Tibetan Culture Beyond the Land of Snows uses a translation of the Tibetan term for Tibet, Bhod Gangchen-]ong, or "land of snows," to describe a community of people who are Tibetan in origin but are now living outside the historical and ethnographic boundaries of Tibet. These Tibetans began to leave Tibet in 1959 after His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual and temporal leader of the people of Tibet, fled to India.