A Tibetan Buddhist monastic order, founded by Je Tsongkhapa in the early fifteenth century. Tsongkhapa along with his disciples founded monasteries at Ganden Drepung and Sera in Tibet, which are considered to be the three major monasteries associated with the order. One of the primary followers of Tsongkhapa, Gendun Drup, was posthumously considered the first Dalai Lama. From the Tibetan word ganden, which refers to Tushita (the pure land of the Maitreya Buddha), and choluk, meaning “spiritual lineage.”