ABSTRACT
The Sakya leader became the first religious head of the Tibetan government under Mongol control and with Mongol military backing. The foundation for the Tibetan religiopolitical system was laid in the fourteenth century, but it came to full fruition in the seventeenth century under the fifth Dalai Lama. Many monasteries and meditation centers sprang up in the valleys and on the mountainsides of the Tibetan landscape. To secure Mongol support, the reincarnation of Sonam Gyatso had been found in the person of a Mongol prince who became the fourth Dalai Lama. The government of Tibet was managed by a religiously organized and motivated bureaucracy under an absolute ruler whose authority was based on the religious concept of incarnation. On the basis of the priority of the Buddhist religion, the government formed under the Dalai Lama divided its performance between religious and secular affairs.
