Dalai Lama Attends India's Global Buddhist Summit Opened By PM Modi; China A No-Show While Taiwan Sends Delegates

Tibetan spiritual leader, his holiness the Dalai Lama, on Friday (21 April) attended the Global Buddhist Summit organised by India in New Delhi.

The Global Buddhist Summit was a two-day event held between April 20 and 21 that began with an inaugural session addressed by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

PM Modi addressing the session said, "the world is passing through challenges such as war, economic instability, terrorism, religious extremism and climate change and asserted that Lord Buddha’s ideas offer a solution to these problems".

The Chinese, however, have completely skipped the event. International Buddhist Confederation (IBC) Director-General Abhijit Halder told the media about the Chinese skipping the event, “Chinese are not coming. Invitations were sent… ”.

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, addressed the event for about an-hour and a half, and mainly talked about Buddhist philosophy and values, as per a media report.

Over 171 Buddhist monks, scholars and representatives from 30 countries including 150 Indian delegates will take part in the summit.

One notable presence will be of two participants from Taiwan, who will attend the summit. Taiwanese presence has raised eyebrows of various observers, as the Chinese also claims the entire territory of Taiwan as its own.

The Chinese regularly skips Buddhist events that his Holiness, the Dalai Lama attends. Earlier, the Chinese government has skipped another Global Buddhist Conference held in 2011. They even postponed Sino-Indian border talks between the two special representatives as a protest to the invitation sent to Dalai Lama.

It is worth noting that the Chinese government wants to control the selection of the next Dalai Lama, as part of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) attempt to sinicise Tibetan-Buddhism.

“Tibetan Buddhism should be guided in adapting to [China’s] socialist society and should be developed in the Chinese context,” President Xi has said in 2020 at the Seventh Central Symposium on Tibet held in Beijing.

China fears the Dalai Lama may ordain his successor outside Tibet — within the Tibetan community in India, perhaps at Tawang in Arunachal.

Tawang was the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama and hosts Galden Namgey Lhatse (also called Tawang Monastery), the second largest monastery of Tibetan Buddhism in the world, largest being the Potala Palace in Lhasa. It was built on the wishes of the fifth Dalai Lama.

If the Dalai Lama finds a successor outside Tibet, the successor that the CCP may appoint (as it did in the case of the Panchen Lama) will not enjoy legitimacy and the spiritual authority required to exercise effective influence in Tibet.

It is because of this fear that China insistently hammers its claim to Tawang, going back from its offer of concessions in the east, where it lays claims to Arunachal Pradesh, in exchange for India dropping its claim on Aksai Chin and parts of eastern Ladakh in the west.

How The Successor To Dalai Lama Is Selected

Traditionally, the Dalai Lama successor is selected using signs like, where the Lama was seeing just before his death or which direction the smoke was flowing just after his death.

Based on these signs, search parties are sent to find children born on the same date as Lama's death and are put through a test, until the right one is found.

Since this practice is impossible to implement after the annexation of Tibet by the Chinese in 1959, the CPC has passed a law where only the Chinese government approves the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama.

The Dalai Lama Surprises China Again

Just a month ago (27 March), the Dalai Lama surprised China by announcing the reincarnation of the third most senior Lama of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Dalai Lama in a ceremony at Dharamshala, in the presence of some 600 Mongolians, has anointed “Tenth Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa Rinpoche,” as the Head of the Gelugpa school in Mongolia and the third most senior spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism.

The Tenth Khalkha is one of the twin boys named Aguidau and Achiltai Attanmar born in US, belonging to the richest business and political empires in Ulan Bator, Mongolia.

The identity of the Tenth Khalkha is kept secret due to the fear of the Chinese targeting the new Tenth Khalkha like the Panchen Lama.

This is the second time when the Chinese were caught-off guard, as in 1995 as well, the Dalai Lama has announced a six-year-old boy — Gedhun Choekyi Nyima — the reincarnation of Panchen Lama, without any consultation with the CPC.

Three days later, Nyima disappeared and has not been seen since then.

This event is coming just two days after Indian Himalayan Council of Nalanda Buddhist Tradition hosted on 17 April another conference of Buddhist scholars at Zemithang, Tawang, very close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Zemithang is the village, according to a news report, where the Dalai Lama first took his first stop after entering India from Tibet on 31 March 1959.