A youth named by China as the second-highest figure in Tibetan Buddhism, but reviled as a fake by many Tibetans, yesterday began an important Buddhist rite, the first time in 50 years it has happened in Tibet, Chinese state media said.
China selected Gyaltsen Norbu as the 11th Panchen Lama in 1995 in a drive to win the hearts and minds of Tibetans.
The Dalai Lama had previously announced his own choice of a six-year-old boy, but the youngster was taken away by authorities and has since vanished from public view.
Photo: AP
The Kalachakra ritual is an esoteric, but for Buddhists important, rite for activating dormant enlightenment, and has not been carried out in what China calls the Tibet Autonomous Region for half a century.
The Dalai Lama has carried out the rite overseas.
Xinhua news agency said China’s Panchen Lama had begun the ritual at the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama.
Monks from the monastery would join those from Labrang, another important seat of Tibetan Buddhism in Gansu Province, for the four-day event, the report said.
About 50,000 Buddhists were expected to attend, it said.
China has gradually exposed its Panchen Lama in public roles in the hope he will achieve the respect commanded by the Dalai Lama among Tibetans and globally. He visited Hong Kong in 2012.
The London-based group Free Tibet said the ritual would be the biggest religious platform that Beijing has given its Panchen Lama to date.
“The officially atheist Chinese government has long tried to impose its authority on Tibet by co-opting Tibetan Buddhism,” Free Tibet director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren said. “Its decision to have Gyaltsen Norbu preside over a ritual as important as the Kalachakra marks a stepping up in these efforts.”
Tibetan nongovernmental organizations in Dharmsala, India, yesterday sponsored a protest against the Chinese-organized Kalachakra.
Dharmsala is home to the Dalai, Lama, the Tibetan-government-in-exile and a large Tibetan community.
Additional reporting by AP
South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol on Tuesday declared martial law in an unannounced late night address broadcast live on YTN television. Yoon said he had no choice but to resort to such a measure in order to safeguard free and constitutional order, saying opposition parties have taken hostage of the parliamentary process to throw the country into a crisis. "I declare martial law to protect the free Republic of Korea from the threat of North Korean communist forces, to eradicate the despicable pro-North Korean anti-state forces that are plundering the freedom and happiness of our people, and to protect the free
France on Friday showed off to the world the gleaming restored interior of Notre-Dame cathedral, a week before the 850-year-old medieval edifice reopens following painstaking restoration after the devastating 2019 fire. French President Emmanuel Macron conducted an inspection of the restoration, broadcast live on television, saying workers had done the “impossible” by healing a “national wound” after the fire on April 19, 2019. While every effort has been made to remain faithful to the original look of the cathedral, an international team of designers and architects have created a luminous space that has an immediate impact on the visitor. The floor shimmers and
CHAGOS ISLANDS: Recently elected Mauritian Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam told lawmakers that the contents of negotiations are ‘unknown’ to the government Mauritius’ new prime minister ordered an independent review of a deal with the UK involving a strategically important US-UK military base in the Indian Ocean, placing the agreement under fresh scrutiny. Under a pact signed last month, the UK ceded sovereignty of the Chagos archipelago to Mauritius, while retaining control of Diego Garcia — the island where the base is situated. The deal was signed by then-Mauritian prime minister Pravind Jugnauth and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Oct. 3 — a month before elections in Mauritius in which Navin Ramgoolam became premier. “I have asked for an independent review of the
LAOS: The bars of bustling Vang Vieng remain open, but information on the investigation into the deaths of six backpackers from suspected methanol poisoning is scarce The music is still playing and the alcohol is still flowing at the bars along one of the party streets in Vang Vieng. Inside a popular venue, a voice over the speaker announces a special offer on beers, as disco lights flicker on the floor. Small paper flags from nations across the world — from the UK to Gabon — hang from the ceiling. Young people travel from all corners of the globe to party in the small town nestled in the Laos countryside, but Vang Vieng is under a global spotlight, following a suspected mass methanol poisoning that killed six
RSS