The skies have opened in torrents across the Dhauladhar range ahead of the Dalai Lama’s much-reckoned 90th birthday; the air remains mum on what’s to come. Who’s to be his pick as successor, spiritual and temporal head of the Tibetan Buddhists? Is a naming even in the offing? Nobody’s telling. Everybody is tuning in.
Pilgrims have been streaming in by air and road, braving the rain and flash floods. Many tourists have joined in out of curiosity.
Monks and nuns are seen blessing devotees, many of whom have brought their children along. Long-parted friends and family, united by the jamboree, have been enjoying a meal together after a decade.
The Dalai Lama’s decadal birthday celebrations draw more than the usual flock to Dharamshala, the headquarters of Tibetan Buddhism and its government-in-exile. This year the pull seems stronger, thanks to all the succession talk.
On Wednesday, the Dalai Lama reaffirmed that a trust created by him had sole authority to recognise his future reincarnation — his successor as the head of Tibetan Buddhism.
“I last came here for the Dalai Lama’s 80th birthday,” said Chopel, a monk turned trinket seller.
Chopel is a Tibetan refugee from Mundgod, Karnataka. After four years as a monk, he had quit in 2011 and now runs his business in Kathmandu.
Monks exit the Dalai Lama Library and Archives after the second day of the 15th Tibetan Religious Conference. Picture by Pheroze L Vincent
“Sometimes life leads you onto different paths,” Chopel said as he and his cousins shared a meal of dal and rice at one of the shops at the entrance to the Dalai Lama’s abode and temple in McLeodganj.
It is in this Dharamshala suburb, named after the Anglo-Indian colonial administrator, Sir Donald Friell McLeod, that the institutions and businesses of the exiled Tibetans are based.
“For us, the Dalai Lama is like God. I have hope that one day we get our freedom (from China, which took control of Tibet in 1950-51 before the Dalai Lama and thousands of Tibetan exiles came to India in 1959),” Chopel said.
“The next Dalai Lama can be anyone. I don’t think there can be anyone like the current Dalai Lama; but we can’t lose hope that it will be someone good who will get us freedom.”
The current Dalai Lama has said his successor will be born in the “free world” — a euphemism for anywhere but China. The monk has, since the 1970s, pushed for the “Middle Way Approach” — autonomy within China. Total independence has eluded Tibetans for almost 75 years now.
“Avalokiteshwara (a deity in Buddhism and some other Asian religions) shines within him. People are attracted to him, and we may not have anyone like him again,” a monk visiting the Theckchen Choeling temple told this newspaper, seeking anonymity.
“But a soul, I feel, can incarnate anywhere. A soul doesn’t recognise international borders and checkposts,” he added.
“A charismatic person like the Dalai Lama could lead people in the 20th century. In this century, I don’t know if anyone can lead us to freedom.”
Until then, the 70,000-odd Tibetan refugees in India must survive on the IC and RC (Identity Certificate and Registration Certificate) — their equivalents of a visa and a passport — and the small joys of meeting fellow exiles from settlements across India, or from Nepal and Bhutan, on occasions like these.
A three-day conference of all the top lamas — heads of Tibetan Buddhism’s four schools and all its main monasteries outside China — has been under way at the Dalai Lama Library and Archives here since Wednesday. Seven representatives of Tibet’s indigenous Bon religion are among the participants, too.
“Their focus is (on) how to preserve Tibetan Buddhism by improving the education system in monasteries, and reviving traditions that China has destroyed,” a source in the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), the government-in-exile, said.
“Their resolutions on the final day will be on what programmes the CTA’s religion and culture department must implement to achieve these. This conference happens every four to five years.”
With the Dalai Lama reaffirming that the Gaden Phodrang Foundation holds the sole right to appoint his successor, this too has been part of the discussions at the closed-door conference, the source said.
“The foundation has members from all the Tibetan Buddhist schools. Their task is to prevent China from imposing a Dalai Lama on us,” the source added.
A day after the conference ends, prayers seeking a long life for the Dalai Lama will be offered at his temple, also called Tsuglagkhang, on Saturday morning.
“Lamas from all the three historical provinces of Tibet will offer prayers. There are people in exile from every province,” the CTA source said.
The Dalai Lama’s birthday will be celebrated on Sunday. Monks will gather in the sanctum sanctorum and outside it, and thousands of devotees on the ground floor. Some 200 journalists from across the world, too, will be present in this Tibetan wonderland outside Tibet.
“I may go back,” said Lopon Yonthens, referring to China. “But once I go I don’t know if they will let me come back.”
Yonthens, a monk, is pursuing a PhD in Pali at Nalanda University in Bihar. He fled Tibet when he was 20 years old in 2006.
“I can’t go back now as I don’t have a passport. After my PhD, let’s see. I hope I can go back some day…,” he said.
“The youth now want to go to Europe and America rather than Tibet. McLeodganj’s markets were (once) entirely Tibetan. Nepalis and others have taken their place now. McLeodganj is home to everyone.”