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 | From Birth to Exile HisHoliness the Dalai Lama was born on 6 July 1935, and named LhamoThondup, to a poor family in the small village of Taktser in theprovince of Amdo. The name, Lhamo Thondup, literally meansWish-Fulfilling Goddess. Taktser (Roaring Tiger) was a small and poorsettlement that stood on a hill overlooking a broad valley. Itspastures had not been settled or farmed for long, only grazed bynomads. The reason for this was the unpredictability of the weather inthat area, His Holiness writes in his autobiographyFreedom inExile. During my early childhood, my family was one of twenty or somaking a precarious living from the land there. His Holiness parents were smallfarmers who mostly grew barley, buckwheat and potatoes. His father wasa man of medium height with a very quick temper. I remember pulling athis moustache once and being hit hard for my trouble, recalls HisHoliness. Yet he was a kind man too and he never bore grudges. HisHoliness recalls his mother as undoubtedly one of the kindest people Ihave ever known. She had a total of sixteen children, of whom sevenlived. His Holiness had two sisters andfour brothers who survived their infancy. Tsering Dolma, the eldestchild, was eighteen years older than His Holiness. At the time of mybirth she helped my mother run the house and acted as my midwife. Whenshe delivered me, she noticed that one of my eyes was not properlyopen. Without hesitation she put her thumb on the reluctant lid andforced it wide fortunately without any ill effect, His Holinesswrites. His Holiness three elder brothers were Thupten Jigme Norbu -the eldest, who was recognised as the reincarnation of a high lama,Taktser Rinpoche - Gyalo Thondup and Lobsang Samten. The youngestbrother, Tenzin Cheogyal was also recognised as the reincarnation ofanother high lama, Ngari Rinpoche. Of course, no one had any idea thatI might be anything other than an ordinary baby. It was almostunthinkable that more than one tulku (reincarnation) could be born intothe same family and certainly my parents had no idea that I would be proclaimedDalai Lama, His Holiness writes. Though the remarkable recovery madeby His Holiness father from his critical illness at the time of HisHoliness birth was auspicious, it was not taken to be of greatsignificance. I myself likewise had no particular intimation of whatlay ahead. My earliest memories are very ordinary. His Holinessrecollects his earliest memory, among others, of observing a group ofchildren fighting and running to join in with the weaker side. One thing that I rememberenjoying particularly as a very young boy was going into the hen coopto collect the eggs with my mother and then staying behind. I liked tosit in the hens nest and make clucking noises. Another favouriteoccupation of mine as an infant was to pack things in a bag as if I wasabout to go on a long journey. Im going to Lhasa, Im going toLhasa, I would say. This, coupled with my insistence that I be allowedalways to sit at the head of the table, was later said to be anindication that I must have known that I was destined for greaterthings. His Holiness is held to be thereincarnation of each of the previous thirteen Dalai Lamas of Tibet(the first having been born in 1351 AD), who are in turn considered tobe manifestations of Avalokiteshvara, or Chenrezig, Bodhisattva ofCompassion, holder of the White Lotus. Thus His Holiness is alsobelieved to be a manifestation of Chenrezig, in fact the seventy-fourthin a lineage that can be traced back to a Brahmin boy who lived in thetime of Buddha Shakyamuni. I am often asked whether I truly believethis. The answer is not simple to give. But as a fifty-six year old,when I consider my experience during this present life, and given myBuddhist beliefs, I have no difficulty accepting that I am spirituallyconnected both to the thirteen previous Dalai Lamas, to Chenrezig andto the Buddha himself. When Lhamo Thondup was barelythree years old, a search party that had been sent out by the Tibetangovernment to find the new incarnation of the Dalai Lama arrived atKumbum monastery. It had been led there by a number of signs. One ofthese concerned the embalmed body of his predecessor, Thupten Gyatso,the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, who had died aged fifty-seven in 1933.During its period of sitting in state, the head was discovered to haveturned from facing south to northeast. Shortly after that the Regent,himself a senior lama, had a vision. Looking into the waters of thesacred lake, Lhamo Lhatso, in southern Tibet, he clearly saw theTibetan lettersAh, Ka andMa float into view. Thesewere followed by the image of a three-storied monastery with aturquoise and gold roof and a path running from it to a hill. Finally,he saw a small house with strangely shaped guttering. He was sure thatthe letterAh referred to Amdo, the northeastern province, so it was there that the search party was sent. By the time theyreached Kumbum, the members of the search party felt that they were onthe right track. It seemed likely that if the letterAhreferred to Amdo, thenKamust indicate the monastery at Kumbum, which was indeed three-storiedand turquoise-roofed. They now only needed to locate a hill and a housewith peculiar guttering. So they began to search the neighbouringvillages. When they saw the gnarled branches of juniper wood on theroof of the His Holiness parents house, they were certain that thenew Dalai Lama would not be far away. Nevertheless, rather than revealthe purpose of their visit, the group asked only to stay the night. Theleader of the party, Kewtsang Rinpoche, then pretended to be a servantand spent much of the evening observing and playing with the youngestchild in the house. The child recognisedhim and called out Sera lama, Sera lama. Sera was Kewtsang Rinpoche'smonastery. The next day they left only to return a few days later as aformal deputation. This time they brought with them a number of thingsthat had belonged to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, together with severalsimilar items that did not. In every case, the infant correctlyidentified those belonging to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama saying, Itsmine. Its mine. This more or less convinced the search party thatthey had found the new incarnation. It was not long before the boy fromTaktser was acknowledged to be the new Dalai Lama. The boy LhamoThondupwas first taken to Kumbum monastery. There now began a somewhatunhappy period of my life, His Holiness was to write later, reflectingon his separation from his parents and the unfamiliar surroundings.However, there were two consolations to life at the monastery. First,His Holiness immediate elder brother Lobsang Samten was already there.The second consolation was the fact that his teacher was a very kindold monk, who often held his young disciple inside his gown. Lhamo Thondup was eventually to be reunited with his parents andtogether they were to journey to Lhasa. This did not come about forsome eighteen months, however, because Ma Bufeng, the local ChineseMuslim warlord, refused to let the boy-incarnate be taken to Lhasawithout payment of a large ransom. It was not until the summer of 1939that he left for the capital, Lhasa, in a large party consisting of hisparents, his brother Lobsang Samten, members of the search party andother pilgrims. The journey to Lhasatook three months. I remember very little detail apart from a greatsense of wonder at everything I saw: the vast herds ofdrong(wild yaks) ranging across the plains, the smaller groups ofkyang(wild asses) and occasionally a shimmer ofgowa andnawa,small deer which were so light and fast they might have been ghosts. Ialso loved the huge flocks of hooting geese we saw from time to time. Lhamo Thondups partywas received by a group of senior government officials and escorted toDoeguthang plain, two miles outside the gates of the capital. The nextday, a ceremony was held in which Lhamo Thondup was conferred thespiritual leadership of his people. Following this, he was taken offwith Lobsang Samten to the Norbulingka, the summer palace of HisHoliness, which lay just to the west of Lhasa. During the winter of 1940, Lhamo Thondup was taken to the PotalaPalace, where he was officially installed as the spiritual leader of Tibet.Soon after, the newly recognised Dalai Lama was taken to Jokhang templewhere His Holiness was inducted as a novice monk in a ceremony known astaphue,meaning cutting of the hair. From now on, I was to beshaven-headed and attired in maroon monks robes. In accordance withancient custom, His Holiness forfeited his name Lhamo Thondup andassumed his new name, Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso. His Holiness then beganto receive his primary education. The curriculum - same as that for allmonks pursuing a doctorate in Buddhist studies - included logic, Tibetanart and culture, Sanskrit, medicine and Buddhist philosophy. The lastand the most important (and most difficultî) was subdivided intofurther five categories:Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom;Madhyamika, the philosophy of the Middle Way;Vinaya, the canon of monastic discipline;Abidharma, metaphysics; andPramana, logic and epistemology.  Onthe day before the opera festival in the summerof 1950, His Holiness was just coming out of the bathroom at theNorbulingka when he felt the earth beneath begin to move. As the scaleof this natural phenomenon began to sink in, people naturally began tosay that this was more than a simple earthquake: it was an omen.Two days later, RegentTathag received a telegram from the Governor of Kham, based in Chamdo,reporting a raid on a Tibetan post by Chinese soldiers. Already theprevious autumn there had been cross-border incursions by ChineseCommunists, who stated their intention of liberating Tibet from thehands of imperialist aggressors. It now looked as if the Chinese weremaking good their threat. If that were so, I was well aware that Tibetwas in grave danger for our army mustered no more than 8,500 officersand men. It would be no match for the recently victorious PeoplesLiberation Army (PLA). Two months later, inOctober, news reached Lhasa that an army of 80,000 soldiers of the PLAhad crossed the Drichu river east of Chamdo. So the axe had fallen.And soon, Lhasa must fall. As the winter drew on and the news gotworse, people began to advocate that His Holiness be given hismajority, his full temporal power. The Government consulted the NechungOracle, a very tense moment, who came over to where His Holiness wasseated and laid akata, a white offering scarf, on His Holinesss lap with the words Thu-la bap,His time has come. At the young age of fifteen, His Holiness was on17 November 1950 officially enthroned as the temporal leader of Tibetin a ceremony held at the Norbulingka Palace. At the beginning ofNovember, about a fortnight before the day of His Holinesssinvestiture, his eldest brother arrived in Lhasa. As soon as I seteyes on him, I knew that he had suffered greatly. Because Amdo, theprovince where we were both born, and in which Kumbum is situated, liesso close to China, it had quickly fallen under control of theCommunists.
He himself was kept virtual prisoner in his m monastery.At the same time, the Chinese endeavoured to indoctrinate him in thenew Communist way of thinking and try to subvert him. They had a planwhereby they would set him free to go to Lhasa if he would undertake topersuade me to accept Chinese rule. If I resisted, he was to kill me.They would then reward him. To mark the occasion ofhis ascension to power, His Holiness granted general amnesty wherebyall the prisoners were set free. I was pleased to have thisopportunity, although there were times that I regretted it. When Itrained my telescope on the compound, it was empty save for a few dogsscavenging for scraps. It was as if something was missing from my life. Shortly after the15-year-old Dalai Lama found himself the undisputed leader of sixmillion people facing the threat of a full-scale war, His Holinessappointed two new Prime Ministers. Lobsang Tashi became the monk PrimeMinister and an experienced lay administrator, Lukhangwa, the lay PrimeMinister. That done, I decidedin consultation with them and the Kashag to send delegations abroad toAmerica, Great Britain and Nepal in the hope of persuading thesecountries to intervene on our behalf. Another was to go to China in thehope of negotiating a withdrawal. These missions left towards the endof the year. Shortly afterwards, with the Chinese consolidating theirforces in the east, we decided that I should move to southern Tibetwith the most senior members of the Government. That way, if thesituation deteriorated, I could easily seek exile across the borderwith India. Meanwhile, Lobsang Tashi and Lunkhangwa were to remain inan acting capacity. While His Holiness wasin Dromo, which lay just inside the border with Sikkim, His Holinessreceived the news that while the delegation to China had reached itsdestination, each of the others had been turned back. So it was almostimpossible to believe that the British Government was now agreeing thatChina had some claim to authority over Tibet. His Holiness was equallysaddened by Americas reluctance to help. I remember feeling greatsorrow when I realised what this really meant: Tibet must expect toface the entire might of Communist China alone. Frustrated by theindifference showed to Tibet's case by Great Britain and America, HisHoliness, in his last bid to avoid a full-scale Chinese invasion, sentNgabo Ngawang Jigme, governor of Kham, to Beijing to open a dialoguewith the Chinese. The delegation hadnt been given the power to reachat any settlement, apart from its entrusted task of convincing theChinese leadership against invading Tibet. However, one evening, as Isat alone
A harsh, crackling voice announced that a Seventeen-PointAgreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet had that day (May 23,1951) been signed by representatives of the Government of the PeoplesRepublic of China and what they called the Local Government of Tibet.As it turned out, the Chinese who even forged the Tibetan seal hadforced the delegation headed by Ngabo into signing the agreement. TheChinese had in effect secured a major coup by winning Tibetancompliance, albeit at gunpoint, to their terms of returning Tibet tothe fold of the motherland. His Holiness returned to Lhasa in themiddle of August 1951 Thenext nine years saw His Holiness trying to evade a full-scale militarytakeover of Tibet by China on one hand and placating the growingresentment among Tibetan resistance fighters against the Chineseaggressors on the other. His Holiness made a historic visit to Chinafrom July 1954 to June 1955 for peace talks and met with Mao Zadong andother Chinese leaders, including Chou En-lai, Chu Teh and DengXiaoping. From November 1956 to March 1957 His Holiness visited Indiato participate in the 2500th Buddha Jayanti celebrations.But disheartening reports of increasing brutality towards his ownpeople continued to pour in when the young Dalai Lama was giving hisfinal monastic examinations in Lhasa in the winter of 1958/59. One winter day of 1959(March 10) General Chiang Chin-wu of Communist China extended aseemingly innocent invitation to the Tibetan leader to attend atheatrical show by a Chinese dance troupe. When the invitation wasrepeated with new conditions that no Tibetan soldiers was to accompanythe Dalai Lama and that his bodyguards be unarmed, an acute anxietybefell the Lhasa populace. Soon a crowd of tens of thousands ofTibetans gathered around the Norbulingka Palace, determined to thwartany threat to their young leader's life. On 17 March 1959 duringa consultation with Nechung Oracle, His Holiness was given an explicitinstruction to leave the country. The Oracle's decision was furtherconfirmed when a divinity performed by His Holiness produced the sameanswer, even though the odds against making a successful break seemedterrifyingly high. A few minutes before teno'clock His Holiness, now disguised as a common soldier, slipped pastthe massive throng of people along with a small escort and proceededtowards Kyichu river, where He was joined by the rest of the entourage,including his immediate family members.  Threeweeks after leaving Lhasa, His Holiness and his entourage reached theIndian border from where they were escorted by Indian guards toBomdila. The Indian government had already agreed to provide asylum toHis Holiness and his followers in India. It was in Mussoorie that HisHoliness met with the Indian Prime Minister and the two talked aboutrehabilitating the Tibetan refugeesRealising theimportance of modern education for the children of Tibetan refugees,His Holiness impressed upon Nehru to undertake the formation of anindependent Society for Tibetan Education within the Indian Ministry ofEducation. The Indian Government was to bear all the expenses forsetting up the schools for the Tibetan children. Thinking the time isripe for me to break my elected silence', His Holiness called a pressconference on 20 June 1959 when His Holiness formally repudiated theSeventeen-Point Agreement. In the field of administration, too, I wasable to make radical changes. For example, His Holiness saw thecreation of various new Tibetan government departments. These includedDepartments of Information, Education, Home, Security, ReligiousAffairs and Economic Affairs. Most of the Tibetan refugees, whosenumber had grown to almost 30,000, were moved to road camps in thehills of northern India. On 10 March 1960 justbefore leaving for Dharamsala with the eighty or so officials whocomprised the Tibetan Government-in-Exile, His Holiness began what isnow a tradition by making a statement on the anniversary of the TibetanPeoples Uprising. On this first occasion, I stressed the need for mypeople to take a long-term view of the situation in Tibet. For those ofus in exile, I said that our priority must be resettlement and thecontinuity of our cultural traditions. As to the future, I stated mybelief that, with Truth, Justice and Courage as our weapons, weTibetans would eventually prevail in regaining freedom for Tibet. | |||||
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