Reincarnation and realpolitik keeps Dalai Lama’s succession in dilemma
Esoteric questions of reincarnation rarely have realworld political consequences, but many fear the search for a successor to Tibet’s Dalai Lama could inflame regional rivalries.
The 88yearold spiritual leader, Tenzin Gyatso, has shown no indication of serious health issues, and has said that his dreams suggest he could live until he is 113.
But as Tibetans prepare to mark on Sunday the 65th anniversary of the failed uprising against Chinese forces that led to him fleeing into exile in India, the question of who will succeed their ageing leader is in sharp focus.
Tibetan activists are keenly aware that his death will mark a major setback in his push for more autonomy for the Himalayan region. It would deprive the cause of a Nobel Prize winner whose moral teachings and idiosyncratic humour have made him one of the world’s most popular religious leaders.
Many expect China will name a successor. That raises the likelihood of rival nominations for the sixcenturyold post, including one chosen by exiled Tibetans based in India, a regional rival of China.
New being
While the bodies of previous Dalai Lamas have been entombed in stupa burial mounds, Tibetans believe their soul carries on, living in a new being.
Tibetan monks traditionally choose the Dalai Lama through a ritualistic search that can take years, seeking telltale signs a child is the reincarnation of a spiritual leader first born in 1391.
The 14th Dalai Lama, who has lived in exile in the northern Indian town of Dharamsala since the failed uprising in 1959, has floated the possibility of a nontraditional succession.
He already ended the post’s political powers in 2011 in favour of an elected governmentinexile.
Keeping Beijing on its toes, he has alternatively suggested that his reincarnation could be a girl for the first time, or that he might be the last Dalai Lama.