DALAI LAMA

DALAI LAMA , title of the spiritual and formerly political leader of the Tibetan people, is a combination of the Mongolian dalai ("ocean"), signifying profound knowledge, and the Tibetan blama ("religious teacher"). The title dates from 1578 ce, when it was conferred by Altan Khan of the Mongols upon Bsod nams rgya mtsho (1543–1588), third hierarch of the Dge lugs pa school of Tibetan Buddhism, commonly called the Yellow Hat sect. The title was applied posthumously to the two preceding hierarchs, Dge 'dun-grub pa (1391–1475), founder of Bkra śis lhun po (Tashilhunpo) monastery near Shigatse in Gtsaṅ province, and Dge 'dun rgya mtsho (1475–1542), founder of the Dalai Lama's residence in 'Bras spung monastery near Lhasa in Dbus province. After 1578 the title was given to each of the successive reincarnations of the Dalai Lama. The present Dalai Lama is fourteenth in the lineage.

Incarnation (Tib., sprul sku ), the manifestation of some aspect of the absolute Buddhahood in human form, is an ancient doctrine and one common to various schools of Mahayana Buddhism, but the concept of the reincarnation (yaṅ srid) of a lama is unique to Tibetan Buddhism. The concept emerged in the fourteenth century in the hierarchic lineage of the Black Hat Karma pa and was soon adopted by the other Tibetan schools.

From the inception of the institution, traditional procedures for discovering the rebirth of a Dalai Lama, similar to those used for other reincarnate lamas, were followed. Indicative statements made by the previous Dalai Lama during his lifetime, significant auguries surrounding his death and afterward, and meditative visions by special lamas were recorded and interpreted as guides to finding his rebirth. In time, but no sooner than nine months after the death of the previous Dalai Lama, the people began to expect reports of an exceptional male child born in accordance with various omens. Such a child, usually two or three years old when discovered, was subjected to tests to determine physical fitness, intelligence, and the ability to remember events and objects from his previous existence. If more than one likely candidate was found, the final selection was made by drawing a name from a golden urn. Once the true reincarnation was determined, he was enthroned in the Potala palace as the Dalai Lama. The monastic education of a Dalai Lama, directed by learned tutors of the Dge lugs pa school, occupied his time for years. When he attained his majority, at about eighteen years of age, he assumed the religio-political power of the office of Dalai Lama.

In the beginning, the religious power of the Dalai Lama was limited to the monastic members and lay patrons of the reformed Yellow Hat school. By the middle of the sixteenth century, religio-political power in Tibet was unevenly divided between the Red Hat Karma pa, supported by the lay king of Gtsaṅ, and the Yellow Hat Dge lugs pa, patronized by lay princes of Dbus. The third hierarch of the Yellow Hat school was subsequently invited to Mongolia by Altan Khan, who gave him the title Dalai Lama. When the Dalai Lama died in Mongolia, his reincarnation was discovered to be none other than the great-grandson of Altan Khan himself. The fourth Dalai Lama, Yon tan rgya mtsho (1589–1617), is the only one in the lineage ethnically not a Tibetan. Escorted from Mongolia to Lhasa, he was enthroned in the Dalai Lama's residence in 'Bras spung monastery. Recognition of this Mongol prince as the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama thereafter bound the Mongols by faith to the Yellow Hat school, and in time they were to protect it militarily from its enemies.

The power struggle in Tibet between the Red Hat Karma pa and the Yellow Hat Dge lugs pa continued to escalate in favor of the Red Hats and the lay king of Gtsaṅ. Finally in 1642, at the invitation of the fifth Dalai Lama, Nag dban rgya mtsho (1617–1682), Gu śrī Khan of the Mongols led troops into Tibet, defeated the Red Hat opposition, and executed the lay king of Gtsaṅ. In effect Gu śrī Khan had conquered Tibet, but true to his faith, he presented the country to the fifth Dalai Lama as a religious gift. Thus the Dalai Lama became the religious and political head of Tibet. Because he was a monk, a civil administrator was appointed to handle the day-to-day affairs of state.

After the enthronement of this Dalai Lama, a prophetic scripture was discovered. It revealed that the reincarnate Dalai Lama was also an incarnation of the Bodhisattva of Compassion, Avalokiteśvara (Tib., Spyan ras gzigs), traditionally regarded as the patron bodhisattva of Tibet. The relationship between the noumenal Avalokiteśvara and the phenomenal Dalai Lama was attested by symbolism. According to Buddhist doctrine, the mystical abode of Avalokiteśvara is a mountain called the Potala; so the fifth Dalai Lama ordered a massive fortress, also called the Potala, to be built on a mountain in the Lhasa area. Begun in 1645, the Potala at Lhasa served as the palace of the Dalai Lama for more than three hundred years.

The most common Tibetan prayer is the six-syllable "Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ." Printed on prayer flags, contained in prayer wheels, carved repeatedly in wood and stone, and chanted daily by Tibetan Buddhists, this is the vocative mantra in Sanskrit of Avalokiteśvara. In view of his relationship to the Dalai Lama, the six-syllable mantra symbolically serves at once as an invocation to both the noumenal and phenomenal manifestations of the Bodhisattva of Compassion. Because of the belief that the Dalai Lama is an incarnation of Avalokiteśvara as well as a reincarnation of his predecessor, he is frequently, but incorrectly, called the "God-King" of Tibet in Western writings.

The fifth Dalai Lama was a learned scholar and the author of many texts, including a history of Tibet. During the forty years he was head of state, the Mongols helped to protect his newly established government and to expand its territorial control. In recognition of the important role he played in religio-political history, he is referred to in Tibetan literature as the Great Fifth.

The death of the fifth Dalai Lama was kept secret for fifteen years by the civil administrator for political reasons. His reincarnation, Tshaṅs dbyaṅs rgya mtsho (1683–1706), was discovered in due course but was not officially acknowledged as the next Dalai Lama until 1697. Unlike the monastic training of his predecessors, who had been publicly enthroned and tutored as children, that of the sixth Dalai Lama was not only kept secret but was apparently less than strict. Already in his teens when enthroned in the Potala, he soon gained notoriety for his addiction to wine, women, and song. Censure caused him to renounce his vows as a monk in 1702, but he remained in the Potala as the Dalai Lama. Finally in 1706, he was deposed by Lha bzaṅ Khan, a great-grandson of Gu śrī Khan, and deported to China; he died enroute. The sixth Dalai Lama is perhaps best remembered for sixty-two four-line verses, commonly referred to as his "love songs." A recurring theme in his poetry is the psychophysiological conflict between his monastic obligations as the Dalai Lama and his passion for mundane pleasures.

After the deposition and death of the sixth Dalai Lama, Lha-bzaṅ Khan became undisputed ruler of Tibet. He enthroned a puppet in the Potala, but the Tibetan people refused to accept him as the Dalai Lama. Instead, a boy born in eastern Tibet was recognized as the true reincarnation. Owing to the unstable situation in Lhasa, the seventh Dalai Lama, Bskal bzaṅ rgya mtsho (1708–1757), was taken to Kumbum monastery in the Kokonor region for safekeeping. In 1717 Mongols from Dzungaria, in support of the seventh Dalai Lama, invaded Tibet and killed Lha bzaṅ Khan. The puppet Dalai Lama was deposed and later deported to China. The seventh Dalai Lama was escorted to Lhasa by a Manchu imperial army and enthroned in the Potala in 1720.

A significant change was made in 1721 in the structure of the Tibetan government. The office of the civil administrator, which had concentrated political power in one pair of hands, was abolished and replaced with a council of four ministers collectively responsible for the secular branch of the dyadic hierocracy.

The death of the seventh Dalai Lama in 1757 led to the creation of a new government position. The office of the Dalai Lama had become institutionalized by then, and there was no question but that his reincarnation would succeed to his position of ruling power. Thus, the death of a Dalai Lama meant an interregnum of some twenty years, during which his reincarnation had to be discovered and educated, and his majority attained before he would resume power. During that period, another reincarnate lama of the Dge lugs pa school was appointed regent to rule Tibet on behalf of the minor Dalai Lama. Reluctance of successive regents and their supporters to hand over power each time a Dalai Lama reached his majority is blamed, perhaps unjustly, for the fact that the eighth Dalai Lama ruled only for a few years, the ninth and tenth died young without assuming power, and the eleventh and twelth Dalai Lamas ruled only for short periods before their death.

The thirteenth Dalai Lama, Thubbstan rgya mtsho (1876–1933), assumed full power in 1895. He survived an attempt on his life by his former regent, who purportedly resorted to witchcraft in hopes of furthering his political ambitions. During his long reign as head of state, the thirteenth Dalai Lama was forced to flee to Mongolia in 1904 to escape British troops invading from India. He spent years traveling in Mongolia and China. Not long after his return to Lhasa, he was again forced to flee early in 1910, this time to India to avoid the invading Chinese forces. The Chinese revolution of 1911 that overthrew the Manchu dynasty and established the Republic of China also marked the end of Manchu domination of Tibetan affairs. The Manchu imperial garrison at Lhasa, which had been set up early in the eighteenth century, was deported to a man by the Tibetan government. From 1913 until his death in 1933, the thirteenth Dalai Lama was the head of an independent government. Living in exile in British India motivated the thirteenth Dalai Lama to implement various reforms in Tibet to improve the welfare of his people. His importance in Tibetan history can be compared with that of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama in the seventeenth century.

The fourteenth Dalai Lama, Bstan 'dzin rgya mtsho, was born in 1935 of Tibetan parentage in the Chinghai province of China. Two other likely candidates were also found; but the one from Chinghai successfully passed all the tests, the omens were in mystical agreement, and he was confirmed as the true reincarnation by the State Oracle of Tibet himself. The Chinghai candidate was duly enthroned in the Potala at Lhasa in 1940. During the next decade, half of which was taken up by World War II in Asia, the young Dalai Lama was educated and prepared for the time he would assume his role as religio-political ruler of Tibet.

The invasion of eastern Tibet late in 1950 by forces of the People's Republic of China precipitated the empowerment of the fourteenth Dalai Lama when he was just fifteen years old. He was escorted to a village near the Indian border to avoid capture by the Chinese. In 1951, an agreement was reached between the Tibetan government and the Peking regime, and the Dalai Lama subsequently returned to Lhasa.

In 1956, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama, the high-ranking reincarnate lama of the Yellow Hat monastery of Bkra śis lhun po, were invited to India to attend the Buddha Jayanti, a great celebration marking the twenty-five-hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Buddha. After the Dalai Lama returned to Tibet, however, the constrained political situation there continued to deteriorate, and in March 1959 the Tibetan populace revolted against the Chinese regime in Lhasa. The Dalai Lama fled to India. That month the Chinese abolished the traditional Tibetan government, ending over three hundred years of hierocratic rule by the Dalai Lama, incarnation of Avalokiteśvara, Bodhisattva of Compassion.

The present Dalai Lama continues to live in exile in India. He has traveled internationally, visiting various Asian countries as well as continental Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The leaders of two great religious traditions met when the fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibetan Buddhism was welcomed in the Vatican by Paul VI in 1973 and by John Paul II in 1979.

See Also

Dge lugs pa.

Bibliography

The only book dealing with the first thirteen Dalai Lamas in some detail remains Günther Schulemann's Die Geschichte der Dalailamas, 2d ed. (Leipzig, 1959). Charles A. Bell's Portrait of the Dalai Lama (London, 1946) is a biographical sketch based on the author's personal friendship with the thirteenth Dalai Lama, but part 2 of the book explains what a Dalai Lama is and how he is discovered and educated. A scholarly listing, but with basic dates and data only, of all fourteen Dalai Lamas, as well as the regents who successively served them, can be found in Luciano Petech's "The Dalai-Lamas and Regents of Tibet: A Chronological Study," Tuoung bao (Leiden) 47 (1959): 368–394.

English translations of three books by the fourteenth Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, are recommended. His autobiography, My Land and My People (New York, 1962), is an interesting narrative of his selection, education, and experiences. The Opening of the Wisdom-Eye and the History of the Advancement of Buddhadharma in Tibet (Bangkok, 1968) and The Buddhism of Tibet and the Key to the Middle Way (New York, 1975) provide lucid expositions of the fundamental philosophical teachings of Tibetan Buddhism that must be mastered by a Dalai Lama.

Also recommended are David L. Snellgrove and Hugh E. Richardson's A Cultural History of Tibet (New York, 1968), Rolf A. Stein's Tibetan Civilization (Stanford, Calif., 1972), and Tsepon W. D. Shakabpa's Tibet: A Political History (New Haven, Conn., 1967). Each of these works contains an excellent bibliography.

Turrell V. Wylie (1987)