The article discusses the emergence of Tibetan nationalism in Sino-Tibetan borderland in the period after the fall of the Qing Empire in 1911 and untill the incorporation of Tibet into the PRC in 1951. It argues that the cult of the Bodhisattva of compassion Avalokiteśvara was a key spiritual root of the Tibetan religious nationalism, associating Tibet with the state of the Dalai Lamas.