Panchen Lama

The Panchen Lama (Tibetan: པན་ཆེན་བླ་མ, Wylie: pan chen bla ma THL Penchen Lama), or Panchen Erdeni (Tibetan: པན་ཆེན་ཨེར་ཏེ་ནི།, THL Penchen Erténi), is the highest ranking lama after the Dalai Lama in the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, the lineage which controlled western Tibet from the 16th century until the Battle of Chamdo and the subsequent 1959 Tibetan uprising.