Great Lama

Great Lama (plural Great Lamas)

1. (uncommon, dated) The Dalai Lama.

   Synonym: Grand Lama

   • 1902, Sarat Chandra Das, “ཁ་བཏགས kha-ḇtags̠”, in A Tibetan-English Dictionary With Sanskrit Synonyms, Calcutta: Bengal Secretariat Book Depôt, page 128:

     These scarves are of various descriptions. The longest and the best ones are presented to the great lamas, high officials, and to other personages; they carry respect according to their quality, colour and length.

   • 1904, Graham Sandberg, The Exploration of Tibet, Its History and Particulars From 1623 to 1904, Calcutta: Thacker, Spink & Co, page 105:

     Having forded the river, they passed under this town up a little cross-valley, when they reached Deshi-ribgyal where the great lama was residing. The date was November 8th, 1774.

   • 1950, Willard L King, Melville Weston Fuller: Chief Justice Of The United States 1888–1910, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company, page 98:

     Many Easterners persist in regarding Fuller's appointment to this high office as somewhat comparable to the selection of a Dalai Lama, the great religious ruler in Tibet. When the Great Lama dies, the Buddhist authorities select his successor from the children in the country born at the time of his death, into one of whom his spirit has supposedly entered.

   • 2008, Alexander Norman, Holder of the White Lotus: The Lives of the Dalai Lama, London: Little, Brown, →ISBN, page 246:

     Kircher, following Grueber, states that there were two kings of Tibet. One of these is called the 'Deva' — i.e. the then regent. The other is the 'Great Lama', who resides in a citadel where he is 'removed from the bother of all extraneous affairs and enjoys leisure in the secret solitudes of his palace'.

• “Grand (also Great) Lama, n.” under “lama, n.¹”, in OED Online ⁠, Oxford, Oxfordshire: Oxford University Press, launched 2000.