Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso)
"My religion is kindness." (01/17/2022)
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"If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview."
"Interfaith understanding will bring about the unity necessary for all religions to work together. However, although this is indeed an important step, we must remember that there are no quick or easy solutions. We cannot hide the doctrinal differences that exist among various faiths, nor can we hope to replace the existing religions by a new universal belief. Each religion has its own distinctive contributions to make, and each in its own way is suitable to a particular group of people as they understand life. The world needs them all."
"My religion is kindness." (01/17/2022)
"With the ever-growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play by reminding us of our humanity. There is no contradiction between the two. Each gives us valuable insights into the other. Both science and the teachings of the Buddha tell us of the fundamental unity of all things. This understanding is crucial if we are to take positive and decisive action on the pressing global concern with the environment. I believe all religions pursue the same goals, that of cultivating human goodness and bringing happiness to all human beings. Though the means might appear different, the ends are the same."
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| Dalai Lama | |
|---|---|
| ཏཱ་ལའི་བླ་མ་ | |
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| Residence |
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| Formation | 1391 |
| First holder | Gendün Drubpa, 1st Dalai Lama, posthumously awarded after 1578. |
| Website | dalailama |
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14th Dalai Lama (born July 6, 1935, Taktser, Tibet) is the title of the Tibetan Buddhist monk Tenzin Gyatso, the first Dalai Lama to become a global figure, largely for his advocacy of Buddhism and of the rights of the people of Tibet. Despite his fame, he dispensed with much of the pomp surrounding his office, describing himself as a “simple Buddhist monk.” Having fled Tibet in 1959, he took up residence in Dharmshala, India, where he led the Tibetan Buddhist community in exile. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989.
It is a tenet of Tibetan Buddhism (which traditionally has flourished not only in Tibet but also in Mongolia, Nepal, Sikkim, Bhutan, and other parts of India and China) that highly advanced religious teachers return to the world after their death, motivated by their compassion for the world. At the time of the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1950, there were several thousand of these teachers, often referred to in English as “incarnate lamas” (the term in Tibetan is sprul sku, also transliterated as tulku, which literally means “emanation body”). The most important and famous of these teachers was the Dalai Lama, whose line began in the 14th century. The third incarnation of this figure, named Bsod-nams-rgya-mtsho (Sonam Gyatso) (1543–88), was given the title of Dalai Lama (“Ocean Teacher”) by the Mongol chieftain Altan Khan in 1580. The two previous incarnations were posthumously designated as the first and second Dalai Lamas. Until the 17th century the Dalai Lamas were prominent religious teachers of the Dge-lugs-pa (Gelukpa; also called Yellow Hats) sect, one of the four major sects of Tibetan Buddhism.
In 1642 the 5th Dalai Lama was given temporal control of Tibet, and the Dalai Lamas remained head of state there until the flight of the 14th Dalai Lama into exile in 1959. It is said that the incarnations prior to the 14th Dalai Lama extend not only to the previous 13 but further back into Tibetan history to include the first Buddhist kings (chos rgyal) of the 7th, 8th, and 9th centuries. All the Dalai Lamas and these early kings are considered human embodiments of Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva (buddha-to-be) of compassion and the protector of Tibet.
Previous Dalai Lamas were often figures cloaked in mystery, living in isolation in the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. In contrast, the 14th Dalai Lama achieved a level of visibility and celebrity that would have been unimaginable for his predecessors. He became the most famous Buddhist teacher in the world, widely respected for his commitment both to nonviolence and to the cause of Tibetan freedom. The 14th Dalai Lama has traveled the globe, spreading notions of peace and Buddhist ideas. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989, the Templeton Prize in 2012, and countless other accolades along with achieving global popular recognition as an influential religious leader and thinker in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Early life in Tibet
The 14th Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet
After they took control of China in 1949, the communists asserted that Tibet was part of the “Chinese motherland” (the non-Chinese Qing rulers of China had exercised suzerainty over the region from the 18th century until the dynasty’s fall in 1911/12), and Chinese cadres entered Tibet in 1950. With a crisis looming, the Dalai Lama was asked to assume the role of head of state, which he did on November 17, 1950, at the age of 15. Attempts by the Chinese to collectivize monastic properties in eastern Tibet met with resistance, which led to violence and intervention by the People’s Liberation Army that year. On May 23, 1951, a Tibetan delegation in Beijing signed (under duress) a “Seventeen-Point Agreement,” thereby ceding control of Tibet to China; Chinese troops marched into Lhasa on September 9. During the next seven and a half years, the young Dalai Lama sought to protect the interests of the Tibetan people, departing for China in 1954 for a year-long tour, during which he met with China’s leader, Mao Zedong.
In 1956 the Dalai Lama traveled to India to participate in the celebration of the 2,500th anniversary of the Buddha’s Enlightenment. Against the advice of some members of his circle, he returned to Tibet, where the situation continued to deteriorate. Guerrillas fought Chinese troops in eastern Tibet, and a significant number of refugees flowed into the capital. In February 1959, despite the turmoil, the Dalai Lama sat for his examination for the rank of geshe (“spiritual friend”), the highest scholastic achievement in the Dge-lugs-pa sect.
As tensions continued to escalate, rumors that Chinese authorities planned to kidnap the Dalai Lama led to a popular uprising in Lhasa on March 10, 1959, during which crowds surrounded the Dalai Lama’s summer palace to protect him. The unrest caused a breakdown in communications between the Dalai Lama’s government and Chinese military authorities, and during the chaos, the Dalai Lama (disguised as a Tibetan soldier) escaped under cover of darkness on March 17. Accompanied by a small party of his family and teachers and escorted by guerrilla fighters, the Dalai Lama made his way on foot and horseback across the Himalayas, pursued by Chinese troops. On March 31 he and his escorts arrived in India, where the Indian government offered them asylum.
Later life in exile of the 14th Dalai Lama
In the wake of the Lhasa uprising and the Chinese consolidation of power across Tibet, tens of thousands of Tibetans followed the Dalai Lama into exile. In 1960 he established his government-in-exile in Dharmshala, a former British hill station in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh, where he continued to reside. The government of India, however, was reluctant to allow all the Tibetan refugees to concentrate in one region, and thus it created settlements across the subcontinent where asylum-seeking Tibetans established farming communities and built monasteries. The welfare of the refugees and the preservation of Tibetan culture in exile, especially in light of reports of the systematic destruction of Tibetan institutions during China’s Cultural Revolution (1966–76), were the primary concerns of the Dalai Lama during this period.
The Dalai Lama traveled little during the early part of his exile and published only two books, an introduction to Buddhism and an autobiography. In later years, however, he traveled quite extensively, visiting Europe for the first time in 1973 and the United States for the first time in 1979. He subsequently traveled to dozens of other countries, delivering addresses at colleges and universities, meeting with political and religious leaders, and lecturing on Buddhism.
The 14th Dalai Lama’s politics and philosophy
The Dalai Lama’s activities have focused on both political matters concerning Tibet and wider philosophical matters on Buddhism and religion in the modern world.
He has worked extensively to build and sustain international awareness of the plight of Tibet. In 1987 he put forth his “Five Point Peace Plan” at the U.S. Congressional Human Rights Caucus. In that plan, he called for the
In 1988, at a session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, the Dalai Lama set forth a plan that he termed the “Middle Way Approach,” in which Tibet would be an autonomous region of China rather than an independent state. He continued to advocate this approach between the complete independence of Tibet and its complete absorption into the People’s Republic of China. A significant component of his plan would be to maintain Tibet’s autonomy while allowing for the region to benefit from Chinese technological and defense prowess. In addition, the Dalai Lama sent numerous delegations to China to discuss such proposals, but they met with little success. In recognition of his efforts, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989.
Related to his peace efforts, interreligious harmony frequently featured in his advocacy. In his essay “A Human Approach to World Peace” he wrote
Interfaith understanding will bring about the unity necessary for all religions to work together. However, although this is indeed an important step, we must remember that there are no quick or easy solutions. We cannot hide the doctrinal differences that exist among various faiths, nor can we hope to replace the existing religions by a new universal belief. Each religion has its own distinctive contributions to make, and each in its own way is suitable to a particular group of people as they understand life. The world needs them all.
The Dalai Lama’s other main goal has been to disseminate the central tenets of Buddhism to a wide audience around the globe. During his tenure, he presided over 34 Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) initiations worldwide. He authored more than a hundred books on Buddhist themes, many of which were derived from public lectures or interviews. Some of these works were written in the traditional form of commentaries on Buddhist scriptures, while others ranged more widely over topics such as interreligious dialogue and the compatibility of Buddhism and science.
On the subject of Buddhism and science, Tenzin Gyatso wrote extensively. Describing himself as “half Buddhist monk, half scientist,” he included in his books numerous conversations with scientists. In his 2005 book The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality, the Dalai Lama offered a personal and analytical reconciliation of religion and science. In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Peace in 1989, he pivoted from a larger conversation about avoiding violence to unifying science and religion:
With the ever-growing impact of science on our lives, religion and spirituality have a greater role to play by reminding us of our humanity. There is no contradiction between the two. Each gives us valuable insights into the other. Both science and the teachings of the Buddha tell us of the fundamental unity of all things. This understanding is crucial if we are to take positive and decisive action on the pressing global concern with the environment. I believe all religions pursue the same goals, that of cultivating human goodness and bringing happiness to all human beings. Though the means might appear different, the ends are the same.
Writing for The New York Times in 2005, he suggested
If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then Buddhism will have to change. In my view, science and Buddhism share a search for the truth and for understanding reality. By learning from science about aspects of reality where its understanding may be more advanced, I believe that Buddhism enriches its own worldview.
Since a Dalai Lama is considered the incarnation of Avalokiteshvara (“the One Who Looks Down”), the bodhisattva of compassion, it is not surprising that compassion is a main theme in the Dalai Lama’s extensive writing on Buddhist ideas. Avalokiteshvara—in Tibetan, Chenrezig (“All-Seeing Eye”)—is notable for having taken the quintessential bodhisattva vow to assist every sentient being on earth to achieve release (moksha) from suffering (dukkha) prior to achieving his own release and status of buddhahood. Writing for Encyclopædia Britannica, the Dalai Lama contended that there is a feedback loop of helping others, since “compassion makes us happy!”
Throughout his life, the Dalai Lama has fulfilled his traditional roles for the Tibetan community: he is revered by Tibetans both in Tibet and in exile as the human incarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara and as the protector of the Tibetan people. In the latter role, he consulted with oracles in making major decisions and made pronouncements on the practice of Tibetan Buddhism, as in 1980 and again in 1996, when he spoke out against the propitiation of the wrathful deity Dorje Shugden, one of the protectors of the Dge-lugs-pa (Gelukpa) sect. He also has a significant following among Tibetan Buddhist followers in Mongolia, who make up about half the country’s population. In that role, he advised Mongolians against drinking alcohol in favor of drinking horse milk, and in 2023 he recognized a United States-born boy as the latest reincarnation of Jebtsundamba Khutugtu, the head of Tibetan Buddhism in Mongolia.
The 14th Dalai Lama’s uncertain succession
After the Dalai Lama reached the age of 70, the question of his successor was repeatedly raised. In the 1980s his public speculation about whether there would be a need for another Dalai Lama was taken by some as a call to the Tibetan community to preserve its culture in exile. In 1995 the Dalai Lama played a role in recognizing the 11th Panchen Lama—an important religious leader in Tibetan Buddhism who is in turn responsible for helping recognize the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama’s choice, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, and his family were detained by the Chinese government and have since been missing, according to authorities outside China (China insists that he and his family are living a normal life in Tibet). Later in 1995 the Chinese government appointed its own choice for the Panchen Lama, Gyancain Norbu.
In a 2004 interview with Time magazine, the 14th Dalai Lama stated that if Tibetans want a 15th Dalai Lama, there will be one, and the successor would be discovered not in Chinese-controlled Tibet but in exile, thus possibly suggesting a way of avoiding Chinese oversight. In 2007 the Chinese communist government declared that it would have final say over Tibetan Buddhist lamas’ reincarnations and prohibited anyone outside the country (including the present Dalai Lama) from having any involvement. Yet the Dalai Lama cautioned against political involvement in the process of finding the incarnation, and he subsequently suggested that he himself might appoint his successor. The Chinese government rejected this idea and insisted that the tradition of selecting a new Dalai Lama by determining the reincarnation of the predecessor had to be maintained. Some observers speculated that two Dalai Lamas, one in exile and one in China, might be identified, following the example of the Panchen Lama’s selection in 1995. In 2007 the 14th Dalai Lama suggested that his successor could be a woman, breaking with a long tradition of male lamas.
In 2011 the Dalai Lama stepped down as the political head of the Tibetan government-in-exile, but he remained as the community’s religious leader. The temporal role of tending to the Tibetan people, he decided, would be handled by a democratically elected body. In his retirement speech, he declared that “the rule by kings and religious figures is outdated. We have to follow the trend of the free world, which is that of democracy.” In making this decision, he ended the political authority of the Dalai Lama, which had begun with the fifth Dalai Lama in the 17th century and made the role solely religious.
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso,[b] full spiritual name: Jetsun Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso, also known as Tenzin Gyatso;[c] né Lhamo Thondup;[d] is the incumbent Dalai Lama, the highest spiritual leader and head of Tibetan Buddhism. Before 1959, he served as both the resident spiritual and temporal leader of Tibet, and subsequently established and led the Tibetan government in exile represented by the Central Tibetan Administration in Dharamsala, India.[2][3] The adherents of Tibetan Buddhism consider the Dalai Lama a living Bodhisattva, specifically an emanation of Avalokiteśvara (in Sanskrit) or Chenrezig (in Tibetan), the Bodhisattva of Compassion, a belief central to the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and the institution of the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama, whose name means Ocean of Wisdom, is known to Tibetans as Gyalwa Rinpoche, The Precious Jewel-like Buddha-Master, Kundun, The Presence, and Yizhin Norbu, The Wish-Fulfilling Gem. His devotees, as well as much of the Western world, often call him His Holiness the Dalai Lama, the style employed on his website. He is also the leader and a monk of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism, formally headed by the Ganden Tripa.[4]
The 14th Dalai Lama was born to a farming family in Taktser (Hongya Village), in the traditional Tibetan region of Amdo, at the time a Chinese frontier district.[5][6][7][8] He was selected as the tulku of the 13th Dalai Lama in 1937, and formally recognized as the 14th Dalai Lama in 1939.[9] As with the recognition process for his predecessor, a Golden Urn selection process was waived and approved by the Central Government of the Republic of China.[10][11][12][13] His enthronement ceremony was held in Lhasa on 22 February 1940.[9] At the time of his selection, a form of Tibetan government called Ganden Phodrang administered the traditional Tibetan regions of Ü-Tsang, Kham and Amdo.[14] As Chinese forces re-entered and annexed Tibet, Ganden Phodrang invested the Dalai Lama with temporal duties on 17 November 1950 (at 15 years of age) until his exile in 1959.[15][16]
During the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the Dalai Lama escaped to India, where he continues to live. On 29 April 1959, the Dalai Lama established the independent Tibetan government in exile in the north Indian hill station of Mussoorie, which then moved in May 1960 to Dharamshala, where he resides. He retired as political head in 2011 to make way for a democratic government, the Central Tibetan Administration.[17][18][19][20] The Dalai Lama advocates for the welfare of Tibetans and since the early 1970s has called for the Middle Way Approach with China to peacefully resolve the issue of Tibet.[21] This policy, adopted democratically by the Central Tibetan Administration and the Tibetan people through long discussions, seeks to find a middle ground, "a practical approach and mutually beneficial to both Tibetans and Chinese, in which Tibetans can preserve their culture and religion and uphold their identity," and China's assertion of sovereignty over Tibet, aiming to address the interests of both parties through dialogue and communication and for Tibet to remain a part of China.[22][23][24]
The Dalai Lama travels worldwide to give Tibetan Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism teachings, and his Kalachakra teachings and initiations are international events. He also attends conferences on a wide range of subjects, including the relationship between religion and science, meets with other world leaders, religious leaders, philosophers, and scientists, online and in-person. His work includes focus on the environment, economics, women's rights, nonviolence, interfaith dialogue, physics, astronomy, Buddhism and science, cognitive neuroscience,[25][26] reproductive health and sexuality. The Dalai Lama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Time magazine named the Dalai Lama Gandhi's spiritual heir to nonviolence.[27][28] The 12th General Assembly of the Asian Buddhist Conference for Peace in New Delhi unanimously recognized the Dalai Lama's contributions to global peace, his lifelong efforts in uniting Buddhist communities worldwide, and bestowed upon him the title of “Universal Supreme Leader of the Buddhist World.” They also designated 6 July, his birthday, as the Universal Day of Compassion.[29][30]
Early life and background
[edit]Lhamo Thondup[31] was born on 6 July 1935 to a farming and horse trading family in the small hamlet of Taktser,[e] or Chija Tagtser,[36][f] at the edge of the traditional Tibetan region of Amdo in Qinghai Province.[32]
He was one of seven siblings to survive childhood and one of the three supposed reincarnated Rinpoches in the same family. His eldest sister Tsering Dolma, was 16 years his senior and was midwife to his mother at his birth.[37] She would accompany him into exile and found Tibetan Children's Villages.[38] His eldest brother, Thupten Jigme Norbu, had been recognised at the age of three by the 13th Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the high Lama, the 6th Taktser Rinpoche.[39] His fifth brother, Tendzin Choegyal, had been recognised as the 16th Ngari Rinpoche.[citation needed] His sister, Jetsun Pema, spent most of her adult life on the Tibetan Children's Villages project.[citation needed] The Dalai Lama has said that his first language was "a broken Xining language which was (a dialect of) the Chinese language," a form of Central Plains Mandarin, and his family speak neither Amdo Tibetan nor Lhasa Tibetan.[40][41][42]
After the demise of the 13th Dalai Lama, in 1935, the Ordinance of Lama Temple Management[g][43][44] was published by the Central Government. In 1936, the Method of Reincarnation of Lamas[h][45][46] was published by the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission of the Central Government. Article 3 states that death of lamas, including the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama, should be reported to the commission, soul boys should be located and checked by the commission, and a lot-drawing ceremony with the Golden Urn system should be held. Article 6 states that local governments should invite officials from the Central Government to take care of the sitting-in-the-bed ceremony. Article 7 states that soul boys should not be sought from current lama families. This article echoes what the Qianlong Emperor described in The Discourse of Lama to eliminate greedy families with multiple reincarnated rinpoches, lamas.[47] Based on custom and regulation, the regent was actively involved in the search for the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.
Following reported signs and visions, three search teams were sent out to the north-east, the east, and the south-east to locate the new incarnation when the boy who was to become the 14th Dalai Lama was about two years old.[48] Sir Basil Gould, British delegate to Lhasa in 1936, related his account of the north-eastern team to Sir Charles Alfred Bell, former British resident in Lhasa and friend of the 13th Dalai Lama. Among other omens, the head of the embalmed body of the 13th Dalai Lama, at first facing south-east, had turned to face the north-east, indicating, it was interpreted, the direction in which his successor would be found. The Regent, Reting Rinpoche, shortly afterwards had a vision at the sacred lake of Lhamo La-tso which he interpreted as Amdo being the region to search. This vision was also interpreted to refer to a large monastery with a gilded roof and turquoise tiles, and a twisting path from there to a hill to the east, opposite which stood a small house with distinctive eaves. The team, led by Kewtsang Rinpoche, went first to meet the Panchen Lama, who had been stuck in Jyekundo, in northern Kham.[48]
The Panchen Lama had been investigating births of unusual children in the area ever since the death of the 13th Dalai Lama.[49] He gave Kewtsang the names of three boys whom he had discovered and identified as candidates. Within a year the Panchen Lama had died. Two of his three candidates were crossed off the list but the third, a "fearless" child, the most promising, was from Taktser village, which, as in the vision, was on a hill, at the end of a trail leading to Taktser from the great Kumbum Monastery with its gilded, turquoise roof. There they found a house, as interpreted from the vision—the house where Lhamo Dhondup lived.[48][49]
The 14th Dalai Lama claims that at the time, the village of Taktser stood right on the "real border" between the region of Amdo and China.[50] According to the search lore, when the team visited, posing as pilgrims, its leader, a Sera Lama, pretended to be the servant and sat separately in the kitchen. He held an old mala that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama, and the boy Lhamo Dhondup, aged two, approached and asked for it. The monk said "if you know who I am, you can have it." The child said "Sera Lama, Sera Lama" and spoke with him in a Lhasa accent, in a dialect the boy's mother could not understand. The next time the party returned to the house, they revealed their real purpose and asked permission to subject the boy to certain tests. One test consisted of showing him various pairs of objects, one of which had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama and one which had not. In every case, he chose the Dalai Lama's own objects and rejected the others.[51]
From 1936 the Hui 'Ma Clique' Muslim warlord Ma Bufang ruled Qinghai as its governor under the nominal authority of the Republic of China central government.[52] According to an interview with the 14th Dalai Lama, in the 1930s, Ma Bufang had seized this north-east corner of Amdo in the name of Chiang Kai-shek's weak government and incorporated it into the Chinese province of Qinghai.[53] Before going to Taktser, Kewtsang had gone to Ma Bufang to pay his respects.[49] When Ma Bufang heard a candidate had been found in Taktser, he had the family brought to him in Xining.[54] He first demanded proof that the boy was the Dalai Lama, but the Lhasa government, though informed by Kewtsang that this was the one, told Kewtsang to say he had to go to Lhasa for further tests with other candidates. They knew that if he was declared to be the Dalai Lama, the Chinese government would insist on sending a large army escort with him, which would then stay in Lhasa and refuse to budge.[55]
Ma Bufang, together with Kumbum Monastery, then refused to allow him to depart unless he was declared to be the Dalai Lama, but withdrew this demand in return for 100,000 Chinese dollars ransom in silver to be shared among them, to let them go to Lhasa.[55][56] Kewtsang managed to raise this, but the family was only allowed to move from Xining to Kumbum when a further demand was made for another 330,000 dollars ransom: 100,000 each for government officials, the commander-in-chief, and the Kumbum Monastery; 20,000 for the escort; and only 10,000 for Ma Bufang himself, he said.[57]
Two years of diplomatic wrangling followed before it was accepted by Lhasa that the ransom had to be paid to avoid the Chinese getting involved and escorting him to Lhasa with a large army.[58] Meanwhile, the boy was kept at Kumbum where two of his brothers were already studying as monks and recognised incarnate lamas.[59] The payment of 300,000 silver dollars was then advanced by Muslim traders en route to Mecca in a large caravan via Lhasa. They paid Ma Bufang on behalf of the Tibetan government against promissory notes to be redeemed, with interest, in Lhasa.[59][60] The 20,000-dollar fee for an escort was dropped, since the Muslim merchants invited them to join their caravan for protection; Ma Bufang sent 20 of his soldiers with them and was paid from both sides since the Chinese government granted him another 50,000 dollars for the expenses of the journey. Furthermore, the Indian government helped the Tibetans raise the ransom funds by affording them import concessions.[60]
On 22 September 1938, representatives of Tibet Office in Beijing informed Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission that 3 candidates were found and ceremony of Golden Urn would be held in Tibet.[61]
In October 1938, the Method of Using Golden Urn for the 14th Dalai Lama was drafted by Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission.[62]
On 12 December 1938, regent Reting Rinpoche informed Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission that three candidates were found and ceremony of Golden Urn would be held.[63]
Released from Kumbum, on 21 July 1939 the party travelled across Tibet on a journey to Lhasa in the large Muslim caravan with Lhamo Dhondup, now four years old, riding with his brother Lobsang in a special palanquin carried by two mules, two years after being discovered. As soon as they were out of Ma Bufang's area, he was officially declared to be the 14th Dalai Lama by the Kashag, and after ten weeks of travel he arrived in Lhasa on 8 October 1939.[64] The ordination (pabbajja) and giving of the monastic name of Tenzin Gyatso were arranged by Reting Rinpoche and according to the Dalai Lama "I received my ordination from Kyabjé Ling Rinpoché in the Jokhang in Lhasa."[65] There was very limited Chinese involvement at this time.[66] The family of the 14th Dalai Lama was elevated to the highest stratum of the Tibetan aristocracy and acquired land and serf holdings, as with the families of previous Dalai Lamas.[67]
In 1959, at the age of 23, he took his final examination at Lhasa's Jokhang Temple during the annual Monlam Prayer Festival.[i][69] He passed with honours and was awarded the Lharampa degree, the highest-level geshe degree, roughly equivalent to a doctorate in Buddhist philosophy.[70][71]
According to the Dalai Lama, he had a succession of tutors in Tibet including Reting Rinpoche, Tathag Rinpoche, Ling Rinpoche and lastly Trijang Rinpoche, who became junior tutor when he was 19[72] At the age of 11 he met the Austrian mountaineer Heinrich Harrer, who became his videographer and tutor about the world outside Lhasa. The two remained friends until Harrer's death in 2006.[73]
Life as the Dalai Lama
[edit]
Historically the Dalai Lamas or their regents held political and religious leadership over Tibet from Lhasa with varying degrees of influence depending on the regions of Tibet and periods of history. This began with the 5th Dalai Lama's rule in 1642 and lasted until the 1950s (except for 1705–1750), during which period the Dalai Lamas headed the Tibetan government or Ganden Phodrang. Until 1912 however, when the 13th Dalai Lama declared the complete independence of Tibet, their rule was generally subject to patronage and protection of firstly Mongol kings (1642–1720) and then the Manchu-led Qing dynasty (1720–1912).[74]
During the Dalai Lama's recognition process, the cultural Anthropologist Melvyn Goldstein writes that "everything the Tibetans did during the selection process was designed to prevent China from playing any role".[12][75]
Afterwards in 1939, at the age of four, the Dalai Lama was taken in a procession of lamas to Lhasa. Former British officials stationed in India and Tibet recalled that envoys from Britain and China were present at the Dalai Lama's enthronement in February 1940. According to Basil Gould, the Chinese representative Wu Chunghsin was reportedly unhappy about the position he had during the ceremony. Afterward an article appeared in the Chinese press falsely claiming that Wu personally announced the installation of the Dalai Lama, who supposedly prostrated himself to Wu in gratitude.[76][77]
After his enthronement, the Dalai Lama's childhood was then spent between the Potala Palace and Norbulingka, his summer residence, both of which are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Chiang Kai Shek ordered Ma Bufang to put his Muslim soldiers on alert for an invasion of Tibet in 1942.[78] Ma Bufang complied, and moved several thousand troops to the border with Tibet.[79] Chiang also threatened the Tibetans with aerial bombardment if they worked with the Japanese. Ma Bufang attacked the Tibetan Buddhist Tsang monastery in 1941.[80] He also constantly attacked the Labrang monastery.[81]
In October 1950 the army of the People's Republic of China marched to the edge of the Dalai Lama's territory and sent a delegation after defeating a legion of the Tibetan army in warlord-controlled Kham. On 17 November 1950, at the age of 15, the 14th Dalai Lama assumed full temporal (political) power as ruler of Tibet.[9]
Cooperation and conflicts with the People's Republic of China
[edit]
The Dalai Lama's formal rule as head of the government in Tibet was brief although he was enthroned as spiritual leader on 22 February 1940. When Chinese cadres entered Tibet in 1950, with a crisis looming, the Dalai Lama was asked to assume the role of head of state at the age of 15, which he did on 17 November 1950. Customarily the Dalai Lama would typically assume control at about the age of 20.[82]
He sent a delegation to Beijing, which ratified the Seventeen Point Agreement without his authorisation in 1951.[83] The Dalai Lama believes the draft agreement was written by China. Tibetan representatives were not allowed to suggest any alterations and China did not allow the Tibetan representatives to communicate with the Tibetan government in Lhasa. The Tibetan delegation was not authorised by Lhasa to sign, but ultimately submitted to pressure from the Chinese to sign anyway, using seals specifically made for the purpose.[84] The Seventeen Point Agreement recognised Chinese sovereignty over Tibet, but China allowed the Dalai Lama to continue to rule Tibet internally, and it allowed the system of feudal peasantry to persist.[85]
Scholar Robert Barnett wrote of the serfdom controversy: "So even if it were agreed that serfdom and feudalism existed in Tibet, this would be little different other than in technicalities from conditions in any other 'premodern' peasant society, including most of China at that time. The power of the Chinese argument therefore lies in its implication that serfdom, and with it feudalism, is inseparable from extreme abuse. Evidence to support this linkage has not been found by scholars other than those close to Chinese governmental circles. Goldstein, for example, notes that although the system was based on serfdom, it was not necessarily feudal, and he refutes any automatic link with extreme abuse."[86]
The 19-year-old Dalai Lama toured China for almost a year from 1954 to 1955, meeting many of the revolutionary leaders and the top echelon of the Chinese communist leadership who created modern China. He learned Chinese and socialist ideals, as explained by his Chinese hosts, on a tour of China showcasing the benefits of socialism and the effective governance provided to turn the large, impoverished nation into a modern and egalitarian society, which impressed him.[87] In September 1954, he went to the Chinese capital to meet Chairman Mao Zedong with the 10th Panchen Lama and attend the first session of the National People's Congress as a delegate, primarily discussing China's constitution.[88][89] On 27 September 1954, the Dalai Lama was selected as a Vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress,[90][91] a post he officially held until 1964.[92][93]
In 1956, on a trip to India to celebrate the Buddha's Birthday, the Dalai Lama asked the Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, if he would allow him political asylum should he choose to stay. Nehru discouraged this as a provocation against peace, and reminded him of the Indian Government's non-interventionist stance agreed upon with its 1954 treaty with China.[71]
Long called a "splittist" and "traitor" by China,[96] the Dalai Lama has attempted formal talks over Tibet's status in China.[97] In 2019, after the United States passed a law requiring the US to deny visas to Chinese officials in charge of implementing policies that restrict foreign access to Tibet, the US Ambassador to China "encouraged the Chinese government to engage in substantive dialogue with the Dalai Lama or his representatives, without preconditions, to seek a settlement that resolves differences".[98]
The Chinese Foreign Ministry has warned the US and other countries to "shun" the Dalai Lama during visits and often uses trade negotiations and human rights talks as an incentive to do so.[99][100][101][102] China sporadically bans images of the Dalai Lama and arrests citizens for owning photos of him in Tibet.[103][104][105] Tibet Autonomous Region government job candidates must strongly denounce the Dalai Lama, as announced on the Tibet Autonomous Region government's online education platform,
The Dalai Lama is a target of Chinese state sponsored hacking. Security experts claim "targeting Tibetan activists is a strong indicator of official Chinese government involvement" since economic information is the primary goal of private Chinese hackers.[107] In 2009 the personal office of the Dalai Lama asked researchers at the Munk Center for International Studies at the University of Toronto to check its computers for malicious software. This led to uncovering GhostNet, a large-scale cyber spying operation which infiltrated at least 1,295 computers in 103 countries, including embassies, foreign ministries, other government offices, and organisations affiliated with the Dalai Lama in India, Brussels, London and New York, and believed to be focusing on the governments of South and Southeast Asia.[108][109][110]
A second cyberspy network, Shadow Network, was discovered by the same researchers in 2010. Stolen documents included a year's worth of the Dalai Lama's personal email, and classified government material relating to India, West Africa, the Russian Federation, the Middle East, and NATO. "Sophisticated" hackers were linked to universities in China, Beijing again denied involvement.[111][112] Chinese hackers posing as The New York Times, Amnesty International and other organisation's reporters targeted the private office of the Dalai Lama, Tibetan Parliament members, and Tibetan nongovernmental organisations, among others, in 2019.[113]
Exile to India
[edit]
At the outset of the 1959 Tibetan uprising, fearing for his life, the Dalai Lama and his retinue fled Tibet with the help of the CIA's Special Activities Division,[115] crossing into India on 30 March 1959, reaching Tezpur in Assam on 18 April.[116] Some time later he set up the Government of Tibet in Exile in Dharamshala, India,[117] which is often referred to as "Little Lhasa". After the founding of the government in exile he re-established the approximately 80,000 Tibetan refugees who followed him into exile in agricultural settlements.[70]
He created a Tibetan educational system in order to teach the Tibetan children the language, history, religion, and culture. The Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts was established[70] in 1959 and the Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies[70] became the primary university for Tibetans in India in 1967. He supported the refounding of 200 monasteries and nunneries in an attempt to preserve Tibetan Buddhist teachings and the Tibetan way of life.
The Dalai Lama appealed to the United Nations on the rights of Tibetans. This appeal resulted in three resolutions adopted by the General Assembly in 1959, 1961, and 1965,[70] all before the People's Republic was allowed representation at the United Nations.[118] The resolutions called on China to respect the human rights of Tibetans.[70] In 1963, he promulgated a democratic constitution which is based upon the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, creating an elected parliament and an administration to champion his cause. In 1970, he opened the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives in Dharamshala which houses over 80,000 manuscripts and important knowledge resources related to Tibetan history, politics and culture. It is considered one of the most important institutions for Tibetology in the world.[119]
In 2016, there were demands from Indian citizens and politicians of different political parties to confer the Dalai Lama the prestigious Bharat Ratna, the highest civilian honour of India, which has only been awarded to a non-Indian citizen twice in its history.[120]
In 2021, it was revealed that the Dalai Lama's inner circle were listed in the Pegasus project data as having been targeted with spyware on their phones. Analysis strongly indicates potential targets were selected by the Indian government.[121][122]
International advocacy
[edit]
At the Congressional Human Rights Caucus in 1987 in Washington, D.C., the Dalai Lama gave a speech outlining his ideas for the future status of Tibet. The plan called for Tibet to become a democratic "zone of peace" without nuclear weapons, and with support for human rights.[citation needed] The plan would come to be known as the "Strasbourg proposal," because the Dalai Lama expanded on the plan at Strasbourg on 15 June 1988. There, he proposed the creation of a self-governing Tibet "in association with the People's Republic of China." This would have been pursued by negotiations with the PRC government, but the plan was rejected by the Tibetan Government-in-Exile in 1991.[123] The Dalai Lama has indicated that he wishes to return to Tibet only if the People's Republic of China agrees not to make any precondition for his return.[124] In the 1970s, the Paramount leader Deng Xiaoping set China's sole return requirement to the Dalai Lama as that he "must [come back] as a Chinese citizen ... that is, patriotism".[125]
The Dalai Lama celebrated his 70th birthday on 6 July 2005. About 10,000 Tibetan refugees, monks and foreign tourists gathered outside his home. Patriarch Alexius II of the Russian Orthodox Church alleged positive relations with Buddhists. However, later that year, the Russian state prevented the Dalai Lama from fulfilling an invitation to the traditionally Buddhist republic of Kalmykia.[126] The President of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Chen Shui-bian, attended an evening celebrating the Dalai Lama's birthday at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei.[127] In October 2008 in Japan, the Dalai Lama addressed the 2008 Tibetan violence that had erupted and that the Chinese government accused him of fomenting. He responded that he had "lost faith" in efforts to negotiate with the Chinese government, and that it was "up to the Tibetan people" to decide what to do.[128]
During his visit to Taiwan after Typhoon Morakot 30 Taiwanese indigenous peoples protested against the Dalai Lama and denounced it as politically motivated.[129][130][131][132]
The Dalai Lama is an advocate for a world free of nuclear weapons, and serves on the Advisory Council of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
The Dalai Lama has voiced his support for the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system.[133]
Teaching activities, public talks
[edit]
Despite becoming 80 years old in 2015, he maintains a busy international lecture and teaching schedule.[134] His public talks and teachings are usually webcast live in multiple languages, via an inviting organisation's website, or on the Dalai Lama's own website. Scores of his past teaching videos can be viewed there, as well as public talks, conferences, interviews, dialogues and panel discussions.[135]
The Dalai Lama's best known teaching subject is the Kalachakra tantra which, as of 2014, he had conferred a total of 33 times,[136] most often in India's upper Himalayan regions but also in the Western world.[137] The Kalachakra (Wheel of Time) is one of the most complex teachings of Buddhism, sometimes taking two weeks to confer, and he often confers it on very large audiences, up to 200,000 students and disciples at a time.[137][138]
The Dalai Lama is the author of numerous books on Buddhism,[139] many of them on general Buddhist subjects but also including books on particular topics like Dzogchen,[140] a Nyingma practice.
In his essay "The Ethic of Compassion" (1999), the Dalai Lama expresses his belief that if we only reserve compassion for those that we love, we are ignoring the responsibility of sharing these characteristics of respect and empathy with those we do not have relationships with, which cannot allow us to "cultivate love." He elaborates upon this idea by writing that although it takes time to develop a higher level of compassion, eventually we will recognise that the quality of empathy will become a part of life and promote our quality as humans and inner strength.[141]
He frequently accepts requests from students to visit various countries worldwide in order to give teachings to large Buddhist audiences, teachings that are usually based on classical Buddhist texts and commentaries,[142] and most often those written by the 17 pandits or great masters of the Nalanda tradition, such as Nagarjuna,[143][144] Kamalashila,[145][146] Shantideva,[147] Atisha,[148] Aryadeva[149] and so on.
The Dalai Lama refers to himself as a follower of these Nalanda masters,[150] in fact he often asserts that 'Tibetan Buddhism' is based on the Buddhist tradition of Nalanda monastery in ancient India,[151] since the texts written by those 17 Nalanda pandits or masters, to whom he has composed a poem of invocation,[152] were brought to Tibet and translated into Tibetan when Buddhism was first established there and have remained central to the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism ever since.[153]
As examples of other teachings, in London in 1984 he was invited to give teachings on the Twelve Links of Dependent Arising, and on Dzogchen, which he gave at Camden Town Hall; in 1988 he was in London once more to give a series of lectures on Tibetan Buddhism in general, called 'A Survey of the Paths of Tibetan Buddhism'.[154] Again in London in 1996 he taught the Four Noble Truths, the basis and foundation of Buddhism accepted by all Buddhists, at the combined invitation of 27 different Buddhist organisations of all schools and traditions belonging to the Network of Buddhist Organisations UK.[155]
In India, the Dalai Lama gives religious teachings and talks in Dharamsala[148] and numerous other locations including the monasteries in the Tibetan refugee settlements,[142] in response to specific requests from Tibetan monastic institutions, Indian academic, religious and business associations, groups of students and individual/private/lay devotees.[156] In India, no fees are charged to attend these teachings since costs are covered by requesting sponsors.[142] When he travels abroad to give teachings there is usually a ticket fee calculated by the inviting organisation to cover the costs involved[142] and any surplus is normally to be donated to recognised charities.[157]
He has frequently visited and lectured at colleges and universities,[158][159][160] some of which have conferred honorary degrees upon him.[161][162]
Dozens of videos of recorded webcasts of the Dalai Lama's public talks on general subjects for non-Buddhists like peace, happiness and compassion, modern ethics, the environment, economic and social issues, gender, the empowerment of women and so forth can be viewed in his office's archive.[163]
Interfaith dialogue
[edit]The Dalai Lama met Pope Paul VI at the Vatican in 1973. He met Pope John Paul II in 1980, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1990, and 2003. In 1990, he met a delegation of Jewish teachers in Dharamshala for an extensive interfaith dialogue.[164] He has since visited Israel three times, and in 2006 met the Chief Rabbi of Israel. In 2006, he met Pope Benedict XVI privately. He has met the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Robert Runcie, and other leaders of the Anglican Church in London, Gordon B. Hinckley, who at the time was the president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, as well as senior Eastern Orthodox Church, Muslim, Hindu, Jewish, and Sikh officials.
In 1996 and 2002, he participated in the first two Gethsemani Encounters hosted by the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue at the Abbey of Our Lady of Getshemani, where Thomas Merton, whom the Dalai Lama had met in the late 1960s, had lived.[165][166] He is also a member of the Board of World Religious Leaders as part of The Elijah Interfaith Institute[167] and participated in the Third Meeting of the Board of World Religious Leaders in Amritsar, India, on 26 November 2007 to discuss the topic of Love and Forgiveness.[168] In 2009, the Dalai Lama inaugurated an interfaith "World Religions-Dialogue and Symphony" conference at Gujarat's Mahuva religions, according to Morari Bapu.[169][170]
In 2010, the Dalai Lama, joined by a panel of scholars, launched the Common Ground Project,[171] in Bloomington, Indiana (USA),[172] which was planned by himself and Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad of Jordan during several years of personal conversations. The project is based on the book Common Ground between Islam and Buddhism.[173]
In 2019, the Dalai Lama fully sponsored the first-ever 'Celebrating Diversity in the Muslim World' conference in New Delhi on behalf of the Muslims of Ladakh.[174]
Interest in science, and Mind and Life Institute
[edit]
The Dalai Lama's lifelong interest in science[175][176] and technology[177] dates from his childhood in Lhasa, Tibet, when he was fascinated by mechanical objects like clocks, watches, telescopes, film projectors, clockwork soldiers[177] and motor cars,[178] and loved to repair, disassemble and reassemble them.[175] Once, observing the Moon through a telescope as a child, he realised it was a crater-pocked lump of rock and not a heavenly body emitting its own light as Tibetan cosmologists had taught him.[175] He has also said that had he not been brought up as a monk he would probably have been an engineer.[179] On his first trip to the west in 1973 he asked to visit Cambridge University's astrophysics department in the UK and he sought out renowned scientists such as Sir Karl Popper, David Bohm and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker,[178] who taught him the basics of science.
The Dalai Lama sees important common ground between science and Buddhism in having the same approach to challenge dogma on the basis of empirical evidence that comes from observation and analysis of phenomena.[180]
His growing wish to develop meaningful scientific dialogue to explore the Buddhism and science interface led to invitations for him to attend relevant conferences on his visits to the west, including the Alpbach Symposia on Consciousness in 1983 where he met and had discussions with the late Chilean neuroscientist Francisco J. Varela.[178] Also in 1983, the American social entrepreneur and innovator R. Adam Engle,[181] who had become aware of the Dalai Lama's deep interest in science, was already considering the idea of facilitating for him a serious dialogue with a selection of appropriate scientists.[182] In 1984 Engle formally offered to the Dalai Lama's office to organise a week-long, formal dialogue for him with a suitable team of scientists, provided that the Dalai Lama would wish to fully participate in such a dialogue. Within 48 hours the Dalai Lama confirmed to Engle that he was "truly interested in participating in something substantial about science" so Engle proceeded with launching the project.[183] Francisco Varela, having heard about Engle's proposal, then called him to tell him of his earlier discussions with the Dalai Lama and to offer his scientific collaboration to the project.[183] Engle accepted, and Varela assisted him to assemble his team of six specialist scientists for the first 'Mind and Life' dialogue on the cognitive sciences,[184] which was eventually held with the Dalai Lama at his residence in Dharamsala in 1987.[178][183] This five-day event was so successful that at the end the Dalai Lama told Engle he would very much like to repeat it again in the future.[185] Engle then started work on arranging a second dialogue, this time with neuroscientists in California, and the discussions from the first event were edited and published as Mind and Life's first book, "Gentle Bridges: Conversations with the Dalai Lama on the Sciences of Mind".[186]
As Mind and Life Institute's remit expanded, Engle formalised the organisation as a non-profit foundation after the third dialogue, held in 1990, which initiated the undertaking of neurobiological research programmes in the United States under scientific conditions.[185] Over the following decades, as of 2014 at least 28 dialogues between the Dalai Lama and panels of various world-renowned scientists have followed, held in various countries and covering diverse themes, from the nature of consciousness to cosmology and from quantum mechanics to the neuroplasticity of the brain.[187] Sponsors and partners in these dialogues have included the Massachusetts Institute of Technology,[188] Johns Hopkins University,[189] the Mayo Clinic,[190] and Zurich University.[191]
Apart from time spent teaching Buddhism and fulfilling responsibilities to his Tibetan followers, the Dalai Lama has probably spent, and continues to spend, more of his time and resources investigating the interface between Buddhism and science through the ongoing series of Mind and Life dialogues and its spin-offs than on any other single activity.[177] As the institute's Cofounder and the Honorary chairman he has personally presided over and participated in all its dialogues, which continue to expand worldwide.[192]
These activities have given rise to dozens of DVD sets of the dialogues and books he has authored on them such as Ethics for the New Millennium and The Universe in a Single Atom, as well as scientific papers and university research programmes.[193] On the Tibetan and Buddhist side, science subjects have been added to the curriculum for Tibetan monastic educational institutions and scholarship.[194] On the Western side, university and research programmes initiated by these dialogues and funded with millions of dollars in grants from the Dalai Lama Trust include the Emory-Tibet Partnership,[195] Stanford School of Medicine's Centre for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education (CCARES)[196] and the Centre for Investigating Healthy Minds,[197] amongst others.
In 2019, Emory University's Center for Contemplative Sciences and Compassion-Based Ethics, in partnership with The Dalai Lama Trust and the Vana Foundation of India, launched an international SEE Learning (Social, Emotional and Ethical Learning) program in New Delhi, India, a school curriculum for all classes from kindergarten to Std XII that builds on psychologist Daniel Goleman's work on emotional intelligence in the early 1990s. SEE learning focuses on developing critical thinking, ethical reasoning and compassion and stresses on commonalities rather than on the differences.[198][199][200][201]
In particular, the Mind and Life Education Humanities & Social Sciences initiatives have been instrumental in developing the emerging field of Contemplative Science, by researching, for example, the effects of contemplative practice on the human brain, behaviour and biology.[193]
In his 2005 book The Universe in a Single Atom and elsewhere, and to mark his commitment to scientific truth and its ultimate ascendancy over religious belief, unusually for a major religious leader the Dalai Lama advises his Buddhist followers: "If scientific analysis were conclusively to demonstrate certain claims in Buddhism to be false, then we must accept the findings of science and abandon those claims."[202] He has also cited examples of archaic Buddhist ideas he has abandoned himself on this basis.[175][203]
These activities have even had an impact in the Chinese capital. In 2013 an 'academic dialogue' with a Chinese scientist, a Tibetan 'living Buddha' and a professor of Religion took place in Beijing. Entitled "High-end dialogue: ancient Buddhism and modern science" it addressed the same considerations that interest the Dalai Lama, described as 'discussing about the similarities between Buddhism and modern science'.[204]
Personal meditation practice
[edit]The Dalai Lama uses various meditation techniques, including analytic meditation and emptiness meditation.[205] He has said that the aim of meditation is
Social stances
[edit]Tibetan independence
[edit]Despite initially advocating for Tibetan independence from 1961 to 1974, the Dalai Lama no longer supports it. Instead he advocates for more meaningful autonomy for Tibetans within the People's Republic of China.[208] This approach is known as the "Middle Way". In 2005, the 14th Dalai Lama emphasized that Tibet is a part of China, and Tibetan culture and Buddhism are part of Chinese culture. [209] In a speech at Kolkata in 2017, the Dalai Lama stated that Tibetans wanted to stay with China and they did not desire independence. He said that he believed that China after opening up, had changed 40 to 50 per cent of what it was earlier, and that Tibetans wanted to get more development from China.[210] In October 2020, the Dalai Lama stated that he did not support Tibetan independence and hoped to visit China as a Nobel Prize winner. He said "I prefer the concept of a 'republic' in the People's Republic of China. In the concept of republic, ethnic minorities are like Tibetans, The Mongols, Manchus, and Xinjiang Uyghurs, we can live in harmony".[211]
Abortion
[edit]The Dalai Lama has said that, from the perspective of the Buddhist precepts, abortion is an act of killing.[214] In 1993, he clarified a more nuanced position, stating, "... it depends on the circumstances. If the unborn child will be retarded or if the birth will create serious problems for the parent, these are cases where there can be an exception. I think abortion should be approved or disapproved according to each circumstance."[215]
Death penalty
[edit]The Dalai Lama has repeatedly expressed his opposition to the death penalty, saying that it contradicts the Buddhist philosophy of non-violence and that it expresses anger, not compassion.[216] During a 2005 visit to Japan, a country which has the death penalty, the Dalai Lama called for the abolition of the death penalty and said in his address, "Criminals, people who commit crimes, usually society rejects these people. They are also part of society. Give them some form of punishment to say they were wrong, but show them they are part of society and can change. Show them compassion."[217] The Dalai Lama has also praised U.S. states that have abolished the death penalty.[218]
Democracy, nonviolence, religious harmony, and Tibet's relationship with India
[edit]
The Dalai Lama says that he is active in spreading India's message of nonviolence and religious harmony throughout the world.[219] "I am the messenger of India's ancient thoughts the world over." He has said that democracy has deep roots in India. He says he considers India the master and Tibet its disciple, as great scholars went from India to Tibet to teach Buddhism. He has noted that millions of people lost their lives in violence and the economies of many countries were ruined due to conflicts in the 20th century. "Let the 21st century be a century of tolerance and dialogue."[220]
The Dalai Lama has also critiqued proselytisation and certain types of conversion, believing the practices to be contrary to the fundamental ideas of religious harmony and spiritual practice.[221][222][223][224] He has stated that "It's very important that our religious traditions live in harmony with one another and I don't think proselytizing contributes to this. Just as fighting and killing in the name of religion are very sad, it's not appropriate to use religion as a ground or a means for defeating others."[225] In particular, he has critiqued Christian approaches to conversion in Asia, stating that he has "come across situations where serving the people is a cover for proselytization."[226] The Dalai Lama has labelled such practices counter to the "message of Christ" and has emphasised that such individuals "practice conversion like a kind of war against peoples and cultures."[223] In a statement with Hindu religious leaders, he expressed that he opposes "conversions by any religious tradition using various methods of enticement."[224]
In 1993, the Dalai Lama attended the World Conference on Human Rights and made a speech titled "Human Rights and Universal Responsibility".[227]
In 2001, in response to a question from a Seattle schoolgirl, the Dalai Lama said that it is permissible to shoot someone in self-defense (if the person was "trying to kill you") and he emphasised that the shot should not be fatal.[228]
In 2013, the Dalai Lama criticised Buddhist monks' attacks on Muslims in Myanmar and rejected violence by Buddhists, saying: "Buddha always teaches us about forgiveness, tolerance, compassion. If from one corner of your mind, some emotion makes you want to hit, or want to kill, then please remember Buddha's faith. ... All problems must be solved through dialogue, through talk. The use of violence is outdated, and never solves problems."[229] In May 2013, he said "Really, killing people in the name of religion is unthinkable, very sad."[230] In May 2015, the Dalai Lama called on Myanmar's Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi to do more to help the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, and said that he had urged Suu Kyi to address the Rohingyas' plight in two previous private meetings and had been rebuffed.[231]
In 2017, after Chinese dissident and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo died of organ failure while in Chinese government custody, the Dalai Lama said he was "deeply saddened" and that he believed that Liu's "unceasing efforts in the cause of freedom will bear fruit before long."[232]
The Dalai Lama has consistently praised India.[233][234] In December 2018, he said Muslim countries like Bangladesh, Pakistan and Syria should learn about religion from India for peace in the world.[235][236] When asked in 2019 about attacks on the minority community in India including a recent one against a Muslim family in Gurgaon, he said: "There are always a few mischievous people, but that does not mean it a symbol of that nation".[237][238] He reiterated in December 2021 that he thought India was a role model for religious harmony in the world.[239][240]
Diet and animal welfare
[edit]The Dalai Lama advocates compassion for animals and frequently urges people to try vegetarianism or at least reduce their consumption of meat. In Tibet, where historically meat was the most common food, most monks historically have been omnivores, including the Dalai Lamas. The Fourteenth Dalai Lama was raised in a meat-eating family but converted to vegetarianism after arriving in India, where vegetables are much more easily available and vegetarianism is widespread.[242] He spent many years as a vegetarian, but after contracting hepatitis in India and suffering from weakness, his doctors told him to return to eating meat which he now does twice a week.[243] This attracted public attention when, during a visit to the White House, he was offered a vegetarian menu but declined by replying, as he is known to do on occasion when dining in the company of non-vegetarians, "I'm a Tibetan monk, not a vegetarian".[244] His own home kitchen, however, is completely vegetarian.[245]
In 2009, the English singer Paul McCartney wrote a letter to the Dalai Lama inquiring why he was not a vegetarian. As McCartney later told The Guardian, "He wrote back very kindly, saying, 'my doctors tell me that I must eat meat'. And I wrote back again, saying, you know, I don't think that's right. [...] I think now he's vegetarian most of the time. I think he's now being told, the more he meets doctors from the west, that he can get his protein somewhere else. [...] It just doesn't seem right – the Dalai Lama, on the one hand, saying, 'Hey guys, don't harm sentient beings... Oh, and by the way, I'm having a steak.'"[246]
Economics and political stance
[edit]The Dalai Lama has referred to himself as a Marxist and has articulated criticisms of capitalism.[247][248][249]
He reports hearing of communism when he was very young, but only in the context of the destruction of the Mongolian People's Republic. It was only when he went on his trip to Beijing that he learned about Marxist theory from his interpreter Baba Phuntsog Wangyal of the Tibetan Communist Party.[250] At that time, he reports, "I was so attracted to Marxism, I even expressed my wish to become a Communist Party member," citing his favourite concepts of self-sufficiency and equal distribution of wealth. He does not believe that China implemented "true Marxist policy,"[251] and thinks the historical communist states such as the Soviet Union "were far more concerned with their narrow national interests than with the Workers' International".[252] Moreover, he believes one flaw of historically "Marxist regimes" is that they place too much emphasis on destroying the ruling class, and not enough on compassion.[252] He finds Marxism superior to capitalism, believing the latter is only concerned with "how to make profits," whereas the former has "moral ethics".[253] Stating in 1993:
On India–Pakistan relations, the Dalai Lama in October 2019 said: "There is a difference between Indian and Pakistani Prime Minister's speech at the UN. Indian prime prime minister talks about peace and you know what his Pakistan counterpart said. Getting China's political support is Pakistan's compulsion. But Pakistan also needs India. Pakistani leaders should calm down and think beyond emotions and should follow a realistic approach".[254][255]
Environment
[edit]The Dalai Lama is outspoken in his concerns about environmental problems, frequently giving public talks on themes related to the environment. He has pointed out that many rivers in Asia originate in Tibet, and that the melting of Himalayan glaciers could affect the countries in which the rivers flow.[256] He acknowledged official Chinese laws against deforestation in Tibet, but lamented they can be ignored due to possible corruption.[257] He was quoted as saying "ecology should be part of our daily life";[258] personally, he takes showers instead of baths, and turns lights off when he leaves a room.[256]
Around 2005, he started campaigning for wildlife conservation, including by issuing a religious ruling against wearing tiger and leopard skins as garments.[259][260] The Dalai Lama supports the anti-whaling position in the whaling controversy, but has criticised the activities of groups such as the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (which carries out acts of what it calls aggressive nonviolence against property).[261] Before the 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, he urged national leaders to put aside domestic concerns and take collective action against climate change.[262]
Sexuality
[edit]The Dalai Lama's stances on topics of sexuality have changed over time.
A monk since childhood, the Dalai Lama has said that sex offers fleeting satisfaction and leads to trouble later, while chastity offers a better life and "more independence, more freedom".[263] He has said that problems arising from conjugal life sometimes even lead to suicide or murder.[264] He has asserted that all religions have the same view about adultery.[265]
In his discussions of the traditional Buddhist view on appropriate sexual behaviour, he explains the concept of "right organ in the right object at the right time," which historically has been interpreted as indicating that oral, manual and anal sex (both homosexual and heterosexual) are not appropriate in Buddhism or for Buddhists. However, he also says that in modern times all common, consensual sexual practices that do not cause harm to others are ethically acceptable and that society should accept and respect people who are gay or transgender from a secular point of view.[266] In a 1994 interview with OUT Magazine, the Dalai Lama clarified his personal opinion on the matter by saying, "If someone comes to me and asks whether homosexuality is okay or not, I will ask 'What is your companion's opinion?' If you both agree, then I think I would say, 'If two males or two females voluntarily agree to have mutual satisfaction without further implication of harming others, then it is okay.'"[267] However, when interviewed by Canadian TV news anchor Evan Solomon on CBC News: Sunday about whether homosexuality is acceptable in Buddhism, the Dalai Lama responded that "it is sexual misconduct".[268]
In his 1996 book Beyond Dogma, he described a traditional Buddhist definition of an appropriate sexual act as follows: "A sexual act is deemed proper when the couples use the organs intended for sexual intercourse and nothing else ... Homosexuality, whether it is between men or between women, is not improper in itself. What is improper is the use of organs already defined as inappropriate for sexual contact."[269] He elaborated in 1997, conceding that the basis of that teaching was unknown to him. He also conveyed his own "willingness to consider the possibility that some of the teachings may be specific to a particular cultural and historic context".[270]
In 2006, the Dalai Lama has expressed concern at "reports of violence and discrimination against" LGBT people and urged "respect, tolerance and the full recognition of human rights for all".[271]
In a 2014 interview with Larry King, the Dalai Lama expressed that same-sex marriage is a personal issue, can be ethically socially accepted, and that he personally accepts it. However, he also stated that if same-sex marriage is in contradiction with one's chosen traditions, then they should not follow it.[272]
Women's rights
[edit]In 2007, he said that the next Dalai Lama could possibly be a woman: "If a woman reveals herself as more useful the lama could very well be reincarnated in this form."[273]
In 2009, on gender equality and sexism, the Dalai Lama proclaimed at the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee: "I call myself a feminist. Isn't that what you call someone who fights for women's rights?" He also said that by nature, women are more compassionate "based on their biology and ability to nurture and birth children". He called on women to "lead and create a more compassionate world," citing the good works of nurses and mothers.[274]
At a 2014 appearance at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, the Dalai Lama said, "Since women have been shown to be more sensitive to others' suffering, their leadership may be more effective."[275]
In 2015, he said in a BBC interview that if a female succeeded him, "that female must be attractive, otherwise it is not much use," and when asked if he was joking, replied, "No. True!" He followed with a joke about his success being due to his own appearance.[276] His office later released a statement of apology citing the interaction as a translation error.[277]
Health
[edit]In 2013, at the Culture of Compassion event in Derry, Northern Ireland, the Dalai Lama said that "Warm-heartedness is a key factor for healthy individuals, healthy families and healthy communities."[278]
Response to COVID-19
[edit]In a 2020 statement in Time magazine on the COVID-19 pandemic, the Dalai Lama said that the pandemic must be combated with compassion, empirical science, prayer, and the courage of healthcare workers. He emphasised "emotional disarmament" (seeing things with a clear and realistic perspective, without fear or rage) and wrote: "The outbreak of this terrible coronavirus has shown that what happens to one person can soon affect every other being. But it also reminds us that a compassionate or constructive act – whether working in hospitals or just observing social distancing – has the potential to help many."[279]
Immigration
[edit]In September 2018, speaking at a conference in Malmö, Sweden, home to a large immigrant population, the Dalai Lama said "I think Europe belongs to the Europeans," but also that Europe was "morally responsible" for helping "a refugee really facing danger against their life". He stated that Europe has a responsibility to refugees to "receive them, help them, educate them," but that they should aim to return to their places of origin and that "they ultimately should rebuild their own country".[280][281]
Speaking to German reporters in 2016, the Dalai Lama said there are "too many" refugees in Europe, adding that "Europe, for example Germany, cannot become an Arab country." He also said that "Germany is Germany".[282][283]
Retirement and succession plans
[edit]In May 2011, the Dalai Lama retired from the Central Tibetan Administration.[284]
In September 2011, the Dalai Lama issued the following statement concerning his succession and reincarnation:
In October 2011, the Dalai Lama repeated his statement in an interview with Canadian CTV News. He added that Chinese laws banning the selection of successors based on reincarnation will not impact his decisions. "Naturally my next life is entirely up to me. No one else. And also this is not a political matter," he said in the interview. The Dalai Lama also added that he has not decided on whether he would reincarnate or be the last Dalai Lama.[287]
In an interview with the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag published on 7 September 2014 the Dalai Lama stated "the institution of the Dalai Lama has served its purpose," and that "We had a Dalai Lama for almost five centuries. The 14th Dalai Lama now is very popular. Let us then finish with a popular Dalai Lama."[288] In response, the Chinese government said the title of Dalai Lama has been conferred by the central government for hundreds of years and the 14th Dalai Lama has ulterior motives. This was taken by Tibetan activists and The Wire to mean that China will make the Dalai Lama reincarnate no matter what.[289]
Gyatso has also expressed fear that the Chinese government would manipulate any reincarnation selection in order to choose a successor that would go along with their political goals.[290]
Despite the tradition of selecting young children, the 14th Dalai Lama can also name an adult as his next incarnation. Doing so would have the advantage that the successor would not need to spend decades studying Buddhism and can be taken seriously as a leader by the Tibetan diaspora immediately.[291]
CIA Tibetan program
[edit]In October 1998, the Dalai Lama's administration acknowledged that it received $1.7 million a year in the 1960s from the U.S. government through a Central Intelligence Agency program.[292] When asked by CIA officer John Kenneth Knaus in 1995 to comment on the CIA Tibetan program, the Dalai Lama replied that though it helped the morale of those resisting the Chinese, "thousands of lives were lost in the resistance" and further, that "the U.S. Government had involved itself in his country's affairs not to help Tibet but only as a Cold War tactic to challenge the Chinese."[293] As part of the program the Dalai Lama received 180,000 dollars a year from 1959 till 1974 for his own personal use.[294]
His administration's reception of CIA funding has become one of the grounds for some state-run Chinese newspapers to discredit him along with the Tibetan independence movement.[citation needed]
In his autobiography Freedom in Exile, the Dalai Lama criticised the CIA again for supporting the Tibetan independence movement "not because they (the CIA) cared about Tibetan independence, but as part of their worldwide efforts to destabilize all communist governments".[295]
In 1999, the Dalai Lama said that the CIA Tibetan program had been harmful for Tibet because it was primarily aimed at serving American interests, and "once the American policy toward China changed, they stopped their help."[296]
Criticism
[edit]Ties to India
[edit]
The Chinese Communist Party has criticised the 14th Dalai Lama for his close ties with India.[297] In 2008, the Dalai Lama said that Arunachal Pradesh, partially claimed by China, is part of India, citing the disputed 1914 Simla Accord.[298] In 2010 at the International Buddhist Conference in Gujarat, he described himself as a "son of India" and "Tibetan in appearance, but an Indian in spirituality." The newspaper of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, People's Daily, questioned if the Dalai Lama, by considering himself Indian rather than Chinese, is still entitled to represent Tibetans, alluding to the links between Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism and the Dalai Lama siding with India on southern Tibet.[299] Dhundup Gyalpo, the Dalai Lama's eventual secretary in New Delhi, argued that Tibetan and Chinese peoples have no connections apart from a few culinary dishes and that Chinese Buddhists could also be deemed "Indian in spirituality", because both Tibetan and Chinese Buddhism originated from India.[300][301]
Shugden controversy
[edit]Dorje Shugden is an entity in Tibetan Buddhism that, since the 1930s, has become a point of contention over whether to include or exclude certain non-Gelug teachings. After the 1975 publication of the Yellow Book containing stories about Dorje Shugden acting wrathfully against Gelugpas who also practised Nyingma, the 14th Dalai Lama, himself a Gelugpa and advocate of an inclusive approach,[302] publicly renounced the practice of Dorje Shugden.[303][304] Several groups broke away as a result, notably the New Kadampa Tradition (NKT). According to Tibetologists, the Dalai Lama's disapproval has reduced the prevalence of Shugden sects among Tibetans in China and India.[305]
Shugden devotees have since complained about being ostracized when trying to get jobs or receive services. The Dalai Lama's supporters expressed that any discrimination is neither systematic nor encouraged by him.[305] Some Shugden movements such as the NKT have organised demonstrations as a form of protest.[306] One group, the International Shugden Community (ISC), came under scrutiny from Reuters in 2015. While the journalists found "no independent evidence of direct Chinese financing," they reported that Beijing had "thrown its weight behind Shugden devotees" and the ISC became China's instrument to discredit the Dalai Lama.[305] The group disbanded in 2016.[307] That same year, the Dalai Lama re-stated his position on Dorje Shugden, saying "I've encouraged people not to do the practice, but I haven't said that no one can do it."[308][309] His office said that there was no ban or discrimination against Shugden worshippers.[310]
Comments on a potential female Dalai Lama
[edit]In 2010, the Dalai Lama told a reporter that the first time someone asked him about the possibility of a female Dalai Lama, he said "if she is an ugly female, she won't be very effective, will she?"[311] In 2015, he once said "more than 50 years ago" in Paris to a women's magazine reporter that a female Dalai Lama would need to have a "very, very attractive" face, as otherwise she would be "not much use".[312][313] When asked about the comment in 2019, he reiterated that a female successor "should be more attractive."[312] In response to the controversy sparked by the interview, his office released a statement to clarify his remarks and put them into context, expressing that the Dalai Lama "is deeply sorry that people have been hurt by what he said and offers his sincere apologies." The statement explains, the original context of the Dalai Lama's referring to the physical appearance of a female successor was a conversation with the then Paris editor of Vogue magazine, who had invited His Holiness in 1992 to guest-edit the next edition. She asked if a future Dalai Lama could be a woman. His Holiness replied, 'Certainly, if that would be more helpful,' adding, as a joke, that she should be attractive.[314] The statement also noted, the Dalai Lama "consistently emphasizes the need for people to connect with each other on a deeper human level, rather than getting caught up in preconceptions based on superficial appearances."[277][315]
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima
[edit]In April 2018, the Dalai Lama confirmed Chinese government claims about Gedhun Choekyi Nyima by saying that he knew from "reliable sources" that the Panchen Lama he had recognised was alive and receiving normal education. He said he hoped that the Chinese-recognised Panchen Lama (Gyaincain Norbu) studied well under the guidance of a good teacher, adding that there were instances in Tibetan Buddhist tradition, of a reincarnated lama taking more than one manifestation.[316][317]
Controversy over young boy and "suck my tongue"
[edit]In a February 2023 video, the Dalai Lama was recorded kissing a young boy on the lips and asking the child to suck his tongue.[318][319] The meeting took place at his temple in Dharamshala, India. Nearly 100 students were in attendance, as well as the boy's mother, a trustee of the event's organiser.[320][321] Her son had asked for and received a hug from the Dalai Lama. He then pointed to his own cheek and lips, requesting and receiving two kisses at those locations from the boy, pulling the child's chin closer during the second one.[322][323] He then gestured at and said "suck my tongue," stretching it out and moved closer.[324][325] The boy had been pulling away, and the two ended up pressing their heads together.[326][327] The video resurfaced in April 2023, and the Dalai Lama's conduct was condemned by many who called it "inappropriate," "scandalous" and "disgusting".[319] His office issued a statement saying that the Dalai Lama often teases "in an innocent and playful way," adding that he wants to apologise to those involved "for the hurt his words may have caused" and "regrets the incident".[328][329]
Victim groups and media commentators have raised concerns of "child abuse".[330] The HAQ Centre for Child Rights in New Delhi said the video was "certainly not about any cultural expression and even if it is, such cultural expressions are not acceptable."[331] Indian journalist Nilanjana Bhowmick said that sticking out one's tongue is different from "asking a minor to suck it." Child rights activist Shola Mos-Shogbamimu said that child molestation should not be normalised under the guise of playful behaviour.[330][332]
Tibetan activists argued that the interaction was an overblown joke, misinterpreted and unfairly attacked.[333][334] They mentioned that sticking out one's tongue is a form of traditional Tibetan greeting to show respect or agreement, stemming from a tradition of performing the gesture to demonstrate that one is not reincarnated from the malevolent king Lang Dharma, who was said to have a black tongue.[335] The practice is not known to involve "sucking," however.[330] In an interview clip released by Voice of Tibet, the boy said it had been a "good experience" meeting the Dalai Lama, from whom he received a lot of "positive energy".[336] Penpa Tsering, the political leader of the Central Tibetan Administration, called the gesture an "innocent grandfatherly affectionate demeanour" followed by a "jovial prank" with a tongue.[337] He and other Tibetans accused "pro-Chinese sources" of being behind the video.[333][334][j] Vice News reported that according to Tibetans, "eat my tongue," roughly translated, is a common expression for teasing children. Kaysang, a Tibetan feminist educator in India, said "suck my tongue" is also a game for elders to "deter kids from pestering them".[333] An international group of Tibetan leaders and activists expressed anguish that attempts to understand Tibetan cultural context have been, in their view, insufficiently covered by the media.[339] Pema Rigzin, president of the Tibetan Cultural Society of Vancouver, added that it is "very normal" in Tibetan culture for grandparents to kiss or chew food for their infants.[340]
Video of touching Lady Gaga
[edit]Following the temple child incident in 2023, video footage from 2016 showing the Dalai Lama touching Lady Gaga's leg caused further controversy.[341][342] The event occurred during a compassion conference in Indiana about individuals experiencing physical and psychological difficulties and how to support them.[343] In the video, the religious leader is seen hardly paying any attention to the speaker. He looked down at Lady Gaga's leg, where the skin is exposed from her torn trousers, and touched it with his fingers. Lady Gaga looked back at the Dalai Lama, shook her head, and smiled awkwardly.[344] When he attempted the same action on her other leg, she grabbed his hand and stopped him from following through.[345][346] Following the resurfaced Lady Gaga incident, another video was posted on Spanish-language social media (notably X) showing him stroking a disabled girl's arm at an unknown event, drawing further criticism.[347][343]
Public image
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The Dalai Lama places highly in global surveys of the world's most admired men, ranking with Pope Francis as among the world's religious leaders cited as the most admired.[348][349]
The Dalai Lama's appeal is variously ascribed to his charismatic personality, international fascination with Buddhism, his universalist values, and international sympathy for the Tibetans.[350] In the 1990s, many films were released by the American film industry about Tibet, including biopics of the Dalai Lama. This is attributed to both the Dalai Lama's 1989 Nobel Peace Prize as well as to the euphoria following the Fall of Communism. The most notable films, Kundun and Seven Years in Tibet (both released in 1997), portrayed "an idyllic pre-1950 Tibet, with a smiling, soft-spoken Dalai Lama at the helm—a Dalai Lama sworn to non-violence": portrayals the Chinese government decried as ahistorical.[351]
The Dalai Lama has his own pages on Twitter,[352] Facebook,[353] and Instagram.[354]
The Dalai Lama has tried to mobilise international support for Tibetan activities.[355] The Dalai Lama has been successful in gaining Western support for himself and the cause of greater Tibetan autonomy, including vocal support from numerous Hollywood celebrities, most notably the actors Richard Gere and Steven Seagal, as well as lawmakers from several major countries.[356] Photos of the Dalai Lama were banned after March 1959 Lhasa protests until after the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976. In 1996 the Chinese Communist Party once again reinstated the total prohibition of any photo of the 14th Dalai Lama. According to the Tibet Information Network, "authorities in Tibet have begun banning photographs of the exiled Dalai Lama in monasteries and public places, according to reports from a monitoring group and a Tibetan newspaper. Plainclothes police went to hotels and restaurants in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, on 22 and 23 April and ordered Tibetans to remove pictures of the Dalai Lama ..."[357] The ban continues in many locations throughout Tibet today.
In the media
[edit]The 14th Dalai Lama has appeared in several non-fiction films including:
- 10 Questions for the Dalai Lama (2006, documentary)
- Dalai Lama Renaissance (2007, documentary)
- The Sun Behind the Clouds (2010)
- Bringing Tibet Home (2013)
- Monk with a Camera (2014, documentary)
- Dalai Lama Awakening (2014)
- Compassion in Action (2014)
He has been depicted as a character in various other movies and television programs including:
- Kundun, 1997 film directed by Martin Scorsese
- Seven Years in Tibet, 1997 film starring Brad Pitt and David Thewlis
- Klovn "Dalai Lama" Season 1, Episode 4 (2005)
- Red Dwarf episode "Meltdown" (1991)[358]
- Song of Tibet, 2000 film directed by Xie Fei.
- The Great Escape "14th Dalai Lama" (2018) on Epic
- "Dalai Lama," episode of the Indian television series Mega Icons (2019–20) on National Geographic.[359]
The Dalai Lama was featured on 5 March 2017, episode of the HBO late-night talk show Last Week Tonight, in which host John Oliver conducted a comedic interview with the Dalai Lama, focusing on the topics of Tibetan sovereignty, Tibetan self-immolations, and his succession plans.[360][relevant?]
A biographical graphic novel, Man of Peace, also envisaging the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet, was published by Tibet House US.[361][362] The Extraordinary Life of His Holiness the Fourteenth Dalai Lama: An Illuminated Journey, illustrations and text by artist Rima Fujita, narrated by the Dalai Lama, was published by Simon and Schuster in 2021.[363]
Awards and honours
[edit]
The Dalai Lama has received numerous awards and honours worldwide over his spiritual and political career.[364][365][366] For a more complete list see Awards and honours presented to the 14th Dalai Lama.
After the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded him the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize.[367] The Committee officially gave the prize to the Dalai Lama for "the struggle of the liberation of Tibet and the efforts for a peaceful resolution"[368] and "in part a tribute to the memory of Mahatma Gandhi".[369]
He has also been awarded the:
- 1959 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Community Leadership;[370]
- 1994 Freedom Medal from the Roosevelt Institute;[371]
- 1994 Wallenberg Medal from the University of Michigan; [372]
- 2005 Christmas Humphreys Award from the Buddhist Society in the United Kingdom;
- 2007 Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian award bestowed by the American Congress and President.[373] The Chinese government declared this would have "an extremely serious impact" on relations with the United States;[374]
- 2006 Order of the White Lotus by the Republic of Kalmykia for outstanding services and significant contribution to the spiritual revival and prosperity of the republic.[375]
- 2007 Ahimsa Award from the Institute of Jainology in recognition of individuals who embody and promote the principles of Ahimsa (Non-violence); and in
- 2012, Order of the Republic of Tuva by the Tuvan Republic in recognition of the contribution to the upbringing of high spiritual and cultural tolerance, strengthening interreligious and interethnic harmony.[375]
- 2012, the Templeton Prize.[376] He donated the prize money to the charity Save the Children.[377]
In 2006, he became one of only six people ever to be granted Honorary Citizenship of Canada. In 2007 he was named Presidential Distinguished Professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, the first time he accepted a university appointment.[378] He is the chief Patron of the Maha Bodhi Society of India, conferred upon him at the 2008 Annual General Meeting of the Maha Bodhi Society of India.[379]
Publications
[edit]- My Land and My People: The Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Ed. David Howarth. Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962. ISBN 978-0446674218
- Deity Yoga: In Action and Performance Tantras. Ed. and trans. Jeffrey Hopkins. Snow Lion, 1987. ISBN 978-0-93793-850-8
- Tantra in Tibet. Co-authored with Tsong-kha-pa, Jeffrey Hopkins. Snow Lion, 1987. ISBN 978-0-93793-849-2
- The Dalai Lama at Harvard. Ed. and trans. Jeffrey Hopkins. Snow Lion, 1988. ISBN 978-0-93793-871-3
- Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama, London: Little, Brown and Co., 1990, ISBN 978-0-349-10462-1
- My Tibet, co-authored with photographer Galen Rowell, 1990, ISBN 978-0-520-08948-8
- The Path to Enlightenment. Ed. and trans. Glenn H. Mullin. Snow Lion, 1994. ISBN 978-1-55939-032-3
- Essential Teachings, North Atlantic Books, 1995, ISBN 1556431929
- The World of Tibetan Buddhism, translated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa, foreword by Richard Gere, Wisdom Publications, 1995, ISBN 0-86171-100-9
- Tibetan Portrait: The Power of Compassion, photographs by Phil Borges with sayings by Tenzin Gyatso, 1996, ISBN 978-0-8478-1957-7
- Healing Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist Perspective. Trans. Thupten Jinpa. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1997, ISBN 978-1-55939-073-6
- The Gelug/Kagyü Tradition of Mahamudra, co-authored with Alexander Berzin. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 1997, ISBN 978-1-55939-072-9
- The Art of Happiness, co-authored with Howard C. Cutler, M.D., Riverhead Books, 1998, ISBN 978-0-9656682-9-3
- The Good Heart: A Buddhist Perspective on the Teachings of Jesus, translated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa, Wisdom Publications, 1998, ISBN 978-0-86171-138-3
- Kalachakra Tantra: Rite of Initiation, edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, Wisdom Publications, 1999, ISBN 978-0-86171-151-2
- MindScience: An East–West Dialogue, with contributions by Herbert Benson, Daniel Goleman, Robert Thurman, and Howard Gardner, Wisdom Publications, 1999, ISBN 978-0-86171-066-9
- The Power of Buddhism, co-authored with Jean-Claude Carrière, 1999, ISBN 978-0-7171-2803-7
- Opening the Eye of New Awareness, Translated by Donald S. Lopez Jr., Wisdom Publications, 1999, ISBN 978-0-86171-155-0
- Ethics for the New Millennium, Riverhead Books, 1999, ISBN 978-1-57322-883-1
- Consciousness at the Crossroads. Ed. Zara Houshmand, Robert B. Livingston, B. Alan Wallace. Trans. Thupten Jinpa, B. Alan Wallace. Snow Lion, 1999. ISBN 978-1-55939-127-6
- Ancient Wisdom, Modern World: Ethics for the New Millennium, Little, Brown/Abacus Press, 2000, ISBN 978-0-349-11443-9
- Dzogchen: Heart Essence of the Great Perfection, translated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa and Richard Barron, Snow Lion Publications, 2000, ISBN 978-1-55939-219-8
- The Meaning of Life: Buddhist Perspectives on Cause and Effect, translated by Jeffrey Hopkins, Wisdom Publications, 2000, ISBN 978-0-86171-173-4
- Answers: Discussions with Western Buddhists. Ed. and trans. Jose Cabezon. Snow Lion, 2001. ISBN 978-1-55939-162-7
- The Compassionate Life, Wisdom Publications, 2001, ISBN 978-0-86171-378-3
- Violence and Compassion: Dialogues on Life Today, with Jean-Claude Carriere, Doubleday, 2001, ISBN 978-0-385-50144-6
- Imagine All the People: A Conversation with the Dalai Lama on Money, Politics, and Life as it Could Be, Coauthored with Fabien Ouaki, Wisdom Publications, 2001, ISBN 978-0-86171-150-5
- An Open Heart, edited by Nicholas Vreeland; Little, Brown; 2001, ISBN 978-0-316-98979-4
- The Heart of Compassion: A Practical Approach to a Meaningful Life, Twin Lakes, Wisconsin: Lotus Press, 2002, ISBN 978-0-940985-36-0
- Sleeping, Dreaming, and Dying, edited by Francisco Varela, Wisdom Publications, 2002, ISBN 978-0-86171-123-9
- Essence of the Heart Sutra: The Dalai Lama's Heart of Wisdom Teachings, edited by Geshe Thupten Jinpa, Wisdom Publications, 2002, ISBN 978-0-86171-284-7
- The Pocket Dalai Lama. Ed. Mary Craig. Shambhala Pocket Classics, 2002. ISBN 978-1-59030-001-5
- The Buddhism of Tibet. Ed. and trans. Jeffrey Hopkins, Anne C. Klein. Snow Lion, 2002. ISBN 978-1-55939-185-6
- The Art of Happiness at Work, co-authored with Howard C. Cutler, M.D., Riverhead, 2003, ISBN 978-1-59448-054-6
- Stages of Meditation (commentary on the Bhāvanākrama). Trans. Ven. Geshe Lobsang Jordhen, Losang Choephel Ganchenpa, Jeremy Russell. Snow Lion, 2003. ISBN 978-1-55939-197-9
- Der Weg des Herzens. Gewaltlosigkeit und Dialog zwischen den Religionen (The Path of the Heart: Non-violence and the Dialogue among Religions), co-authored with Eugen Drewermann, PhD, Patmos Verlag, 2003, ISBN 978-3-491-69078-3
- The Path to Bliss. Ed. and trans. Thupten Jinpa, Christine Cox. Snow Lion, 2003. ISBN 978-1-55939-190-0
- How to Practice: The Way to a Meaningful Life, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, 2003, ISBN 978-0-7434-5336-3
- The Wisdom of Forgiveness: Intimate Conversations and Journeys, coauthored with Victor Chan, Riverbed Books, 2004, ISBN 978-1-57322-277-8
- The New Physics and Cosmology: Dialogues with the Dalai Lama, edited by Arthur Zajonc, with contributions by David Finkelstein, George Greenstein, Piet Hut, Tu Wei-ming, Anton Zeilinger, B. Alan Wallace and Thupten Jinpa, Oxford University Press, 2004, ISBN 978-0-19-515994-3
- Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection. Ed. Patrick Gaffney. Trans. Thupten Jinpa, Richard Barron (Chokyi Nyima). Snow Lion, 2004. ISBN 978-1-55939-219-8
- Practicing Wisdom: The Perfection of Shantideva's Bodhisattva Way, translated by Geshe Thupten Jinpa, Wisdom Publications, 2004, ISBN 978-0-86171-182-6
- Lighting the Way. Snow Lion, 2005. ISBN 978-1-55939-228-0
- The Universe in a Single Atom: The Convergence of Science and Spirituality, Morgan Road Books, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7679-2066-7
- How to Expand Love: Widening the Circle of Loving Relationships, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, Atria Books, 2005, ISBN 978-0-7432-6968-1
- The Tibetan Book of the Dead, translated and edited by Gyurnme Dorje, Graham Coleman, and Thupten Jinpa, introductory commentary by the 14th Dalai Lama, Viking Press, 2005, ISBN 0-670-85886-2
- Living Wisdom with His Holiness the Dalai Lama, with Don Farber, Sounds True, 2006, ISBN 978-1-59179-457-8
- Mind in Comfort and Ease: The Vision of Enlightenment in the Great Perfection. Ed. Patrick Gaffney. Trans. Matthieu Ricard, Richard Barron and Adam Pearcey. Wisdom Publications, 2007, ISBN 978-0-86171-493-3
- How to See Yourself as You Really Are, translated and edited by Jeffrey Hopkins, 2007, ISBN 978-0-7432-9045-6
- The Leader's Way, co-authored with Laurens van den Muyzenberg, Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-85788-511-8
- My Spiritual Autobiography compiled by Sofia Stril-Rever from speeches and interviews of the 14th Dalai Lama, 2009, ISBN 9781846042423
- Beyond Religion: Ethics for a Whole World, Mariner Books, 2012, ISBN 054784428X
- The Wisdom of Compassion: Stories of Remarkable Encounters and Timeless Insights, coauthored with Victor Chan, Riverhead Books, 2012, ISBN 978-0-55216923-3
- My Appeal to the World, presented by Sofia Stril-Rever, translated from the French by Sebastian Houssiaux, Tibet House US, 2015, ISBN 978-0-9670115-6-1
- The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World, coauthored by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, 2016, ISBN 978-0-67007-016-9
- Behind the Smile: The Hidden Side of the Dalai Lama, by Maxime Vivas (author), translated from the French book Not So Zen, Long River Press 2013, ISBN 978-1592651405
The Dalai Lama Tulku lineage (UK: /ˈdælaɪ ˈlɑːmə/, US: /ˈdɑːlaɪ/;[1][2] Tibetan: ཏཱ་ལའི་བླ་མ་, Wylie: Tā la'i bla ma [táːlɛː láma]) began in the 1430s with the first tulku Gendun Drupa, a student of Tsongkhapa. More than a hundred years later, the title of Dalai Lama was given to the tulku lineage by Altan Khan, the first Mongolian Shunyi King during the Ming dynasty. He offered it in appreciation to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism, Sonam Gyatso, who was presented the spiritual title of Dalai Lama in 1578 at Yanghua Monastery.[3] At that time, Sonam Gyatso had just given teachings to the Khan, and thus the spiritual title of Dalai Lama was therefore also given to the entire tulku lineage. Sonam Gyatso became the 3rd Dalai Lama while the first two tulkus in the lineage, the 1st Dalai Lama and the 2nd Dalai Lama, were posthumously awarded the same title.
All tulkus in the lineage of the Dalai Lamas are considered manifestations of the Buddha Avalokiteshvara,[2][1] the bodhisattva of compassion.[4][5]
Since the time of the 5th Dalai Lama in the 17th century, the Dalai Lama has been a symbol of unification of the state of Tibet.[6] The Dalai Lama was an important figure of the Geluk tradition, which was dominant in Central Tibet, but his religious authority went beyond sectarian boundaries, representing Buddhist values and traditions above any specific school.[7] The Dalai Lama's traditional function as an ecumenical figure has been taken up by the fourteenth Dalai Lama, who has worked to overcome sectarian and other divisions in the exile community and become a symbol of Tibetan nationhood for Tibetans in Tibet and in exile.[8] The 14th and incumbent Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso, who escaped from Lhasa in 1959 during the Tibetan diaspora and lives in exile in Dharamsala, India.
From 1642 and the 5th Dalai Lama until 1951 and the 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual roles of tulku lineage was enjoined with the secular role of governing Tibet. During this period, the Dalai Lamas or their Kalons (or regents) led the Tibetan government in Lhasa, known as the Ganden Phodrang. It governed all of the Tibetan Plateau while respecting varying degrees of autonomy.[9] In 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama revoked Tibet's Seventeen Point Agreement with China, at which point he legally returned to the secular leadership position of governing Tibet.
As both spiritual and secular leaders, the Dalai Lama tulku lineage also undertook priest and patron relationships with neighbors including Mongolian leaders, kings of the Khoshut, and leaders of the Dzungar Khanates (1642–1720). These relationships occurred simultaneously with the priest and patron relationship between Tibet and the emperors of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty (1720–1912),[9] which officially continued until the Collapse of the Qing empire in 1912.
Names
[edit]The name "Dalai Lama" is a combination of the Mongolic word dalai ('ocean')[10] and the Tibetan word བླ་མ་ (bla-ma) ('master, guru').[11][12] The word dalai corresponds to the Tibetan word gyatso[13] or rgya-mtsho,[14] and, according to Schwieger, was chosen by analogy with the Mongolian title Dalaiyin qan[10] or Dalaiin khan.[citation needed] Others suggest it may have been chosen in reference to the breadth of the Dalai Lama's wisdom.[15]
The Dalai Lama is also known in Tibetan as the Rgyal-ba Rin-po-che ('Precious Conqueror')[14] or simply as the Rgyal-ba.[16]: 23
History
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Origins in myth and legend
[edit]Since the 11th century, it has been widely believed in Central Asian Buddhist countries that Avalokiteśvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, has a special relationship with the people of Tibet and intervenes in their fate by incarnating as benevolent rulers and teachers such as the Dalai Lamas.[17] The Book of Kadam,[18][19] the main text of the Kadampa school from which the 1st Dalai Lama hailed, is said to have laid the foundation for the Tibetans' later identification of the Dalai Lamas as incarnations of Avalokiteśvara.[20][21][22] It traces the legend of the bodhisattva's incarnations as early Tibetan kings and emperors such as Songtsen Gampo and later as Dromtönpa (1004–1064).[23] This lineage has been extrapolated by Tibetans up to and including the Dalai Lamas.[24]
Thus, according to such sources, an informal line of succession of the present Dalai Lamas as incarnations of Avalokiteśvara stretches back much further than the 1st Dalai Lama, Gendun Drub; as many as sixty persons are enumerated as earlier incarnations of Avalokiteśvara and predecessors in the same lineage leading up to Gendun Drub. These earlier incarnations include a mythology of 36 Indian personalities, ten early Tibetan kings and emperors all said to be previous incarnations of Dromtönpa, and fourteen further Nepalese and Tibetan yogis and sages.[25] In fact, according to the "Birth to Exile" article on the 14th Dalai Lama's website, he is "the seventy-fourth in a lineage that can be traced back to a Brahmin boy who lived in the time of Buddha Shakyamuni."[26]
Avalokiteśvara's "Dalai Lama master plan"
[edit]According to the 14th Dalai Lama, long ago Avalokiteśvara had promised the Buddha to guide and defend the Tibetan people. In the late Middle Ages, his master plan to fulfill this promise was the stage-by-stage establishment of the Dalai Lama institution in Tibet.[27]
First, Tsongkhapa established three great monasteries around Lhasa in the province of Ü before he died in 1419.[28] The 1st Dalai Lama soon became Abbot of the greatest one, Drepung, and developed a large popular power base in Ü. He later extended this to cover Tsang,[29] where he constructed a fourth great monastery, Tashi Lhunpo, at Shigatse.[30] The 2nd studied there before returning to Lhasa,[27] where he became Abbot of Drepung.[31] Having reactivated the 1st's large popular followings in Tsang and Ü,[32] the 2nd then moved on to southern Tibet and gathered more followers there who helped him construct a new monastery, Chokorgyel.[33] He established the method by which later Dalai Lama incarnations would be discovered through visions at the "oracle lake", Lhamo Lhatso.[34]
The 3rd built on his predecessors' fame by becoming Abbot of the two great monasteries of Drepung and Sera.[34] The Mongol King Altan Khan, hearing of his reputation, invited the 3rd to Mongolia where the 3rd converted the King and his followers to Buddhism, covering a vast tract of central Asia. This brought most of Mongolia into the Dalai Lama's sphere of influence, founding a spiritual empire which largely survives to the modern age.[35] After being given the Mongolian name 'Dalai',[36] he returned to Tibet to found the great monasteries of Lithang in Kham, eastern Tibet and Kumbum in Amdo, north-eastern Tibet.[37]
The 4th was then born in Mongolia as the great-grandson of Altan Khan, cementing strong ties between Central Asia, the Dalai Lamas, the Gelugpa and Tibet.[38] The 5th in the succession used the vast popular power base of devoted followers built up by his four predecessors. By 1642, with the strategy provided by his chagdzo (manager) Sonam Rapten and the military assistance of Khoshut chieftain Gushri Khan, the 'Great 5th' founded the Dalai Lamas' religious and political reign over Tibet that survived for over 300 years.[39]
Establishment of the Dalai Lama lineage
[edit]Gendun Drup (1391–1474), a disciple of Je Tsongkapa,[40] would eventually be known as the 'First Dalai Lama', but he would not receive this title until 104 years after he died.[41] There was resistance to naming him as such, since he was ordained a monk in the Kadampa tradition[33] and for various reasons,[further explanation needed] the Kadampa school had eschewed the adoption of the tulku system to which the older schools adhered. Therefore, although Gendun Drup grew to be an important Gelugpa lama, there was no search to identify his incarnation after his death in 1474.[42]
Despite this, 55 years after Tsongkhapa, the Tashilhunpo monks heard accounts that an incarnation of Gendun Drup had appeared nearby and repeatedly announced himself from the age of two.[43] The monastic authorities saw compelling evidence that convinced them the child in question was indeed the incarnation of their founder and felt obliged to break with their own tradition, and in 1487, the boy was renamed Gendun Gyatso and installed at Tashilhunpo as Gendun Drup's tulku, albeit informally.[44]
Gendun Gyatso died in 1542, but the lineage of Dalai Lama tulkus became firmly established with the third incarnation, Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588), who was formally recognised and enthroned at Drepung in 1546.[45] Gendun Gyatso was given the title "Dalai Lama" by the Tümed Altan Khan in 1578,[46]: 153 and his two predecessors were then accorded the title posthumously, making Gendun now the third in the lineage.[41]
1st Dalai Lama
[edit]Pema Dorje (1391–1474), who would eventually be posthumously declared the 1st Dalai Lama, was born in a cattle pen in Shabtod, Tsang in 1391.[47][33] His family were goatherders, but when his father died in 1398, his mother entrusted him to his uncle for education as a Buddhist monk.[48] Pema Dorje was sent to Narthang, a major Kadampa monastery near Shigatse, which ran the largest printing press in Tibet.[49] Its celebrated library attracted many scholars, so Pema Dorje received an education beyond the norm at the time as well as exposure to diverse spiritual schools and ideas.[50]
He studied Buddhist philosophy extensively. In 1405, ordained by Narthang's abbot, he took the name of Gendun Drup.[33] He was recognised as an exceptionally gifted pupil, so the abbot tutored him personally and took special interest in his progress.[50] In twelve years he passed the twelve grades of monkhood and took the highest vows.[47] After completing his intensive studies at Narthang he left to continue at specialist monasteries in Central Tibet.[51]
In 1415, Gendun Drup met Tsongkhapa, founder of the Gelugpa school, and became his student.[52] After the death of Tsongkhapa's successor, the Panchen Lama Khedrup Je, Gendun Drup became the leader of the Gelugpa.[47] He rose to become Abbot of Drepung, the greatest Gelugpa monastery outside Lhasa.[31]
It was mainly due to Gendun Drup that Tsongkhapa's new school grew into an order capable of competing with others on an equal footing.[53] Taking advantage of good relations with the nobility and a lack of determined opposition from rival orders, he founded Tashilhunpo Monastery at Shigatse, on the very edge of Karma Kagyu-dominated territory,[53] and would serve as its Abbot until his death.[54] This monastery became the fourth great Gelugpa monastery in Tibet, after Ganden, Drepung, and Sera, all founded in Tsongkhapa's time,[28] and would later become the seat of the Panchen Lamas.[55] By establishing it at Shigatse in the middle of Tsang, Gendun Drup expanded the Gelugpa sphere of influence, and his own, from the Lhasa region of Ü to this province, which was the stronghold of the Karma Kagyu school and their patrons, the rising Tsangpa dynasty.[28][56] Tashilhunpo eventually become 'Southern Tibet's greatest monastic university'[57] with a complement of 3,000 monks.[33]
Gendun Drup was said to be the greatest scholar-saint ever produced by Narthang Monastery[57] and became 'the single most important lama in Tibet'.[58] Through hard work he became a leading lama, known as 'Perfecter of the Monkhood', 'with a host of disciples'.[55] Famed for his Buddhist scholarship, he was also referred to as Panchen Gendun Drup, 'Panchen' being an honorary title designating 'great scholar'.[33] By the great Jonangpa master Bodong Chokley Namgyal[59] he was accorded the honorary title Tamchey Khyenpa meaning "The Omniscient One", an appellation that was later assigned to all Dalai Lama incarnations.[60]
At the age of 50, he entered meditation retreat at Narthang. As he grew older, Karma Kagyu adherents, finding their sect was losing too many recruits to the monkhood to burgeoning Gelugpa monasteries, tried to contain Gelug expansion by launching military expeditions against them.[61] This led to decades of military and political power struggles between Tsangpa dynasty forces and others across central Tibet.[62] In an attempt to ameliorate these clashes, Gendun Drup issued a poem of advice to his followers advising restraint from responding to violence with more violence and urged compassion and patience instead. The poem, entitled Shar Gang Rima, "The Song of the Eastern Snow Mountains", became one of his most enduring popular literary works.[63]
Gendun Drup's spiritual accomplishments brought him substantial donations from devotees which he used to build and furnish new monasteries, as well as to print and distribute Buddhist texts and to maintain monks and meditators.[64] In 1474, at the age of 84, he went on a final teaching tour by foot to visit Narthang Monastery. Returning to Tashilhunpo[65] he died 'in a blaze of glory, recognised as having attained Buddhahood'.[55]
His remains were interred in a bejewelled silver stupa at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, which survived the Cultural Revolution and can still be seen.[42]
2nd Dalai Lama
[edit]After Gendun Drup died, a boy called Sangyey Pel, born to Nyngma adepts at Yolkar in Tsang,[33][66] declared himself at the age of three to be Gendun Drup and asked to be 'taken home' to Tashilhunpo. He spoke in mystical verses, quoted classical texts spontaneously,[67] and claimed to be Dromtönpa, an earlier incarnation of the Dalai Lamas.[68] When he saw monks from Tashilhunpo, he greeted the disciples of the late Gendun Drup by name.[69] Convinced by the evidence, the Gelugpa elders broke with the traditions of their school and recognised him as Gendun Drup's tulku at the age of eight.[44]
His father took him on teachings and retreats, training him in all the family Nyingma lineages.[70] At twelve he was installed at Tashilhunpo as Gendun Drup's incarnation, ordained, enthroned, and renamed Gendun Gyatso Palzangpo (1475–1542).[44]
Tutored personally by the abbot, he made rapid progress, and in 1492 at the age of seventeen he was requested to teach all over Tsang, where thousands gathered to listen and give obeisance, including senior scholars and abbots.[71] Two years later, he met some opposition from the Tashilhunpo establishment when tensions arose over conflicts between advocates of the two types of succession: the traditional abbatial election through merit and incarnation. He therefore moved to central Tibet, where he was invited to Drepung and where his reputation as a brilliant young teacher quickly grew.[72][73] This move had the effect of shifting central Gelug authority back to Lhasa.
He was afforded all the loyalty and devotion that Gendun Drup had earned and the Gelug school remained as united as ever.[28] Under his leadership, the sect continued growing in size and influence[74] and its lamas were asked to mediate in disputes between other rivals.[75] Gendun Gyatso's popularity in Ü-Tsang grew as he went on pilgrimage, teaching and studying from masters such as the adept Khedrup Norzang Gyatso in the Olklha mountains.[76] He also stayed in Kongpo and Dagpo[77] and became known all over Tibet.[34] He spent his winters in Lhasa, writing commentaries, and spent the rest of the year travelling and teaching many thousands of monks and laypeople.[78]
In 1509, he moved to southern Tibet to build Chokorgyel Monastery near the 'Oracle Lake', Lhamo Latso,[34] completing it by 1511.[79] That year he saw visions in the lake and 'empowered' it to impart clues to help identify incarnate lamas. All Dalai Lamas from the 3rd on were found with the help of such visions granted to regents.[34][80] He was invited back to Tashilhunpo and given the residence built for Gendun Drup, to be occupied later by the Panchen Lamas.[33] He was made abbot of Tashilhunpo[81] and stayed there teaching in Tsang for nine months.[82]
Gendun Gyatso continued to travel widely and teach while based at Tibet's largest monastery, Drepung and became known as 'Drepung Lama',[74] his fame and influence spreading all over Central Asia as the best students from hundreds of lesser monasteries in Asia were sent to Drepung for education.[79]
Throughout Gendun Gyatso's life, the Gelugpa were opposed and suppressed by older rivals, particularly the Karma Kagyu and their Ringpung clan patrons from Tsang, who felt threatened by their loss of influence.[83] In 1498, the Ringpung army captured Lhasa and banned the Gelugpa annual New Year Monlam Prayer Festival.[83][84] Gendun Gyatso was promoted to abbot of Drepung in 1517[79] and that year Ringpung forces were forced to withdraw from Lhasa.[83][85] Gendun Gyatso then went to the Gongma (King) Drakpa Jungne[86] to obtain permission for the festival to be held again.[84] The next New Year, the Gongma was so impressed by Gendun Gyatso's performance leading the festival that he sponsored construction of a large new residence for him at Drepung, 'a monastery within a monastery'.[84] It was called the Ganden Phodrang, a name later adopted by the Tibetan Government,[33] and it served as home for Dalai Lamas until the Fifth moved to the Potala Palace in 1645.
In 1525, already abbot of Chokhorgyel, Drepung and Tashilhunpo, he was made abbot of Sera monastery as well, and worked to increase the number of monks there. Based at Drepung in winter and Chokorgyel in summer, he spent his remaining years composing commentaries, making regional teaching tours, visiting Tashilhunpo, and acting as abbot of these four great monasteries.[87] As abbot, he made Drepung the largest monastery in the whole of Tibet.[88] He attracted many students and disciples 'from Kashmir to China' as well as major patrons and disciples such as Gongma Nangso Donyopa of Droda who built a monastery at Zhekar Dzong in his honour and invited him to name it and be its spiritual guide.[89][87]
Gongma Gyaltsen Palzangpo of Khyomorlungand and his Queen, Sangyey Paldzomma, became his favorite patrons and disciples and he visited their area to carry out rituals as 'he chose it for his next place of rebirth'.[90] He died in meditation at Drepung in 1542 at the age of 67 and his reliquary stupa was constructed at Khyomorlung.[91] It was said that, by the time he died, through his disciples and their students, his personal influence covered the whole of Buddhist Central Asia where 'there was nobody of any consequence who did not know of him.'[91] The Dalai Lama title was posthumously granted to Gedun Gyatso after 1578.
3rd Dalai Lama
[edit]The Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588), was born in Tolung, near Lhasa,[92] as predicted by his predecessor.[90] Claiming he was Gendun Gyatso and readily recalling events from his previous life, he was recognised as the incarnation, named 'Sonam Gyatso' and installed at Drepung, where 'he quickly excelled his teachers in knowledge and wisdom and developed extraordinary powers'.[93] Unlike his predecessors, he came from a noble family, connected with the Sakya and the Phagmo Drupa (Karma Kagyu affiliated) dynasties,[88] and it is to him that the effective conversion of Mongolia to Buddhism is due.[55]
A brilliant scholar and teacher,[94] he had the spiritual maturity to be made Abbot of Drepung,[95] taking responsibility for the material and spiritual well-being of Tibet's largest monastery at the age of nine. At 10 he led the Monlam Prayer Festival, giving daily discourses to the assembly of all Gelugpa monks.[96] His influence grew so quickly that soon the monks at Sera Monastery also made him their Abbot[34] and his mediation was being sought to prevent fighting between political power factions. At 16, in 1559, he was invited to Nedong by King Ngawang Tashi Drakpa, a Karma Kagyu supporter, and became his personal teacher.[92]
At 17, when fighting broke out in Lhasa between Gelug and Kagyu parties and efforts by local lamas to mediate failed, Sonam Gyatso negotiated a peaceful settlement. At 19, when the Kyichu River burst its banks and flooded Lhasa, he led his followers to rescue victims and repair the dykes. He then instituted a custom whereby on the last day of Monlam, all the monks would work on strengthening the flood defences.[92] Gradually, he was shaping himself into a national leader.[97] His popularity and renown became such that in 1564 when the Nedong King died, it was Sonam Gyatso at the age of 21 who was requested to lead his funeral rites, rather than his own Kagyu lamas.[34]
Required to travel and teach without respite after taking full ordination in 1565, he still maintained extensive meditation practices in the hours before dawn and again at the end of the day.[98] In 1569, at age 26, he went to Tashilhunpo to study the layout and administration of the monastery built by his predecessor Gendun Drup. Invited to become the Abbot he declined, already being Abbot of Drepung and Sera, but left his deputy there in his stead.[99] From there he visited Narthang, the first monastery of Gendun Drup and gave numerous discourses and offerings to the monks in gratitude.[98]
Meanwhile, Altan Khan, chief of all the Mongol tribes near China's borders, had heard of Sonam Gyatso's spiritual prowess and repeatedly invited him to Mongolia.[88] By 1571, when Altan Khan received a title of Shunyi Wang (King) from the Ming dynasty of China[100] and swore allegiance to Ming,[101] Although he remained de facto quite independent,[46]: 106 he had fulfilled his political destiny and a nephew advised him to seek spiritual salvation, saying that "in Tibet dwells Avalokiteshvara", referring to Sonam Gyatso, then 28 years old.[102] China was also happy to help Altan Khan by providing necessary translations of holy scripture, and also lamas.[103]
At the second invitation, in 1577–78 Sonam Gyatso travelled 1,500 miles to Mongolia to see him. They met in an atmosphere of intense reverence and devotion[104] and their meeting resulted in the re-establishment of strong Tibet-Mongolia relations after a gap of 200 years.[88] To Altan Khan, Sonam Gyatso identified himself as the incarnation of Drogön Chögyal Phagpa, and Altan Khan as that of Kubilai Khan, thus placing the Khan as heir to the Chingizid lineage whilst securing his patronage.[105] Altan Khan and his followers quickly adopted Buddhism as their state religion, replacing the prohibited traditional Shamanism.[94]
Mongol law was reformed to accord with Tibetan Buddhist law. From this time Buddhism spread rapidly across Mongolia[105] and soon the Gelugpa had won the spiritual allegiance of most of the Mongolian tribes.[94] As proposed by Sonam Gyatso, Altan Khan sponsored the building of Thegchen Chonkhor Monastery at the site of Sonam Gyatso's open-air teachings given to the whole Mongol population. He also called Sonam Gyatso "Dalai", Mongolian for 'Gyatso' (Ocean).[106] In October 1587, as requested by the family of Altan Khan, Gyalwa Sonam Gyatso was promoted to Duǒ Er Zhǐ Chàng (Chinese:朵儿只唱) by the emperor of China, seal of authority and golden sheets were granted.[107]
The name "Dalai Lama", by which the lineage later became known throughout the non-Tibetan world, was thus established and it was applied to the first two incarnations retrospectively.[41]
In 1579, the Ming allowed the third Dalai Lama to pay regular tribute.[108] Returning eventually to Tibet by a roundabout route and invited to stay and teach all along the way, in 1580 Sonam Gyatso was in Hohhot [or Ningxia], not far from Beijing, when the Chinese Emperor summoned him to his court.[109][110] By then he had established a religious empire of such proportions that it was unsurprising the Emperor wanted to summon him and grant him a diploma.[104]
Through Altan Khan, the 3rd Dalai Lama requested to pay tribute to the Emperor of China in order to raise his State Tutor ranking, and the Ming imperial court of China agreed with the request.[111] In 1582, he heard Altan Khan had died and invited by his son Dhüring Khan he decided to return to Mongolia. Passing through Amdo, he founded a second great monastery, Kumbum, at the birthplace of Tsongkhapa near Kokonor.[110] Further on, he was asked to adjudicate on border disputes between Mongolia and China. It was the first time a Dalai Lama had exercised such political authority.[112]
Arriving in Mongolia in 1585, he stayed 2 years with Dhüring Khan, teaching Buddhism to his people[110] and converting more Mongol princes and their tribes. Receiving a second invitation from the Emperor in Beijing he accepted, but died en route in 1588.[113] As he was dying, his Mongolian converts urged him not to leave them, as they needed his continuing religious leadership. He promised them he would be incarnated next in Mongolia, as a Mongolian.[112]
4th Dalai Lama
[edit]The Fourth Dalai Lama, Yonten Gyatso (1589–1617) was a Mongol, the great-grandson of Altan Khan[114] who was a descendant of Kublai Khan and leader of the Tümed Mongols who had already been converted to Buddhism by the Third Dalai Lama, Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588).[31] This strong connection caused the Mongols to zealously support the Gelugpa sect in Tibet, strengthening their status and position but also arousing intensified opposition from the Gelugpa's rivals, particularly the Tsang Karma Kagyu in Shigatse and their Mongol patrons and the Bönpo in Kham and their allies.[31] Being the newest school, unlike the older schools the Gelugpa lacked an established network of Tibetan clan patronage and were thus more reliant on foreign patrons.[115]
At the age of 10 with a large Mongol escort he travelled to Lhasa where he was enthroned. He studied at Drepung and became its abbot but being a non-Tibetan he met with opposition from some Tibetans, especially the Karma Kagyu who felt their position was threatened by these emerging events; there were several attempts to remove him from power.[116] Seal of authority was granted in 1616 by Wanli Emperor of Ming.[117] Yonten Gyatso died at the age of 27 under suspicious circumstances and his chief attendant Sonam Rapten went on to discover the 5th Dalai Lama, became his chagdzo or manager and after 1642 he went on to be his regent, the Desi.[118]
5th Dalai Lama
[edit]
The death of the Fourth Dalai Lama in 1617 led to open conflict breaking out between various parties.[115] Firstly, the Tsangpa dynasty, rulers of Central Tibet from Shigatse, supporters of the Karmapa school and rivals to the Gelugpa, forbade the search for his incarnation.[119] However, in 1618 Sonam Rabten, the former attendant of the 4th Dalai Lama who had become the Ganden Phodrang treasurer, secretly identified the child,[120] who had been born to the noble Zahor family at Tagtse castle, south of Lhasa. Then, the Panchen Lama, in Shigatse, negotiated the lifting of the ban, enabling the boy to be recognised as Lobsang Gyatso, the 5th Dalai Lama.[119]
Also in 1618, the Tsangpa King, Karma Puntsok Namgyal, whose Mongol patron was Choghtu Khong Tayiji of the Khalkha Mongols, attacked the Gelugpa in Lhasa to avenge an earlier snub and established two military bases there to control the monasteries and the city. This caused Sonam Rabten who became the 5th Dalai Lama's changdzo or manager,[121] to seek more active Mongol patronage and military assistance for the Gelugpa while the Fifth was still a boy.[115] So, in 1620, Mongol troops allied to the Gelugpa who had camped outside Lhasa suddenly attacked and destroyed the two Tsangpa camps and drove them out of Lhasa, enabling the Dalai Lama to be brought out of hiding and publicly enthroned there in 1622.[120]
In fact, throughout the 5th's minority, it was the influential and forceful Sonam Rabten who inspired the Dzungar Mongols to defend the Gelugpa by attacking their enemies. These enemies included other Mongol tribes who supported the Tsangpas, the Tsangpa themselves and their Bönpo allies in Kham who had also opposed and persecuted Gelugpas. Ultimately, this strategy led to the destruction of the Tsangpa dynasty, the defeat of the Karmapas and their other allies and the Bönpos, by armed forces from the Lhasa valley aided by their Mongol allies, paving the way for Gelugpa political and religious hegemony in Central Tibet.[119]
Apparently by general consensus, by virtue of his position as the Dalai Lama's changdzo (chief attendant, minister), after the Dalai Lama became absolute ruler of Tibet in 1642 Sonam Rabten became the "Desi" or "Viceroy", in fact, the de facto regent or day-to-day ruler of Tibet's governmental affairs. During these years and for the rest of his life (he died in 1658), "there was little doubt that politically Sonam Chophel [Rabten] was more powerful than the Dalai Lama".[122] As a young man, being 22 years his junior, the Dalai Lama addressed him reverentially as "Zhalngo", meaning "the Presence".[123]
During the 1630s Tibet was deeply entangled in rivalry, evolving power struggles and conflicts, not only between the Tibetan religious sects but also between the rising Manchus and the various rival Mongol and Oirat factions, who were also vying for supremacy amongst themselves and on behalf of the religious sects they patronised.[115] For example, Ligdan Khan of the Chahars, a Mongol subgroup who supported the Tsang Karmapas, after retreating from advancing Manchu armies headed for Kokonor intending destroy the Gelug. He died on the way, in 1634.[124]
His vassal Choghtu Khong Tayiji, continued to advance against the Gelugpas, even having his own son Arslan killed after Arslan changed sides, submitted to the Dalai Lama and become a Gelugpa monk.[125] By the mid-1630s, thanks again to the efforts of Sonam Rabten,[119] the 5th Dalai Lama had found a powerful new patron in Güshi Khan of the Khoshut Mongols, a subgroup of the Dzungars, who had recently migrated to the Kokonor area from Dzungaria.[115] He attacked Choghtu Khong Tayiji at Kokonor in 1637 and defeated and killed him, thus eliminating the Tsangpa and the Karmapa's main Mongol patron and protector.[115]
Next, Donyo Dorje, the Bönpo king of Beri in Kham was found writing to the Tsangpa king in Shigatse to propose a co-ordinated 'pincer attack' on the Lhasa Gelugpa monasteries from east and west, seeking to utterly destroy them once and for all.[126] The intercepted letter was sent to Güshi Khan who used it as a pretext to invade central Tibet in 1639 to attack them both, the Bönpo and the Tsangpa. By 1641 he had defeated Donyo Dorje and his allies in Kham and then he marched on Shigatse where after laying siege to their strongholds he defeated Karma Tenkyong, broke the power of the Tsang Karma Kagyu in 1642 and ended the Tsangpa dynasty.[127]
Güshi Khan's attack on the Tsangpa was made on the orders of Sonam Rapten while being publicly and robustly opposed by the Dalai Lama, who, as a matter of conscience, out of compassion and his vision of tolerance for other religious schools, refused to give permission for more warfare in his name after the defeat of the Beri king.[122][128] Sonam Rabten deviously went behind his master's back to encourage Güshi Khan, to facilitate his plans and to ensure the attacks took place;[119] for this defiance of his master's wishes, Rabten was severely rebuked by the 5th Dalai Lama.[128]
After Desi Sonam Rapten died in 1658, the following year the 5th Dalai Lama appointed his younger brother Depa Norbu (aka Nangso Norbu) as his successor.[129] However, after a few months, Norbu betrayed him and led a rebellion against the Ganden Phodrang Government. With his accomplices he seized Samdruptse fort at Shigatse and tried to raise a rebel army from Tsang and Bhutan, but the Dalai Lama skilfully foiled his plans without any fighting taking place and Norbu had to flee.[130] Four other Desis were appointed after Depa Norbu: Trinle Gyatso, Lozang Tutop, Lozang Jinpa and Sangye Gyatso.[131]
Re-unification of Tibet
[edit]Having thus defeated all the Gelugpa's rivals and resolved all regional and sectarian conflicts Güshi Khan became the undisputed patron of a unified Tibet and acted as a "Protector of the Gelug",[132] establishing the Khoshut Khanate which covered almost the entire Tibetan plateau, an area corresponding roughly to 'Greater Tibet' including Kham and Amdo, as claimed by exiled groups (see maps). At an enthronement ceremony in Shigatse he conferred full sovereignty over Tibet on the Fifth Dalai Lama,[133] unified for the first time since the collapse of the Tibetan Empire exactly eight centuries earlier.[115][134] Güshi Khan then retired to Kokonor with his armies[115] and [according to Smith] ruled Amdo himself directly thus creating a precedent for the later separation of Amdo from the rest of Tibet.[134]
In this way, Güshi Khan established the Fifth Dalai Lama as the highest spiritual and political authority in Tibet. 'The Great Fifth' became the temporal ruler of Tibet in 1642 and from then on the rule of the Dalai Lama lineage over some, all or most of Tibet lasted with few breaks for the next 317 years, until 1959, when the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India.[135] In 1645, the Great Fifth began the construction of the Potala Palace in Lhasa.[136]
Güshi Khan died in 1655 and was succeeded by his descendants Dayan, Tenzin Dalai Khan and Tenzin Wangchuk Khan. However, Güshi Khan's other eight sons had settled in Amdo but fought amongst themselves over territory so the Fifth Dalai Lama sent governors to rule them in 1656 and 1659, thereby bringing Amdo and thus the whole of Greater Tibet under his personal rule and Gelugpa control. The Mongols in Amdo became absorbed and Tibetanised.[137]
Visit to Beijing
[edit]In 1636 the Manchus proclaimed their dynasty as the Qing dynasty and by 1644 they had completed their conquest of China under the prince regent Dorgon.[138] The following year their forces approached Amdo on northern Tibet, causing the Oirat and Khoshut Mongols there to submit in 1647 and send tribute. In 1648, after quelling a rebellion of Tibetans of Gansu-Xining, the Qing invited the Fifth Dalai Lama to visit their court at Beijing since they wished to engender Tibetan influence in their dealings with the Mongols. The Qing were aware the Dalai Lama had extraordinary influence with the Mongols and saw relations with the Dalai Lama as a means to facilitate submission of the Khalka Mongols, traditional patrons of the Karma Kagyu sect.[139]
Similarly, since the Tibetan Gelugpa were keen to revive a priest-patron relationship with the dominant power in China and Inner Asia, the Qing invitation was accepted. After five years of complex diplomatic negotiations about whether the emperor or his representatives should meet the Dalai Lama inside or outside the Great Wall, when the meeting would be astrologically favourable, how it would be conducted and so on, it eventually took place in Beijing in 1653.[139]
The Shunzhi Emperor was then 16 years old, having in the meantime ascended the throne in 1650 after the death of Dorgon. For the Qing, although the Dalai Lama was not required to kowtow to the emperor, who rose from his throne and advanced 30 feet to meet him, the significance of the visit was that of nominal political submission by the Dalai Lama since Inner Asian heads of state did not travel to meet each other but sent envoys. For Tibetan Buddhist historians, however, it was interpreted as the start of an era of independent rule of the Dalai Lamas, and of Qing patronage alongside that of the Mongols.[139]
When the 5th Dalai Lama returned, he was granted by the emperor of China a golden seal of authority and golden sheets with texts written in Manchu, Tibetan and Han Chinese languages.[140][141] The 5th Dalai Lama wanted to use the golden seal of authority right away.[140] However, Lobzang Gyatsho noted that "The Tibetan version of the inscription of the seal was translated by a Mongol translator but was not a good translation". After correction, it read: "The one who resides in the Western peaceful and virtuous paradise is unalterable Vajradhara, Ocean Lama, unifier of the doctrines of the Buddha for all beings under the sky". The words of the diploma ran: "Proclamation, to let all the people of the western hemisphere know".[141] Tibetan historian Nyima Gyaincain points out that based on the texts written on golden sheets, Dalai Lama was only a subordinate of the Emperor of China.[142]
However, despite such patronising attempts by Chinese officials and historians to symbolically show for the record that they held political influence over Tibet, the Tibetans themselves did not accept any such symbols imposed on them by the Chinese with this kind of motive. For example, concerning the above-mentioned 'golden seal', the Fifth Dalai Lama comments in Dukula, his autobiography, on leaving China after this courtesy visit to the emperor in 1653, that "the emperor made his men bring a golden seal for me that had three vertical lines in three parallel scripts: Chinese, Mongol and Tibetan". He also criticised the words carved on this gift as being faultily translated into Tibetan, writing that "The Tibetan version of the inscription of the seal was translated by a Mongol translator but was not a good translation".[141] Furthermore, when he arrived back in Tibet, he discarded the emperor's famous golden seal and made a new one for important state usage, writing in his autobiography: "Leaving out the Chinese characters that were on the seal given by the emperor, a new seal was carved for stamping documents that dealt with territorial issues. The first imprint of the seal was offered with prayers to the image of Lokeshvara ...".[143]
Relations with the Qing dynasty
[edit]The 17th-century struggles for domination between the Manchu-led Qing dynasty and the various Mongol groups spilled over to involve Tibet because of the Fifth Dalai Lama's strong influence over the Mongols as a result of their general adoption of Tibetan Buddhism and their consequent deep loyalty to the Dalai Lama as their guru. Until 1674, the Fifth Dalai Lama had mediated in Dzungar Mongol affairs whenever they required him to do so, and the Kangxi Emperor, who had succeeded the Shunzhi Emperor in 1661, would accept and confirm his decisions automatically.[144]
For the Kangxi Emperor, the alliance between the Dzungar Mongols and the Tibetans was unsettling because he feared it had the potential to unite all the other Mongol tribes together against the Qing Empire, including those tribes who had already submitted. Therefore, in 1674, the Kangxi Emperor, annoyed by the Fifth's less than full cooperation in quelling a rebellion against the Qing in Yunnan, ceased deferring to him as regards Mongol affairs and started dealing with them directly.[144]
In the same year, 1674, the Dalai Lama, then at the height of his powers and conducting a foreign policy independent of the Qing, caused Mongol troops to occupy the border post of Dartsedo between Kham and Sichuan, further annoying the Kangxi Emperor who (according to Smith) already considered Tibet as part of the Qing Empire. It also increased Qing suspicion about Tibetan relations with the Mongol groups and led him to seek strategic opportunities to oppose and undermine Mongol influence in Tibet and eventually, within 50 years, to defeat the Mongols militarily and to establish the Qing as sole 'patrons and protectors' of Tibet in their place.[144]
Cultural development
[edit]The time of the Fifth Dalai Lama, who reigned from 1642 to 1682 and founded the government known as the Ganden Phodrang, was a period of rich cultural development.[145] His reign and that of Desi Sangye Gyatso are noteworthy for the upsurge in literary activity and of cultural and economic life that occurred. The same goes for the great increase in the number of foreign visitors thronging Lhasa during the period as well as for the number of inventions and institutions that are attributed to the 'Great Fifth', as the Tibetans refer to him.[146] The most dynamic and prolific of the early Dalai Lamas, he composed more literary works than all the other Dalai Lamas combined. Writing on a wide variety of subjects he is specially noted for his works on history, classical Indian poetry in Sanskrit and his biographies of notable personalities of his epoch, as well as his own two autobiographies, one spiritual in nature and the other political (see Further Reading).[147] He also taught and travelled extensively, reshaped the politics of Central Asia, unified Tibet, conceived and constructed the Potala Palace and is remembered for establishing systems of national medical care and education.[147]
Death of the fifth Dalai Lama
[edit]The Fifth Dalai Lama died in 1682. Tibetan historian Nyima Gyaincain points out that the written wills from the fifth Dalai Lama before he died explicitly said his title and authority were from the Emperor of China, and he was subordinate of the Emperor of China .[142]
The Fifth Dalai Lama's death in 1682 was kept secret for fifteen years by his regent Desi Sangye Gyatso. He pretended the Dalai Lama was in retreat and ruled on his behalf, secretly selecting the 6th Dalai Lama and presenting him as someone else. Tibetan historian Nyima Gyaincain points out that Desi Sangye Gyatso wanted to consolidate his personal status and power by not reporting the death of the fifth Dalai Lama to the Emperor of China, and also collude with the rebellion group of the Qing dynasty, Mongol Dzungar tribe in order to counter influence from another Mongol Khoshut tribe in Tibet. Being afraid of prosecution by the Kangxi Emperor of China, Desi Sangye Gyatso explained with fear and trepidation the reason behind his action to the Emperor.[142]
In 1705, Desi Sangye Gyatso was killed by Lha-bzang Khan of the Mongol Khoshut tribe because of his actions including his illegal action of selecting the 6th Dalai Lama. Since the Kangxi Emperor was not happy about Desi Sangye Gyatso's action of not reporting, the Emperor gave Lha-bzang Khan additional title and golden seal. The Kangxi Emperor also ordered Lha-bzang Khan to arrest the 6th Dalai Lama and send him to Beijing, the 6th Dalai Lama died when he was en route to Beijing.[142] Journalist Thomas Laird argues that it was apparently done so that construction of the Potala Palace could be finished, and it was to prevent Tibet's neighbors, the Mongols and the Qing, from taking advantage of an interregnum in the succession of the Dalai Lamas.[148]
6th Dalai Lama
[edit]The Sixth Dalai Lama (1683–1706) was born near Tawang, now in India. After death of the 5th Dalai Lama, the regent Desi Sangye Gyatso kept death of the 5th Dalai Lama a secret, this allowed him to continue to use the authority of the Fifth Dalai Lama to manage the affairs of the Gelug. Tsangyang Gyatso was picked out in 1685, but his parents were not informed. In 1696, while suppressing the Dzungar rebellion, Kangxi Emperor accidentally learned from the captives that the 5th Dalai Lama had died many years ago. Kangxi severely rebuke the regent for his mistake, the regent admitted his mistake and sent people to Monpa to welcome the reincarnated soul boy in 1697. After 16 years of study as a novice monk, in 1702 in his 20th year he rejected full ordination and gave up his monk's robes and monastic life, preferring the lifestyle of a layman.[149][150][151]
In 1703 Güshi Khan's ruling grandson Tenzin Wangchuk Khan was murdered by his brother Lhazang Khan who usurped the Khoshut Khanate's Tibetan throne, but unlike his four predecessors he started interfering directly in Tibetan affairs in Lhasa; he opposed the Fifth Dalai Lama's regent, Desi Sangye Gyatso for his deceptions and in the same year, with the support of the Kangxi Emperor, he forced him out of office. When Lhazang was requested by the Tibetans to leave Lhasa politics to them and to retire to Kokonor like his predecessors, he quit the city. Desi Sangye Gyatso decided to kill Lhazang, he secretly sent someone to poison the food of Lhazang, but was discovered. Lhazang was furious and immediately mobilized a large army to defeat the Tibetan army and killed Desi Sangye Gyatso. In 1705, he wrote a letter to the Qing government, reporting Desi Sangye Gyatso's rebellion and that the sixth Dalai Lama, appointed by Desi Sangye Gyatso, was addicted to wine and sex and ignored religious affairs. He reported the Dalai Lama was not a real Dalai Lama and requested emperor to demote and revoke him. He used the Sixth's escapades as an excuse to seize full control of Tibet. Most Tibetans, though, still supported their Dalai Lama despite his behaviour and deeply resented Lhazang Khan's interference.[152] But Emperor Kangxi then issued an edict: "Because Lhazang Khan reported to depose the sixth Dalai Lama appointed by Desi Sangye Gyatso, the sixth Dalai Lama is ordered to be sent to capital Beijing."[153][152] In 1706 with the compliance of the Kangxi Emperor, the Sixth Dalai Lama was deposed and arrested by Lhazang who considered him to be an impostor set up by the regent. Lhazang Khan, now acting as the only outright foreign ruler that Tibet had ever had, then sent him to Beijing under escort to appear before the emperor but he died mysteriously on the way near Lake Qinghai, ostensibly from illness, he was 24 years' old.[154][155][156]
Having discredited and deposed the Sixth Dalai Lama, whom he considered an impostor, and having removed the regent, Lhazang Khan pressed the Lhasa Gelugpa lamas to endorse a new Dalai Lama in Tsangyang Gyatso's place as the true incarnation of the Fifth. They eventually nominated one Pekar Dzinpa, a monk but also rumored to be Lhazang's son,[157] and Lhazang had him installed as the 'real' Sixth Dalai Lama, endorsed by the Panchen Lama and named Yeshe Gyatso in 1707.[158] This choice was in no way accepted by the Tibetan people, however, nor by Lhazang's princely Mongol rivals in Kokonor who resented his usurpation of the Khoshut Tibetan throne as well as his meddling in Tibetan affairs.[156]
The Kangxi Emperor concurred with them, after sending investigators, initially declining to recognize Yeshe Gyatso. He recognized him in 1710, after sending a Qing official party to assist Lhazang in 'restoring order'. These were the first Chinese representatives of any sort to officiate in Tibet.[156] At the same time, while this puppet 'Dalai Lama' had no political power, the Kangxi Emperor secured from Lhazang Khan in return for this support the promise of regular payments of tribute; this was the first time tribute had been paid to the Manchu by the Mongols in Tibet and the first overt acknowledgment of Qing supremacy over Mongol rule in Tibet.[159]
7th Dalai Lama
[edit]In 1708, in accordance with an indication given by the 6th Dalai Lama when quitting Lhasa, a child called Kelzang Gyatso had been born at Lithang in eastern Tibet who was soon claimed by local Tibetans to be his incarnation. After going into hiding out of fear of Lhazang Khan, he was installed in Lithang monastery. Along with some of the Kokonor Mongol princes, rivals of Lhazang, in defiance of the situation in Lhasa the Tibetans of Kham duly recognised him as the Seventh Dalai Lama in 1712, retaining his birth-name of Kelzang Gyatso. For security reasons he was moved to Derge monastery and eventually, in 1716, now also backed and sponsored by the Kangxi Emperor of China.[160]
The Tibetans asked Dzungars to bring a true Dalai Lama to Lhasa, but the Manchu Chinese did not want to release Kelsan Gyatso to the Mongol Dzungars. The Regent Taktse Shabdrung and Tibetan officials then wrote a letter to the Manchu Chinese Emperor that they recognized Kelsang Gyatso as the Dalai Lama. The Emperor then granted Kelsang Gyatso a golden seal of authority.[161] The Sixth Dalai Lama was taken to Amdo at the age of 8 to be installed in Kumbum Monastery with great pomp and ceremony.[160]
According to Smith, the Kangxi Emperor now arranged to protect the child and keep him at Kumbum monastery in Amdo in reserve just in case his ally Lhasang Khan and his 'real' Sixth Dalai Lama, were overthrown.[162] According to Mullin, however, the emperor's support came from genuine spiritual recognition and respect rather than being politically motivated.[163]
Dzungar invasion
[edit]In any case, the Kangxi Emperor took full advantage of having Kelzang Gyatso under Qing control at Kumbum after other Mongols from the Dzungar tribes led by Tsewang Rabtan who was related to his supposed ally Lhazang Khan, deceived and betrayed the latter by invading Tibet and capturing Lhasa in 1717.[164][165]
These Dzungars, who were Buddhist, had supported the Fifth Dalai Lama and his regent. They were secretly petitioned by the Lhasa Gelugpa lamas to invade with their help in order to rid them of their foreign ruler Lhazang Khan and to replace the unpopular Sixth Dalai Lama pretender with the young Kelzang Gyatso. This plot suited the devious Dzungar leaders' ambitions and they were only too happy to oblige.[166][167] Early in 1717, after conspiring to undermine Lhazang Khan through treachery they entered Tibet from the northwest with a large army, sending a smaller force to Kumbum to collect Kelzang Gyatso and escort him to Lhasa.[168][169]
By the end of the year, with Tibetan connivance they had captured Lhasa, killed Lhazang and all his family and deposed Yeshe Gyatso. Their force sent to fetch Kelzang Gyatso, however, was intercepted and destroyed by Qing armies alerted by Lhazang. In Lhasa, the unruly Dzungar not only failed to produce the boy but also went on the rampage, looting and destroying the holy places, abusing the populace, killing hundreds of Nyingma monks, causing chaos and bloodshed and turning their Tibetan allies against them. The Tibetans were soon appealing to the Kangxi Emperor to rid them of the Dzungars.[168][169]
When the Dzungars had first attacked, the weakened Lhazang sent word to the Qing for support and they quickly dispatched two armies to assist, the first Chinese armies ever to enter Tibet, but they arrived too late. In 1718 they were halted not far from Lhasa to be defeated and then ruthlessly annihilated by the triumphant Dzungars in the Battle of the Salween River.[170][171]
Enthronement in Lhasa
[edit]This humiliation only determined the Kangxi Emperor to expel the Dzungars from Tibet once and for all and he set about assembling and dispatching a much larger force to march on Lhasa, bringing the emperor's trump card the young Kelzang Gyatso with it. On the imperial army's stately passage from Kumbum to Lhasa with the boy being welcomed adoringly at every stage, Khoshut Mongols and Tibetans were happy (and well paid) to join and swell its ranks.[172]
By the autumn of 1720, the marauding Dzungar Mongols had been vanquished from Tibet. Qing imperial forces had entered Lhasa triumphantly with the 12-year-old, acting as patrons of the Dalai Lama, liberators of Tibet, allies of the Tibetan anti-Dzungar forces led by Kangchenas and Polhanas, and allies of the Khoshut Mongol princes. The delighted Tibetans enthroned him as the Seventh Dalai Lama at the Potala Palace.[173][174]
A new Tibetan government was established consisting of a Kashag or cabinet of Tibetan ministers headed by Kangchenas. Kelzang Gyatso, too young to participate in politics, studied Buddhism. He played a symbolic role in government, and, being profoundly revered by the Mongols, he exercised much influence with the Qing who now had now taken over Tibet's patronage and protection from them.[175]
Exile to Kham
[edit]Having vanquished the Dzungars, the Qing army withdrew leaving the Seventh Dalai Lama as a political figurehead and only a Khalkha Mongol as the Qing amban or representative and a garrison in Lhasa.[176][177] After the Kangxi Emperor died in 1722 and was succeeded by his son, the Yongzheng Emperor, these were also withdrawn, leaving the Tibetans to rule autonomously and showing the Qing were interested in an alliance, not conquest.[176][177] In 1723, after brutally quelling a major rebellion by zealous Tibetan patriots and disgruntled Khoshut Mongols from Amdo who attacked Xining, the Qing intervened again, splitting Tibet by putting Amdo and Kham under their own more direct control.[178]
Continuing Qing interference in Central Tibetan politics and religion incited an anti-Qing faction to quarrel with the Qing-sympathising Tibetan nobles in power in Lhasa, led by Kanchenas who was supported by Polhanas. This led eventually to the murder of Kanchenas in 1727 and a civil war that was resolved in 1728 with the canny Polhanas, who had sent for Qing assistance, the victor. When the Qing forces did arrive they punished the losers and exiled the Seventh Dalai Lama to Kham, under the pretence of sending him to Beijing, because his father had assisted the defeated, anti-Qing faction. He studied and taught Buddhism there for the next seven years.[179]
Return to Lhasa
[edit]In 1735 he was allowed back to Lhasa to study and teach, but still under strict control, being mistrusted by the Qing, while Polhanas ruled Central Tibet under nominal Qing supervision. Meanwhile, the Qing had promoted the Fifth Panchen Lama to be a rival leader and reinstated the ambans and the Lhasa garrison. Polhanas died in 1747. He was succeeded by his son Gyurme Namgyal, the last dynastic ruler of Tibet, who was far less cooperative with the Qing. He built a Tibetan army and started conspiring with the Dzungars to rid Tibet of Qing influence.[180] In 1750, when the ambans realised this, they invited him and personally assassinated him. Despite the Dalai Lama's attempts to calm the angered populace, a vengeful Tibetan mob assassinated the ambans, along with most of their escort.[181]
Restoration as Tibet's political leader
[edit]The Qing sent yet another force 'to restore order' but when it arrived the situation had already been stabilised under the leadership of the 7th Dalai Lama who was now seen to have demonstrated loyalty to the Qing. Just as Güshi Khan had done with the Fifth Dalai Lama, they therefore helped reconstitute the government with the Dalai Lama presiding over a Kashag of four Tibetans, reinvesting him with temporal power in addition to his already established spiritual leadership. This arrangement, with a Kashag under the Dalai Lama or his regent, outlasted the Qing dynasty which collapsed in 1912.[182]
The ambans and their garrison were reinstated to observe and to some extent supervise affairs. Their influence generally waned with the power of their empire, which gradually declined after 1792 along with its influence over Tibet, a decline aided by a succession of corrupt or incompetent ambans.[183] Moreover, there was soon no reason for the Qing to fear the Dzungar; by the time the Seventh Dalai Lama died in 1757 at the age of 49, the entire Dzungar people had been practically exterminated through years of genocidal campaigns by Qing armies, and deadly smallpox epidemics, with the survivors being forcibly transported into China. Their emptied lands were then awarded to other peoples.[184]
According to Mullin, despite living through such violent times Kelzang Gyatso was perhaps 'the most spiritually learned and accomplished of any Dalai Lama', his written works comprising several hundred titles including 'some of Tibet's finest spiritual literary achievements'.[185] Despite his apparent lack of zeal in politics, Kelzang Gyatso is credited with establishing in 1751 the reformed government of Tibet headed by the Dalai Lama, which continued over 200 years until the 1950s, and then in exile.[186] Construction of the Norbulingka, the 'Summer Palace' of the Dalai Lamas in Lhasa was started during Kelzang Gyatso's reign.[187][188]
8th Dalai Lama
[edit]The Eighth Dalai Lama, Jamphel Gyatso, was born in Tsang in 1758 and died aged 46 having taken little part in Tibetan politics, mostly leaving temporal matters to his regents and the ambans.[189] The Emperor of China exempted him from the lot-drawing ceremony of the Golden Urn.[190][191] Qianlong Emperor officially accepted Gyiangbai as the 8th Dalai Lama when the 6th Panchen Erdeni came to congratulate the emperor on his 70th birthday in 1780. The emperor granted the 8th Dalai Lama a jade seal of authority and jade sheets of confirmation of authority.[192][193] The confirmation of authority says:
The Dalai Lama, his later generations and the local government cherished both the seal of authority and the sheets of authority. They were preserved as the root of their power.[193]
The 8th Dalai Lama lived almost as long as the Seventh, but was overshadowed by many contemporary lamas in terms of both religious and political accomplishment. According to Mullin, the 14th Dalai Lama has pointed to certain indications that Jamphel Gyatso might have been the incarnation not of the 7th Dalai Lama but of Jamyang Chojey, a disciple of Tsongkhapa and founder of Drepung monastery who was also reputed to be an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara. In any case, he lived a quiet and unassuming life as a devoted and studious monk, uninvolved in the kind of dramas that had surrounded his predecessors.[195]
Nevertheless, Jamphel Gyatso was said to possess all the signs of being the true incarnation of the Seventh. This was claimed to have been confirmed by many portents clear to the Tibetans and so, in 1762, at age five, he was enthroned as the Eighth Dalai Lama at the Potala Palace.[196] At age 23 he was persuaded to assume the throne as ruler of Tibet with a regent to assist him and after three years of this, when the regent went to Beijing as ambassador in 1784, he ruled alone for four more years. But feeling unsuited to worldly affairs and unhappy in this role, he then retired from public office to concentrate on religious activities until his death in 1804.[197] He is also credited with the construction of the Norbulingka "Summer Palace" started by his predecessor and with ordaining 10,000 monks in his efforts to foster monasticism.[198]
9th to 12th Dalai Lamas
[edit]Hugh Richardson's summary of the period covering the four short-lived, 19th-century Dalai Lamas:
Thubten Jigme Norbu, the elder brother of the 14th Dalai Lama, described these unfortunate events as follows, although there are few, if any, indications that any of the four were said to be 'Chinese-appointed imposters':
According to Mullin, on the other hand, it is improbable that the Manchus would have murdered any of these four for being 'unmanageable' since it would have been in their best interests to have strong Dalai Lamas ruling in Lhasa, he argues, agreeing with Richardson that it was rather "the ambition and greed for power of Tibetans" that might have caused the Lamas' early deaths.[note 3] Further, if Tibetan nobles murdered any of them, it would more likely have been in order to protect or enhance their family interests rather than out of suspicion that the Dalai Lamas were seen as Chinese-appointed imposters as suggested by Norbu. They could also have died from illnesses, possibly contracted from diseases to which they had no immunity, carried to Lhasa by the multitudes of pilgrims visiting from nearby countries for blessings. Finally, from the Buddhist point of view, Mullin says, "Simply stated, these four Dalai Lamas died young because the world did not have enough good karma to deserve their presence".[201]
Tibetan historian K. Dhondup, however, in his history The Water-Bird and Other Years, based on the Tibetan minister Surkhang Sawang Chenmo's historical manuscripts,[202] disagrees with Mullin's opinion that having strong Dalai Lamas in power in Tibet would have been in China's best interests. He notes that many historians are compelled to suspect Manchu foul play in these serial early deaths because the Ambans had such latitude to interfere; the Manchu, he says, "to perpetuate their domination over Tibetan affairs, did not desire a Dalai Lama who will ascend the throne and become a strong and capable ruler over his own country and people". The life and deeds of the 13th Dalai Lama [in successfully upholding de facto Tibetan independence from China from 1912 to 1950] serve as the living proof of this argument, he points out.[203] This account also corresponds with TJ Norbu's observations above.
Finally, while acknowledging the possibility, the 14th Dalai Lama himself doubts they were poisoned. He ascribes the probable cause of these early deaths to negligence, foolishness and lack of proper medical knowledge and attention. "Even today" he is quoted as saying, "when people get sick, some [Tibetans] will say: 'Just do your prayers, you don't need medical treatment.'"[204]
9th Dalai Lama
[edit]Born in Kham in 1805–6 amidst the usual miraculous signs the Ninth Dalai Lama, Lungtok Gyatso was appointed by the 7th Panchen Lama's search team at the age of two and enthroned in the Potala in 1808 at an impressive ceremony attended by representatives from China, Mongolia, Nepal and Bhutan. Exemption from using Golden Urn was approved by the Emperor.[205][206] Tibetan historian Nyima Gyaincain and Wang Jiawei point out that the 9th Dalai Lama was allowed to use the seal of authority given to the late 8th Dalai Lama by the Emperor of China[207]
His second Regent Demo Tulku was the biographer of the 8th and 9th Dalai Lamas and though the 9th died at the age of 9, his biography is as lengthy as those of many of the early Dalai Lamas.[208] In 1793 under Manchu pressure, Tibet had closed its borders to foreigners.[209][210] In 1811, a British Sinologist, Thomas Manning became the first Englishman to visit Lhasa. Considered to be 'the first Chinese scholar in Europe'[211] he stayed five months and gave enthusiastic accounts in his journal of his regular meetings with the Ninth Dalai Lama whom he found fascinating: "beautiful, elegant, refined, intelligent, and entirely self-possessed, even at the age of six".[212] Three years later in March 1815 the young Lungtok Gyatso caught a severe cold and, leaving the Potala Palace to preside over the Monlam Prayer Festival, he contracted pneumonia from which he soon died.[213][214]
10th Dalai Lama
[edit]Like the Seventh Dalai Lama, the Tenth, Tsultrim Gyatso, was born in Lithang, Kham, where the Third Dalai Lama had built a monastery. It was 1816 and Regent Demo Tulku and the Seventh Panchen Lama followed indications from Nechung, the 'state oracle' which led them to appoint him at the age of two. He passed all the tests and was brought to Lhasa but official recognition was delayed until 1822 when he was enthroned and ordained by the Seventh Panchen Lama. There are conflicting reports about whether the Chinese 'Golden Urn' was utilised by drawing lots to choose him, but lot-drawing result was reported and approved by emperor.[215] The 10th Dalai Lama mentioned in his biography that he was allowed to use the golden seal of authority based on the convention set up by the late Dalai Lama. At the investiture, decree of the Emperor of China was issued and read out.[216]
After 15 years of intensive studies and failing health he died, in 1837, at the age of 20 or 21.[217][218] He identified with ordinary people rather than the court officials and often sat on his verandah in the sunshine with the office clerks. Intending to empower the common people he planned to institute political and economic reforms to share the nation's wealth more equitably. Over this period his health had deteriorated, the implication being that he may have suffered from slow poisoning by Tibetan aristocrats whose interests these reforms were threatening.[219] He was also dissatisfied with his Regent and the Kashag and scolded them for not alleviating the condition of the common people, who had suffered much in small ongoing regional civil wars waged in Kokonor between Mongols, local Tibetans and the government over territory, and in Kham to extract unpaid taxes from rebellious Tibetan communities.[215][220]
11th Dalai Lama
[edit]Born in Gathar, Kham in 1838 and soon discovered by the official search committee with the help of the Nechung Oracle, the Eleventh Dalai Lama was brought to Lhasa in 1841 and recognised, enthroned and named Khedrup Gyatso by the Panchen Lama on April 16, 1842, seal of authority and golden sheets were granted on the same date.[221] Sitting-in-the-bed ceremony was held in July 1844.[222] After that he was immersed in religious studies under the Panchen Lama, amongst other great masters. Meanwhile, there were court intrigues and ongoing power struggles taking place between the various Lhasa factions, the Regent, the Kashag, the powerful nobles and the abbots and monks of the three great monasteries. The Tsemonling Regent[223] became mistrusted and was forcibly deposed, there were machinations, plots, beatings and kidnappings of ministers and so forth, resulting at last in the Panchen Lama being appointed as interim Regent to keep the peace.
Eventually the Third Reting Rinpoche was made Regent, and in 1855, Khedrup Gyatso, appearing to be an extremely promising prospect, was requested to take the reins of power at the age of 17. He was enthroned as ruler of Tibet in 1855,[224][225] on orders of the Xianfeng Emperor.[226] He died after just 11 months, no reason for his sudden and premature death being given in these accounts, Shakabpa and Mullin's histories both being based on untranslated Tibetan chronicles. The respected Reting Rinpoche was recalled once again to act as Regent and requested to lead the search for the next incarnation, the twelfth.[224][225]
12th Dalai Lama
[edit]In 1856, a child was born in south central Tibet with all the usual extraordinary signs. He came to the notice of the search team, was investigated, passed the traditional tests and was recognised as the 12th Dalai Lama in 1858. The use of the Chinese Golden Urn at the insistence of the regent, who was later accused of being a Chinese lackey, confirmed this choice to everyone's satisfaction. He was renamed Trinley Gyatso and enthroned on July 3, 1860, after the emperor's edict from Amban was announced.[227] He underwent 13 years of intensive tutelage and training before becoming Tibet's ruler at age 17.[228]
His minority seems to have been a time of even deeper Lhasan political intrigue and power struggles than his predecessor's. In 1862 Wangchuk Shetra, a minister the regent had banished for conspiring against him, led a coup. Shetra contrived to return, deposed the regent, who fled to China, and seized power, appointing himself "Desi", or Prime Minister.[228] He then ruled with "absolute power" for three years,[229] quelling a major rebellion in northern Kham in 1863 and reestablishing Tibetan control over significant Qing-held territory there.[230] Shetra died in 1864 and the Kashag reassumed power. The retired 76th Ganden Tripa, Khyenrab Wangchuk, was appointed regent but his role was limited to supervising and mentoring Trinley Gyatso.[228][229]
In 1868 Shetra's coup organiser, a semi-literate Ganden monk named Palden Dondrup, seized power in another coup and ruled as a cruel despot for three years, putting opponents to death by having them "sewn into fresh animal skins and thrown in the river".[229] In 1871, at the request of officials outraged after Dondrup had done that to one minister and imprisoned several others, he was ousted and committed suicide after a counter-coup coordinated by the supposedly powerless regent Khyenrab Wangchuk.[229] As a result, Tibetans fondly remember Khyenrab Wangchuk, who died the next year, as saviour of the Dalai Lama and the nation. The Kashag and the Tsongdu or National Assembly were reinstated, and, presided over by a Dalai Lama or his regent, ruled without further interruption until 1959.[228]
But according to Smith, during Trinley Gyatso's minority, an alliance of monks and officials called Gandre Drungche (Ganden and Drepung Monks Assembly) deposed the regent in 1862 for abuse of authority and closeness with China; this body then ruled Tibet for ten years until it dissolved when a National Assembly of monks and officials called the Tsongdu was created and took over. Smith makes no mention of Shetra or Dondrup acting as usurpers and despots in this period.[230]
In any case, Trinley Gyatso died within three years of assuming power. In 1873, at age 20, "he suddenly became ill and passed away".[228] Accounts of his cause of death diverge. Mullin relates an interesting theory, based on Tibetan sources: out of concern for the monastic tradition, Trinley Gyatso chose to die and reincarnate as the 13th Dalai Lama rather than marry a woman called Rigma Tsomo from Kokonor and leaving an heir to "oversee Tibet's future".[231] On the other hand, without citing sources, Shakabpa notes that Trinley Gyatso was influenced and manipulated by two close acquaintances who were subsequently accused of having a hand in his fatal illness and imprisoned, tortured, and exiled as a result.[232]
13th Dalai Lama
[edit]
In 1877, request to exempt Lobu Zangtab Kaijia Mucuo (Chinese: 罗布藏塔布开甲木措) from using lot-drawing process Golden Urn to become the 13th Dalai Lama was approved by the Central Government.[233] The 13th Dalai Lama assumed ruling power from the monasteries, which previously had great influence on the Regent, in 1895. Due to his two periods of exile in 1904–1909 to escape the British invasion of 1904, and from 1910–1912 to escape a Chinese invasion, he became well aware of the complexities of international politics and was the first Dalai Lama to become aware of the importance of foreign relations. After his return from exile in India and Sikkim during January 1913, he assumed control of foreign relations and dealt directly with the Maharaja, with the British Political officer in Sikkim and with the king of Nepal – rather than letting the Kashag or parliament do it.[234]
The Great Thirteenth Thubten Gyatso then published the Tibetan Declaration of Independence for the entirety of Tibet in 1913.[235] Tibet's independence was never recognized by the Chinese (who claimed all land ever administered by the Manchus) but was recognized by the Kingdom of Nepal, who would use Tibet as one of its first references regarding its independent status when submitting an application to join the UN in 1949.[236][failed verification] According to a Tibetan website, Nepal listed Tibet as a country just as independent and sovereign, with no mention of Chinese 'suzerainty'. Its relations with Tibet were apparently second in significance only to its relations with Britain, and even more significant than its relations with the USA or even India.[237][third-party source needed] Nepal established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China in 1955 and recognized Tibet as a part of China.[238]
Furthermore, Tibet and Mongolia both signed the Treaty of friendship and alliance between the Government of Mongolia and Tibet. Neither countries' independence statuses were ever recognized by the KMT government in China, who would continue to completely claim both as Chinese territory. He expelled the ambans and all Chinese civilians in the country and instituted many measures to modernize Tibet. These included provisions to curb excessive demands on peasants for provisions by the monasteries and tax evasion by the nobles, setting up an independent police force, the abolition of the death penalty, extension of secular education, and the provision of electricity throughout the city of Lhasa in the 1920s.[239] He died in 1933.
14th Dalai Lama
[edit]The 14th Dalai Lama was born on 6 July 1935 on a straw mat in a cowshed to a farmer's family in a remote part of Tibet.[240] According to most Western journalistic sources[241][242] he was born into a humble family of farmers as one of 16 children, and one of the three reincarnated rinpoches in the same family.[243][244][245] On 5 February 1940, the Central Government approved the request to exempt Lhamo Thondup (Chinese: 拉木登珠) from the lot-drawing process to become the 14th Dalai Lama.[246][247]
The 14th Dalai Lama was not formally enthroned until 17 November 1950, during the Battle of Chamdo with the People's Republic of China. On 18 April 1959, he issued a statement[248] that in 1951, the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government were pressured into accepting the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet by which it became formally incorporated into the People's Republic of China.[249] The United States already informed the Dalai Lama in 1951 that in order to receive its assistance and support he must leave Tibet and publicly disavow "agreements concluded under duress" between Tibetan and Chinese representatives.[250] Fearing for his life in the wake of a revolt in Tibet in 1959, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India, where he led a government in exile.[251][252]
With the aim of launching guerrilla operations against the Chinese, the Central Intelligence Agency funded the Dalai Lama's administration with US$1.7 million a year in the 1960s.[253] In 2001, the 14th Dalai Lama ceded his partial power over the government to an elected parliament of Tibetan exiles. His original goal was full independence for Tibet, but by the late 1980s he sought high-level autonomy instead.[254] He continued to seek greater autonomy from China, but Dolma Gyari, deputy speaker of the parliament-in-exile, said: "If the middle path fails in the short term, we will be forced to opt for complete independence or self-determination as per the UN charter".[255]
The 14th Dalai Lama became one of the two most popular world leaders by 2013 (tied with Barack Obama), according to a poll by Harris Interactive of New York, which sampled public opinion in the U.S. and six major European countries.[256]
In 2014 and 2016, he said that Tibet wants to be part of China but China should let Tibet preserve its culture and script.[257][258]
In 2018, he said that "Europe belongs to the Europeans" and that Europe has a moral obligation to aid refugees whose lives are in peril. He added that Europe should receive, help, and educate refugees but that they should ultimately return to develop their home countries.[259][260] He made similar comments in an interview the next year. He also said, "If female Dalai Lama comes, then [she] should be more attractive" because if she looked a certain way people would "prefer not see … that face".[261]
In 2019, the Dalai Lama spoke out about his successor, saying that after his death he is likely to be reincarnated in India. He also warned that any Chinese interference in succession should be considered invalid.[262][263]
In 2020, he said he did not support Tibetan independence and hoped to visit China as a Nobel Prize winner. He said "I prefer the concept of a 'republic' in the People's Republic of China. In the concept of republic, ethnic minorities are like Tibetans, The Mongols, Manchus, and Xinjiang Uyghurs. We can live in harmony".[264]
In 2021, he praised India as a role model for religious harmony in the world.[265][266]
In 2023, a video showed the Dalai Lama in the city of Dharamshala, India, asking a boy for a kiss on the lips, and then to suck his tongue.[267][268] He later apologized and expressed regret through a statement that claimed he "often teases people he meets in an innocent and playful way, even in public and before cameras" and "regrets the incident".[269]
Residences
[edit]The first Dalai Lama was based at Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, which he founded. The Second to the Fifth Dalai Lamas were mainly based at Drepung Monastery outside Lhasa. In 1645, after the unification of Tibet, the Fifth moved to the ruins of a royal fortress or residence on top of Marpori ('Red Mountain') in Lhasa and decided to build a palace on the same site. This ruined palace, called Tritse Marpo, was originally built around A.D. 636 by the founder of the Tibetan Empire, Songtsen Gampo for his Nepalese wife.[270] Amongst the ruins there was just a small temple left where Tsongkhapa had given a teaching when he arrived in Lhasa in the 1380s.[271]
The Fifth Dalai Lama began construction of the Potala Palace on this site in 1645,[271] carefully incorporating what was left of his predecessor's palace into its structure.[136] From then on and until today, unless on tour or in exile the Dalai Lamas have always spent their winters at the Potala Palace and their summers at the Norbulingka palace and park. Both palaces are in Lhasa and approximately 3 km apart.
Following the failed 1959 Tibetan uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama sought refuge in India. Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru allowed in the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government officials. The Dalai Lama has since lived in exile in McLeod Ganj, in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh in northern India, where the Central Tibetan Administration is established. His residence on the Temple Road in McLeod Ganj is called the Dalai Lama Temple and is visited by people from across the globe. Tibetan refugees have constructed and opened many schools and Buddhist temples in Dharamshala.[272]
Searching for the reincarnation
[edit]
By the Himalayan tradition, phowa is the discipline that is believed to transfer the mindstream to the intended body. Upon the death of the Dalai Lama and consultation with the Nechung Oracle, a search for the Lama's yangsi, or reincarnation, is conducted.[273] The government of the People's Republic of China has stated its intention to be the ultimate authority on the selection of the next Dalai Lama.[274]
High Lamas may also claim to have a vision by a dream or if the Dalai Lama was cremated, they will often monitor the direction of the smoke as an 'indication' of the direction of the expected rebirth.[273]
If there is only one boy found, the High Lamas will invite Living Buddhas of the three great monasteries, together with secular clergy and monk officials, to 'confirm their findings' and then report to the Central Government through the Minister of Tibet. Later, a group consisting of the three major servants of Dalai Lama, eminent officials,[who?] and troops[which?] will collect the boy and his family and travel to Lhasa, where the boy would be taken, usually to Drepung Monastery, to study the Buddhist sutra in preparation for assuming the role of spiritual leader of Tibet.[273]
If there are several possible claimed reincarnations, however, regents, eminent officials, monks at the Jokhang in Lhasa, and the Minister to Tibet have historically decided on the individual by putting the boys' names inside an urn and drawing one lot in public if it was too difficult to judge the reincarnation initially.[275]
In his autobiography, Freedom in Exile, the Dalai Lama states that after he dies it is possible that his people will no longer want a Dalai Lama, in which case there would be no search for the Lama's reincarnation. "So, I might take rebirth as an insect, or an animal - whatever would be of most value to the largest number of sentient beings" (p. 237).
The Dalai Lama is thought to be a type of "living [Buddhist] god".[276]
List of Dalai Lamas
[edit]
There have been 14 recognised incarnations of the Dalai Lama:
| Name | Picture | Lifespan | Recognised | Enthronement | Seal of Authority from Central Government | Approval from Central Government | Tibetan/Wylie | Tibetan pinyin/Chinese | Alternative spellings | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gendun Drup |  | 1391–1474 | – | N/A[277] | N/A | N/A | དགེ་འདུན་འགྲུབ་ dge 'dun 'grub | Gêdün Chub 根敦朱巴 | Gedun Drub Gedün Drup |
| 2 | Gendun Gyatso |  | 1475–1542 | 1483 | N/A[277] | N/A | N/A | དགེ་འདུན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ dge 'dun rgya mtsho | Gêdün Gyaco 根敦嘉措 | Gedün Gyatso Gendün Gyatso |
| 3 | Sonam Gyatso |  | 1543–1588 | 1546 | 1578 | Yes [107] | བསོད་ནམས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ bsod nams rgya mtsho | Soinam Gyaco 索南嘉措 | Sönam Gyatso | |
| 4 | Yonten Gyatso |  | 1589–1617 | 1601 | 1603 | Yes[117] | ཡོན་ཏན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ yon tan rgya mtsho | Yoindain Gyaco 雲丹嘉措 | Yontan Gyatso, Yönden Gyatso | |
| 5 | Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso |  | 1617–1682 | 1618 | 1622 | Yes[141] | བློ་བཟང་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ blo bzang rgya mtsho | Lobsang Gyaco 羅桑嘉措 | Lobzang Gyatso Lopsang Gyatso | |
| 6 | Tsangyang Gyatso |  | 1683–1706 | 1688 | 1697 | No | Yes, in 1721 after death | ཚངས་དབྱངས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ tshang dbyangs rgya mtsho | Cangyang Gyaco 倉央嘉措 | Tsañyang Gyatso |
| 7 | Kelzang Gyatso |  | 1707–1757 | 1712 | 1720 | Yes | བསྐལ་བཟང་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ bskal bzang rgya mtsho | Gaisang Gyaco 格桑嘉措 | Kelsang Gyatso Kalsang Gyatso | |
| 8 | Jamphel Gyatso |  | 1758–1804 | 1760 | 1762 | Yes [278] | བྱམས་སྤེལ་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ byams spel rgya mtsho | Qambê Gyaco 強白嘉措 | Jampel Gyatso Jampal Gyatso | |
| 9 | Lungtok Gyatso |  | 1805–1815 | 1807 | 1808 | Yes [279] | Yes [280] | ལུང་རྟོགས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ lung rtogs rgya mtsho | Lungdog Gyaco 隆朵嘉措 | Lungtog Gyatso |
| 10 | Tsultrim Gyatso | 1816–1837 | 1822 | 1822 | Yes | ཚུལ་ཁྲིམས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ tshul khrim rgya mtsho | Cüchim Gyaco 楚臣嘉措 | Tshültrim Gyatso | ||
| 11 | Khendrup Gyatso |  | 1838–1856 | 1841 | 1842 | Yes[281] | Yes | མཁས་གྲུབ་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ mkhas grub rgya mtsho | Kaichub Gyaco 凱珠嘉措 | Kedrub Gyatso |
| 12 | Trinley Gyatso |  | 1857–1875 | 1858 | 1860 | Yes [282] | འཕྲིན་ལས་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ 'phrin las rgya mtsho | Chinlai Gyaco 成烈嘉措 | Trinle Gyatso | |
| 13 | Thubten Gyatso |  | 1876–1933 | 1878 | 1879 | Yes [233] | ཐུབ་བསྟན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ thub bstan rgya mtsho | Tubdain Gyaco 土登嘉措 | Thubtan Gyatso Thupten Gyatso | |
| 14 | Tenzin Gyatso | .jpg) | born 1935 | 1939[283] | 1940[283] (in exile since 1959) | Yes [284] | བསྟན་འཛིན་རྒྱ་མཚོ་ bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho | Dainzin Gyaco 丹增嘉措 | Tenzin Gyatso |
There was also a non-recognised Dalai Lama, Ngawang Yeshe Gyatso, declared 28 June 1707, when he was 25 years old, by Lha-bzang Khan as the "true" 6th Dalai Lama. He was never accepted as such by the majority of the population.[171][285][286]
Future of the position
[edit]
The government of the People's Republic of China (PRC) has claimed the power to approve the naming of "high" reincarnations in Tibet, based on a precedent set by the Qianlong Emperor of the Qing dynasty.[289] The Qianlong Emperor instituted a system of selecting the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama by a lottery that used a Golden Urn with names wrapped in clumps of barley. This method was used a few times for both positions during the 19th century, but eventually fell into disuse.[290][291]
In 1995, the Dalai Lama chose to proceed with the selection of the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama without the use of the Golden Urn, while the Chinese government insisted that it must be used.[292] This has led to two rival Panchen Lamas: Gyaincain Norbu as chosen by the Chinese government's process, and Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as chosen by the Dalai Lama. However, Nyima was abducted by the Chinese government shortly after being chosen as the Panchen Lama and has not been seen in public since 1995.[293]
In September 2007, the Chinese government said all high monks must be approved by the government, which would include the selection of the 15th Dalai Lama after the death of Tenzin Gyatso.[294][295] Since by tradition, the Panchen Lama must approve the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, that is another possible method of control. Consequently, the Dalai Lama has alluded to the possibility of a referendum to determine the 15th Dalai Lama.[295]
In response to this scenario, Tashi Wangdi, the representative of the 14th Dalai Lama, replied that the Chinese government's selection would be meaningless. "You can't impose an Imam, an Archbishop, saints, any religion...you can't politically impose these things on people", said Wangdi. "It has to be a decision of the followers of that tradition. The Chinese can use their political power: force. Again, it's meaningless. Like their Panchen Lama. And they can't keep their Panchen Lama in Tibet. They tried to bring him to his monastery many times but people would not see him. How can you have a religious leader like that?"[296]
The 14th Dalai Lama said as early as 1969 that it was for the Tibetans to decide whether the institution of the Dalai Lama "should continue or not".[297] He has given reference to a possible vote occurring in the future for all Tibetan Buddhists to decide whether they wish to recognize his rebirth.[298] In response to the possibility that the PRC might attempt to choose his successor, the Dalai Lama said he would not be reborn in a country controlled by the People's Republic of China or any other country which is not free.[273][299] According to Robert D. Kaplan, this could mean that "the next Dalai Lama might come from the Tibetan cultural belt that stretches across Ladakh, Himachal Pradesh, Nepal, and Bhutan, presumably making him even more pro-Indian and hence anti-Chinese".[300]
The 14th Dalai Lama supported the possibility that his next incarnation could be a woman.[301] As an "engaged Buddhist" the Dalai Lama has an appeal straddling cultures and political systems making him one of the most recognized and respected moral voices today.[302] "Despite the complex historical, religious and political factors surrounding the selection of incarnate masters in the exiled Tibetan tradition, the Dalai Lama is open to change", author Michaela Haas writes.[303]
Despite the tradition of selecting young children, the 14th Dalai Lama can also name an adult as his next incarnation. Doing so would have the advantage that the successor would not need to spend decades studying Buddhism and could immediately be taken seriously as a leader by the Tibetan diaspora.[304]
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