Dalai Lama, recognized among the successors a child as in the film with Keanu Reeves

He belongs to one of the most prominent families in Mongolia, but has a US passport and has been recognized by the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism, as the tenth reincarnation of Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa Rinpoche, who is a spiritual leader in Mongolia and is considered the third authority of Tibetan Buddhism. All these characteristics put together can only infuriate China and the recognition seems to have political value even before religious.

The choice was told by the Indian press which explained the ceremony which took place in mid-February in the monastery of Gandantegchinlen Khiid in Ulan Bator, in Mongolia. Then came that of 8 March with the Dalai Lama in Dharamshala, in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. The chosen one is one of eight-year-old twins from one of the most important political and commercial families in Mongolia. They are the sons of a professor at the Mongolian National University, Altannar Chinchuluun and their mother, Monkhnasan Narmandakh, is the CEO of an industrial group.

The Jetsun Dampa Kalkha Hutuktu he belongs to the line of reincarnations at the head of the Gelug school in Mongolia which, until the communist revolution of the 1920s, also played a political role similar to that of the Dalai Lama in Tibet. Mongolia fears a Chinese reaction which, for Tibet, claims the right to directly appoint the leaders of Buddhism. Beijing, in 1995, when the Dalai Lama appointed a Panchen Lama, he took custody of the 6-year-old boy and replaced him with another. The fear is that a similar thing will happen or that problems will arise between Ulan Bator and Beijing, which had already condemned a visit by the Dalai Lama to the country.

There geopolitics goes hand in hand with religion in these matters. The Power of Siberia 2 gas pipeline between China and Russia must pass through Mongolia. Then in India, where the Dalai Lama is staying and where he met the child, there is always the fear of a stiffening of already tense relations with Beijing. The Tibetan question has always been a topic of conflict between India and China. India hosts the Tibetan government in exile which is not recognized by Beijing. For the Chinese government, the current Dalai Lama is “a political exile disguised as a religious figure who has long been engaged in anti-Chinese separatist activities”.

Net of the political issues, the story cannot fail to bring to mind the film by Bernardo Bertolucci Little Buddha which tells the story of an American child identified, along with others, as a possible reincarnation of one of the Dalai Lama’s teachers. The Tibetan spiritual leader walked into a cinema for the first time to see this film at its Paris premiere in 1993.

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