The choice of a successor to the Dalai Lama, the non secular head of Tibetan Buddhists, is a matter of riveting curiosity not just for followers of his faith, but in addition China, India, and the US, for strategic causes. The Nobel peace laureate, who turns 90 on Sunday (July 6, 2025), is considered one of many world’s most influential figures, with a following extending nicely past Buddhism.
HOW WAS HE CHOSEN?
Tibetan custom holds that the soul of a senior Buddhist monk is reincarnated after his demise.
The 14th Dalai Lama, born as Lhamo Dhondup on July 6, 1935, to a farming household in northeastern Tibet, was recognized as such a reincarnation when he was simply two years outdated. A search get together despatched by the Tibetan authorities made the choice on the premise of a number of indicators, similar to a imaginative and prescient revealed to a senior monk, the Dalai Lama’s web site says. The searchers have been satisfied when the toddler recognized belongings of the thirteenth Dalai Lama with the phrase, “It is mine, it is mine”.
Within the winter of 1940, Lhamo Thondup was taken to the Potala Palace in Lhasa, the capital of at this time’s Tibet Autonomous Area, and formally put in because the non secular chief of Tibetans.
HOW WILL HIS SUCCESSOR BE CHOSEN?
In his e book “Voice for the Unvoiced“, launched in March 2025, the Dalai Lama stated his successor would be born outside China.
The Dalai Lama has lived in exile in northern India since 1959, after fleeing a failed rebellion towards the rule of Mao Zedong’s Communists. He wrote that he would launch particulars about his succession across the time of his ninetieth birthday.
The Tibetan parliament-in-exile, based mostly within the Himalayan city of Dharamshala, just like the Dalai Lama, says a system has been established for the exiled authorities to proceed its work whereas officers of the Gaden Phodrang Basis will probably be charged with discovering and recognising his successor. The present Dalai Lama arrange the inspiration in 2015 to “preserve and assist the custom and establishment of the Dalai Lama” with regard to his non secular and non secular duties, it says on its web site. Its senior officers embody a number of of his aides.
WHAT DOES CHINA SAY?
China says its leaders have the correct to approve the Dalai Lama’s successor, as a legacy from imperial occasions. A variety ritual, by which the names of doable reincarnations are drawn from a golden urn, dates to 1793, in the course of the Qing dynasty.
Chinese officials have repeatedly said the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama must be determined by following nationwide legal guidelines that decree use of the golden urn and the start of reincarnations inside China’s borders.
However many Tibetans suspect any Chinese language function within the choice as being a ploy to exert affect on the group.
It’s inappropriate for Chinese language Communists, who reject faith, “to meddle within the system of reincarnation of lamas, not to mention that of the Dalai Lama,” the Buddhist chief has stated.
In his e book, he requested Tibetans to not settle for “a candidate chosen for political ends by anybody, together with these within the Folks’s Republic of China,” referring to the nation by its official title.
Beijing manufacturers the Dalai Lama, who gained the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989 for retaining alive the Tibetan trigger, as a “separatist” and prohibits shows of his image or any public present of devotion in the direction of him.
In March 2025, a Chinese language Overseas Ministry spokesperson stated the Dalai Lama was a political exile with “no proper to symbolize the Tibetan individuals in any respect”.
China denies suppressing the rights of the Tibetan individuals, and says its rule ended serfdom in, and introduced prosperity to, a backward area.
WHAT ROLE COULD INDIA AND THE U.S. PLAY?
Aside from the Dalai Lama, India is estimated to be house to greater than 100,000 Tibetan Buddhists who’re free to check and work there.
Many Indians revere him, and worldwide relations specialists say his presence in India provides New Delhi some type of leverage with rival China.
America, which faces rising competitors from China for world dominance, has repeatedly stated it’s dedicated to advancing the human rights of Tibetans.
U.S. lawmakers have beforehand stated they might not enable China to affect the selection of the Dalai Lama’s successor.
In 2024, then U.S. President Joe Biden signed a legislation that presses Beijing to resolve a dispute over Tibet’s calls for for better autonomy.
Revealed – June 30, 2025 09:28 am IST
