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Lhalu Tsewang Dorje

Tibetan aristocrat and politician (1914-2011)

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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 22, 2026
Entity authorityQ1913262
Source-derived summary

Lhalu Tsewang Dorje (Tibetan: ལྷ་ཀླུ་ཚེ་དབང་རྡོ་རྗེ་, Chinese: 拉鲁·次旺多吉, January 1914 – 15 September 2011) commonly known as Lhalu, Lhalu Se, or Lhalu Shape, was a Tibetan aristocrat and politician who held a variety of positions in various Tibetan governments before and after 1951.

Biography

Early years

Lhalu's father was Lungsharwa Dorje Tsegyel, an influential official in the Lhasa government and a favourite of the 13th Dalai Lama's. His mother was Yangdzon Tsering, the Shatra family's youngest daughter, with whom Lungshar had been having an affair.

Lungshar was born into the noble Lhalu family whose ancestors lived in Tana of the Tsang region at the time of the 5th Dalai Lama. He is famous for taking four noble youths – "the Rugby Four" – to the United Kingdom to receive a modern education (for the first time in Tibet's history).

As a child, Lhalu attended a private school at the foot of the Potala Palace in Lhasa. He then went on to a school for children of secular officials at Jokhang monastery.

Earlier official positions

Following the Dalai Lama's death in 1934, Lungshar Dorje Tsegyel, a moderate reformist who advocated replacing lifelong tenure for the government ministers (Kalon) with a vote for a four-year term, was outmanœuvred by the more conservative minister Trimön; Lungshar was arrested and punished by blinding. All of Lungshar's descendants were then banned from government service. Lhalu had entered government service as a boy in 1927, but he was dismissed from his position after his father's arrest.

Editorial summary

“Lhalu Tsewang Dorje” enters the record as tibetan aristocrat and politician (1914-2011). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Lhalu, Tsewang and Dorje can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1914, 2011, 1951, 1934—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1914-01-01. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Lhalu, Tsewang and Dorje.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Lhalu Tsewang Dorje” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Lhalu, Tsewang and Dorje provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1913262. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914, 2011, 1951 and 1934.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. 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

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
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Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lhalu Tsewang Dorje”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lhalu Tsewang Dorje primary sources, Lhalu Tsewang Dorje archive and Lhalu 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 “Lhalu Tsewang Dorje”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Lhalu Tsewang Dorje” 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.