Troubles on "the roof of the world"

[Dover]

India, Sikkim, China and a vexing Tibetan lama (India caves to China)
Asia Times ^ | Jul 21, 2004 | Julian Gearing





India, Sikkim, China and a vexing Tibetan lama
By Julian Gearing

It is said that the Black Hat of the Karmapas is the physical representation of a "spiritual crown" woven from the hair of 100,000 female deities and that when the Karmapa places it on his head, he has to hold it down with his hand to prevent it flying away. A gift to the Fifth Karmapa from the Chinese Ming Dynasty Emperor Tai Ming Chen in the 15th century, today the crown of this high Tibetan Buddhist lama is locked away in the hillside monastery of Rumtek in Sikkim, an Indian state bordering Tibet. For many Himalayan people, he who sits in this monastery and wears this crown is the Karmapa.

It was in a quest for the fabled Black Hat that the young 17th Karmapa Urgyen Trinley is said to have fled Chinese government oppression in Tibet in 2000, aiming to reach the Sikkim monastery that his predecessor, the 16th Karmapa, built after he fled from Tibet in 1959. Now, in a major blow to the second-best-known lama after the Dalai Lama, a decision by the Indian Supreme Court has in effect blocked him and his supporters from claiming the monastery and its crown. Through the ruling on July 5 his right to enter the monastery was said to have been "irrevocably" rescinded.

The court decision solves a difficult problem for the Indian government at a time when it wants to put relations with old rival China on a better footing. Sikkim has been a point of contention between India and China for many years. The controversy over Rumtek Monastery caused unrest in Sikkim. Now China appears to have tacitly accepted India's control over the state.

Further, as far as this Tibetan lama is concerned, it opens the way for a legal process that could put the property of the the Sikkim monastery into the hands of a rival Karmapa, Thaye Dorje, who is backed by China. While this "competing" Buddhist lama is far less well known internationally, he also has hundreds of thousands of followers in the region and around the world.

The Indian Supreme Court decision also has opened the way to place the Karmapa's monastery in India in the hands of a Chinese-backed challenger to the Karmapa throne. This personal loss for the internationally feted lama has ramifications for his Buddhist school, China, India, and the aging Dalai Lama himself. The decision is the most dramatic development for Urgyen Trinley since he fled Tibet. It has wider implications for the Karmapa's badly split Karma Kagyu Buddhist school and it has geostrategic implications for China and India. It also impacts the Dalai Lama himself and Tibetan Buddhism's sometimes difficult entry into the modern world.

While the young lama's flight from Tibet in 2000 caused a media splash at that time, today there has been a silence from the international press about the Indian Supreme Court verdict. The court ruled that the Tsurphu Labrang, an entity set up by Urgyen Trinley's followers, does not have any legal standing in its claim to Rumtek Monastery and its assets in Sikkim. In the words of the verdict of the highest court in the land, their appeal was "dismissed".

The decision has crucial implications. While Urgyen Trinley was being feted and received much media attention, a quiet and bitter legal battle had been going on for control of the monastery. Now the most important legal decision is in. Karmapa Urgyen Trinley is said to be "irrevocably" blocked from entering Rumtek.

This means the only party that has legal standing to claim Rumtek is the Karmapa Charitable Trust. The Trust, a body set up by the late 16th Karmapa, supports rival Karmapa, Thaye Dorje, 20, a young lama with no links to China.

China rejects Tibetan autonomy
Despite the cries of Tibetan nationalists, Beijing says Tibet has always been an inalienable part of China and it rejects any talk of greater autonomy for the strategic, mineral-rich region on the "roof of the world". ...cont'd

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1175251/posts

Several more related stories fromt that region:
http://freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=TIBET

[indigobusiness]

1. Will the world see another Dalai Lama?

Hasn't he, himself, asked this question?