New Panchen Lama Is Named

Date May 14-December 8, 1995

In 1995, in response to the Dalai Lama’s choice of Gendun Choekyi Nyima as the Eleventh Panchen Lama, the Chinese government abducted the child and his family and made a replacement choice of another child, Gyaincain Norbu. The event was interpreted as an attempt by Beijing to control religious freedom and further suppress human rights in an apparent return to the Cultural Revolution goal of eliminating the so-called four olds in Tibet.

Locale Xigazê, Tibet; Dharmsala, India

Key Figures

• Gendun Choekyi Nyima (b. 1989), Tibetan child recognized by the Dalai Lama as the Eleventh Panchen Lama
• Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso; b. 1935), exiled spiritual and political leader of Tibet
• Gyaincain Norbu (Qoigyijabu; b. 1990), Tibetan child chosen by Beijing as the Eleventh Panchen Lama

Summary of Event

From the seventeenth century until the Chinese invasion in 1950, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama of the Dge-lugs-pa, or Yellow Hat Sect, lineage of Tibetan Buddhism were at the top of the lama, or monk, hierarchy in old Tibet. The Dalai Lama is considered to be the physical incarnation of Chenrezi, the bodhisattva of compassion. There have been fourteen Dalai Lamas; each one is considered to be the reincarnation of the former. The Panchen Lama, the second-highest-ranking lama after the Dalai Lama and abbot of the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Tibet, is esteemed as the physical manifestation of Amitayus, the Buddha of Infinite Light. There have been eleven Panchen Lamas, and, like the Dalai Lama, each one is considered to be the reincarnation of the former.

One duty entrusted to the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama is the recognition of each other’s successor. Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, was recognized by the Ninth Panchen Lama in 1940. The Tenth Panchen Lama was recognized by the Fourteenth Dalai Lama in 1952. After the Tenth Panchen Lama’s death in 1989, the Dalai Lama recognized the Eleventh Panchen Lama in 1995. However, the Chinese government did not accept the Dalai Lama’s candidate and subsequently named another one. Therefore, two Eleventh Panchen Lamas were chosen in 1995.

After an aborted anti-Chinese uprising in 1959, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and his followers fled to India and settled in Dharmsala; however, the Tenth Panchen Lama stayed in Tibet. His outspoken comments about Chinese policies in Tibet led to his imprisonment in China for nearly ten years. He died in 1989. Since the Dalai Lama was living outside Tibet, the first steps in identifying the reincarnation of the Panchen Lama were assumed by the senior lamas in exile. The lamas compiled a list of about thirty names of potential candidates from both Tibet and India. The lamas then tested the best ones by asking them to identify personal objects owned by the Tenth Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama utilized oracles and divinations to confirm the final four candidates. The divination performed in 1991 revealed that the reincarnation happened in Tibet. In 1993, the lamas conducted their search east of Tashi Lhunpo, searching among children born in the Tibetan years of the snake, horse, and sheep. Divinations revealed Gendun Choekyi Nyima to be the best candidate. Finally, on May 14, 1995, the Dalai Lama recognized Gendun as the true reincarnation of the Tenth Panchen Lama. Gendun, whose father was Konchok Phuntsog and whose mother was Dechen Chodon, was born in Lhari County in Nagchu, Tibet, on April 25, 1989, in the year of the snake.

During these years, the Dalai Lama contacted the Chinese authorities in Tibet regarding the search for the new Panchen Lama. In 1991, he asked permission to send a delegation of senior lamas to Lhamo Lhatso, a sacred lake near Lhasa, to observe prophetic visions. Seven months later, the Chinese government said it did not need outside interference in the matter. In 1993, the Dalai Lama invited Beijing’s Panchen Lama search committee to India for a discussion. There was no response from the Chinese authorities.

A couple days after the Dalai Lama announced his recognition of Gendun, the child and his family disappeared. It was rumored that they had been abducted by the Chinese authorities and kept on a military base near Beijing. Immediately after Gendun’s disappearance, the Chinese authorities in Tibet forced monks and senior lamas of Tashi Lhunpo to denounce the Dalai Lama’s candidate. One monk refused to and committed suicide. On November 5, 1995, a number of lamas and Tibetan Communist Party members were summoned to Beijing to choose an alternate Panchen Lama. These representatives were told that three candidates had already been chosen and that the Dalai Lama’s choice was illegal because he no longer lived in Tibet. The Chinese attempted to discredit the Dalai Lama’s choice. Gendun was described as a sinner and his parents were labeled deceitful, avaricious, and overly ambitious. On November 29, Chinese officials presided over a ceremony in which the Eleventh Panchen Lama was selected through the drawing of lots from a golden urn. Gyaincain Norbu—who was born on February 13, 1990, in Lhari—was the child selected. His parents were local officials and Communist Party members. Gyaincain was enthroned at Tashi Lhunpo on December 8. The next day, he was flown to Beijing and kept under close guard. He did not return to Tibet until 1999. Nine lamas from Tashi Lhunpo were given prison sentences of up to thirty months for protesting against the new Panchen Lama’s enthronement; seven others were expelled.

Beijing’s choice of Gyaincain met with protest from Tibetans at home and abroad. About four hundred Tibetans in New Delhi demonstrated in protest, and the Tibetans in Dharmsala went on a token hunger strike for twenty-four hours. The Dalai Lama rejected Beijing’s choice and perceived it as a politically motivated attempt to tighten control over Tibet. As a result, Chinese authorities issued a ban on assembly of more than three persons in Tibet and imposed curfew in Xigazê, Lhasa, and Qamdo.

Significance

The whereabouts and welfare of Gendun and his family remained unknown. In May, 1996, the Chinese government revealed that they had been holding Gendun in custody since 1995. The continued detention of, and denial of access to, Gendun was interpreted as China’s attempt to control religious expression and suppress human rights in Tibet. China’s ceremony to choose the Panchen Lama was condemned as contrary to the religious beliefs and practices of the Tibetan people. The golden urn system was suggested by a Manchu emperor to the Eighth Dalai Lama. However, it had been used in Tibet in the recognition of only three Dalai Lamas and two Panchen Lamas. Since the tradition of mutual recognition between the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama was ignored, it was feared that the choice of the next Dalai Lama would be controlled by Beijing. Moreover, China’s selection of the new Panchen Lama seemed to be a justification of its occupation of Tibet. Furthermore, China’s actions signaled a return to some of the practices undertaken by the Chinese government during the Cultural Revolution in which it tried to abolish the “four olds”—old tradition, old thoughts, old cultures, and old customs. To the Tibetans, especially those in exile, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama represented possibly the last religious leader of old Tibet. The new Panchen Lama, to avoid the previous Panchen Lama’s fate, could do nothing but serve as Beijing’s puppet.

Bibliography

Dalai Lama. Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of the Dalai Lama. New York: HarperCollins, 1990. Autobiography begins with the Dalai Lama’s childhood and concludes with his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. Includes testimony of Tibet’s suffering under Chinese rule.

Goldstein, Melvyn C. The Snow Lion and the Dragon: China, Tibet, and the Dalai Lama. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Provides a historical outline of Tibet-China relations and the problems surrounding modern-day Tibet.

Hilton, Isabel. The Search for the Panchen Lama. New York: W. W. Norton, 2000. Explains the political intricacies surrounding the search for the Eleventh Panchen Lama, while offering an extensive history of Tibetan Buddhism’s struggle with China.

Sautman, Barry, and June Teufel Dreyer, eds. Contemporary Tibet: Politics, Development, and Society in a Disputed Region. Armonk, N.Y.: M. E. Sharpe, 2006. Collection of essays provides historical background and a general framework to examine Tibet’s present situation in world politics, China’s relationship with the West, and Tibet’s prospects for the future.