People, not China, will decide fate of my office: Dalai Lama

TAWANG: The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader said on Saturday that it's up to his followers to decide whether the office of the Dalai Lama exists in the future.

In a speech to tens of thousands of his followers on Saturday in Arunachal Pradesh's Tawang — the second-highest seat of Tibetan Buddhism — the Dalai Lama denied that he had any knowledge of where his successor would be born.

Asked if the next Dalai Lama could be a woman, he said, "That might also happen."


Under Tibetan Buddhist tradition, senior monks identify a young boy who shows signs he is a reincarnation of a late leader.

China's leadership insists it has the authority to appoint the Dalai Lama's successor after his death.

The Dalai Lama is on a weeklong visit to Arunachal Pradesh despite objections by China, which considers the state a disputed region.

Tawang has been decorated with colourful prayer flags and flowers with the roads repainted and the drains cleaned.

Security has been strengthened around the Tawang monastery, the Yid-Ga-Choezin ground where the spiritual leader will deliver his sermons.

The 336-year-old monastery is the largest in India and second largest in the world after Potala Palace in Lhasa, Tibet.

Perched on a cliff at 10,000 feet, Tawang monastery is known in Tibetan as 'Tawang Gaden Namgyal Lhatse,' meaning celestial paradise chosen by the horse.

It belongs to the Gelugpa school of Mahayana Buddhism and had religious connection with Lhasa's Drepung Monastery that continued during the British rule.

Beijing refers to this connection to claim Tawang as part of China after invading and taking over Tibet in 1950.

Chinese state media had said on Wednesday that India is using the Dalai Lama as a diplomatic leverage to challenge China's "bottom line."

The Dalai Lama was compelled to flee Lhasa in 1959 and cross over to India by foot via the Tawang sector.

The visit is the Dalai Lama's seventh to Arunachal Pradesh and his first since 2009.