When the Twelfth Dalai Lama passed away in the third month of the Wood Boar Year at the age of nineteen, Central Asia was plunged into sorrow. Tibet had not had a strong Dalai Lama for some time, and the absence was becoming deeply felt.
The next incarnation in the lineage was to more than make up for the deficit. Known to history as “The Great Thirteenth,” he was in fact more than simply great; he was almost superhuman in his accomplishments in both spiritual and secular realms, being noted for his writings, his contributions to the arts and his impact on Tibetan society in general.1
As Taktser Rinpochey states in the foreword to my book on the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, “The fact that all these things were done by one man is amazing. Each of these spheres of activity would require a complete lifetime for an ordinary person. His accomplishments were like those of ten great men.” 2 In Tibetan historical literature only one other Dalai Lama is referred to simply as “Great,” that being “the Great Fifth.”
The Great Thirteenth was the first of the Dalai Lamas to be intimately known to the West. Western travelers had met earlier Dalai Lamas, of course, but most of those incarnations had been short-lived, and the Western meetings with them were limited to a few brief audiences.
During the Thirteenth’s lifetime, however, Tibet was invaded by England. At the time he was in a three-year meditation retreat, and had to break his solitude in order to take refuge first in Mongolia, and then China. In both of these places he came into contact with British diplomats.
Half a decade later, Tibet was invaded by a Muslim army from Manchu China, and the Great Thirteenth took refuge in British India. He remained there for some three years as a guest of the British government while overseeing the effort to free his country from Manchu occupation.
Some years later, Sir Charles Bell, the British officer who had been appointed by the British Government to serve as liaison officer to the Great Thirteenth, wrote an account of his personal impressions. Entitled Portrait of the Dalai Lama,} this work became something of a best seller, and gave the West its first accurate, in-depth knowledge of the Dalai Lama personage.
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The Great Thirteenth had perhaps the most challenging life of any Dalai Lama since the Great Fifth. His was the task of carrying Tibet from its ancient ways into the modern world. He was born into an age when Mongolia and Manchu China were no longer the two great superpowers at work in Asia. England and Russia had stepped onto the stage, and their expanding empires eclipsed those of both the Mongols and the Manchus.
This phase of Tibetan history coincides with what is referred to in Western literature as “The Great Game.” This was the era in which England and Russia vied with one another for supremacy in Asia. Every country on the Asian map was but a piece on the chessboard in a match between these two superpowers.
Tibet was a particularly important piece in the game, for Tibetan Buddhism was the religion of a dozen kingdoms in Himalayan India ruled by the British, and also of a dozen Mongolian kingdoms to the far northeast that were ruled by expansionist Russia. Both of these superpowers therefore had a vested interest in Tibet; it was the cultural and spiritual fountainhead of large tracts of their own territories.
if * * *
As we saw earlier, the Tibetans had developed a special relationship with Manchu China. They referred to this relationship as choyon, or “priest/patron,” with the Tibetan lamas as the priests and the Manchu Chinese as the patrons in the arrangement. The Tibetans saw themselves as having the upper seat in the arrangement; they were the religious teachers and spiritual advisors to the Manchu aristocracy. The Manchus, however, gradually began to think of themselves as being in the superior position. For them the Tibetan lamas were their spiritual and educational employees, and Tibet therefore was in a position of subservience to them.
Both Britain and Russia recognized the special relationship that existed between Tibet and Manchu China. The British decided to capitalize on it during the very year that the Great Thirteenth took birth. This maneuver manifested in the form of the Chefoo Convention, signed by the British and Chinese on Sept. 13, 1876, and amended in July of 1886 amid considerable controversy. Although there were many details to this Anglo-Chinese treaty, in essence it meant that China agreed not to object to Britain’s invasion of Burma, in return for Britain’s recognition of Manchu authority over Tibet. In brief, the “patron” had sold out the “priest.”
To the British, this aspect of the Chefoo Convention was part of London’s greater plan of containing Russian expansionism. By recognizing Tibet as part of Manchu China, England would effectively be keeping the Russians out of Lhasa and away from the northern borders of British India.
The outcome of the Chefoo Convention was to overshadow Tibetan affairs from that time until the present day, and was the single biggest challenge faced by Tibet during the Great Thirteenth’s lifetime. Enforcing it resulted in two British invasions of Tibet—the Macauley Expedition of 1886-1888 and the Younghusband Expedition of 1903-1904—and also in the Chinese invasion of Tibet in 1909. These were traumatic experiences for the young Thirteenth Dalai Lama.
In 1888 the United States Government followed Britain’s lead on the matter and relegated Tibet to the status of being under China’s jurisdiction, thus hammering another nail into Tibet’s coffin.
Later, the British deeply regretted their colossal error in devising this aspect of the Chefoo Convention. They tried to rectify it in later treaties by introducing the term “suzerainty,” stating that Tibet was “under the suzerainty of China,” and was not an actual part of China. This word appears as a defining characteristic of the China/Tibet relationship in the treaties emerging from the Shimla Convention of 1913-1914.
However, the damage was done. From the time of the Chefoo Convention until today, China has officially regarded Tibet as part of her empire. First the Manchus maintained this position, and, after the fall of the Manchu Dynasty in 1911, the Chinese Republicans adopted the policy.
Although neither the Manchus nor the Republicans could enforce their claims to Tibet, the Communists who defeated the Republicans in 1949 had the military power to do so easily. Between 1949 and 1951 Communist China gradually pushed its weight westward, until all of Tibet fell to it.
As we will see, the Great Thirteenth dedicated much of his life to reversing the diplomatic problems created for Tibet by the Chefoo
Convention, and in 1913 even banned all Chinese officials from the country. However, although he was able to win a de facto independence for his country, he was never able to accomplish a de jure one.
Paradoxically, from 1913 until the Great Thirteenth’s death in 1933, while Tibet was in reality completely independent from China to the extent that Chinese diplomats and soldiers were not even permitted in the country, the Tibetans were unable to convince the rest of the world to accept its independent status. Britain, America, and the rest of the world continued to regard her as part of China.
This was the situation into which the Great Thirteenth was born, and the political environment in which he lived.
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According to the Great Thirteenth’s official biography by Purchokpa Tubten lampa, after the Twelfth Dalai Lama passed away and was contemplating rebirth, he turned his attention to the tiny village of Langdun, or “Elephant View,” located a few hundred kilometers to the southeast of Lhasa. The village was known by this name because it lay at the foot of a magnificent mountain shaped like a charging elephant. Situated in Lower Dvakpo between the holy Heruka pilgrimage site of Tsari and the sacred mountain of Shanta, the entire area was adorned by many naturally-formed mystical signs, such as the eight auspicious emblems, the seven royal symbols and so forth. Purchokpa informs us, “When the Twelfth Dalai Lama was preparing to take rebirth he observed this site with admiration, and felt that it would be ideal.”
Next the appropriate parents had to be chosen. Purchokpa writes, In Langdun there lived a peasant farmer by the name of Kunga Rinchen. By nature he was sincere and non-deceitful, and had faith in the spiritual masters and the Three Jewels of Refuge. He was a naturally good man, known to all for his wise counsel, stable mind, steadfast devotion and fearlessness in the face of danger. Physically he was both handsome and strong. His wife, Lobzang Dolma, was equally noble in spirit. She was unassuming and gentle, with an instinctive sense of respect and compassion for all living beings. Throughout her life she had dedicated all her spare time to spiritual practice, and had a deep aspiration to one day give birth to a buddha. It was this humble peasant family that the Omniscient Master chose for his next rebirth.”
Purchokpa describes the actual process of reincarnation in rather dramatic terms, “He flew forth from the pure buddhafields like a falling star and, amid countless extraordinary signs, entered into this world once more.” On the night of his conception, the Langdun region was struck by an earthquake because, as Purchokpa puts it, “The humans and gods of the world were unable to sustain the joy of the birth of such a great soul.” The walls of the room in which the child was conceived cracked open and the roof shifted a handspan in distance. However, the altar in the room remained undisturbed. And although many buildings in the area collapsed, no harm whatsoever befell any living being. The next day rainbows filled the sky, seeming to emanate from the tiny house of the peasant family.
At first the local people were filled with apprehension. They approached the sage Dvakpo Tulku Jampal Lhundrub4 with the request to perform a divination and to interpret the nature of the many strange phenomena that were occurring. “When the earth shakes,” he told them, “either bad or good can be indicated. Often the birth of a high bodhisattva is accompanied by signs such as these. Indeed, it is not impossible that the recently deceased Gongsa Choktrul (the Twelfth Dalai Lama) has himself chosen to take rebirth here in the Dvakpo region. Many of the events that have occurred are very similar to those that manifested when Gyalwa Gendun Drubpa (i.e., the First Dalai Lama) completed construction of the main temple of Tashi Lhunpo Monastery.”
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On the night of the child’s conception, the mother-to-be dreamed that a young female dressed in Lhasa-style clothing came to her, offered her a white silk scarf and said, “A great lamp of the world is about to take rebirth as your son. Watch over him carefully.” Later the same evening, she dreamed that she found a white conch shell, the sound of which reverberated with the melodious Dharma teaching that awakens fortunate beings from the sleep of ignorance and points out the path leading to peace and liberation.
On another occasion she dreamed that a string of prayer flags reached from the Potala of Lhasa to the pillar of the conception room of her house at Langdun. A Lhasa monk and a girl dressed in exquisite ornaments appeared to her and gave her a beautiful vessel studded with jewels. “This cup belongs to Kyabgon Rinpochey [i.e., the Dalai Lama],” the girl told her. “Please keep it for him.”
These and many other such dreams came almost nightly to the expectant mother during the course of her pregnancy.
Many unusual physical phenomena also occurred. In the seventh month of the year the family began to prepare the winter’s supply of butter. One morning they half-filled several containers, and then took a break for lunch. When they returned, the containers had miraculously filled and overflowed by themselves. Then in the middle of the winter a pear tree outside the family’s house blossomed. The flowers stayed in bloom for several weeks, and were unaffected by the snow and the freezing weather.
Another event that caused considerable talk occurred on the evening of the sixth day of the tenth month of the year. An apparition of a pagoda-style building appeared over the farmhouse and remained visible for much of the evening. Eventually it transformed into a multicolored rainbow and then became a pure, white luminous sphere and melted into the sky.
From the beginning of Lobzang Dolma’s pregnancy a large white bird took up residence in a walnut tree beside the family’s house. Every morning it would fly off in the direction of Lhasa, but would always return in the evening, circumambulating the house clockwise three times before coming to rest in its nest. Elders and shepherds in the area also noted the appearance of a new star directly over the nearby Gampo Mountain.
All of these omens generated considerable excitement. Everyone suspected that a high teacher was soon to incarnate among them. However, few dared to think that this would be none other than the Dalai Lama himself.
Lobzang Dolma had not spoken to anyone about the content of her many dreams, not wanting to cause unnecessary gossip. She knew well enough that almost all the pregnant mothers in the country were praying that the children in their wombs were the reincarnation of the Dalai Lama. But Tibet had more than three thousand reincarnate lamas, and at any one time several dozen of these were in the state between death and rebirth. Lobzang Dolma, as well as most other people in the region, simply thought that the Langdun area was about to be blessed by the birth of one of these.
At dawn of the fifth month of the Fire Mouse Year (1876) Lobzang Dolma painlessly gave birth to a baby boy. The first rays of the morning sun burst forth from behind the eastern peaks and flooded into the room at the precise moment that the infant took his first breath. A brilliant rainbow instantly appeared over the house in a sky that was dotted with small puffs of cloud. A few moments later a light rain fell, auspiciously purifying the land and coating everything with diamond-like droplets that seemed to add to the magic of the occasion.
Purchokpa writes, “Even at the moment of birth the child was of an extraordinary appearance. The limbs of his body were perfectly developed, and his forehead was broad and full, like an opened umbrella. His hair was rich and lustrously black, with a single strand of white curling out clockwise at the crown. The pads of his fingers and toes were marked by tiny orbs of light, and mystic wheels could be discerned in the lines on the soles of his feet. His eyes were wide and elegant, and gazed with an expression of alert compassion that seemed to be fully aware of everyone and everything in the room. He bore every sign of being an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and those who beheld him instinctively experienced a strange and inexplicable sense of joy.”
* * * *
Back in Lhasa a committee had been formed to search for the Twelfth Dalai Lama’s reincarnation. A lama from Kundeling Monastery had been appointed as regent after the Twelfth’s death, and he would oversee the search.
The Twelfth had passed away while sitting in meditation in the Joyous Sunlight Chamber, a small chapel located in the south wing of the Potala. At the time of his passing he had been facing directly south, but by the following evening his head had turned toward the southeast. The body was later placed to dry in a casket of salt, as part of the mummification process. Once more it was faced in a southerly direction, but when the lid of the casket was removed to change the salt it was noticed that again the head had turned toward the southeast. Each time the salt was changed the position of the head was corrected, but each time it automatically turned back toward the southeast. All those in charge of the funeral rites witnessed this phenomenon.
The elderly Fifth Panchen Lama was approached by the committee and asked to perform a divination to determine the direction of the Twelfth’s rebirth. He confirmed that it would take place to the southeast of Lhasa. The two oracles of Samyey Monastery were then invoked and questioned. Both of them stated that the reincarnation would manifest to the southeast.
During the summer the State Oracle of Nechung Monastery performed a trance in the presence of the Twelfth Dalai Lama’s mausoleum. When asked for information on where the new incarnation would take place he replied, “The auspicious fruit of your aspirations will take rebirth to the southeast of Lhasa. A mountain shaped like an umbrella rises from behind the house of his birth, and a waterfall flows in front.” He went on to describe in detail the layout of the place in which the rebirth would occur.
Again in the seventh month of the Fire Mouse Year (1876) the Nechung Oracle was invoked. This time he stated, “The emanation of great compassion, our supreme transcended master, has already taken rebirth in the place that previously I described to you. The flowers of his body, speech and mind even now have begun to blossom.”
At dawn of the twenty-sixth of the tenth month, which is the day after the national Butterlamp Festival, a brilliant rainbow appeared in the sky above Lhasa. One of its tips seemed to emanate from the Potala and the other reached out to the southeast. This was visible to all. The sky was adorned with small white clouds that were almost solid in appearance, and were shaped like victory banners and other auspicious symbols.
The committee was now preparing to send out search parties to the southeast, with instructions to gather the names of children recently born under auspicious conditions. The Nechung Oracle was again invoked, this time in front of the regent, Tatsak Rinpochey, and various government officials, as well as the teachers, incarnate lamas and administrators of Drepung Monastery. The oracle spoke to them as follows:
“Hrih! O regent who serves the land so well, monk and lay officials of the government, elders of Nechung Monastery, lamas and administrators of Drepung Monastery, I will fulfill your wishes to know where the reincarnation is located. The Three Jewels of Refuge bear witness to the truth of what I say. Our sky-like teacher, the mere sight of whom brings benefits in both this and future lives, has been reborn to the southeast. I have already described the landscape to you. His father’s name is Kunga and his mother’s is Dolma. You should immediately appoint a holy master to go to the Oracle Lake and make an observation there. I will offer my assistance in the search.”
“Whom should we send?” the committee asked.
“Appoint the former abbot of the Upper Tantric College, Gyuto Khensur Lobzang Dargyey. Have him go to Chokhor Gyal Monastery beside the waters of the Oracle Lake. Meanwhile, you should draw up a list of all villages to the southeast of Lhasa, and send this list with him. While at Chokhor Gyal Monastery, Gyuto Khensur should perform a hundred
thousand invocations of Palden Lhamo. When this has been done he will
definitely receive clear signs of the reincarnation’s exact location.”
Consequently Gyuto Khensur, together with a small number of hand-picked ritual assistants, left for Chokhor Gyal Monastery and the Oracle Lake. They took up residence there and began the lengthy invocations and meditations that had been recommended by the Nechung Oracle.
At the time of the group’s arrival it was the middle of winter and the lake’s surface was covered with snow. However, after they had completed their spiritual practices a forceful wind arose and cleaned away the snow, until, as Purchokpa puts it, “The surface of the lake became as clear as a crystal mirror polished a hundred times.”
Then images began to form from within the lake. First the group beheld a farm with neatly kept terraces above to the east. An ancient stupa stood to the northeast. To the southeast was an old farmhouse, two or three stories in height, with a courtyard surrounded by a metal fence.
After these scenes had passed, a picture of a small village appeared. The village seemed to lie between the house and the stupa. These and many other images came and then faded. The group also saw the shape of the mountains in the area, as well as the nearby villages, grazing lands and meadows, and a long strip of farmland. As Purchokpa put it, “All of this appeared to them as clearly as though reflected in a mirror, or as though perceived in a crystal ball.” The details of the scenes in their visions were carefully written out and sent to the central committee.
Gyuto Khensur then entered into intense prayer and meditation. Just before dawn of the third day of the tenth month he dreamed that he stood in the center of a village. Walking eastward to the outskirts of the village he came to the household of a peasant farmer. The verandah of the house faced south, and on it sat a couple with a small child in their arms. “This is Kyabgon Rinpochey,” they said to him. He took the child into his lap, whereupon the boy lovingly touched him on the forehead and cheeks and said, “It is now more than five months since I took birth. But for the moment do not reveal my true identity to my parents or to the local people.” Gyuto Khensur then awoke from his dream with a start.
Toward the end of his retreat Gyuto Khensur again dreamed of the child. This time he was told, “The reincarnation has taken place to the southeast of Lhasa in the region of Dvakpo Langdun. Go there and you will easily locate him.”
Gyuto Khensur communicated all of this information to the Lhasa authorities and then left for Dvakpo Langdun. In his dream he had been advised to be secretive, and so he traveled in the guise of a simple pilgrim to the region, without announcing his real purpose.
In Dvakpo Langdun he recognized the many landmarks that he had perceived in the Oracle Lake and in his dreams, and was easily able to locate the peasant household that had appeared to him. When he arrived at the house, the parents and child were seated on the verandah just as they had been in his dream.
Later Gyuto Khensur wrote, “As for the child, he was slightly thinner than I remembered him from my dreams, but was otherwise identical. And how delightful he was to behold! His body was simply exquisite, with every sign of being that of a high incarnation. When I saw him I could easily imagine what it must have been like for those who had met Buddha as a child in Lumbini Gardens. And when I picked him up and placed him in my lap he touched my face as though blessing me, just as had occurred in my dream. From that moment on I didn’t have the slightest doubt that this was the child for whom we had been searching.”
Gyuto Khensur had come to the house informally and did not reveal his purpose to the parents or villagers. He sent a hurried message back to Lhasa to inform the authorities of his discovery, and asked the parents to permit him to stay in their guestroom for awhile while he visited the local power sites. The request was not unusual; Tibet had no hotels, and most households kept a room to rent to pilgrims and travelers. In this way he managed to keep an eye on the child’s well-being without attracting undue attention to himself.
His letter to Lhasa generated considerable excitement. The committee had compiled a list of promising children who had been born with auspicious signs. Further tests narrowed the list to three names.
Soon two special officials were sent to perform the traditional tests. With them they carried the late Twelfth Dalai Lama’s vajra and bell set, a rosary, a hand drum, and some articles of clothing. One by one the articles, mixed in with a number of similar objects, were placed on a tray and held up to the boy, and he was asked to take what he wanted. In each case he chose only those that had belonged to the previous Dalai Lama. This same test had been conducted on the other two candidates, but only the boy from Langdun was able to correctly separate the authentic articles from the imitations. The search for the new Dalai Lama had come to an end. The results were conclusive.
During the search for the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation a slightly comical episode took place in Lhasa. The wife of Kuchok Doring, who hailed from a powerful aristocratic family, was pregnant at the time. Convinced that the child in her womb was the precious incarnation, she told everyone of her convictions. Each morning and evening she would hold an incense pot under her dress for a few moments in order to consecrate the passage whereby the incarnation would enter the world. When it was announced that the Dalai Lama’s reincarnation had been discovered in the Dvakpo region, and thus it was clear that the baby in Lady Doring’s womb was not a candidate, a popular folk song appeared on the streets of Lhasa:
The radiant sun of Tibet Has taken birth in Dvakpo.
As for Lady Doring,
All she has is ash on her ass.
* * * +
On the full moon of the ninth month of the Fire Ox Year (1877) a delegation was sent from Lhasa to Langdun, bringing with it lavish gifts from the regent, as well as from the government and the principal monasteries. A throne was constructed in the living room of the tiny house, and the child was placed on it. The dozen or so officials sat around him on carpets laid out on the floor. The many presents that they had brought with them were offered to the child and his family, including numerous religious statues and articles, sacred medicines, three pouches of silver coins, a number of gold bars, large sacks of various foods and so forth. Although he was merely an infant, the child behaved with perfect decorum throughout the proceedings. This was an unofficial enthronement, but his identity as the true incarnation was now made known to all.
The following month the child and his family were asked to come to Lhasa. Crowds of pious devotees lined the road as the procession moved along, hoping to catch a glimpse of the young lama and to receive his blessings. He was carried on a golden palanquin at the center of a line of high monks and officials. The spectacle was magnificent, with a large escort of horsemen dressed in traditional Mongolian outfits, monks in rich yellow brocades, dignitaries in various ethnic costume, etc. Occasionally the procession would stop for the child to give blessings to the crowds that had gathered.
Eventually they arrived at Guntang, located across the Kyichu River to the south of Lhasa. It was the day before the full moon of the eleventh month, and an elaborate reception had been arranged for the boy in the Dewachen Temple. Here he met with the regent, Tatsak Rinpochey, for the first time, as well as with all the high lamas and government officials of the Lhasa area. Numerous foreign dignitaries were also permitted to be present, including the Chinese ambans and the ambassadors of Nepal, Kashmir, Sikkim and so forth. All who came received the traditional hand blessing, which the child performed without shyness or intimidation. The regent formally welcomed him, and the monks of the principal monasteries offered prayers for his long life.
Two weeks later, on the fourth day of the new year (i.e., the Earth Tiger Year, or 1878), the child met with the Fifth Panchen Lama and prepared to receive the hair-cutting rite and preliminary ordination of a monk. The Panchen, whose advice had been instrumental in the search for the new incarnation, had come all the way from Shigatsey in order to perform the ceremony and to give the young lama his ordination name.
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama’s ordination ceremony took place a week later, on the eleventh day of the new year. On this occasion, the Panchen Lama gave him the name Jetsun Ngawang Lobzang Tubten Gyatso Jigtrel Wangchuk Chokley Namgyal Palzangpo, or “Venerable Lord of the Teachings, He of Sublime Mind, Ocean of Buddhist Doctrines, Fearless and Powerful One, Glorious Guru Victorious in All Ways.” (Tibetans generally use only the fourth and fifth parts of it, or “Tubten Gyatso.”)
The young lama and his family remained in Guntang for approximately two months. They were then taken across the Kyichu River to Samten Ling, a monastery located on a hill three miles to the north of Lhasa commanding an excellent view of the Lhasa plains. The child lama would remain here with his parents for the next year, undergoing preparation for his formal enthronement and entrance into the Potala.
This was the beginning of the many years of study that would follow. The regent was appointed as his senior tutor, and Purchokpa Jampa Gyatso as junior tutor. This latter master had in fact served as the principal guru of the previous Dalai Lama (the Twelfth) and had led the funeral services following the Twelfth’s death, as well as overseeing the mummification of the body.
The elderly regent, in his capacity as senior tutor, would give the Thirteenth a number of initiations, precepts and transmissions; but the actual job of day-to-day teaching would fall to Purchokpa, the junior tutor. When the regent passed away some seven years later, Purchokpa was given the position of senior tutor.
It is interesting to note that after Purchokpa’s death the Great Thirteenth took time from his busy schedule to compose a major biography of him. In turn, the reincarnation of Purchokpa Jampa Gyatso was to become the chief disciple and biographer of the Great Thirteenth.
* * * *
Life in Samten Ling Monastery was a period of transition for the young Thirteenth Dalai Lama. Certainly it was more disciplined than the way he had lived as a farmer’s son in Langdun, but it was far less austere than the life he would lead after his entrance into formal training in the Potala. In Samten Ling he was allowed to spend several hours with his family every day, and his schedule was informal. Once in the Potala, visits from his parents would become less frequent. His days would be crowded with spiritual study and practice, and with a constant flow of visitors from all over Central Asia coming in search of his blessings.
The great guru Purchokpa Jampa Gyatso also took up residence in Samten Ling Monastery, and began to give him instructions on a daily basis. In particular, Purchokpa was charged with the task of preparing his ward for the elaborate ceremony of enthronement that was scheduled for the following year.
News of the discovery of the new Dalai Lama was communicated to the Chinese emperor, Kuang-hsu, via the Chinese ambans stationed in Lhasa. This was a necessary step in the process, for although Tibet was not part of China, the Tibetans certainly respected Manchu power. To recognize and enthrone a Dalai Lama without first showing the courtesy of requesting the emperor’s blessings could have drastic consequences.
Anytime that the golden urn sent to Lhasa by the Manchu emperor was not used in choosing the Dalai Lama reincarnations, elaborate excuses were made to the emperor. The emperor would be informed of the development of events and his “approval” of the enthronement requested.
On this occasion, Purchokpa wrote, “The information given by the oracles and high lamas, the images seen in the Lake of the Goddess, and all of the tests performed on the candidates pointed decisively to the child from Langdun as being the true reincarnation. The Panchen Lama, regent Tatsak
Rinpochey, the high lamas and officials of Ganden, Drepung, Sera and Tashi Lhunpo monasteries, and all the monk and lay officials of the Lhasa government unanimously agreed with the results and were satisfied that the correct choice had been made. Therefore it was decided that there was no need to resort to the golden urn. The Manchu ambans were informed, and were asked to communicate this information to the emperor, together with the request for his approval of the scheduled enthronement and the appointment of Regent Tatsak Rinpochey and Purchokpa Jampa Gyatso as the senior and junior tutors.”
In fact at this point in history the process of asking the emperor’s approval was merely a diplomatic formality. It was little more than a courtesy owed to him for his patron role. In no way could he ever risk refusing to give this “approval,” for to do so would be to jeopardize his position as patron. Consequently approval was soon forthcoming, and the Tibetans set about the task of readying themselves for the gala event.
Astrologers were asked to choose an auspicious date for the enthronement ceremony. The thirteenth day of the sixth month of the Earth Hare Year (i.e., 1879) was deemed to be most appropriate, and the preparations began. The entire city of Lhasa was cleaned and polished for the occasion, and banners were hung from every rooftop. On the day of the enthronement thousands of monks, nuns and lay devotees lined the sides of the road that the young lama would travel from Samten Ling Monastery to the Potala. The regent led the procession, followed by the Lhasa government officials, the chief monks from the various monasteries, various other leaders from around the country, and also the Chinese ambans and other foreign dignitaries resident in Lhasa. The sound of monastic trumpets and the aroma of rich incense filled the air as the spectacle of exotic pageantry unfolded. The crowd following behind increased in size as the procession passed and the devotees lining the streets joined in.
The first stop was the Jokhang, Tibet’s oldest and holiest temple. Here the Dalai Lama descended from his palanquin and offered prostrations in front of the sacred statue of Buddha Shakyamuni that was housed inside. The procession then went on to the Potala, ascending the many steps leading to the Avalokiteshvara chapel on the roof. This chapel housed a statue of the Bodhisattva of Compassion that was said to have self-manifested thirteen hundred years earlier during King Songtsen Gampo’s construction of the Red Fort, from which the Potala itself was later built. The image was believed to possess miraculous qualities, and many of the previous Dalai Lamas had performed meditation in front of it.
Everyone then proceeded to the Potala’s main assembly hall and the actual enthronement began. The regent and other high lamas presented the Dalai Lama with offering scarves, as did the Lhasa government officials and principal leaders from around the country, as well as the Chinese ambans and other foreign representatives. The regent delivered a proclamation officially declaring the enthronement, and the Chinese amban read a letter of congratulations from the emperor. Although only in his fourth year, the young Dalai Lama sat through the lengthy proceedings with a natural dignity that deeply inspired all those who were present.
From that day on the Dalai Lama took up residence in the traditional four-room apartment located on the roof of the Potala. His new life had officially begun.
Each day brought a new celebration. First the Panchen Lama held a welcoming banquet in honor of the young Dalai Lama, and then in turn similar receptions were sponsored by lamas and representatives of the major monasteries, various secular dignitaries from around the country, and numerous foreign officials. Each of these celebrations served to show off the young Dalai Lama to his people, and to introduce him to the principal spiritual and social leaders with whom he would have to work in his later years.
These must have been overwhelming times for the child lama. He was expected to sit and receive a constant stream of visitors, and to participate in long, arduous ceremonies. But gradually the pace of his life began to slow down somewhat and to become less public, as the emphasis shifted from celebration and ritual to study and learning.
Purchokpa Jampa Gyatso took up residence in the Potala with the boy and was placed in charge of his basic education. The Panchen Lama and Regent Tatsak Rinpochey would also give him a number of precepts and instructions, as would many other teachers, but Purchokpa would remain his closest preceptor.
On the sixth day of the first month of the Water Horse Year (1882), the young scholar took the ordination of a novice monk, with Regent Tatsak acting as the ordaining master and Purchokpa as the acharya. The Chinese emperor sent a letter of congratulations written in gold ink, together with numerous gifts. “We rejoice at the news that the Oceanic Teacher has begun to engage in his learning more diligently than ever,” he wrote. “We offer our prayers that, through this, the Yellow Hat tradition may thrive and flourish in the world, and that Buddhism may endure on earth as long as possible. In honor of the occasion of the novice monk ordination of the Oceanic Teacher we present an emerald rosary, a rice bowl made of jade, various silk brocades....”
This was the first year that the Thirteenth Dalai Lama presided over the Great Prayer Festival of Lhasa, an event to which he would dedicate much energy and time, eventually restoring it to the level of grandeur and prestige it had enjoyed during the era of the early Dalai Lamas.
* * * *
The young scholar’s studies now began to intensify, and several additional tutors were appointed to assist in his progress. A number of scholars from the principal Lhasa monastic colleges were also appointed as his tsenzhabs, or special assistants in philosophical training.
At the age of twelve, the Great Thirteenth made a tour of the seven colleges that constitute the three principal monastic universities of Ganden, Drepung and Sera. His visit caused considerable excitement among the monk/scholars of these institutions, for it was announced that he would join in the debates on the open courtyards. This would be the young lama’s first opportunity to publicly test the progress of his studies, and for the monks of the monastic colleges it would be an opportunity to see their chief incarnate engage in an open competition of wits. For a fortunate few it would provide an opportunity to debate with him personally.
The eager monks were to be more than satisfied, for in each of the colleges the young lama agreed to sit before the congregation and take up debates from the floor. No doubt his tutors were somewhat apprehensive at his bold offer; but he was not to fail them. The junior tutor, Purchokpa Jampa Gyatso, was present during all the encounters, and later commented, “Watching how easily and skillfully the youthful incarnation handled the debates thrown at him simply caused the hair on my body to stand on end. His maturity and understanding simply astounded everybody. No one who was there had the slightest doubt that he was truly the incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Bodhisattva of Compassion. All we could do was look on in awe.”
The elderly Panchen Lama, who had given the preliminary ordination and a name to the young Dalai Lama, had passed away a few years earlier. The Panchen’s reincarnation had been discovered and brought to Lhasa. Now it was the Dalai Lama’s turn to be the one bestowing blessings and a name. To the baby Panchen he gave the name Panchen Lobzang Chokyi Nyima, “Mighty Sage of Sublime Mind, Veritable Sun of Dharma Knowledge.”
In total the Great Thirteenth received teachings, initiations, oral transmissions and assorted precepts from almost a hundred different gurus during his lifetime. The majority of these were of the Gelukpa, or Yellow Hat School; but like all the earlier Dalai Lamas he combined his Gelukpa training with a strong dose of teachings and practice of the Nyingma, or Old School, dedicating tremendous energy to studying and practicing the various Nyingma doctrines.
In fact, the annals of Dzogchen Monastery describe him as an important Terton, or “Nyingmapa Treasure Revealer.” The treasures that he revealed include several important scriptures on the tantric mandala cycle known as Vajrakilaya. Many people also believe that the Great Thirteenth bore the secret tantric name Drakden Lingpa, whose magnificent deeds had been prophesied by Guru Padma Sambhava in the mid-eighth century. He is alleged to have written numerous secret texts under this alternative name; these treatises, of course, are not included in his standard Collected Works.
* * * *
On the eleventh day of the first month of the Wood Sheep Year (February 1895) the Great Thirteenth took the full ordination of a monk, with his guru Purchokpa Jampa Gyatso presiding as the ordaining master. The ceremony took place in the Jokhang Temple at Lhasa, and was attended by thousands of monks from the three monastic universities and two tantric colleges.
The Manchu emperor, Kuang-hsu, sent him a letter of congratulations. It read, “We have been informed that the Oceanic Teacher has taken the complete precepts of a monk, and are most delighted at the happy news. We offer our prayers that the Oceanic Teacher will strive to complete his studies, so that the sublime teachings of the Yellow Hat tradition may be disseminated throughout the world. We take pleasure in offering him a number of gifts, which accompany this letter....”
In the Earth Dog Year, or 1898, when the Great Thirteenth was in his twenty-third year, he announced that he would appear in each of the three principal monastic universities for public debate, and would stand for his geshey exam. This is the highest examination in the Tibetan academic tradition. To win it the Dalai Lama would have to debate with the best scholars in the country in front of some twenty thousand monk spectators, with his every word being carefully scrutinized by all.
As Purchokpa puts it, “Although nobody doubted the high level of his wisdom and understanding, he wished to uphold the tradition of proving oneself in open public debate before all the greatest sages in the land, a tradition that was maintained by all the early Dalai Lamas.” He remained for more than two weeks in each of the three monastic universities, every day debating with the best scholars of the generation. Purchokpa writes, “And he
met them like a mountain that is undisturbed by wind and thunder____The
lion’s roar of his wisdom burst the bubble of pride of the many jackals who came to challenge him.” Thus he ascended to the highest pinnacle of learning known to the Tibetan Buddhist world.
It is not possible to speak of the Great Thirteenth’s studies without saying something about his meditation training. In the Tibetan tradition meditation is practiced in three principal ways. The first is tunzhi naljor, or developing the habit of engaging in meditation four times daily; the second is leyrung, or occasionally performing short retreats that last for a few weeks or months in duration; and the third is nyenchen, or “great retreat,” that lasts from three to four years, and should be accomplished at least once during one’s lifetime.
The Great Thirteenth upheld all three of these modes of meditation training. From childhood he developed the habit of sitting in meditation four times each day, with Purchokpa Jampa Gyatso overseeing his progress. In the beginning his sittings were comprised largely of chanting the sutras and various prayers, but as his maturity increased the process became less one of recitation and more an opportunity to pursue contemplation and meditation.
As for the second mode, or the practice of occasionally making short retreat, this too he honored from childhood. Every year he would engage in two or three brief leyrung, each lasting a week or two, and before reaching his teens he had performed one retreat of three months’ duration. As the years passed, the time that he dedicated annually to leyrung gradually increased.
He entered his first nyenchen, or “great retreat,” during the fourth month of the Water Hare Year (i.e., spring of 1903), but unfortunately this was interrupted by the British invasion. However, the Great Thirteenth undertook and completed this retreat a decade later. On the thirtieth day of the tenth month of the Fire Dragon Year (late autumn 1916) he entered into seclusion for the nyenchen in connection with the Vajrabhairava (Yamantaka) tantric system. As Purchokpa puts it, “Here he first applied himself to the generation stage yogas practiced in four daily sessions, cultivating clear appearance in the mandala meditations and making firm the divine tantric pride, thus purifying the basis of ordinary perception of death, intermediate state and rebirth. When this had been made firm he went on to the completion stage yogas that fulfill the experiences originally aroused through the generation stage practices.”
Over a period of almost four years he fulfilled the tradition of the great retreat, complete with the time-honored threefold approach of preliminaries, main body of yogas, and the concluding practices. Purchokpa writes, “In this way he gained complete inner experience of the essence of the Vajra Vehicle, and upheld the legacy established by the early Dalai Lamas.”
* * * *
A strong political infrastructure had built up around the Dalai Lamas over the generations, even though none of them in recent memory had played a significant role within it. This was to change during the lifetime of the Great Thirteenth, and he was destined to take the helm of Tibet’s political life.
In fact, no Dalai Lama before him had directly played a significant political role for any extended period of time, with the exception of the Great Fifth. And even though the Fifth had been at the center of many political changes, most of the work for these was actually executed by his various viceroys. After the Fifth passed away great political hopes had been placed on the shoulders of the Sixth, but when he disrobed and was deposed by the Mongols, all of these fell apart. Then came the Seventh, but in the end his political status was only symbolic; he dedicated his life almost exclusively to spiritual matters, probably because of the very powerful Polhaney, who assumed sole rule throughout much of the Seventh’s lifetime. Next came the Eighth Dalai Lama, but he was a quiet and retiring man who showed little aptitude for Lhasa intrigues. And, as we saw in an earlier chapter, the Ninth to Twelfth Dalai Lamas all died too young to play a significant political role.
Regent Tatsak Rinpochey of Kundeling Monastery, who had overseen the search for and enthronement of the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, passed away during the fourth month of the Fire Dog Year (1886), when the Great Thirteenth was only eleven years old. He had ruled Tibet for twelve years. The Lhasa government had to appoint another regent to serve until the Dalai Lama came of age, and the position was given to Demo Tulku Trinley Rabgyey of Tengeling Monastery.
In 1893 the Great Thirteenth entered his eighteenth year, and many people pressed for him to be enthroned as active ruler of the country. However, the empowerment was postponed for two years, ostensibly so that he could complete his religious studies. Tibetan historians suggest that the brothers of Regent Trinley Rabgyey attempted to block the ceremony in order to retain power for themselves.
In any event, the Thirteenth completed his formal training and then took his final exams in the three monastic universities during the spring of the Wood Sheep Year, or 1895.
His enthronement as head of state took place four months later, on the eighth day of that same year.
Things went well enough for the next few years. The Great Thirteenth dedicated much of his time to studying and making meditation retreats, leaving the running of the country in the hands of his council of ministers. In particular, during these years he spent a great deal of time studying with the great guru Leyrab Lingpa, a master in the Nyingma School. Through him the Great Thirteenth accomplished the Nyingmapa lineages coming down from his predecessor the Fifth Dalai Lama.
* * * *
The Earth Boar Year (1899) got off to a bad start, and then turned bizarre. During a trance at the Great Prayer Festival, the Nechung Oracle warned of dangers to the Dalai Lama’s life. Nonetheless the Great Thirteenth continued to preside over the festival, and also over the geshey exams. However, soon afterwards he began to complain of physical discomfort, nausea and dizziness.
The Nechung Oracle was again invoked. This time he warned of a pair of shoes that had been given to the Dalai Lama’s friend, the Nyingmapa lama Sogyal Tulku, a fellow disciple of the Nyingmapa lama Leyrab Lingpa. Sogyal was questioned on the matter, and informed the committee that indeed Shaod Tulku, a young Ngakpa lama from his homeland of Nyarong in eastern Tibet, had given him a pair of exquisite shoes with the express request that he present them to the Dalai Lama as a gift. Sogyal admitted to accepting the shoes, but had never gotten around to passing them on to the Dalai Lama. In addition, Sogyal stated that once when he had tried them on he had experienced a nosebleed.
The shoes were brought forth and torn apart. Inside the soles were discovered various substances used in black magic, including a mystical diagram with the Dalai Lama’s name written on it. Shaod Tulku was arrested and questioned, and confessed that he had been hired by the brothers of the former regent, Demo Tulku Trinley Rabgyey, to destroy the Dalai Lama through occult means in an attempt to win back the throne for them. Tibetans suspected that Shaod Tulku had been putting a slow-acting poison into the Dalai Lama’s food, to supplement the effects of his magical spells. The shaman Shaod Tulku, together with the ex-regent and his brothers, were all arrested for treason. Thus, according to Tibetan historians, the murderous plot was foiled.
The story sounds somewhat implausible to the Western ear. There may be truth in it; but perhaps it was just a ploy to remove the regent and his brothers from political life. They had become unpopular during their rule, and had made many enemies among the Lhasa aristocracy.
Moreover, the premature deaths of so many of the recent Dalai Lama incarnations had the Tibetans on edge, and they were in no mood to take any chances.
* * * *
As described earlier, the Great Thirteenth’s life was overshadowed by the political events of his time, and particularly by Tibet’s pivotal role in the so-called “Great Game” between Britain and Russia. Britain thought they played an ace with the Anglo-Chinese treaty of 1876, known as the Chefoo Convention, in which they placed Tibet under Manchu China. China ostensibly was neutral in the Great Game, although in reality was politically closer to British than Russian spheres of influence.
However, this move produced very few immediate results. As part of the Chefoo deal the Manchus were supposed to use their influence in Lhasa to get the Tibetans to agree to open a trade mart at Yaaatung, on the southern border of Tibet, for the purpose of conducting trade with the British. The Tibetans refused to do this on the grounds that they had not signed the Chefoo agreement, and honoring any of its terms would be a tacit submission to it.
What followed was more comedy than serious politics. In the mid-1880s, the British unilaterally opened a trade mart at Yaatung to signal their enforcement of the Chefoo Treaty. The Lhasa government blocked all roads to it so that no Tibetans could avail themselves of it. The trade mart was in fact merely a circle of stones marking the designated trading spot. Every night the Tibetans would sneak down from the mountains and drag these stones away, thus effectively dismantling the “trading post”; the next day the British would put up a few new ones. This went on for awhile, causing no serious harm to anyone but seriously embarrassing the British.
Eventually it was decided that something had to be done. In 1886 the British sent the Macauley Expedition to the region to defend their “trading post.” As it turned out, there happened to be a force of some ten thousand Khampa warriors in Lhasa on pilgrimage at the time. The young Thirteenth Dalai Lama, only ten years old, requested the warriors to go to the Yaatung area and set up fortifications there in order to send the British a signal.
The episode was embarrassing to the British in India, but there was no consensus on how to react. Macauley suggested that he proceed to Lingtu and request Tibet, Sikkim and Bhutan to negotiate a treaty. London did not agree; there was no need to aggravate the situation by drawing attention to it and thus endangering the recently concluded Chefoo Convention. It would be better, the viceroy in India concluded, to ignore the incursion altogether and hope that the Tibetans would eventually retire of their own accord from a position that was undoubtedly difficult to maintain with supplies.
In October, the Chinese protested to the Tibetans over this violation of the Chefoo Convention. In return, the Tibetans responded by reinforcing their position at Lingtu and closing the area to British and Chinese alike.
Commenting on this incident, the biography of the Great Thirteenth states, “The young incarnation took time from his important studies to oversee the building of a sizeable army. Many of his advisors recommended that he distance himself from the events, but he felt it to be crucial that Tibet make known her independence from both China and the English. He therefore blessed the four officials in charge of recruiting the army, and later gave his blessings as well as protection strings to the many warriors who were dispatched to the south.”
Thus at a very young age the Great Thirteenth showed his readiness to stand and deliver. His biography further states, “Because involvement in violent activities can shorten a lama’s lifespan, three high Nyingmapa lamas and fifteen ritual assistants were requested to perform long-life rituals (for the Dalai Lama) day and night during this period, as was the entire Nyingma monastery of Mindroling.”
* * * *
Britain’s studied inactivity did not seem to be having the desired effect. In December of 1887, a letter was sent to the Tibetans at Lingtu informing them that if they did not withdraw voluntarily they would be forcibly removed in the spring. A similar letter was sent to the Dalai Lama in February. The Tibetans did not reply to either.
Meanwhile the Chinese were in a frenzy. In an attempt to delay affairs, they recalled their chief amban from Lhasa and appointed a new one. But the case was perhaps best described in Beijing by Li Hung-chang in a conversation with Edwin Goshen, in which the former commented, “People talk of China’s influence in Tibet, but it is only nominal, as the lamas are powerful there.” In other words, England and China may have agreed with one another to recognize Tibet as part of China, but the Tibetans had no intention of doing so, and the Manchus had no ability to enforce their claim.
In March 1888, the British sent a force of two thousand well-equipped soldiers under Brigadier Graham to expel the Tibetans from Lingtu. In May the poorly equipped Tibetans launched a surprise attack, and almost succeeded in capturing the Governor General of Bengal, who at the time was visiting the frontier. However, the attack eventually was repelled. In September a further Tibetan attack was launched, this time from Nadong. It too was unsuccessful, and marked the end of the Tibetan initiative.
Tibet had lost its first war with the British Empire, but she had succeeded in letting the British know her feelings and attitudes regarding Chinese authority within her borders. Britain had unwittingly opened something of a can of worms with China by creating the 1876 Chefoo Convention. By “giving” Tibet to China, she brought into question her own position in the many Himalayan states, such as Sikkim and Bhutan, that traditionally were Tibetan satellites. And because of the complex situation she had created, she could not now sign a treaty directly with Tibet but rather had to do so through a Chinese intermediary.
Therefore the treaty that followed the Anglo-Tibetan conflict on the Sikkimese border was slow and painstaking in the making, and was to further alienate the Tibetans from both the Chinese and the British. Signed at Darjeeling in 1890 by A. N. Paul for England and both Ho Chang-jung and James Hart for China, in effect it was a mutual agreement by these two parties recognizing British control over Sikkim, as well as Chinese control over Tibet. Again, the Tibetans were not consulted in the matter.
Not having been allowed to participate in the negotiations, Tibet refused to acknowledge the treaty. The British border markers that were erected on the frontiers of Tibet and Sikkim were removed by the Tibetans, and as for the trade mart at Yaatung, the Tibetans walled off the only road leading from Yaatung into Tibet, thus effectively rendering the enterprise impotent.
Another problem created by the treaty and resented by Lhasa was that the British now for the first time formally had agreed not to talk directly to the Tibetans, but rather to refer all Tibet-related matters to the Chinese government.
+ + * *
While all of this had been going on to the south and east of Tibet, the Russian Empire had been steadily growing in the north. Russian strength was well known in Lhasa, mainly because of the large number of Mongolian Buddhist principalities that had fallen under Russian sway. Many of the Mongolians of these areas continued to pursue their studies in the great monastic universities of Lhasa, bringing with them stories of the Russian activities.
One man in particular was to play an important role in building communications between Lhasa and the Russian Czar. This was Tsanzhab Ngawang Lobzang, a Mongolian monk who had graduated with high honors from the Gomang Department of Drepung Monastery, and who was one of the seven dialectical instructors or Tsanzhabs to the Dalai Lama. Popularly known to the Tibetans as Tsennyi Khenpo, or “Master of Dialectics,” he became famed to both the British and the Russians by the simpler name of Dorjieff (from the Tibetan Dorjey). Born in the Buriyat region of the Mongolian territories that had in recent times been acquired by the Czar, Dorjieff was therefore a Russian citizen.
On October 22, 1900, a dispatch reached the Foreign Office in London from Her Majesty’s Charge d’Affairs in St. Petersburg. It informed the British Government that not only was the Mongolian lama Dorjieff in Russia, but that the Journal de Saint Petersburg had carried a lengthy article outlining Dorjieff’s reception by the emperor (Czar Nicholas II) in the Lividia Palace at the Black Sea resort of Yalta. British intelligence also learned that Dorjieff had carried a letter of greetings to the Czar from the Dalai Lama. For the British, this was serious stuff indeed.
In June of 1901, Dorjieff was back in Russia (clandestinely via British India, a further irritation to the English) as the head of what the Russian press described as “... an extraordinary mission of eight prominent Tibetan statesmen.” The Tibetan envoys were given audiences by both the emperor and empress, to whom they presented gifts and a letter from the Dalai Lama. As Peter Fleming puts it in Bayonets to Lhasa,5 Dorjieff and the Tibetans “... were a nine-day wonder in the Russian capital, where the newspapers drew the obvious conclusions from their unheralded but gratifying visit.” The Russian paper Novoe Vremye mused, “Under the circumstances, a rapprochement with Russia must seem to the Dalai Lama the most natural step, as Russia is the only power able to counteract the intrigues of Great Britain.”
Needless to say, the British were extremely alarmed at the turn of events. Here they had taken such pains to insure Tibet’s distancing from Russia by signing her over to China, only to see the looming possibility of bungled British policy combined with China’s increasing weakness resulting in a Tibeto-Russian pact.
Ekai Kawaguchi, a Japanese monk who lived and studied in Tibet for three years just after the turn of the century, speaks of a short treatise written by Dorjieff that had gained wide popularity in Tibet. The treatise, Kawaguchi states, set forth the proposition that Russia was none other than the mythological Shambala, the mystical kingdom that was prophesied to emerge one day as the great patron and defender of Buddhism. Kawaguchi wrote, “I knew several priests who undoubtedly possessed copies of this pamphlet.... The one from whom I confidentially obtained the drift of the writing told me that he found in it some unknown letters. I concluded that the letters must be
Russian----Tsennyi Khenpo’s artful scheme has been crowned with great
success, for today almost every Tibetan blindly believes in the ingenious story... and holds that the Czar will sooner or later... found a gigantic Buddhist Empire.” 6
Kawaguchi also reports seeing two large caravans of gifts from the Czar arriving in Lhasa, the first comprised of two hundred camels loaded with various wares and the second of three hundred camels. He makes particular reference to the golden brocades that were a personal present to the Dalai Lama, a gift that symbolically meant more than the many hundreds of lesser items.
These exchanges between Tibet and Russia inspired near-panic in British India. The new viceroy, Lord Curzon, had arrived in 1898 and was determined to set the British Empire’s relationship with Tibet on a proper footing. He had grown up in the school that saw Russia as the greatest menace to British supremacy, and looked with mistrust on the policy of leaving Tibet in China’s care. He was not at all convinced that such a course of action (or rather, inaction) would be sufficient to check the Russian advance. On the 24th of May, 1899, he wrote to Hamilton, the Secretary of State for India,
The lamas have found out the weakness of China. At the same time they are being approached by Russia. There seems little doubt that Russian agents, and possibly even someone of Russian origin, has been at Lhasa, and I believe that the Tibetan Government is coming to the conclusion that it will have to make friends with one or the other of the two great Powers. That our case should not be stated in these circumstances, and that judgement should go against us by default, would be a great pity.
Britain had maneuvered herself into a difficult position with Tibet, first by nibbling away at the Himalayan kingdoms to the south and west of Tibet and second by signing treaties with China recognizing Chinese authority over Lhasa. In 1898, Calcutta sent presents to the Dalai Lama via the Bhutanese diplomat Kazi Urgyen, with the request that Kazi discreetly investigate the possibilities of establishing a closer relationship between Tibet and British India. He reported that the Dalai Lama had asked him to act as an unofficial peacemaker between Lhasa and Calcutta, and that Tibetan attitudes seemed to be favorable to a British overture. However, he added, the Tibetans were not agreeable to Chinese authority in their country and would only talk to the British provided that it did not appear they were doing so at the orders of China. Kazi Urgyen informed the British that “. •. the Dalai Lama is doing his utmost to lessen Tibetan dependence on China, and has established an arsenal in Lhasa as part of his plan to build up the Tibetan army.”
In 1899, the British had Kazi Urgyen draft letters to the Dalai Lama proposing trade. The Tibetans declined to accept the correspondence due to the fear that a dialogue of this nature could be interpreted to mean that they accepted the Anglo-Chinese trade regulations of 1893, to which the Tibetans had not been allowed as a participant.
Lord Curzon decided on an alternative route of communication. In July of 1900, he dispatched a letter to the Dalai Lama via western Tibet. The letter was returned a few months later; nobody wanted to take responsibility for delivering it.
Kazi Urgyen was scheduled to visit Lhasa the following year with two elephants, two peacocks and a leopard for the Dalai Lama. Lord Curzon gave him a revised form of the earlier letter. If the Tibetans did not soon start negotiating with the British, Curzon wrote, .. my Government must reserve the right to take such steps as may seem to them necessary and proper to enforce the terms of the Treaty, and to ensure that the Trade Regulations are observed.”
Kazi Urgyen returned to India in October, claiming that the Dalai Lama had refused to accept the letter. However, Sarat Chandra Das, the famous lexicographer who for several decades had been an advisor of Tibetan affairs in the pay of British India, commented that in all probability Kazi Urgyen did not have the courage to present the letter directly to the Dalai Lama as instructed, but instead had followed the traditional protocol of first discussing the matter with the Lhasa ministers. The ministers would undoubtedly have been against the idea, and once Kazi had asked their advice he would be unable to go over their heads by approaching the Dalai Lama directly.
The timing of these events was interpreted by the British to be significant. The Buriyat monk Dorjieff happened to be in Russia bearing greetings from Lhasa the same year that the viceroy attempted to send his first letter to the Dalai Lama. The viceroy’s second letter was sent and returned the following year, when Dorjieff and the delegation of “eight Tibetan statesmen” were in St. Petersburg with the Czar, having gotten there by traveling through British India. The British had suffered a distinct loss of face.
Soon thereafter popular rumors began to abound in both London and British India of a “secret pact” between Russia and Tibet. Another rumor spoke of a “Sino-Russian agreement,” in which China and Russia were alleged to have signed a treaty allowing the former the right to allow Tibet to orient toward Russia in return for Russia allowing various parts of Chinese Turkestan and eastern Mongolia to be left open for a Chinese takeover.
This latter agreement was reported to have been signed in Lhasa on Feb. 23rd, 1903, by a Russian agent named Licoloff and the Chinese amban Ho. British intelligence in China concurred that five Russians had visited China in 1903 and then gone on to Lhasa, thus giving credence to the rumor. The North China Herald went so far as to publish a story outlining the main clauses of the supposed agreement.
Lord Curzon personally believed that something was afoot to which the British were not privy. In November of 1902, he wrote that he was “... a firm believer in the existence of a secret undertaking, if not a secret treaty, between
China and Russia about Tibet,” and that he considered it his duty to “frustrate this little game while there is still time.”
The idea of a secret Sino-Russian pact was not impossible. China’s control over Tibet was questionable, so for her to relinquish her weak claims there for more tangible gains elsewhere was quite plausible.
Lord Roberts, the Commander-In-Chief of the British army in India, was extremely concerned. In October of 1902 he wrote, “I consider it out of the question Russia being permitted to obtain a footing in Tibet; we have had, and shall still have, quite enough trouble owing to Russia being so near to us on the Northwest Frontier of India that we cannot avoid; but we can, and ought to, prevent her getting a position which would inevitably cause unrest all along the Northeast Frontier.”
To Curzon there was only one possible solution; an Anglo-Tibetan treaty negotiated in Lhasa. He regarded the Russian threat as serious indeed, and wrote, “Unless we take steps promptly and effectively to counteract it, we shall rue the day for years to come.”
The problem for Lord Curzon was that London did not see Tibet as being as important as China in the overall scheme of things in the British Empire, and in no way wished to risk the lucrative China trade by violating the Chefoo Convention through an invasion of Tibet. A compromise was struck: The British would meet the Tibetans at Khambajong, just inside Tibetan territory, and negotiate a trade agreement from there. J. C. White and Major Francis Younghusband were appointed to lead the British delegation, with an escort of two hundred soldiers. But the Home Government insisted that on no account was there to be an advance beyond Khambajong without direct permission from London.
The British force crossed the Tibetan border without resistance on July 1903. However, the Tibetans did not dispatch anyone with sufficient authority to carry on discussions. Days became weeks and months, with no progress in the situation.
Lord Curzon now had to build up a case to convince London to allow the party to advance further into Tibet. The issue was a sensitive one, for the project had to be executed without unduly alarming either China or Russia. Trade with China could not be sacrificed, and a direct encounter with Russia could easily lead to a conflict that could escalate out of control. Nobody was certain whether or not Russia had pledged assistance to Tibet, nor even if Russian troops were present in Lhasa.
In November a cautious note of permission to advance arrived. J. C. White was recalled and Younghusband became the sole political head of the expedition, with Brigadier-General MacDonald as commander of the military escort (which had by now increased to over 8,000 men). In December they crossed the Jelepla Pass into the Chumbi Valley and Phari. In January they proceeded to Tuna, where they set up camp for three months and waited in vain for a delegation from Lhasa.
In March the expedition moved toward Gyangtsey, meeting its first resistance at Guru. Here the Tibetans were easily defeated, with heavy casualties on the Tibetan side. The expedition reached Gyangtsey on April 11th, after a number of further clashes but with no serious setbacks.
May saw an unsuccessful Tibetan attack on the expedition at Gyangtsey, but still no delegation arrived from Lhasa to negotiate a treaty. Finally the British force reached Lhasa on August 3rd. The Lhasa Convention was signed on September 7th by both the British and the Tibetans (the Chinese amban refusing to participate).
On the 22nd of September Younghusband and his expedition left to return to India. But they did not return as heroes. The invasion of Tibet had been intensely controversial, being initially conceived solely as a trade mission. News that more than a thousand Tibetans had died in the skirmishes did not go over well in London. Younghusband was accused of going above and beyond the mandate that had been given to him.
As problematic as his methods were, there were several clauses of the Lhasa Convention that he had forced. Article seven, for example, allowed for the British occupation of the Chumbi Valley for a period of seventy-five years, which was tantamount to annexation, a move that would cause considerable international consternation. Article nine asked the Tibetans to agree to have no dealings with any foreign power whatsoever without British consent, an arrangement that undoubtedly would enrage both the Russians and the Chinese. An appended separate article allowed for the British trade agent at Gyangtsey to visit Lhasa at will, a clause more or less creating a British Resident in Lhasa. This was something that London and Russia had agreed that neither of them would do.
Probably all would have gone well if Curzon had been in India at the time. Unfortunately for Younghusband, Curzon was on an extended leave, and his replacement, in the person of Lord Ampthill, was not of a similar disposition. Whereas both Curzon and Younghusband had felt that the only way to guarantee Tibetan freedom from a Russian presence was the establishment of a permanent British influence in Lhasa, London did not agree and had said so previous to the expedition and in no uncertain terms.
The debate and confusion that raged in London and India following the Younghusband expedition eventually led to the disgrace of Younghusband and, to a lesser extent, Lord Curzon. Unfortunately it also resulted in the treaty of Great Britain and China, signed in Beijing in April of 1906, in which all that Younghusband had gained was thrown away and Tibet was handed over once more to Chinese control. This policy was later further strengthened by the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1907, in which Russia agreed to Tibet’s going to China in return for British recognition of the Czar’s presence in Mongolia; and also by the Shimla Convention of 1913-14, where once again misguided British politics were to tie Tibet to China.
In the “Great Game of the British Empire” it may accurately be said that England thrice sold Tibet to China. First, the British in India chose to call Tibet a part of China in the hope of gaining favor with the Manchu emperor and using Tibetan soil as an alternative trading route to the Far East. Next she re-sold Tibet to China in order to validate her own colonialism of Burma and the Indian Himalayas, and to keep Tibet out of the Russian sphere of interest. Last, having invaded Tibet and rendered her helpless, she handed her over to China in order to maintain the status quo and to cover up her own bungled policies.
The Thirteenth Dalai Lama seems at a very young age to have perceived the delicacy of the Tibetan predicament, and to have attempted to negotiate a middle ground between British India, Russia and China. The path he followed was perilous, and perhaps it may be argued that it did not meet with tremendous success. However, the fact that he never buckled under the pressure, and that he inspired his tiny country to challenge the might of these three superpowers in Asia, is one of the many reasons that the Tibetans remember him as the “Great Thirteenth.”
* + * *
The manner in which the Great Thirteenth dealt with the British throughout this period was criticized by many Western diplomats of the era. Certainly he had not handled matters in the way the British had hoped he would. But on the other hand, it must be admitted that the British were not particularly accommodating to the Tibetan position. With the Chefoo Convention, they had insisted on dealing with Tibet as though she were a suzerain of China, and this was a platform from which the Tibetans did not wish to work.
As early as 1899, the Great Thirteenth had sent a message to British India stating that he was willing to open a dialogue with the British, provided that it was on an equal footing and that it did not appear that he was doing so in acquiescence to Britain’s Chefoo Convention with China. It may well be argued that, if any mistake was made here, it was made by the British in insisting in all their communications that Tibet accept the Anglo-Chinese pact. In the end, the British claimed that they were invading Tibet because the latter refused to accept the Trade Regulations of the Chefoo Convention, to which the Tibetans themselves had not been a signature.
It would appear that in 1903, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was convinced Tibet’s foreign relations were basically stable, for in the early summer of that year he entered into the “great retreat,” or nyenchen, that lasts for a period of three to four years. And in all probability he had interpreted the general political atmosphere correctly, at least as far as the overall British policy was concerned. London in no way wanted to see a military invasion of Lhasa, for to do so was to risk grave consequences in her relationships with both Russia and China.
However, the timing was unfortunate. While Younghusband sat on the borders of Tibet sending messages back and forth to Lhasa, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama was engaged in his retreat. The Tibetans, therefore, attempted to stall the British, hoping to postpone the making of any important decisions until the Dalai Lama’s retreat was over. To them it was only a matter of delaying things for two or three years, when their leader would again be out and around in public; to the British the delays seemed endless and inexplicable. Younghusband wrote,7 “Never have I met so obdurate and obstructive a people.” It seemed that his every attempt to bring discussions to a head met with delays and obstructions. Younghusband, of course, was completely unaware of the fact that the Dalai Lama was in a closed retreat. Nor do later British writers seem to have known of it. Even Bell fails to mention the fact in his Portrait of the Dalai Lama.
The situation may best be described as the collision of two radically different cultures: the one intensely spiritual and the other both militant and secular. Younghusband had determined to settle a trade agreement with the Tibetans by the summer of 1904, but with the Dalai Lama in a three-year retreat, the Tibetans were in a state of temporary political incommunicado.
Fourteen months after the Great Thirteenth had entered into meditation, the British left Gyangtsey and began the final stage of their invasion of Lhasa. The Tibetan Government, unsure of what course of action to follow, invoked the Nechung Oracle and asked his advice. The oracle recommended that the Dalai Lama be requested to discontinue his retreat and leave for Mongolia until a settlement with the British could be achieved.
In typical style, the Tibetan biography of the great Thirteenth by Purchokpa provides us with a nonworldly account of the Dalai Lama’s reasons for leaving the Tibetan capital at that time. Purchokpa writes,
The Great Thirteenth realized that there were countless trainees in Mongolia and China in need of his attentions. Also, he had a longstanding wish to visit the holy places of the northeast, particularly the birthplace of Lama Tsongkhapa in Amdo and the holy Five-Peaked Mountain [i.e., Wu-tai Shan] of Manjushri in western China. He especially wanted to spend some time on the Five-Peaked Mountain, for he felt it to be important for him to re-consecrate the site for the spiritual inspiration of future generations and as a power spot for the release of mystical energies conducive to world peace. He also realized that he was destined to rediscover several important religious treasures there that would be important to the future of Buddhism. Therefore when the British appeared at the bridge south of Lhasa he decided that the time had come for him to leave the Potala and travel to these faraway regions.
Thus it came to pass that when Younghusband arrived in Lhasa, the Dalai Lama was nowhere to be found. He had departed for Mongolia, leaving instructions with his Cabinet and the Ganden Tripa to work out a treaty with the British. The tactic was an ancient one: The invaders would be placed at a distinct disadvantage by having to deal with minor officials, and if a bad treaty were agreed to it could later be repudiated on the basis that it had not been signed by the Dalai Lama himself.
* * 4 *
The next five years saw a “Dalai Lama on the road.” Although the British conflict was resolved within a few months of his departure, he remained in Mongolia for a year, teaching and giving initiations at various places in the country, and also performing the usual Dalai Lama functions, such as giving hand blessings to long lines of pilgrims.
He then traveled down the eastern border regions of Tibet, where his predecessor the Third Dalai Lama had established many monasteries several centuries earlier, and where the Seventh had lived during his early years. Again, here he taught and gave many initiations to the local peoples.
His reception at Kumbum, the monastery that had been established by the Third Dalai Lama at the birthplace of Lama Tsongkhapa, was witnessed by two Englishmen: Lt. John Weston Brooke; and the Christian missionary J. Ridley of the China Inland Mission.
An account of Brooke’s travels was later published from his diary, edited by W. N. Fergusson, and provides us with a vivid picture of the spectacle.8 The pair watched the procession pass on the road, and then followed it into the town. Brooke wrote,
A crowd of horsemen drew near, surrounding a large yellow cloth-covered chair, which was carried by four horses led by four mounted Tibetans, two on each side, so that we only caught a glimpse of the occupant for a second. We followed with the crowd until we reached a large camp which was prepared for him outside of the monastery of Kumbum. Here we found hundreds of tents, all pitched in a square, with one, a Mongol tent of rich yellow cloth, surrounded by a wall of the same material, where the Dalai Lama was to spend the night. Outside the square were crowds from many different nationalities from different parts of Asia: Mongol princes with gaily-attired camels, bringing presents from the north; wild-looking Tibetans with matted hair hanging down their backs, riding equally wild-looking ponies, driving unwieldy yaks, thin from long travelling, perhaps from Lhasa or unknown regions in southern Tibet; Chinese in gorgeous colored silks; and muleteers with their galled mules.
The next day the Dalai Lama gave blessings and a sermon to the colorful crowd, and moved into a space that had been prepared for him in the monastery. The Englishmen were given a private audience. Brooke’s diary recalls,
He gave me a small image of Buddha. Mr. Ridley received a bundle of
joss-sticks and a roll of Lhasa cloth____The room was well-warmed, and
a mysterious scent of incense pervaded the atmosphere. The Dalai Lama sat in front of us, cross-legged, on silk cushions which were placed on a table about four feet high. His face did not show the slightest trace of expression; he greeted us with a slight forward movement of his body, but
nothing like a smile ever approached his face as we conversed____One
could not help thinking that he must have trained his features to resemble the unsympathetic emptiness of the brazen images of the country.... After about half an hour’s talk, which was mostly on our side, I asked if I might photograph him, but he refused. With a low bow we backed out of his presence; as we backed his features relaxed into a faint
smile----So ended our audience with the Dalai Lama, his first, I believe,
with an Englishman.
The Great Thirteenth remained at Kumbum Monastery for several months, giving teachings and blessings to pilgrims and the people of the area. He also took the opportunity to make short trips into the adjoining regions, and to lead prayer gatherings in front of the mystical tree that had grown from the spot where Tsongkhapa’s afterbirth had been buried.
It was during this stay that he developed his friendship with the Taktser Tulku, one of the high incarnate lamas of Kumbum, and the lama to whom I refer in the second note to this chapter. As mentioned there, after the Taktser Lama died he was reborn into a small family in the Taktser region. The present Dalai Lama was born into this same family approximately a decade later, a year after the death of the Great Thirteenth.
Thus we can see that, in addition to teaching and giving initiations in the Kumbum area during this visit, the Great Thirteenth was also making arrangements for his own future incarnation.
While he was at Kumbum, a delegation of officials arrived from Lhasa requesting him to return immediately. Another delegation arrived from the emperor and empress at Beijing, requesting him to visit the Chinese capital. The Russians then contacted him, advising him to return to Lhasa without visiting Beijing, and offering him an armed escort. The British also contacted him here and advised him not to go to Beijing.
It should be noted here that the Dalai Lama’s political predicament was extremely sensitive at this point in time. After the flight from Lhasa, the Chinese emperor had declared him deposed, and had had posters to this effect put up on the streets of Lhasa (though it is said that the Tibetans immediately took them down and smeared them with human excrement). The English then attempted to set up the Panchen Lama as a replacement to the Dalai Lama, but the former had declined the offer.
In all probability the Great Thirteenth was planning to return to Lhasa at this point in his travels. However, when both Russia and England played their hands and revealed that they were against his visit to China, his curiosity was aroused and he determined to accept the emperor’s invitation.
But first he would visit one of China’s holiest pilgrimage sites: Wu-tai Shan, the sacred Five-Peaked Mountain. Here he took up residence in a temple that had been built several centuries earlier for the Fifth Dalai Lama. For five months he remained on the Five-Peaked Mountain, immersed in prayer and meditation. And of course the throng of devoted pilgrims continued to come to him for his blessings and teachings. His biography states that while at Wu-tai Shan he achieved many visionary experiences and performed a number of miracles. Of note, W. W. Rockhill, the American ambassador to China who later mastered the Tibetan language and visited Lhasa, came to see him at this time, carrying greetings from President Roosevelt.9
The Dalai Lama arrived in Beijing in September of 1908, and was received with great ceremony. Here he stayed at the Yellow Palace that had been built by Manchu emperor Shun-shi for the Fifth Dalai Lama when the latter had visited Beijing.
When the Great Fifth had come to Beijing in 1653 he had been treated as the leader of a foreign country. Now, however, the Chinese Government knew that the Thirteenth was in a weakened position, and they planned to use this to their advantage. The Dalai Lama was told that he would be expected to kowtow at his audience with the emperor and empress, i.e., bow in the manner of a visiting vassal. He would also be given a seat lower in height that those of the Chinese rulers, again a symbol of Chinese authority over Tibet.
The Dalai Lama objected to both conditions, and the audience had to be postponed. He would see the emperor and empress on equal terms, or he would not see them at all.
Eventually arrangements were made, and he received independent audiences with both Chinese rulers. The audiences went well, and in October he was entertained at the palace for a full week, officiating over various religious rites and leading prayers for peace in the land.
Then a most unexpected event occurred. Suddenly on November 21st the emperor passed away; and the following day the empress followed suit. The nation was thrown into a state of shock.
The Dalai Lama was asked to lead the funeral rites for both. Tibetans believe that his advice was also sought in choosing the new emperor, the boy destined to become the last ruler of Manchu China.
A month later, the Great Thirteenth left Beijing and began the long trek back to Lhasa. The journey would take him almost a year to complete, for he was expected to give sermons and initiations at every monastery along the route, and to give blessings to the crowds who lined the roads as he traveled. His Collected Works is filled with notes taken by various disciples at discourses given on these occasions, and with small texts of advice written for the different monasteries.
He finally arrived at Lhasa in the middle of December, 1909, having been absent from the Potala for more than five years.
*****
The Great Thirteenth had originally left Tibet because of the invasion of Sir Francis Younghusband, and in hopes of undoing the political web the British had spun around his country. Yet even though he succeeded in making known the Tibetan sentiment, the problem was a long way from being solved.
In all fairness it must be said that Sir Francis had been a kind invader, as invaders go. He was well-intentioned in his mission, and was genuinely humane with the conquered Tibetans. Providing medical care to the wounded and compensating the local villagers for all food and services that he demanded of them, he left his victims with a general impression of his decency and fairness. The treaty that he struck with the Lhasa authorities would have served Tibet well, had London allowed it to stand; but unfortunately the Foreign Office undermined it two years later in the Anglo-Chinese Agreement signed at Beijing, where all that Younghusband had won for England was handed over to the Chinese, much to the chagrin of all who had intimate knowledge of the actual situation in Central Asia.
The real failure of London’s policy in Tibet was its lack of consistency. The Younghusband expedition had effectively destroyed Tibet’s defenses, an act that perhaps would not have resulted in disaster had the British upheld their end of the bargain in the Lhasa treaty; but the new agreement signed in Beijing in 1906 gave the Chinese a free hand in a now hamstrung Tibet.
Even as the Dalai Lama was returning from China, the dangers began to become manifest in the form of General Chao Erh-feng, known to the Tibetans as “Butcher Chao” because of his habit of beheading all who stood in his way. The number of those he beheaded was said to reach into the tens of thousands. Butcher Chao had begun carving away at pieces of Tibet’s eastern border as early as 1905, merely a year after Younghusband’s invasion. His activities steadily increased over the following years, and he decided to take the Tibetan capital shortly after the Dalai Lama’s return. With Tibet stripped of its defenses, the task was an easy one. The Chinese army arrived in Lhasa on the third day of the first month of the Male Iron Dog Year, i.e., February of 1910.
The Nechung Oracle was again invoked. He advised that the Dalai Lama should flee to British India, and should work from there for Tibetan independence. The problem had been created by the British, and it should be solved from British soil.
The Great Thirteenth’s escape this time was far more dangerous and dramatic than it had been in 1904, for Lhasa was now in enemy hands. Therefore the Dalai Lama, his chief ministers, and a small armed escort slipped out of the Potala in the dead of night, crossing the river and heading westward. The next day General Chao learned of the flight and sent a cavalry in chase, offering a large reward to whoever would bring him the head of the Dalai Lama.
One man stands out above all others in the events to follow: Chensel Namgang, a youth of peasant extract whom the Dalai Lama had taken in as a member of his bodyguard staff some years earlier and had cultivated as one of his main aides. When the Dalai Lama crossed the Chaktsam Bridge and headed south toward India, Chensel Namgang remained behind with a small body of troops and for two days held off the large and highly trained Chinese forces, thus allowing the Dalai Lama time to make good his escape. This young hero then slipped off into the hills and followed after his master. Chensel Namgang was later to play an important part in Tibetan history. He was first appointed by the Dalai Lama as head of the Tibetan resistance movement in India, and later, after the Manchu Government had fallen and the Chinese were pushed out of Tibet, he became the famous Tsarong Dazang Dradul, Commander-in-Chief of the Tibetan military. A separate book deserves to be written about the many glorious deeds of this wonderful hero, who so symbolizes all that was good in Old Tibet and great in the Tibetan character.
The Great Thirteenth was well received in India by the British, who fully extended their hospitality to the Dalai Lama, no doubt to a considerable extent because of a sense of guilt over the mess London had unwittingly made of its diplomatic policy towards Tibet.
In Kalimpong the whole town came out to receive their famous and holy visitor. Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims and Christians alike lined the road to greet him. A few days later the party was moved to Darjeeling, the summer capital of Bengal. The visitors were to be housed here until the situation in Lhasa permitted their return.
As on the Dalai Lama’s earlier trip to Mongolia and China, here again he was in a forced exile, but from outer appearances he seemed more like a sage on pilgrimage. Every day hundreds of devotees came to see him and receive his blessings, and he continued to give teachings and initiations as usual. The predicament in Tibet must have demanded much of his thoughts, but, as with the present Dalai Lama, the Great Thirteenth showed the ability to thoroughly compartmentalize his life, and at any one moment to live in that dimension expected of him. When British diplomats visited, he was the diplomat; when Tibetan ministers and resistance leaders approached him, he responded as the secular chieftain; and when pilgrims and devotees came, he was the spiritual preceptor.
Shortly after the Great Thirteenth’s arrival in Darjeeling, he met with Sir Charles Bell, whom the British Government now placed in charge of his care. Over the years to follow, this sensitive and kind Englishman, who years earlier had acquired a flawless command of the Tibetan language, was to become the Dalai Lama’s closest British friend. He was also to serve as one of the most important Western spokesmen for Tibet in those early days of Tibetology, authoring half a dozen books on Tibetan culture.
Sir Charles arranged for the Dalai Lama to be settled in a vacant English mansion just outside the town, with his ministers settled in a townhouse. The accommodations were simple but adequate. The British Government also provided a small grant for the provision of their new guests.
In March, Viceroy Lord Minto invited the Dalai Lama to Calcutta, where he was accorded a twenty-one gun salute. The Foreign Office, however, had ruled that England was to remain neutral in Tibet’s conflict with China, and thus Lord Minto was in a position to do nothing more than grant hospitality and moral encouragement to the refugees, whose task it was to effect the liberation of their homeland.
The Dalai Lama therefore appealed to the Russian Czar to come to Tibet s aid. Again, the reply was polite but reserved; Russia’s treaties with Britain did not permit her to intervene in Tibetan affairs.
As Sir Charles Bell points out, throughout this rather trying ordeal the Dalai Lama continued his religious practices and meditations as usual. Anyone passing near his house in the morning or evening would hear him chanting his prayers, to the accompaniment of his small hand drum and bell. And often when he traveled in India he would miss his meals rather than interrupt his meditations.
The departure of the Dalai Lama from Lhasa and his exile in Darjeeling caused severe problems for the Chinese in Tibet, who would have far preferred to use him as a puppet in their designs or to dispose of him altogether. As the latter course of action was now out of the question, they made overtures to him to return and take up office under Chinese supervision. A Manchu official with a letter to this effect arrived in India in September of 1910. The Dalai Lama sent a stern reply to the amban:
I received your message asking me to return to Lhasa to help you in your administration of our country.... In the past the Manchu emperors had always shown great care for the welfare of the successive Dalai Lamas, and the Dalai Lamas had reciprocated these feelings of friendship. We always had each other’s best interests at heart.... But now the situation has changed drastically.... Many Chinese troops were recently sent into Tibet, oppressing the people and the monasteries to such an extent that requests came to me from every quarter to give my permission for violent resistance. I refused this permission, feeling that it would be best first to attempt to work out a peaceful settlement. With this in mind, and at great personal hardship, I came to the Tibetan frontier and prepared to negotiate. But then many Chinese troops were sent after me to bring me back dead or alive.... Meanwhile back in Tibet many peace-loving people have been killed or illegally imprisoned.... It appears that the emperor himself has stood behind all of this on the advice of the amban, without any considerations whatsoever for Tibetan independence or the ancient religious connection between our two countries... .Therefore I feel that there is no longer any point in talk.... It is not possible for Tibet and China to have the same relationship as before.
In March of the new year (1911), the Dalai Lama and his party took the opportunity to make pilgrimage to the four places in India that are holy to all Buddhists: where the Buddha had been born, where he had achieved his enlightenment, where he had delivered his first teaching and where he had passed away. In each of these locations the Great Thirteenth meditated and engaged in intensive prayer. His visit to and re-consecration of these sites was to revive the interest of the many Himalayan Buddhists in them, giving them a new lease on life. It is interesting to note that the present Dalai Lama has continued the work that was then initiated by the Thirteenth, and that the revival of the Indian Buddhist pilgrimage places has to a large extent been due to these two incarnations.
Tibetans believe that the patron/priest arrangement that the Manchus had enjoyed with the Tibetan lamas over the past two centuries had provided the Manchus with the karmic fortune required for the latter’s peace and stability. Thus, when the Great Thirteenth was in Beijing and the emperor and empress had abused their patron role by trying to pressure him politically, it was no coincidence, Tibetans believe, that the two rulers passed away even while he was still in the city. They had destroyed the root of merit sustaining their positions; the karmic repercussions manifested almost instantly in their deaths.
But the Chinese error did not end there, for the new rulers almost immediately invaded Tibet in the hope of making it into a province of China. The entire Manchu Dynasty had now undermined its base of merit. The karmic result was the revolution of 1911 that broke out in China while the Dalai Lama was in exile in India. In November, Manchu rule came to an end, replaced by Sun Yatsen and his Nationalist Party. Butcher Chao was recalled from Szechwan and suffered death by beheading, the gruesome punishment he had inflicted on so many of his own victims. The wheel of fate had turned full circle.
When the Great Thirteenth heard news of the growing strength of the Chinese revolution, he sent Chensel Namgang, the hero of Chaktsam Bridge, back to Tibet to lead the underground forces. The tactic worked well. All over Tibet the Chinese garrisons were uprooted, until only the main army m Lhasa remained.
In June of 1912, the Great Thirteenth left Kalimpong for Tibet, having once again outlived the temporary successes of his adversaries.
* * + *
In January of 1913 the Great Thirteenth arrived in Lhasa. The entire city turned out to greet him and rejoice in the success of his adventures. On the eighth day of the first month of the new year, he issued his famous Declaration of Independence, with its five essential clauses defining Tibets new direction. He wrote,
From the time of Genghis Khan and Altan Khan of the Mongols, the Ming Dynasty of the Chinese, and the Ching Dynasty of the Manchus, Tibet and China cooperated on the basis of the patron/priest relationship. But a few years ago the Chinese authorities in Szechwan and Yunnan provinces, using the pretext of policing the trade marts, sent large numbers of troops into our country and attempted to colonize us. Therefore I left Lhasa, taking my ministers with me, and hoped to set straight in the emperor’s mind that our relationship was and always had been one of patron/priest and not one of the subordination of one by the other. However, his reply was obstructed by corrupt Beijing officials, and in the process of our dialogue the Manchu Dynasty collapsed. The Tibetans were encouraged by the turn of events, and expelled the Chinese from central Tibet, and I returned safely to my sacred homeland. All that remains now is to drive out a few more Chinese troops from the eastern border areas, and the Chinese intent of colonizing Tibet will have faded like a rainbow in the sky.
The Great Thirteenth then went on to outline the five principal policies to be implemented in the immediate future: (1) Everyone should strive to preserve Tibet’s cultural traditions through rebuilding any of the institutions and monuments that had been destroyed by the recent period of conflict; (2) the various religious traditions should respect one another, and should look more to the maintenance of their spiritual and educational traditions and less to politics and business enterprises; (3) the civil and military government officials should act with fairness and justice toward all citizens, and should improve their human rights records—in particular, capital punishment and all forms of harsh physical punishment of criminals should be abolished in all parts of the country; (4) more thought and effort should be given to the issue of national defense, “for although the Tibetans are a religious and independently minded people, safeguards must be put in place to ensure national survival”; and (5) the traditional methods of land distribution and taxation should be revised, and more modern social forms introduced. A month after the Great Thirteenth’s issuing of this declaration, Tibet and Mongolia signed an agreement recognizing one another’s independence from China.
The Dalai Lama’s next step was to attempt to bring the Chinese to the negotiating table, with the British as intermediaries. This took the form of the Shimla Convention of 1913-14. Here he sent the Minister Shetra to negotiate for Tibet. Britain sent Sir Charles Bell and Sir Henry McMahon. Finally, the Chinese sent Ivan Chen.
Shetra informed Bell that the Dalai Lama wanted four conditions to be met: (1) Tibet was to manage her own internal affairs; (2) she should also have control over her external affairs, although important issues could be decided in reference to Great Britain; (3) no Chinese amban, officials or soldiers would be stationed in Tibet; and (4) Tibet’s territory on the east would include the areas up to Tachienlu.
While in India the Dalai Lama had gained an understanding of the British love for legalities. Therefore the Tibetans went to the conference with extensive documentation in support of their claims, including all the old treaties that had been signed with China and other Asian countries, numerous tax records from disputed areas, documents of Lhasa appointments of officials in disputed areas, and so forth. In total they brought fifty-six thick volumes of legal documents. The Chinese came with very little other than verbal claims.
The British were in a difficult position. All legal evidence was on the side of the Tibetans and, in addition, the Chinese had been expelled from Tibetan territories. But McMahon did not want to antagonize the new Chinese rulers. Thus the Tibetans were asked to accept a deal similar to that created by the imperialist powers in Mongolia: there would be two Tibets, one Outer and the other Inner. The former, which would include all of western, southern and central Tibet, as well as much of the eastern provinces of Kham and Amdo, would be completely autonomous, though under the suzerainty of China. China would not be allowed to interfere with the internal administration of this region, which would remain under the Dalai Lama’s direct rule; nor would China be allowed to send any troops into Outer Tibet, other than an ambassador and his private escort, which was not to exceed more than three hundred soldiers.
The arrangement did not please anyone. It was far less than the Dalai Lama had expected, and he did not at all like the idea of “two Tibets. Nor did he trust the provision allowing China special status; he had hoped that if a favored status with regard to Tibet were given to anyone, it would be to either the British or Russians. Perhaps in her position as mediator in the discussions, Britain did not feel it would be appropriate for her to be awarded this privilege; and she certainly was not about to see it be granted to Russia.
The wording of the agreement was also alien to the Chinese, who therefore refused to sign it. In the end McMahon lost patience, and the treaty was signed bilaterally by Britain and Tibet, with the stipulation that China would not be privy to any benefits of the document until she added her signature to it (which in fact she never did).
It is sad to note here that one of the reasons the Tibetans agreed to endorse the Shimla Convention and did not press more forcefully for the four conditions that the Great Thirteenth had stipulated, particularly those that defined Tibet’s relationship with China, was the persuasive influence of Sir Charles Bell. The high regard which the Tibetans held for Sir Charles and his friendship with the Dalai Lama acted as factors that won the Tibetan negotiators over to McMahon’s vision. No doubt Sir Charles played his part in good conscience, feeling that the deal was reasonable to the Tibetans; but he had a distinct conflict of interest, for his job primarily was to sell the British blueprint to the Tibetans, and not to advise the Tibetans on what was best for them. The Tibetans did not fully understand this, and took his advice as being solely that of a friend of Tibet.
In the end, the Shimla Convention was just one more confusing event in Britain’s ambiguous treaties with and about Tibet. On this occasion McMahon had insisted that Tibet sign a treaty acknowledging herself as “an autonomous region of China”; but by signing the document directly with Tibet without Chinese consent, the legal implication was that Britain recognized Tibet as an independent nation with the authority to sign its own international agreements.
But treaty or no treaty, the Dalai Lama was not having any Chinese diplomats or troops in his country; and because China had not signed the Shimla Convention she could not call on the British to lobby for her right to do so.
Thus from the time of the Great Thirteenth’s Declaration of Independence in 1913 until after his death in 1933, no Chinese officials were allowed to live on Tibetan soil. Chinese individuals who had married Tibetans had their choice of adopting Tibetan nationality or leaving the country.
For the remainder of his life the Great Thirteenth continued to attempt to get Tibet’s independent status accepted by the international community; yet even though he managed to keep all Chinese out of his country, nobody would listen to his plea. The international community felt that jurisdiction over the issue lay with Britain, and thus would only follow Britain’s lead.
Unfortunately for Tibet and the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, Britain was preoccupied with the struggle to maintain her rapidly disintegrating empire, and had no intention of causing waves with China over what to her was not a pressing issue.
Some years later Sir Charles Bell realized the gravity of the position he had influenced his Tibetan friends to accept at Shimla. He commented bitterly, “Britain, while professing friendship [with Tibet], seems always to refuse assistance.”
Over the years that followed, he attempted to rectify his error by changing the British attitude. His first attempt came in his visit to Lhasa in 1920-21 and the subsequent British agreement to sell arms to Tibet that he negotiated. He made another attempt in 1930, when he lobbied in London for outright recognition of Tibet’s independence on the grounds that no Chinese official had been permitted in Tibet for over twenty-five years. He suggested that Asia would in the future be far more secure if Tibet were established as an independent buffer state between India and China.
Unfortunately the timing of his petition was bad, and met with no success.
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Of the five clauses attached to the Great Thirteenth’s Declaration of Independence, the fourth (and perhaps most important) focused on national defense. From his childhood, the Dalai Lama had demonstrated a strong interest in developing the military. Even as early as the mid-i88os he had begun to realize that Tibet’s independence would never be secure until she was able to defend herself. The traditional arrangement of patron/priest, in which the former was expected to see to the security of the latter, may have worked well enough in the olden days of loose and informal foreign contracts, but it was not suited to the bureaucratic mentality of the twentieth century. Perhaps the Shimla Convention more than anything else had driven this idea home. It had become obvious that neither Britain nor Russia would do anything for Tibet, and that if China were to be kept out it would have to be by Tibet’s own efforts.
Therefore not long after returning to Lhasa, the Great Thirteenth arranged for an overhaul of the army, with the Hero of Chaktsam Bridge, who now had been renamed Tsarong, as the Commander-in-Chief.
In Tibetan eyes, the world’s three most powerful nations were Russia, Britain and Japan, all of whom had had successful military encounters with
China. The Great Thirteenth therefore arranged for each of these powers to train a Tibetan regiment. At the conclusion of the training period the three regiments had to demonstrate how well they could perform. It is said that the soldiers trained by the Japanese advisor Yasujiro Yajima most deeply impressed the Lhasa authorities, and that it was therefore decided to have the Tibetan military run along Japanese lines.
The decision could also have been linked to the fact that the various treaties Russia and Britain had signed with each other (and with the Chinese) placed them both in an unpredictable political stance as regards Tibet; they might help clandestinely, but neither could be counted on under pressure. Also, neither Britain nor Russia would supply Tibet with armaments, whereas Japanese wares could easily be acquired via Mongolia. Finally, Japan had had several military incidents with both China and Russia, from which the Japanese had emerged victorious. Tibet’s new international direction thus began to move toward Japan.
This was the case until a year or so after the Dalai Lama entered his great retreat, when pro-British forces in Lhasa used his absence to replace the Japanese with a British orientation. From then on the Tibetan military followed British training methods. The transition was completed in 1920, when Sir Charles Bell officially visited Lhasa and managed to implement an arrangement with the British that would include the limited supply of arms.
The period from 1913 to 1916 saw the Great Thirteenth busily engaged in revitalizing Tibet’s cultural and spiritual institutions. He had been in exile out of the country for almost eight years because of the British and Chinese invasions, and there was much to be done. The monastic communities had to be revived and their educational facilities upgraded, as did those of the medical colleges and hospitals. The various schools of performing arts had to be seen to, and the fine arts stimulated. Then the political institutions, which for five years had been run by the Chinese invaders, had to be overhauled, and, as mentioned above, the military had to be built up. In brief, a country had to be reconstructed from the ruins of the old.
It appears that by the spring of 1916 the Great Thirteenth felt that things had once more been set in order, for during the fourth month (June) of that year he temporarily retired from public life and entered into his great retreat, which was to last until the autumn of 1920. No doubt for him this was a welcomed period of inner peace and spiritual rejuvenation. He had been under intense pressure for more than a decade, and the opportunity to do nothing but sit and meditate must have been tremendously uplifting.
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One of the principal reasons for the greatness the Tibetan people attribute to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, and one of the causes of the fondness with which they remember him, is the manner in which he dealt with anyone who showed corruption or vanity. His courage in the face of the British and Chinese military forces proved him a man of independent spirit and insightful perception; but it was in his dealings with his own people that his personality shone most brightly. An example reflecting his strong character in this regard is the manner in which he restructured the administration of the Great Prayer Festival of Lhasa, Tibet’s largest national celebration.