Known by the titles of monk, great scholar, and statesman, the Nineteenth Bakula Rinpoche, Ngawang Lobzang Tubsten Choknor was arguably the most important Ladakhi of the twentieth century. In 1959, when the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and tens of thousands of Tibetans fled to India, Bakula Rinpoche played a critical role in helping to reestablish Tibet's Buddhist institutions in exile. A close associate of Prime Minister Nehru, Bakula served in numerous official capacities. In 1988, he received the Padma Bhushan, one of the highest civilian awards bestowed by the Republic of India. He was instrumental in revitalizing Buddhism in Russia during the last decade of the USSR, and in Mongolia in the later decades of the twentieth century while he served there as ambassador from India; in 1999, the Government of Mongolia awarded him the Polar Star, one of the highest honors presented to non-Mongolian citizens.