burst in, knives flashing. Striking Lobsang on the head, his attackers slashed open his throat and stabbed him through the heart. The disciples rose from their stools and were cut Tibetan Murder Mystery down without mercy. In moments, Legal Affairs the room ran with blood. Then the murderers fled into the night, leaving May/June 2003 everyone to wonder why a venerated Buddhist lama, a colleague of the Dalai Lama, had become the target of by Ted Kerasote such a crime. UNLIKE THE DALAI LAMA, whose spiritual and precocious nature was DHARAMSALA, THE HOME OF him. He is considered by his followers recognized at an early age, Lobsang THE TIBETAN GOVERNMENT to be an incarnation of Avalokitesvara had an ordinary boyhood. Born in IN EXILE, sits on a pine-covered as well as the temporal head of state, a 1928 to a family of semi-nomadic ridge in the foothills of the Indian position he assumed at their urging at farmers in southeastern Tibet, he loved Himalayas. Ravens and eagles soar in the unusually young age of 15, when swords, guns, and liquor, putting the clear blue air, and vendors line the Tibet was invaded by the Chinese in his hand under the distillery spout narrow streets, selling woolen shawls 1950. and lapping up spirits made from and hats, turquoise earrings and fermented barley even as a child. He silver necklaces, and a colorful array Nine years later, upon learning of was always ready for a fight. At the of fruits and vegetables to Western a Chinese plot to abduct him, the age of 12, when his family began to tourists. Sacred cows, mangy dogs, Dalai Lama fled to India, followed by match him with a neighboring girl, and the occasional troop of monkeys thousands of monks and lay people. Lobsang asked to become a monk so crowd the streets alongside aging One of them was Lobsang, whom that he could “escape the married life.” Tibetans reciting their mantras. The the Dalai Lama personally asked to warm air is filled with a swirl of odors: join his campaign to modernize Tibet He convinced his family that he incense, urine, dung, curry, and dust. through the education of its youth could set aside his dissolute ways, and the creation of a parliamentary and they packed him off to a local In the winter, night comes early, democracy. Lobsang started as monastery. From there, at the age of and the temperature at 6,000 feet an elementary school teacher and 17, he went to the Drepung Monastery drops quickly. Along the rocky paths eventually became the head of the near Lhasa, the capital, in central Buddhist monks, cowled in heavy Buddhist Institute of Dialectics, a Tibet. Drepung housed about 10,000 maroon robes, appear like ghosts and place where monks could pursue their monks when Lobsang was there in the vanish mysteriously into the trees. On higher education outside the rigid 1940s. Ten to 15 percent of them were such an evening in February 1997, framework of the old monastic order. trained in ritualized combat, acting as the light was fading toward dusk as bodyguards for their monasteries. Like Lobsang Gyatso, a respected 69-year- The translations Lobsang was other monasteries, Drepung loaned old lama, sat on his bed, translating preparing in his quarters were to be grain to estates and farmers, charging scriptures from Tibetan into Chinese used in the institute. His two disciples, interest, and had a far-reaching with the help of two disciples. both in their twenties, sat on stools, network of affiliated monasteries kitty-corner across the small room. across Tibet. The monastic order’s Across the road from Lobsang’s Hearing a noise, he may have looked paramilitary capability, its role in quarters lay the walled compound toward the stout wooden door, outside financing the country’s agriculture, that is the spiritual and political heart of which the ground fell away to a and its nationwide presence made of the Tibetan community in exile. It warren of shacks, tiered gardens, and monasteries political as well as contains a monastery, a central temple teahouses. He probably dismissed religious institutions. with statues of the Buddha and the the noise and went back to work with deity of compassion, Avalokitesvara, a smile. His great moon-face was Into this medieval world the future and the secluded residence of the famous for its smiles. Fourteenth Dalai Lama was born Fourteenth Dalai Lama, or His as Lhamo Dhondrub in 1935. His Holiness, as ordinary Tibetans call The door slammed open and six men parents, like those of Lobsang Gyatso, will be found? Can he pick out his his former commander-in-chief and were ordinary farmers. Not long after predecessor’s clothes and possessions confidant in high state matters, tried to the birth of their son, their remote when they’re mixed in with forgeries? follow in his footsteps by reforming village in northeastern Tibet and their Does he have the traditional eight Tibet’s political institutions. Having simple house were singled out in the bodily markings of a Dalai Lama, assimilated Western ideas during his visions of lamas charged with finding including long ears, long eyes, and travels in England, Lungshar wanted the reincarnation of the Thirteenth eyebrows curving up at their ends? to reduce the power of the Kashag, Dalai Lama, who had died two years Tibet’s primary administrative body, earlier. When the search party arrived The present Dalai Lama easily passed whose four members (one monk and in their village not far from the these tests and in 1939 was taken three lay officials) held lifelong terms. present-day Chinese town of Lanzhou, with great ceremony to Lhasa, where He sought to transfer authority to the they found the 2-year-old boy foretold he was given the name of Tenzin more broadly representative National by the prophecies standing in his Gyatso and his title. He grew into an Assembly, where he enjoyed much parents’ yard. He identified their inquisitive, mechanically inclined support and which would, he believed, monastic order and addressed them teenager who became adept in give him the power to modernize the in their own Tibetan dialect, spoken a Buddhist philosophy, learned to drive state. thousand miles to the southwest. a car and speak English, and took up his lifelong hobby of repairing broken But Lungshar’s attempt to build a Literally true or somewhat watches. His curiosity and eclectic coalition of monk officials, made mythologized, this event helps to intellectual tastes proved an invaluable under the cloak of secrecy, was illustrate the sacred process that asset when he was forced into exile. revealed by an informer. He was surrounds the choosing of the Dalai arrested by the Kashag and punished Lama. Buddhists believe that humans LOBSANG GYATSO WAS NOT SO by an ancient Tibetan method. The go through an endless cycle of BROAD-MINDED. Finding himself smooth knucklebones of a yak were birth, death, and rebirth until they a refugee in India, he imagined that placed on each of his temples and tied achieve enlightenment, or nirvana. his monastic life would continue as with a thong around his head. A stick But some enlightened beings, called before: a timeless round of chanting, was then inserted through the thongs bodhisattvas, defer their nirvana, retreats, and religious festivals. The and twisted until the knucklebones, returning to human form to help others Dalai Lama quickly disabused him pressing on his temples, had popped free themselves from the cycle. The of that notion. Surprising the monks out one of his eyeballs. (The other had title “Dalai,” meaning “ocean” and he had gathered for an audience, His to be cut out afterwards.) signifying great wisdom, was given to Holiness launched into an angry tirade a lama named Sonam Gyatso by the about the monasteries they had left One might say that in blinding Mongol chieftan Altan Khan, whom behind, saying they were dominated Dorje Tsegyal Lungshar, Tibet had Gyatso converted to Buddhism in by a xenophobic and power-hungry blinded itself. Wedded to the past 1578. Gyatso was from the Gelugpa theocracy. He even went so far as to and shunning relations with the sect of Tibetan Buddhism. claim that by not modernizing their outside world, monasteries and large country, they had ignored a mindful landowners continued to dominate In early Tibet, a variety of Buddhist Buddhist path and invited the Chinese the government. When China invaded sects competed for lay patrons, and invasion. in 1950, Tibet lacked the military having a leader return in human shape and diplomatic means to defend its would continue a particular line of Lobsang was stunned, but he ought independence. (China dwarfs Tibet succession, enabling the sect to own not to have been. In his efforts to and surrounds it on all sides but the property and peasants and retain modernize Tibet, the Fourteenth south.) As the Dalai Lama noted in both a religious and legal identity Dalai Lama wasn’t breaking new his first autobiography, “If only we from generation to generation. The ground. His predecessor had tried to had applied to join the League of largest of the four major sects of reform Tibet in the early 1900s, but Nations or the United Nations, or even Tibetan Buddhism, Gelugpa has was thwarted by the monastic order, appointed ambassadors to a few of the produced every Dalai Lama, allowing which viewed religion as the highest leading powers, before our crisis came, it to maintain its status as the most aim of the state and opposed modern I am sure these signs of sovereignty influential sect. It has handpicked civil institutions that would divert would have been accepted.” Instead, new Dalai Lama candidates through funds from monasteries. Shortly he conceded, “We were quite content a variety of tests: Is the boy born in after the Thirteenth Dalai Lama died to retire into isolation.” a place where auguries predict he in 1933, Dorje Tsegyal Lungshar, In exile, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama Gyatso’s murder. This kind of menacing language was not going to let such purblindness pushed the Dalai Lama into an happen again. One of his first moves THE TIBETAN PLATEAU HAS incongruous position. In an effort was to steer monks like Lobsang away NEVER BEEN AN EASY PLACE TO to bring a democratic Tibet into from meditative introspection, ascetic LIVE. Stark snow-covered mountains existence, he had created an elected retreats, and immersion in scriptural and high steppes meet a sky that seems parliamentary system, even inserting study. If Tibet were to be reclaimed, to have been washed away by the a clause into the new Tibetan the young Dalai Lama told them, the wind. Aware of the fickle and powerful constitution that gave the National Tibetan government in exile had to natural forces that governed their lives, Assembly the power to impeach build schools and provide its children the people who inhabited Tibet before him in his role as secular head of with a modern education. Monks, the A.D. 700 practiced a religion called state. His efforts to seek a nonviolent only educated Tibetans, would have Bön. They placed their trust in local resolution of the Tibetan question and to relinquish some of their religious deities that were the manifestations of his support for human rights in China practice and become teachers. mountains, rivers, and weather. had earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. But the reemergence of a He understood the regret they felt at Dorje Shugden, the “powerful fundamentalist sect worried him. He being asked to leave their spiritual thunderbolt,” is one such saw it as a threat to the right of all studies, he said, but times had phenomenon: a three-eyed, sword- Buddhist sects to participate equally changed. Buddhism was like a watch. bearing, soldierlike being riding a fiery in a modern Tibetan government. In “Sometimes the watch stops going. horse. He first appeared in the Tibetan 1996, he decreed that no government But if you take it apart and then put it panoply of deities in the 17th century departments or monasteries under the back together again it will go as well and was believed to be the ghost of central Tibetan administration could as before. . . . This is the need of the a man rejected as the reincarnation pray to Dorje Shugden. Individual hour.” of the Fifth Dalai Lama. Ever since Tibetans were told that they were free then he has been an anomalous power, to worship Shugden, but that doing Though only in his late twenties, the the protector of the Dalai Lama’s so diverged from the Dalai Lama’s Dalai Lama had become a charismatic Gelugpa sect but also an instigator of teachings. speaker, mixing exhortation with conflicts within the sect and between easygoing humor. And he was, it and the other major sects of Tibetan Many Tibetans didn’t know where to after all, the Dalai Lama. Lobsang’s Buddhism. A primary reason for turn. The Dalai Lama had challenged misgivings quickly subsided. He disagreement is that Shugden’s most their loyalty to an ancient protector completed a teacher-training course devoted followers elevate him, a mere deity, one they feared might wreak and graduated to the position of protector deity, to a status almost equal a terrible retribution on those who instructor at an elementary school, to the Buddha. Mainstream Buddhists abandoned him. Some rebelled and where he taught Tibetan grammar and find this heretical. even attacked monks to dramatize writing. their point. In May 1996, Thupten In the early 1970s, the Dalai Lama Wangyal, a former abbot at the Jangtse In 1973, the Dalai Lama pressed began to express doubts about the College of the Gaden Monastery in the older monk into further service, worship of a deity that divided southern India, narrowly escaped calling him to Dharamsala to head the Buddhists rather than uniting them. death when his house was set ablaze. new Institute of Buddhist Dialectics. His concerns increased when a splinter In January of the following year, It was here that Lobsang spent the last movement called the New Kadampa another lama from that college was third of his life, teaching, lecturing, Tradition of Buddhism emerged in badly injured in an assault while he and supporting the Dalai Lama in Britain, under a leader who used was visiting Delhi. Both men were a theological dispute with other evangelism to gain new recruits- critics of Shugden worship and Buddhists. To Westerners, the dispute, something traditional Buddhism supporters of the Dalai Lama. which focused on a deity called Dorje doesn’t permit-and declared Shugden Shugden, seemed no more than an to be a Buddha. Another highly Shugden devotees also attacked arcane doctrinal spat. For Tibetans, regarded lama and Shugden follower the legitimacy of the Dalai Lama, however, the consequences of the also claimed that Shugden would accusing him of religious persecution dispute were very serious. It was this destroy any Gelugpa practitioner who and human rights violations. Lobsang- dispute that raised a challenge to the supplemented his practice with other respected, held in great fondness, Dalai Lama’s previously unquestioned spiritual traditions. called by his honorific title, “Gen- authority-and resulted in Lobsang la,” or teacher-stepped into the fray. In a series of strident articles, he Lama. He has called for democracy came to the Dalai Lama’s defense, and openness, but through his stature saying in one of them, “The worship as a divine reincarnated being. and propitiation of Dolgyal Dorje Shugden, by promoting a rabid form Though the Dalai Lama is as of sectarianism, has caused great important to the people of Tibet as trouble to the fabric of Tibetan society ever-a picture of him hangs on the and hindered greatly the ability of the wall behind the desk of every figure of government to govern effectively.” For prominence in the exile community, as these words he paid with his life. well as in virtually every household- democratically inclined Tibetans find Within a few months the Dharamsala themselves in an uneasy relationship police tracked the murderers-young with His Holiness, and not merely Tibetans between the ages of 25 and over the issue of Shugden worship. 35-to several Tibetan settlements in India, where they had been members A large group of intellectuals and of Shugden cults. In his death throes, young people hope for a return to a Lobsang had wrestled a canvas bag Tibet that is independent of China. from one of his attackers, who left The Dalai Lama, on the other hand, the bag behind. Papers in it helped has conceded that this is unrealistic identify the assailants. Before they and has avidly pursued negotiations could be apprehended, though, they with China that could lead to a Tibetan fled to Tibet and eventually to China, protectorate under Chinese rule. As where they were given asylum. Some one member of the political opposition Tibetan government officials charged explained, “Every thinking Tibetan is the Chinese with using the Shugden split in two between their loyalty to clash to sow dissension among their country, their desire for freedom Tibetans and undermine the authority on one side, and their reverence and of the Dalai Lama. faith in His Holiness on the other.”

If so, the Chinese had exploited Such contradictions are not lost on the Shugden issue to strike at the Fourteenth Dalai Lama. He often the Dalai Lama where he is most states his wish to retire from politics, vulnerable. It inevitably raises leaving the handling of state affairs questions for a religious figure, to his prime minister. He has also even a venerated one like the Dalai remarked that he may be the last of his Lama, to use his religious authority line. A Fifteenth Dalai Lama, he says, to quash opposition-in this case a may not be needed. fundamentalist sect that believes monks should be the final arbiters of Tibet’s destiny instead of the democratically elected representatives of Tibet’s people.

The murdered lama Lobsang was enlisted in the Dalai Lama’s cause, his support reinforcing the notion that Tibet would be a nation of openness and religious freedom. But Lobsang’s opposition to Shugden in the name of the Dalai Lama’s political vision could not be separated from his identity as a monk. This is the paradox of modern Tibet and the irony of being the Dalai