Dalai Lama

Was identified at two as the fourteenth incarnation, enthroned at four, and given political authority at fifteen as Chinese troops entered Tibet.

He fled to India in 1959 disguised as a soldier and has lived in Dharamsala since, building a government in exile and then, in 2011, handing its political powers to an elected leadership and keeping only the religious role.

The Art of Happiness, written with the psychiatrist Howard Cutler, is the book most Western readers arrive through. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for insisting on non-violence throughout, a position that has been criticised by younger Tibetans who see six decades of it producing nothing.