Ernst Hoffman was born in Saxony in 1898. He studied architecture and philosophy at Freiburg University where he also developed his interests in painting and archaeology. In 1928 Hoffmann entered the Sangha and moved to the Island Hermitage in Ceylon where he took the name Anagarika Govinda. Several years later he committed himself to the Tibetan tradition and spent thirty years in the sub-continent before moving to the USA. Lama Govinda died in 1985. He was the author of many works on Tibetan Buddhism and of The Way of the White Clouds (1966) an account of his pilgrimage through central and Western Tibet.

Lama Govinda's article "The Fate of Tibet" can be found in The Betrayal of Tradition: Essays on the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity , edited by Kenneth (Harry) Oldmeadow.