From Birth to Exile
His Holiness the
Dalai Lama was born on 6 July 1935, and named Lhamo Thondup, to a poor family
in the small village of Taktser in the province of Amdo. The name, Lhamo
Thondup, literally means Wish-Fulfilling Goddess. Taktser (Roaring Tiger) was a
small and poor settlement that stood on a hill overlooking a broad valley. Its
pastures had not been settled or farmed for long, only grazed by nomads. The
reason for this was the unpredictability of the weather in that area, His
Holiness writes in his autobiography Freedom in Exile. During my early
childhood, my family was one of twenty or so making a precarious living from
the land there.
His Holiness' parents were small
farmers who mostly grew barley, buckwheat and potatoes. His father was a man of
medium height with a very quick temper. I remember pulling at his moustache
once and being hit hard for my trouble, recalls His Holiness. Yet he was a kind
man too and he never bore grudges. His Holiness recalls his mother as
undoubtedly one of the kindest people I have ever known. She had a total of
sixteen children, of whom seven lived.
His Holiness had two sisters and four brothers who survived their
infancy. Tsering Dolma, the eldest child, was eighteen years older than His
Holiness. At the time of my birth she helped my mother run the house and acted
as my midwife. When she delivered me, she noticed that one of my eyes was not
properly open. Without hesitation she put her thumb on the reluctant lid and
forced it wide fortunately without any ill effect, His Holiness writes. His
Holiness' three elder brothers were Thupten Jigme Norbu - the eldest, who was
recognised as the reincarnation of a high lama, Taktser Rinpoche - Gyalo
Thondup and Lobsang Samten. The youngest brother, Tenzin Cheogyal was also
recognised as the reincarnation of another high lama, Ngari Rinpoche.
Of course, no one had any idea that I
might be anything other than an ordinary baby. It was almost unthinkable that
more than one tulku (reincarnation) could be born into the same family and
certainly my parents had no idea that I would be proclaimed Dalai Lama, His
Holiness writes. Though the remarkable recovery made by His Holiness' father
from his critical illness at the time of His Holiness' birth was auspicious, it
was not taken to be of great significance. I myself likewise had no particular
intimation of what lay ahead. My earliest memories are very ordinary. His
Holiness recollects his earliest memory, among others, of observing a group of
children fighting and running to join in with the weaker side.
One thing that I remember enjoying particularly as a very young boy was
going into the chicken coop to collect the eggs with my mother and then staying
behind. I liked to sit in the hens' nest and make clucking noises. Another
favourite occupation of mine as an infant was to pack things in a bag as if I
was about to go on a long journey. I'm going to Lhasa, I'm going to Lhasa, I
would say. This, coupled with my insistence that I be allowed always to sit at
the head of the table, was later said to be an indication that I must have
known that I was destined for greater things.
His Holiness is held to be the
reincarnation of each of the previous thirteen Dalai Lamas of Tibet (the first
having been born in 1391 AD), who are in turn considered to be manifestations
of Avalokiteshvara, or Chenrezig, Bodhisattva of Compassion, holder of the
White Lotus. Thus His Holiness is also believed to be a manifestation of
Chenrezig, in fact the seventy-fourth in a lineage that can be traced back to a
Brahmin boy who lived in the time of Buddha Shakyamuni. I am often asked
whether I truly believe this. The answer is not simple to give. But as a
fifty-six year old, when I consider my experience during this present life, and
given my Buddhist beliefs, I have no difficulty accepting that I am spiritually
connected both to the thirteen previous Dalai Lamas, to Chenrezig and to the
Buddha himself.
When Lhamo Thondup was barely three years old, a search party that had
been sent out by the Tibetan government to find the new incarnation of the
Dalai Lama arrived at Kumbum monastery. It had been led there by a number of
signs. One of these concerned the embalmed body of his predecessor, Thupten
Gyatso, the Thirteenth Dalai Lama, who had died aged fifty-seven in 1933.
During its period of sitting in state, the head was discovered to have turned
from facing south to northeast. Shortly after that the Regent, himself a senior
lama, had a vision. Looking into the waters of the sacred lake, Lhamo Lhatso,
in southern Tibet, he clearly saw the Tibetan letters Ah, Ka and Ma float into
view. These were followed by the image of a three-storied monastery with a
turquoise and gold roof and a path running from it to a hill. Finally, he saw a
small house with strangely shaped guttering. He was sure that the letter Ah
referred to Amdo, the northeastern province, so it was there that the search
party was sent.
By the time they reached Kumbum, the
members of the search party felt that they were on the right track. It seemed
likely that if the letter Ah referred to Amdo, then Ka must indicate the
monastery at Kumbum, which was indeed three-storied and turquoise-roofed. They
now only needed to locate a hill and a house with peculiar guttering. So they
began to search the neighbouring villages. When they saw the gnarled branches
of juniper wood on the roof of the His Holiness' parent's house, they were
certain that the new Dalai Lama would not be far away. Nevertheless, rather
than reveal the purpose of their visit, the group asked only to stay the night.
The leader of the party, Kewtsang Rinpoche, then pretended to be a servant and
spent much of the evening observing and playing with the youngest child in the
house.
The child recognised him and called out
'Sera lama, Sera lama'. Sera was Kewtsang Rinpoche's monastery. The next day
they left only to return a few days later as a formal deputation. This time
they brought with them a number of things that had belonged to the Thirteenth
Dalai Lama, together with several similar items that did not. In every case,
the infant correctly identified those belonging to the Thirteenth Dalai Lama
saying, It's mine. It's mine. This more or less convinced the search party that
they had found the new incarnation. It was not long before the boy from Taktser
was acknowledged to be the new Dalai Lama. The boy Lhamo Thondup was first
taken to Kumbum monastery. There now began a somewhat unhappy period of my
life, His Holiness was to write later, reflecting on his separation from his
parents and the unfamiliar surroundings. However, there were two consolations
to life at the monastery. First, His Holiness' immediate elder brother Lobsang
Samten was already there. The second consolation was the fact that his teacher
was a very kind old monk, who often held his young disciple inside his gown.
Lhamo Thondup was eventually to be
reunited with his parents and together they were to journey to Lhasa. This did
not come about for some eighteen months, however, because Ma Bufeng, the local
Chinese Muslim warlord, refused to let the boy-incarnate be taken to Lhasa
without payment of a large ransom. It was not until the summer of 1939 that he
left for the capital, Lhasa, in a large party consisting of his parents, his
brother Lobsang Samten, members of the search party and other pilgrims.
The journey to Lhasa took three months.
I remember very little detail apart from a great sense of wonder at everything
I saw: the vast herds of drong (wild yaks) ranging across the plains, the
smaller groups of kyang (wild asses) and occasionally a shimmer of gowa and
nawa, small deer which were so light and fast they might have been ghosts. I
also loved the huge flocks of hooting geese we saw from time to time.
Lhamo Thondup's party was received by a
group of senior government officials and escorted to Doeguthang plain, two
miles outside the gates of the capital. The next day, a ceremony was held in
which Lhamo Thondup was conferred the spiritual leadership of his people.
Following this, he was taken off with Lobsang Samten to the Norbulingka, the
summer palace of His Holiness, which lay just to the west of Lhasa.
During the winter of 1940, Lhamo
Thondup was taken to the Potala Palace, where he was officially installed as
the spiritual leader of Tibet. Soon after, the newly recognised Dalai Lama was
taken to Jokhang temple where His Holiness was inducted as a novice monk in a
ceremony known as taphue, meaning cutting of the hair. From now on, I was to be
shaven-headed and attired in maroon monk's robes. In accordance with ancient
custom, His Holiness forfeited his name Lhamo Thondup and assumed his new name,
Jamphel Ngawang Lobsang Yeshe Tenzin Gyatso.
His Holiness then began to receive his
primary education. The curriculum - same as that for all monks pursuing a
doctorate in Buddhist studies - included logic, Tibetan art and culture,
Sanskrit, medicine and Buddhist philosophy. The last and the most important
(and most difficult) was subdivided into further five categories:
Prajnaparamita, the perfection of wisdom; Madhyamika, the philosophy of the
Middle Way; Vinaya, the canon of monastic discipline; Abidharma, metaphysics;
and Pramana, logic and epistemology.
TO BE CONTINUED
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