In 1938, a two-year-old boy was recognized through a traditional process of discovery as being the reincarnation of all previous Dalai Lamas, the spiritual rulers of Tibet.
Taken away from his parents, he was brought up in Lhasa according to a monastic regimen of rigorous austerity and in almost total isolation. Aged seven, he was enthroned in the 1000-room Potala palace as the supreme spiritual leader of a nation the size of Western Europe, with a population of six million.
At fifteen, he became head of state.
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