The Dalai Lama confirmed on Wednesday that he could have a successor to hold on the position of non secular management to Tibetan Buddhists, in a press release issued throughout persevering with celebrations to mark his ninetieth birthday.
He stated that leaders of Tibet’s non secular traditions, members of the Tibetan parliament and authorities in exile, each of that are within the Indian district of Dharamshala, and Buddhists from around the globe, together with mainland China and Tibet, had written to him, requesting that the establishment proceed.
“In accordance with all these requests, I’m affirming that the establishment of the Dalai Lama will proceed,” he stated.
His assertion, issued at a time when Buddhist students and revered monks from around the globe have converged on McLeodganj city in Dharamshala, the place the Dalai Lama lives, to take part within the ninetieth birthday celebrations. The city, often known as “Little Lhasa” as a result of it’s in impact the capital of Tibetan Buddhists in exile, may also host an intense three-day non secular convention that the Dalai Lama will preside over.
However the event isn’t solely non secular. How the following Dalai is chosen, and by whom, carries deep geopolitical significance.
For hundreds of years, Tibetan Buddhist leaders have chosen and enthroned a brand new Dalai Lama solely after an intense quest and subsequent education after the incumbent passes away. If the present Dalai Lama, the 14th, provides any extra particulars within the coming days about how his successor could be chosen, or whom it could be, that might signify a dramatic break with custom.
What he says, and doesn’t say, shall be carefully watched in Washington, New Delhi and Beijing.
The Dalai Lama, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who fled Tibet for India in 1959, is seen as a separatist by Beijing. India, as his host for 66 years, has deep stakes in the way forward for the establishment of the Dalai Lama, who has recognized each Indian prime minister for the reason that nation gained independence. And the US, which has lengthy cited the Tibetan motion in exile as proof of China’s human rights excesses, will need to make it possible for the glue that binds all of it – the establishment of the Dalai Lama – continues.
So, who will select the following Dalai Lama? Can the incumbent Dalai Lama stump the Chinese language authorities? And will there be two Dalai Lamas?
How is a Dalai Lama chosen?
Selecting the following Dalai Lama, who shall be enthroned because the non secular chief of Tibetan Buddhism, is a course of rooted in centuries-old traditions, non secular beliefs, and rituals.
Traditions think about the Dalai Lama because the reincarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and every Dalai Lama is believed to be the successor in a line of reincarnations.
Historically, the seek for the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation usually begins after a interval of mourning. Excessive-ranking lamas (non secular leaders) type a search committee to establish the following Dalai Lama, primarily based on indicators such because the path of the smoke blowing from his cremation, the path the place he was wanting when he died, and oracles’ visions, together with at Lhamo Latso, a lake thought-about holy in Tibet.
As soon as potential candidates are recognized, they bear a collection of assessments to verify their id because the reincarnation. Candidates are often younger boys born at in regards to the time of the earlier Dalai Lama’s dying. However the present Dalai Lama has stated that there isn’t a motive why a lady can’t be the following reincarnation.
After a candidate is chosen, the kid begins a rigorous schooling in Buddhist philosophy, scriptures and management obligations, making ready them to imagine the position of each a non secular and, traditionally, political chief of the Tibetan folks.
Who’s the present Dalai Lama and the way was he chosen?
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th and present Dalai Lama, was born as Lhamo Dhondup on July 6, 1935, to a farming household in a area now in Qinghai province. He was recognized as a reincarnation when he was barely two years outdated.
After the dying of the thirteenth Dalai Lama, the search get together concluded a four-year-long quest after the toddler recognized belongings of his predecessor with the phrase, “It’s mine, it’s mine.” Whereas nearly all of Dalai Lamas have been born in Tibet, one was found in Mongolia, and one other in a area that at the moment lies in northeastern India.
In March 1959, after a failed Tibetan rebellion in opposition to Chinese language management, the Dalai Lama fled Lhasa in disguise, crossing the Himalayas on horseback and foot, finally reaching India on March 31 that yr. Practically 100,000 Tibetan refugees dwell in numerous components of India at the moment, the group’s largest exile inhabitants.
His escape marked the tip of conventional Tibetan governance and the start of a life in exile, from the place he led the Tibetan wrestle for autonomy.
What has the 14th Dalai Lama stated about his successor?
Addressing a beaming crowd of followers and monks in McLeodganj on Monday, June 30, the Dalai Lama, clad in his conventional pink robes and yellow scarf, stated: “So far as the establishment of the Dalai Lama is worried, there shall be a framework for it to proceed.
“I believe I’ve been in a position to serve the Dharma and sentient beings and I’m decided to proceed to take action,” he added, noting that at 90 years outdated, he feels “bodily wholesome and effectively”.
He has additionally hinted about the place to search for the following Dalai Lama. Noting that the aim of a reincarnation is to hold on the work of the predecessor, the 14th Dalai Lama wrote in his e book, Voice for the Unvoiced, printed in March 2025, that “the brand new Dalai Lama shall be born within the free world”.
In impact, that has meant that the Dalai Lama has decreed that the reincarnation wouldn’t be in China or China-controlled Tibet. He had earlier stated that his incarnation may very well be present in India.
For Tenzin Jigme, a 39-year-old who lives in McLeodganj and works with the Tibetan government-in-exile, the mere considered the Dalai Lama passing away is heavy. His voice broke as he stated, “We dwell in a free world as a result of he led us right here.”
“For all of us, residing as refugees, His Holiness Dalai Lama is a fatherly determine,” Jigme advised Al Jazeera. “We’d like his reincarnation; take a look at the world, we want somebody to show us compassion.”
Was there a threat that there wouldn’t be a successor?
The 14th Dalai Lama has instructed prior to now that there will not be a successor in any respect.
In 2011, he stated that when he turned 90, he would seek the advice of his fellow lamas and the Tibetan public and “re‑consider whether or not the establishment of the Dalai Lama ought to proceed or not”.
In 2014, throughout a go to to the 14th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates in Rome, the then-79-year-old non secular chief stated that whether or not one other Dalai Lama can be enthroned after him would depend upon the circumstances after his dying and was “as much as the Tibetan folks”.
“The Dalai Lama establishment will stop someday. These man-made establishments will stop,” the Dalai Lama stated in an interview with the BBC. “There is no such thing as a assure that some silly Dalai Lama received’t come subsequent, who will shame himself or herself. That might be very unhappy. So, a lot better {that a} centuries-old custom ought to stop on the time of a fairly widespread Dalai Lama.”
Dibyesh Anand, a professor of worldwide relations on the College of Westminster and the writer of Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Creativeness, stated the establishment of the Dalai Lama will face immense uncertainty within the coming a long time.
However, he stated, “the historical past reveals that this establishment has been extra protean and resilient than politically power-based states.”
Subsequent exiled Dalai Lamas “won’t have political energy in standard sense”; nonetheless, the establishment will stay “symbolically the center of the Tibetan nation and probably the most revered authority in Tibetan Buddhism,” he stated.
What’s China’s place on this?
China insists that solely its authorities has the authority to approve the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, treating it as a matter of nationwide sovereignty and non secular regulation. This place was cemented in a 2007 legislation, which mandates that every one reincarnations of Tibetan “residing Buddhas” should be accredited by the state and should observe Chinese language legal guidelines, non secular rituals and historic precedent.
Chinese language officers have repeatedly acknowledged that the following Dalai Lama should be born inside China, and any foreign-born or exile-appointed successor can be thought-about “illegitimate”.
A key component of China’s proposed course of is the Golden Urn system, an 18th-century Qing Dynasty technique wherein the names of candidates are positioned in a golden vessel and one is chosen by lot.
The present Dalai Lama doesn’t favour this method, arguing that it lacks “non secular high quality”.
In March 2015, then Tibet Governor Padma Choling accused the Dalai Lama of “profaning faith and Tibetan Buddhism,” including that the Dalai Lama was making an attempt to usurp Beijing’s proper to determine.
“If he says no reincarnation, then no reincarnation? Unattainable. No person in Tibetan Buddhism would conform to that,” stated Choling.
Whereas talks over discovering the following Dalai Lama historically happen after the dying of the incumbent one, the Chinese language place has left monks and Tibetans in exile anxious that Beijing would possibly attempt to hijack the establishment.
The centrality of the Dalai Lama to the Tibetan nationwide motion and his stature as a world icon is an irritant for Beijing, stated Anand, the professor.
“It is a battle over legitimacy and never precise rule over territorial Tibet. Beijing seeks to win that battle of legitimacy however faces an establishment and individual within the 14th Dalai Lama that’s past its management,” he advised Al Jazeera.
Robert Barnett, a scholar of contemporary Tibetan historical past and politics and founding father of Columbia College’s Fashionable Tibetan Research Program, stated that some “Chinese language strategists see the succession concern purely as a possibility to frustrate the exile venture”.
One more reason may very well be the Chinese language leaders’ anticipation of one other believable Tibetan rebellion. It helps Beijing to “have a ‘tame’ Dalai Lama to dissuade Tibetans from protest,” Barnett advised Al Jazeera.
Has China hijacked a range earlier than?
Sure. In 1995, the Dalai Lama recognised a younger boy in Tibet because the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama – the second most essential determine in Tibetan Buddhism. He was a six-year-old, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the son of a health care provider and a nurse from the Tibetan city of Naqchu.
Quickly after, Chinese language authorities took the boy into custody and relocated the household. Their whereabouts will not be recognized since.
In his place, Beijing appointed its personal candidate, a transfer broadly rejected by Tibetan Buddhists in exile and plenty of inside Tibet, who view the Chinese language-selected Panchen Lama as illegitimate.
The disappearance of the Panchen Lama in 1995 was a turning level in Chinese language-Tibetan political historical past, stated Barnett.
“The Chinese language facet determined that it has to regulate not simply which baby must be chosen, however whether or not a lama can reincarnate, the place she or he can reincarnate, who ought to seek for them,” he stated. The Chinese language had been clear that the Dalai Lama wanted to be excluded from the method.
That episode is a key motive why the present Dalai Lama and Tibetans in exile are against the number of any future reincarnation inside China, together with Tibet. The chosen baby would possibly merely be kidnapped, as occurred 30 years in the past.
Anand stated that China’s purpose is to dishearten and divide Tibetans. “If [China] can’t obtain it via successful hearts and minds, they’d do it via divide and rule, and that is how we must always see the battle over reincarnation,” he advised Al Jazeera.
A case of two rival Dalai Lamas
Tibet observers and students consider that after the 14th Dalai Lama’s dying, Tibetan Buddhists would possibly effectively discover a state of affairs the place two rival successors jostle for legitimacy – an exiled chief, appointed by the lamas trustworthy to the incumbent Dalai Lama, and one appointed by the Chinese language authorities.
It might be unprecedented within the historical past of Tibetan Buddhism, however “is very more likely to happen,” stated Barnett.
Whereas the fact of two Dalai Lamas could not matter to exiled Tibetans from a spiritual perspective, it “makes life very tough for Tibetans inside Tibet who shall be compelled in large numbers to publicly declare their loyalty to China again and again”.
Barnett famous that Beijing might additionally use the succession concern as leverage to get overseas governments to marginalise organisations of Tibetans in exile in these international locations.
Anand stated that Beijing’s insistence on its candidate “shall be a supply of instability in China-Tibetan relations” and “could come again to hang-out the Chinese language Communist Celebration”.
In an interview in March 2019, the Dalai Lama acknowledged that following his dying, there may very well be two rival Dalai Lamas. “In future, in case you see two Dalai Lamas come, one from right here, in free nation, one chosen by Chinese language, then no person will belief, no person will respect [the one chosen by China],” he stated.
“In order that’s an extra downside for the Chinese language! It’s potential, it might occur,” the Dalai Lama added, laughing.
Is the selection also a geostrategic issue?
It is, mainly for India and the United States.
For India, which hosts the Tibetan government-in-exile, the succession of the Dalai Lama intersects with national security and its fraught border relationship with China.
New Delhi will want to carry on giving hospitality and refuge to the Dalai Lama and his followers, said Anand. He added that the “Tibetan exiles in India offer a leverage and buffer to India vis-a-vis China’s influence in the Himalayan region”.
The US’s interest in Tibet dates back to the Cold War era, when the CIA backed Tibetan resistance against Chinese occupation, in the 1950s, including after the Dalai Lama’s exile.
Washington has long shown bipartisan support for the religious autonomy of Tibetan Buddhists, including in choosing the next Dalai Lama.
In 2015, when China claimed authority to select the next Dalai Lama, US officials publicly rejected this, asserting that Tibetan Buddhists alone should decide. The most forceful position came in 2020 with the passage of the Tibetan Policy and Support Act (TPSA) under President Donald Trump.
The new US position explicitly supported the Dalai Lama’s right to determine his own reincarnation and authorised sanctions on Chinese officials who interfered in the process.
The international support for the Tibetan right to decide on the institution of the Dalai Lama, Anand said, “is going to play out in geopolitical rivalry between the US and China as well as China and India in the future”.