Tsangyang Gyatso became the sixth Dalai Lamai in 1697 when he was only 14 -- and new translations of erotic poetry he wrote show a boy clearly torn between spiritual duty and the drive to get laid.

An excerpt from the BBC story:

He dressed as a layman and often took the name Norsang Wangpo at night, getting drunk and visiting brothels.

However he was also a poet and wrote moving pieces about the pains and pleasures of the human heart, and a new English version of his works has been completed by British linguist Paul Williams.

"This is a lad in his teens we're talking about, and he's very much behaving like a typical teenager," Mr Williams told BBC World Service's Reporting Religion programme.

"He wasn't doing what he was told, he wasn't attending ceremonies he was supposed to be attending. But the real crisis came when he reached the age of 19 and he was required to take his final monastic vows - and he simply refused.

"This was simply unheard of - but worse than that, he actually gave back the vows he'd already taken."

Playboy lifestyle

Tsangyang's poems are addressed to the many women he had relations with - from courtesans to beer girls at the market.

Often their subject is the conflict within him - that, while he is aware of his duties, his desires for "pleasure and comfort" are stronger.

Having given back his vows, Tsangyang sought life as a layman and began living a playboy lifestyle.

One description of him has him wearing blue silk robes and long hair. He took to living the life of a playboy, spending the day practicing archery with his friends behind the Potala Palace before visiting the towns of Lhasa and Shol in the evening.

Folk gossip about me. Sorry, yes, I'm to blame. A lad's three tiptoe steps - Oh, I've reached the brothel Excerpt of poem by Sixth Dalai Lama

He would spend the nights drinking and singing love songs in taverns. While these were usually white, some were later painted yellow - and one popular belief has it that the yellow taverns were the consecrated places where Tsangyang met his lovers.

As well as the poems, he also wrote a number of songs, many of which are still sung in Tibet.

However, his behaviour was not only a political "disaster" but also threw up serious questions at the heart of Tibetan Buddhism, Mr Williams said.

In particular, it threatened to undermine one of the central beliefs of the monks - that he really was the re-incarnation of the fifth Dalai Lama.