CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

13th Dalai Lama

Spiritual leader of Tibet from 1879 to 1933

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 6, 2026
Entity authoritySource title only
Source-derived summary

The 13th Dalai Lama was the 13th Dalai Lama of Tibet enthroned during a turbulent modern era. He presided during the collapse of the Qing dynasty, and is referred to as "the Great Thirteenth", responsible for redeclaring Tibet's national independence, and for his national reform and modernization initiatives.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “13th Dalai Lama” is spiritual leader of Tibet from 1879 to 1933. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through 13th, Dalai and Lama, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA dependable orientation record for establishing vocabulary, names and a first evidence trail. The current 48-word lead offers orientation but no explicit four-digit date, so chronology should not be assumed. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, 13th, Dalai and Lama is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “spiritual leader of Tibet from 1879 to 1933” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 6, 2026.

Critical limits

The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “13th Dalai Lama”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 13th Dalai Lama primary sources, 13th Dalai Lama archive and 13th research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “13th Dalai Lama”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “13th Dalai Lama” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.