in Lhatse – which had been the monastic seat of the great Jonangpa exponent Taranatha (1575–1634) – was converted to a Gelug institution and renamed Phuntsok Choling.

[69] After moving to Amdo the school's distinct transmission lineages of both zhentong philosophy and Dro Kalachakra completion stage practices could be preserved and survived intact to this day.

[70] In late 2001, the current 14th Dalai Lama reportedly composed an "Aspiration Prayer for the Flourishing of the Jonang Teachings" entitled in Tibetan: ཇོ་ནང་པའི་བསྟན་རྒྱས་སྨོན་ལམ་, Wylie: Jo-nang pa'i bStan rGyas sMon-lam (which might be called quite strongly worded).

[78] The emperor gave Gyatso a parting gift of an elaborate gold seal reading "Dalai Lama, Overseer of the Buddhist Faith on Earth Under the Great Benevolent Self-subsisting Buddha of the Western Paradise".

The first documented Europeans to arrive in Tibet may have been the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries, António de Andrade and Manuel Marques who did so in either July or August 1624, when the 5th Dalai Lama would have been about seven or eight years old.

[92][note 1] Lobsang Gyatso was a prolific writer and respected scholar, who wrote in a free style which allowed him to frankly – and sometimes, ironically – express his own deepest feelings and independent interpretations.

[45] Lobsang Gyatso left an autobiography – entitled in Tibetan: ཟ་ཧོར་གྱི་བན་དེ་ངག་དབང་བློ་བཟང་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་འདི་སྣང་འཁྲུལ་བའི་རོལ་རྩེད་རྟོགས་བརྗོད་ཀྱི་ཚུལ་དུ་བཀོད་པ་དུ་ཀུ་ལའི་གོས་བཟང་, Wylie: Za hor gyi ban de ngag dbang blo bzang rgya mtsho'i 'di snang 'khrul ba'i rol rtsed rtogs brjod kyi tshul du bkod pa du ku la'i gos bzang[49] – but far more commonly referred to simply as Dukulai Gosang – in which, according to Samten Gyaltsen Karmay, he wrote: The official Tsawa Kachu of the Ganden Palace showed me statues and rosaries (that belonged to the Fourth Dalai Lama and other lamas), but I was unable to distinguish between them!

"[16][95] Despite what he wrote above himself later in life, three different English-language histories attest that he was subjected to an earlier object-recognition test, in 1619, when Sonam Rapten, the Chandzeu, went to his family home at Chonggye in great secrecy (since the king had banned the search for the Trulku) to confirm information he had received about the boy.

‘Dukula’ affords a detailed and objective account of daily events in the author's life which permits the reader to envision a panoramic view of Lhasan and Tibetan society through most of the 17th century.