| Choekyi Gyaltsen ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་མཚན | |
|---|---|
| The10th Panchen Lama | |
.jpg) The Panchen Lamac. 1955 | |
| 10thPanchen Lama | |
| Reign | 3 June 1949 – 28 January 1989 |
| Predecessor | Thubten Choekyi Nyima |
| Successor | 11th Panchen Lama: Gedhun Choekyi Nyima (Selected by the14th Dalai Lama) Gyaincain Norbu (Selected by theChinese leadership) |
| Director of the Preparatory Committee for theTibet Autonomous Region (acting) | |
| In office | 1959 – 1964 |
| Predecessor | 14th Dalai Lama |
| Successor | Ngapoi Ngawang Jigme (acting) |
| Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress | |
| In office | 27 September 1954 – 27 April 1959 |
| In office | 10 September 1980 – 28 January 1989 |
| Vice Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference | |
| In office | 25 December 1954 – 5 January 1965 |
| In office | 2 July 1979 – 17 June 1983 |
| Born | Gönbo Cêdän (1938-02-19)19 February 1938 Bido,Xunhua County,Qinghai,Republic of China, known asAmdo |
| Died | 28 January 1989(1989-01-28) (aged 50) Shigatse,Tibet Autonomous Region,China, known asÜ-Tsang |
| Burial | Tashi Lhunpo Monastery, Shigatse |
| Spouse | Li Jie |
| Issue | Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo |
| Father | Gonpo Tseten |
| Mother | Sonam Drolma |
| Religion | Tibetan Buddhism |
| Signature |  |
| Official title: 10thPanchen Erdeni | |||||||||||||||
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| Traditional Chinese | 第十世班禪額爾德尼 | ||||||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 第十世班禅额尔德尼 | ||||||||||||||
| Literal meaning | Number-10-lifetime + Pandita-Chenpo (Sanskrit-Tibetan Buddhist title, meaning "GreatScholar") + Erdeni (Manchuloanword fromMongolian, meaning "treasure") | ||||||||||||||
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| Dharma name: Lobsang Trinley Lhündrub Chökyi Gyaltsen | |||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 羅桑赤列倫珠確吉堅贊 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 罗桑赤列伦珠确吉坚赞 | ||||||
| Literal meaning | 善慧事業運成法幢 | ||||||
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| Tibetan name | |||||||
| Tibetan | བློ་བཟང་ཕྲིན་ལས་ལྷུན་གྲུབ་ཆོས་ཀྱི་རྒྱལ་མཚན་་ | ||||||
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| Original name: Gönbo Cêdän | |||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 貢布慈丹 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 贡布慈丹 | ||||||
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| Tibetan name | |||||||
| Tibetan | མགོན་པོ་ཚེ་བརྟན་ | ||||||
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Institutional roles |
History and overview |
Lobsang Trinley Lhündrub Chökyi Gyaltsen (bornGönbo Cêdän; 19 February 1938 – 28 January 1989) was the tenthPanchen Lama, officially the10th Panchen Erdeni (Chinese:第十世班禅额尔德尼;lit. 'Number-10-lifetime GreatScholar the Treasure'), of theGelug school ofTibetan Buddhism. According toTibetan Buddhism, Panchen Lamas are living emanations of the buddhaAmitabha. He was often referred to simply asChoekyi Gyaltsen.
The Paṇchen Lama incarnation line began in the seventeenth century after the5th Dalai Lama gave Chokyi Gyeltsen the title, and declared him to be an emanation ofBuddha Amitaba. Officially, he became the first Panchen Lama in the lineage, while he had also been the sixteenth abbot ofTashilhunpo Monastery.[1]
The 10th Panchen Lama was born as Gonpo Tseten on 19 February 1938, in Bido, today'sXunhua Salar Autonomous County ofQinghai, known asAmdo. His father was also called Gonpo Tseten and his mother was Sonam Drolma. After theNinth Panchen Lama died in 1937, two simultaneous searches for the tenth Panchen Lama produced different boys, with the government inLhasa preferring a boy fromXikang, and the Ninth Panchen Lama's khenpos and associates choosing Gonpo Tseten.[2] On 3 June 1949, theRepublic of China (ROC) government declared its support for Gonpo Tseten.
On 11 June 1949, at twelve years of age in the Tibetan counting system, Gonpo Tseten was enthroned at the major Gelugpa monastery in Amdo,Kumbum Jampa Ling monastery as the 10th Panchen Lama and given the name Lobsang Trinley Lhündrub Chökyi Gyaltsen. Attending were alsoGuan Jiyu, the head of theMongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, and ROCKuomintang Governor of Qinghai,Ma Bufang.[3] Still in Lhasa, the Dalai Lama recognized the Panchen Lama Choekyi Gyaltsen a few years later, after they met.[4]
The ROC wanted to use Choekyi Gyaltsen to create a broad anti-Communist base inSouthwest China.[2] The ROC'sKuomintang formulated a plan where three Tibetan Khampa divisions would be assisted by the Panchen Lama to oppose the Communists.[5]
When Lhasa denied Choekyi Gyaltsen the territory the Panchen Lama traditionally controlled, he askedMa Bufang to help him lead an army against Tibet in September 1949.[6] Ma tried to persuade the Panchen Lama to come with the Kuomintang government toTaiwan when the Communist victory approached, but the Panchen Lama declared his support for the CommunistPeople's Republic of China instead.[7][8] Moreover, the Dalai Lama's regency was unstable, having suffered a civil war in 1947, and theKuomintang took advantage of this to expand its influence in Lhasa.[9]
The Panchen Lama reportedly supported China's claim of sovereignty over Tibet, and supported China's reform policies for Tibet.[4]Radio Beijing broadcast the religious leader's call for Tibet to be "liberated" into China, which created pressure on the Lhasa government to negotiate with the People's Republic.[2][clarification needed]
At Kumbum Monastery, the Panchen Lama gave a Kalacakra initiation in 1951.[10] That year, the Panchen Lama was invited to Beijing as the Tibetan delegation was signing the17-Point Agreement and telegramming the Dalai Lama to implement the Agreement.[11] He was recognized by the14th Dalai Lama when they met in 1952.
In September 1954, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama went toBeijing to attend the first session of the firstNational People's Congress, meetingMao Zedong and other leaders.[12][13] The Panchen Lama was soon elected a member of theStanding Committee of the National People's Congress and in December 1954 he became the deputy chairman of theChinese People's Political Consultative Conference.[14] In 1956, the Panchen Lama went toIndia on apilgrimage together with the Dalai Lama. When theDalai Lama fled toIndia in 1959, the Panchen Lama publicly supported the Chinese government, and the Chinese brought him to Lhasa and made him chairman of the Preparatory Committee for the Tibet Autonomous Region.[15]
After a tour through Tibet in 1962, the Panchen Lama wrote a document addressed to Prime MinisterZhou Enlai denouncing the abusive policies and actions of the People's Republic of China in Tibet. This became known as the 70,000 Character Petition.[16][17] According toIsabel Hilton, it remains the "most detailed and informed attack on China's policies in Tibet that would ever be written."[18]
The Panchen Lama met with Zhou Enlai to discuss the petition he had written. The initial reaction was positive, but in October 1962, the PRC authorities dealing with the population criticized the petition.Chairman Mao called the petition "... a poisoned arrow shot at the Party byreactionary feudal overlords."
For decades, the content of this report remained hidden from all but the very highest levels of the Chinese leadership, until one copy surfaced in 1996.[19] In January 1998, upon the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the birth of the Tenth Panchen Lama, an English translation by Tibet expertRobert Barnett entitledA Poisoned Arrow: The Secret Report of the 10th Panchen Lama, was published.[20][21]
In 1964, he was publicly humiliated atPolitburo meetings, dismissed from all posts of authority, declared 'an enemy of the Tibetan people', had his dream journal confiscated and used against him,[22] and was then imprisoned. He was 26 years old at the time.[23] The Panchen's situation worsened when theCultural Revolution began. The Chinese dissident and formerRed GuardWei Jingsheng published in March 1979 a letter under his name but written by another, anonymous, author denouncing the conditions atQincheng Prison, where the 10th Panchen Lama was imprisoned.[24][25] In October 1977 he was released, but held under house arrest inBeijing until 1982.[26]
_session_1964.jpg)
In 1978, after giving up his vows of an ordained monk, he travelled around China, looking for a wife to start a family.[27] He began courting Li Jie, uterine granddaughter[clarification needed] ofDong Qiwu, a general inPLA who had commanded an Army in theKorean War. She was amedical student atFourth Military Medical University inXi'an. At the time, the Lama had no money and was stillblacklisted by the party, but the wife ofDeng Xiaoping and widow of Zhou Enlai saw the symbolic value of a marriage between a Tibetan Lama and a Han woman. They personally intervened to wed the couple in a large ceremony at theGreat Hall of the People in 1979.[28] One year later, the Panchen Lama was given the Vice Chairmanship of theNational People's Congress and other political posts, and he was fullypolitically rehabilitated by 1982.
Li Jie bore a daughter in 1983, named Yabshi Pan Rinzinwangmo (Standard Tibetan:ཡབ་གཞིས་པན་རིག་འཛིན་དབང་མོ་,romanized: yab gzhis pan rig 'dzin dbang mo).[29] Popularly known as the "Princess of Tibet",[30] she is considered important inTibetan Buddhism andTibetan-Chinese politics, as she is the only known offspring in the over 620-year history of either thePanchen Lama orDalai Lama reincarnation lineages.
Of her father's death, Rinzinwangmo reportedly refused to comment, allegedly attributing his early death to his generally poor health, morbid obesity, and chronic sleep deprivation.[28][citation needed] The 10th Panchen Lama's death sparked a six-year dispute over his assets amounting to $20 million between his wife and daughter and Tashilhunpo Monastery.[28]
The Panchen Lama made several journeys to Tibet from Beijing, during 1980 and afterwards.
While touring eastern Tibet in 1980, the Panchen Lama also visited the famousNyingma school masterKhenchen Jigme Phuntsok atLarung Gar.[31]
In 1987, the Panchen Lama met Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok again in Beijing, bestowed the teaching of the Thirty-Seven Practices of a Bodhisattva, and blessed as well as endorsed Larung Gar and conferred its name as Serta Larung Ngarik Nangten Lobling (gser rta bla rung lnga rig nang bstan blob gling), commonly translated asSerta Larung Five Science Buddhist Academy.[31]
With the Panchen Lama's invitation, Khenchen Jigme Phuntsok joined him in 1988 on a consecration ritual in central Tibet, which became a monumental pilgrimage of sacred Buddhist sites in Tibet, among them thePotala Palace, theNorbulinka, theNechung Monastery, then toSakya Monastery andTashilhunpo Monastery, and also toSamye Monastery.[31][32]
Also in 1987, the Panchen Lama established a business called the Tibet Gang-gyen Development Corporation, envisioned for the future of Tibet whereby Tibetans could take the initiative to develop and join in their own modernization. Plans to rebuild sacred Buddhist sites destroyed in Tibet during 1959 and after were included. Gyara Tsering Samdrup worked with the business, but was arrested in May 1995 after the11th Panchen Lama Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was recognized.[33][34][35]
Early in 1989, the 10th Panchen Lama returned again to Tibet to rebury recovered bones from the graves of the previous Panchen Lamas, graves that had been destroyed atTashilhunpo Monastery in 1959[22] by theRed Guards, and consecrated in a chorten built as the receptacle.
On 23 January 1989, the Panchen Lama delivered a speech in Tibet in which he said: "Sinceliberation, there has certainly been development, but the price paid for this development has been greater than the gains."[36][37] He criticized the excesses of theCultural Revolution in Tibet and praised thereform and opening up of the 1980s.[38]
Five days later on 28 January, the Panchen Lama died inShigatse at the age of 50.[39] Although the official cause of death was said to have been from a heart attack, some Tibetans suspect foul play.[36]
Many theories spread among Tibetans about the Panchen Lama's death. According to one story, he foresaw his own death in a message to his wife on their last meeting. In another, arainbow appeared in the sky before his death.[38] Other people, including the Dalai Lama,[28] believe that he was poisoned by his own medical staff. Supporters of this theory cite remarks the Panchen Lama made on 23 January to high-ranking officials and that were published in thePeople's Daily and theChina Daily.
In August 1993, his body was moved toTashi Lhunpo Monastery where his body was first put in a sandalwood bier, which was then put into a specially made safety cabinet and finally moved into the Precious Bottle in the stupa of the monastery where it remains preserved.[40]
In 2011, the Chinese dissidentYuan Hongbing declared thatHu Jintao, then the Communist Party Secretary of Tibet and the Political Commissar of the PLA's Tibet units, had masterminded the death of the 10th Panchen Lama.[41]
According to the state-runPeople's Daily, the Dalai Lama was invited by theBuddhist Association of China to attend the Panchen Lama's funeral and to take the opportunity to contactTibet's religious communities. The Dalai Lama was unable to attend the funeral.[42][43][44]
China's far northwest.23 A simultaneous proposal suggested that, with the support of the new Panchen Lama and his entourage, at least three army divisions of the anti-Communist Khampa Tibetans could be mustered in southwest China.
There was neither peace nor happiness in Lhasa, nor had there been for some time. The regency of a Dalai Lama was often a period riddled with conspiracy and instability, and that of the minority of the fourteenth Dalai Lama had been no exception. Things had become so chaotic and corrupt that there had even been a brief civil war in 1947. While the government mismanaged, the Guomindang (Kuomintang, or K MT), who had an ever larger representative office in Lhasa, had been quietly peddling influence in the capital.
| Government offices | ||
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| Preceded byas Director (fled to India during the1959 rebellion) | Director of the Preparatory Committee for theTibet Autonomous Region Acting 1959–1964 | Succeeded byas Acting Director |
| Religious titles | ||
| Preceded by | Reincarnation of the Panchen Lama 10th 1949–1989 | Succeeded by Gedhun Choekyi Nyima (Government of Tibet in Exile interpretation) Gyaltsen Norbu (People's Republic of China interpretation) |
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| People | |
| Other | |
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