Earlier than lengthy, Tibetan Buddhism will enter an unknown world – one with out its present Dalai Lama. He has been the chief since he was chosen as a toddler greater than 80 years in the past. However the Dalai Lama is now 90, and speaking brazenly concerning the course of to choose his successor.
A lot has modified, nonetheless, since he was found by senior Buddhist monks in a village in north-west Tibet in 1937. Most pertinently, the Chinese language invasion of Tibet within the Fifties and the next exile of the area’s Buddhist management to India within the many years since.
As our south Asia correspondent, Hannah Ellis-Petersen, explains, it means the id of the subsequent Lama – and the method of how one can discover them – has grow to be a deeply disputed query, pitting the Chinese language state in opposition to Buddhist monks. And elevating the chance, too, that after the dying of the present Dalai Lama, the world may even see not one Dalai Lama however two.
Lhadon Tethong of the Tibet Motion Institute tells Lucy Hough what it has meant for Tibetans to stay in exile for therefore lengthy, and the way they really feel about Chinese language makes an attempt to intrude.
