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The Shadow of the Dalai Lama
– Part II – 3. The Foundations of the Tibetan
Buddhocracy
© Victor & Victoria
Trimondi
3. THE FOUNDATIONS OF THE
TIBETAN BUDDHOCRACY
The cult drama of Tibetan/Tantric
Buddhism consists in the constant taming of the
feminine, the demoness. This is heralded already
in the language. The Tibetan verb dulwa
has the following meanings: to tame, subjugate,
conquer, defeat; and sometimes: to kill, destroy;
but also: to cultivate the land, civilize a nation,
convert to Buddhism, bring up, discipline. Violent
conquest and cultural activities thus form a unit
for the Lamaist. The chief task of the Tibetan
monastic state consists in the taming of wilderness
(wild nature), the “heathen” barbarians, and the
women. In tantric terminology this corresponds
with the method (upaya) with which the feminine
wildness (Candali or Srinmo) is defeated. Parallel
to this, state Buddhism and social anarchy stand
opposed to one another as enemies since the beginning
of Tibetan history — they conduct their primordial
struggle in the political, social, philosophical,
divine, and cosmic arenas. Even though they battle
to the bitter end, they are nonetheless — as we
shall see — dependent upon one another.
The history of Buddhist state
thought
The fundamental attitude of the
historical Buddha was anarchist. Not only did
he leave his family behind, the king’s son also
laid aside all offices of state. With the founding
of the Buddhist community (the sangha), he assumed that this
was a purely spiritual union which was ethically
far superior to worldly institutions. The sangha formed the basic pattern
for an ideal society, whilst the secular state
was constantly receiving karmic stains through
its worldly business. For this reason the relationship
between the two institutions (the sangha and the state) was
always tense and displayed many discordances which
had arisen even earlier — in the Vedic period
— between kshatriyas (warriors and kings)
and brahmans
(priests).
However, the anti-state attitude
of the Buddhists changed in the third century
B.C.E. with the seizure of power by of the Emperor
Ashoka (who ruled between 272–236 B.C.E.) Ashoka,
a ruler from the Maurya dynasty, had conquered
almost the entire Indian subcontinent following
several terrible campaigns. He converted to Buddhism
and set great store by the distribution of the
religion of Shakyamuni throughout the whole country.
In accordance with the teaching, he forbade animal
sacrifices and propagated the idea of vegetarianism.
His state-political status is not
entirely clear among the historians, then a number
of contradictory documents about this are extant.
In one opinion he and the whole state submitted
to the rule of the sangha (the monastic community)
and he let his decisions be steered by them. According
to another document, he himself assumed leadership
of the community and became a sangharaja
(both king and supreme commander of the monastic
community). The third view is the most likely
— that although he converted to the Buddhist faith
he retained his political autonomy and forced
the monastic community to obey his will as emperor.
In favor if this view is the fact that it was
he who summoned a council and there forced through
his “Buddhological” ideas.
Up until today the idea of the
just “king of peace” has been celebrated in the
figure of Ashoka, and it has been completely overlooked
that he confronted the sangha with the problem of
state power. The Buddhist monastic community was
originally completely non-coercive. Following
its connection with the state, the principle of
nonviolence necessarily came into conflict with
the power political requirements this brought
with it. For example, the historical Buddha is
said to have had such an aversion to the death
penalty that he offered himself as a substitute
in order to save the life of a criminal. Ashoka,
however, who proclaimed an edict against the slaughter
of animals, did not renounce the execution of
criminals by the state.
Whether during his lifetime or
first due to later interpretations — the Emperor
was (at any rate after his demise) declared to
be a Chakravartin (world ruler)
who held the “golden wheel” of the Dharma (the teaching) in his
hands. He was the first historical Bodhisattva
king, that is, a Bodhisattva incarnated in the
figure of a worldly ruler. In him, worldly and
spiritual power were united in one person. Interestingly
he established his spiritual world domination
via a kind of “cosmic sacrifice”. Legend tells
how the Emperor came into possession of the original
Buddha relic and ordered this to be divided into
84,000 pieces and scattered throughout the entire
universe. Wherever a particle of this relic landed,
his dominion spread, that is, everywhere, since
at that time in India 84,000 was a symbolic number
for the cosmic whole.
[1] This pious account of his universal
sovereignty rendered him completely independent
of the Buddhist sangha.
In the Mahayana Golden Shine Sutra,
a few centuries after Ashoka, the coercive power
of the state is affirmed and presented as a doctrine
of the historical Buddha. With this the anarchic
period of the Sangha was finally ended.
By 200 C.E. at the latest, under the influence
of Greco-Roman and Iranian ideas, the Buddhist
concept of kingship had developed into its fully
autocratic form which is referred to by historians
as “Caesaropapism”. An example of this is provided
by King Kanishka from the Kushana dynasty (2nd
century C.E.) In him, the attributes of a worldly
king and those of a Buddha were completely fused
with one another. Even the “coming” Buddha, Maitreya, and the reigning
king formed a unit. The ruler had become a savior.
He was a contemporary Bodhisattva and
at the same time the appearance of the coming Buddhist messiah who
had descended from heaven already in this life
so as to impart his message of salvation to the
people. (Kanishka cultivated a religious syncretism
and also used other systems to apotheosize his
person and reign.)
The Dalai Lama and the Buddhist
state are one
Tibet first became a centralized
ecclesiastical state with the Dalai Lama as its
head in the year 1642. The priest-king had the
self-appointed right to exercise absolute power.
He was de
jure not
just lord over his human subjects but likewise
over the spirits and all other beings which lived
“above and beneath the world”. One of the first
western visitors to the country, the Briton S.
Turner, described the institution as follows:
“A sovereign Lama, immaculate, immortal, omnipresent
and omniscient is placed at the summit of their
fabric. [!] He is esteemed the vice regent of
the only God, the mediator between mortals and
the Supreme ... He is also the center of all civil
government, which derives from his authority all
influence and power” (quoted by Bishop, 1993,
p. 93).
Turner, who knew nothing about
the secrets of Tantrism, saw the Dalai Lama as
a kind of bridge (pontifex maximus) between
transcendence and reality. He was for this author
the governor for and the image of Buddha, his
majesty appeared as the pale earthly reflection
of the deity. This is, however, too modest! The
Dalai Lama does not represent
Buddha on earth, nor is he an intermediary, nor
a reflection — he is the complete deity himself.
He is a Kundun, that is, he is the
presence of Buddha, he is a “living Buddha”. For
this reason his power and his compassion are believed
to be unbounded. He is world king and Bodhisattva
rolled into one.
The Dalai Lama unites spiritual
and worldly power in one person — a dream which
remained unfulfilled for the popes and emperors
of the European Middle Ages. [2] According to
doctrine, the Kundun is the visible form
(nirmanakaya)
of this comprehensive divine power in time; he
exists as the earthly appearance of the time god,
Kalachakra; he is the supreme
“lord of the wheel of time”. For this reason he
was handed a golden wheel as a sign of his omnipotence
at his enthronement. He is prayed to as the “ruler
of rulers”, the “victor” and the “conqueror”.
Even if he himself does not wield the sword, he
can still order others to do so, and oblige them
to go to war for him.
There was just as little distinction
between power-political and religious organization
in the Tibet of old as in the Egypt of the Pharaohs.
As such, every action of the Tibetan god-king,
regardless of how mundane it may appear to us,
was (and is) religiously grounded and holy. The
monastic state he governs was (and is) considered
to be the earthly reflection of a cosmic realm.
In essence there was (and is) no difference between
the supernatural order and the social order. The
two vary only in their degree of perfection, then
the ordo universalis (universal
order) which is apparent in this world is marred
only by flaws due to the imperfection of humanity
(and not due to any imperfection of the Kundun).
Anarchy, disorder, revolt, famine, disobedience,
defeat, expulsion are a matter of the deficiencies
of the age, but never incorrect conduct by the
god-king. He is without blemish and only present
in this world in order to instruct people in the
Dharma (the Buddhist doctrine).
The state as the microcosmic
body of the Dalai Lama
Ashoka, the first Buddhist Emperor,
was considered to be the incarnation of a Bodhisattva
and probably as that of a Chakravartin (world ruler).
His role as the highest bearer of state office
was, however, not of a tantric nature. Fundamentally,
he acted like every sacred king before him. His
decisions, his edicts, and his deeds were considered
holy — but he did not govern via control of his
inner microcosmic energies. The pre-tantric Chakravartin (e.g., Ashoka)
controlled the cosmos, but the tantric world ruler
is (e.g., the Dalai Lama) the cosmos itself. This
equation of macrocosmic procedures and microcosmic
events within the mystic body of the tantric hierarch
even includes his people. The tantra master upon
the Lion Throne does not just represent his people,
rather — to be precise — he is
them. The oft-quoted phrase “I am the state” is
literally true of him.
He controls it — as we have described
above- through his inner breath, through the movement
of the ten winds (dasakaro
vasi). His two chief metapolitical activities
consist of the rite and the bodily control with
which he secretly steers the cosmos and his kingdom.
The political, the cultic, and his mystic physiology
are inseparable for him. In his energy body he
plays out the events virtually, as in a computer,
in order to then allow them to become reality
in the world of appearances.
The tantric Buddhocracy is thus
an interwoven total of cosmological, religious,
territorial, administrative, economic, and physiological
events. Taking the doctrine literally, we must
thus assume that Tibet, with all its regions,
mountains, valleys, rivers, towns, villages, with
its monasteries, civil servants, aristocrats,
traders, farmers, and herdsmen, with all its plants
and animals can be found anew in the energy body
of the Dalai Lama. Such for us seemingly fantastic
concepts are not specifically Tibetan. We can
also find them in ancient Egypt, China, India,
even in medieval Europe up until the Enlightenment.
Thus, when the Kundun says in 1996 in an
interview that “my proposal treats Tibet as something
like one human body. The whole Tibet is one body”,
this is not just intended allegorically and geopolitically,
but also tantrically (Shambhala Sun, archives, November,
1996). Strictly interpreted, the statement also
means: Tibet and my energy body are identical
with one another.
Tibet on the other hand is a microcosmic
likeness of the sum of humanity, at least that
is how the Tibetan National Assembly sees the
matter in a letter from the year 1946. We can
read there that “there are many great nations
on this earth who have achieved unprecedented
wealth and might, but there is only one nation
which is dedicated to the well-being of humanity
and that is the religious land of Tibet, which
cherishes a joint spiritual and temporal system”
(Newsgroup 12).
The mandala as the organizational
form of the Tibetan state
There is something specific in
the state structure of the historical Buddhocracy
which distinguishes it from the purely pyramidal
constitution of Near Eastern theocracies. Alone
because of the many schools and sub-schools of
Tibetan Buddhism we cannot speak of a classic
leadership pyramid at the pinnacle of which the
Dalai Lama stands. In order to describe in general
terms the Buddhocratic form of state, S. J. Tambiah
introduced a term which has in the meantime become
widespread in the relevant literature. He calls
it “galactic politics” or “mandala politics” (Tambiah,
1976, pp. 112 ff.) What can be understood by this?
As in a solar system, the chief
monasteries of the Land of Snows orbit like planets
around the highest incarnation of Tibet, the god-king
and world ruler from Lhasa, and form with him
a living mandala. This planetary principle is
repeated in the organizational form of the chief
monasteries, in the center of which a tulku likewise
rules as a “little” Chakravartin. Here, each arch-abbot
is the sun and father about whom rotate the so-called
“child monasteries”, that is, the monastic communities
subordinate to him. Under certain circumstances
these can form a similar pattern with even smaller
units.
Mandala-pattern of the tibetan government (above)
and the corresponding government offices around
the Jokhang-Temple (below)
A collection of many “solar systems”
thus arises which together form a “galaxy”. Although
the Dalai Lama represents an overarching symbolic
field, the individual monasteries still have a
wide ranging autonomy within their own planet.
As a consequence, every monastery, every temple,
even every Tulku forms a miniature model of the
whole state. In this idealist conception they
are all “little “ copies of the universal Chakravartin (wheel turner)
and must also behave ideal-typically like him.
All the thoughts and deeds of the world ruler
must be repeated by them and ideally there should
be no differences between him and them. Then all
the planetary units within the galactic model
are in harmony with one another. In the light
of this idea, the frequent and substantial disagreements
within the Tibetan clergy appear all the more
paradox.
Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, forms the
cosmic center of this galaxy. Two magnificent
city buildings symbolize the spiritual and worldly
control of the Dalai Lama: The cathedral
(the Jokhang temple) his priesthood; the palace (the Potala) his kingship.
The Fifth Dalai Lama ordered the construction
of his residence on the “Red Mountain” (Potala) from where the Tibetan
rulers of the Yarlung dynasty once reigned, but
he did not live to see its magnificent completion.
Instead of laying a foundation stone, the god-king
had a stake driven into the soil of the “red mountain”
and summoned the wrathful deities, probably to
demonstrate here too his power over the earth
mother, Srinmo, whose nailed down
heart beats beneath the Jokhang.
Significantly, a sanctuary in southern
India dedicated to Avalokiteshvara was known
in earlier times as a “Potala”. His Tibetan residence,
which offers a view over all of Lhasa, was a suitably
high place for the “Lord who looks down from above”
(as the name of the Bodhisattva can be translated).
The Potala was also known as the “residence of
the gods”.
Tibet
is also portrayed in the geometric form of a Mandala
in the religious political literature. „While
it demonstrates hierarchy, power relations, and
legal levels”, writes Rebecca Redwood French,
„the Mandala ceaselessly pulsates with movement
up, down and between its different parts” (Redwood
French, 1995, p. 179).
The mchod-yon relationship
to other countries
What form does the relationship
of a Chakravartin
from the roof of the world to the rulers of other
nations take in the Tibetan way of looking at
things? The Dalai Lama was (and is) — according
to doctrine — the highest (spiritual) instance
for all the peoples of the globe. Their relationship
to him are traditionally regulated by what is
known as the mchod-yon formula.
With an appeal to the historical
Buddha, the Tibetans interpret the mchod-yon relation as follows:
- The sacred monastic community
(the sangha)
is far superior to secular ruler.
- The secular ruler (the king)
has the task, indeed the duty, to afford the
sangha military protection
and keep it alive with generous “alms”. In the
mchod-yon relation “priest”
and “patron” thus stood (and stand) opposed,
in that the patron was obliged to fulfill all
the worldly needs of the clergy.
After Buddhism became more and
more closely linked with the idea of the state
following the Ashoka period, and the “high priests”
themselves became “patrons” (secular rulers),
the mchod-yon
relation was applied to neighboring countries.
That is, states which were not yet really subject
to the rule of the priest-king (e.g., of the Dalai
Lama) had to grant him military protection and
“alms”. This delicate relation between the Lamaist
Buddhocracy and its neighboring states still plays
a significant role in Chinese-Tibetan politics
today, since each of the parties interprets them
differently and thus also derives conflicting
rights from it.
The Chinese side has for centuries
been of the opinion that the Buddhist church (and
the Dalai Lama) must indeed be paid for their
religious activities with “alms”, but only has
limited rights in worldly matters. The Chinese
(especially the communists) thus impose a clear
division between state and church and in this
point are largely in accord with western conceptions,
or they with justification appeal to the traditional
Buddhist separation of sangha (the monastic community)
and politics (Klieger, 1991, p. 24). In contrast,
the Tibetans do not just lay claim to complete
political authority, they are also convinced that
because of the mchod-yon relation the Chinese
are downright obliged to support them with “alms”
and protect them with “weapons”. Even if such
a claim is not articulated in the current political
situation it nonetheless remains an essential
characteristic of Tibetan Buddhocracy. [3]
Christiaan Klieger has convincingly
demonstrated that these days the entire exile
Tibetan economy functions according to the traditional
mchod-yon (priest-patron)
principle described above, that is, the community
with the monks at its head is constantly supported
by non-Tibetan institutions and individuals from
all over the world with cash, unpaid work, and
gifts. The Tibetan economic system has thus remained
“medieval” in emigration as well.
Whether the considerable gifts
to the Tibetans in exile are originally intended
for religious or humanitarian projects no longer
plays much of a role in their subsequent allocation.
„Funds generated
in the West as part of the religious system of
donations,” writes Klieger, „are consequently
transformed into political support for the Tibetan
state” (Klieger, 1991, p. 21). The formula, which proceeds from the connection
between spiritual and secular power, is accordingly
as follows: whoever supports the politics of the
exile Tibetans also patronizes Buddhism as such
or, vice versa, whoever wants to foster Buddhism
must support Tibetan politics.
The feigned belief of the
Fourteenth Dalai Lama in western democracy
However authoritarian and undemocratic
the guiding principles of the Buddhist state are,
these days (and in total contrast to this) the
Fourteenth Dalai Lama exclusively professes a
belief in a western democratic model. Now, is
the Kundun’s
conception of democracy a matter of an seriously
intended reform of the old feudal Tibetan relations,
a not yet realized long-term political goal, or
simply a tactical ploy?
Admittedly, since 1961 a kind of
parliament exists among the Tibetans in exile
in which the representatives of the various provinces
and the four religious schools hold seats as members.
But the “god-king” still remains the highest government
official. According to the constitution, he cannot
be stripped of his authority as head of state
and as the highest political
instance. There has never, Vice President Thubten
Lungring has said, been a majority decision against
the Dalai Lama. The latter is said to have with
a smile answered a western journalist who asked
him whether it was even possible that resolutions
could be passed against him, “No, not possible”
(Newsgroup 13).
Whenever he is asked about his
unshakable office, the Kundun always repeats that
this absolutist position of power was thrust upon
him against his express wishes. The people emphatically
demanded of him that he retain his role as regent
for life. With regard to the charismatic power
of integration he is able to exercise, this was
certainly a sensible political decision. But this
means that the exile Tibetan state system still
remains Buddhocratic at heart. Nonetheless, this
does not prevent the Kundun
from presenting the constitution finally passed
in 1963 as being “based upon the principles of
modern democracy”, nor from constantly demanding
the separation of church and state (Dalai Lama
XIV, 1993b, p. 25; 1996b, p. 30).
In the course of its 35-year existence
the exile Tibetan “parliament” has proved itself
to be purely cosmetic. It was barely capable of
functioning and played a completely subordinate
role in the political decision-making process.
The “first ever democratic political party in
the history of Tibet” as it terms itself in its
political platform, the National Democratic Party of Tibet
(NDPT), first saw the light of day in the mid
nineties. Up until at least 1996 the “people”
were completely uninterested in the democratic
rules of the game (Tibetan Review, February 1990,
p. 15). Politics was at best conducted by various
pressure groups — the divisive regional representations,
the militant Tibetan Youth Association
and the senior abbots of the four chief sects.
But ultimately decisions (still) lay in the hands
of His Holiness, several executive bodies, and
the members of three families, of whom the most
powerful is that of the Kundun, the so-called “Yabshi
clan”.
The same is true of the freedom
of the press and freedom of speech in general.
“The historian Wangpo Tethong,” exiled Tibetan
opponents of the Dalai Lama wrote in 1998, “whose
noble family has constantly occupied several posts
in the government in exile, equates democratization
in exile with the ‘propagation of an ideology
of national unity’ and 'religious and political
unification'. This contradicts the western conception
of democracy” (Press release of the Dorje Shugden
International Coalition, February 7, 1998; translation).
The sole (!) independent newspaper in Dharamsala,
with the name of Democracy (in Tibetan: Mangtso), was forced to cease
publication under pressure from members of the
government in exile. In the Tibet
News, an article by Jamyang Norbu on the state
of freedom of the press is said to have appeared.
The author summarizes his analysis as follows:
“Not only is there no encouragement or support
for a free Tibetan press, rather there is almost
an extinguishing of the freedom of opinion in
the Tibetan exile community” (Press release of
the Dorje Shugden International Coalition, February,
7, 1998).
The Tibetan parliament in exile
and the democracy of the exiled Tibetans is a
farce. Even Thubten J. Norbu, one of the Dalai
Lama’s brothers, is convinced of this. When in
the early nineties he clashed fiercely with Gyalo
Thondop, another brother of the Kundun, over the question
of foreign affairs, the business of government
was paralyzed due to this dispute between the
brothers (Tibetan Review, September
1992, p. 7).
The 11th parliamentary assembly
(1991), for instance, could not reach consensus
over the election of a full cabinet. The parliamentary
members therefore requested that His Holiness
make the decision. The result was that of seven
ministers, two belonged to the “Yabshi clan”,
that is, to the Kundun’s own family: Gyalo
Thondop was appointed chairman of the council
of ministers and was also responsible for the
“security” department. The Dalai Lama’s sister,
Jetsun Pema, was entrusted with the ministry of
education.
In future, everything is supposed
to change. Nepotism, corruption, undemocratic
decisions, suppression of the freedom of the press
are no longer supposed to exist in the new Tibet.
On June 15, 1988, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama announced
to the European Parliament in Strasbourg that
upon his return a constitutional assembly would
be formed in the Land of Snows, headed by a president
who would possess the same authority as he himself
now enjoyed. Following this there would be democratic
elections. A separation of church and state along
western lines would be guaranteed from the outset
in Tibet. There would also be a voluntary relinquishment
of some political authority vis-à-vis the Chinese.
He, the Dalai Lama,
would recognize the diplomatic and military supremacy
of China and be content with just the „fields
of religion, commerce, education, culture, tourism,
science, sports, and other non-political activities”
(Grunfeld, 1996, p. 234).
But despite such spoken professions,
the national symbols tell another tale: With pride,
every Tibetan in exile explains that the two snow
lions on the national flag signify the union of
spiritual and worldly power. The Tibetan flag
is thus a visible demonstration of the Tibetan
Buddhocracy. Incidentally, a Chinese yin yang symbol can be found
in the middle. This can hardly be a reference
to a royal couple, and rather, is clearly a symbol
of the androgyny of the Dalai Lama as the highest
tantric ruler of the Land of Snows. All the other
heraldic features of the flag (the colors, the
flaming jewels, the twelve rays, etc.), which
is paraded as the coat of arm of a democratic,
national Tibet, are drawn from the royalist repertoire
of the Lamaist priesthood.
The Strasbourg Declaration of
1989 and the renunciation of autonomy it contains
are sharply criticized by the Tibetan
Youth Congress (TYC), the European Tibetan Youth Association,
and the Dalai Lama’s elder brother, Thubten Norbu.
When the head of the Tibetan
Youth Congress came under strong attack because
he did not approve of the political decisions
of the Kundun, he defended himself
by pointing out that the Dalai Lama himself had
called upon him to pursue this hard-line stance
— probably so as to have the possibility of distancing
himself from his Strasbourg Declaration (Goldstein,
1997, p. 139).
This political double game is currently
intensifying. Whilst the god-king continues to
extend his contacts with Beijing, the TYC’s behavior
is increasingly vocally radical. We have become
too nonviolent, too passive, declared the president
of the organization, Tseten Norbu, in 1998 (Reuters,
Beijing, June 22, 1998). In the countermove, since
Clinton’s visit to China (in July 1998) the Dalai
Lama has been offering himself to the Chinese
as a peacemaker to be employed against his own
people as the sole bulwark against a dangerous
Tibetan radicalism: “The resentment in Tibet against
the Chinese is very strong. But there is one [person]
who can influence and represent the Tibetan people
[he means himself here]. If he no longer existed
the problem could be radicalized” he threatened
the Chinese leadership, of whom it has been said
that they want to wait out his death in exile
(Time, July 13, 1998, p. 26).
Whatever happens to the Tibetan
people in the future, the Dalai Lama remains a
powerful ancient archetype in his double function
as political and spiritual leader. In the moment
in which he has to surrender this dual role, the
idea, anchored in the Kalachakra
Tantra, of a “world king” first loses its
visible secular part, then the Chakravartin
is worldly and spiritual ruler at once. In this
case the Dalai Lama would exercise a purely spiritual
office, which more or less corresponds to that
of a Catholic Pope.
How the Kundun will in the coming
years manage the complicated balancing act between
religious community and nationalism, democracy
and Buddhocracy, world dominion and parliamentary
government, priesthood and kingship, is a completely
open question. He will at any rate — as Tibetan
history and his previous incarnations have taught
us — tactically orient himself
to the particular political constellations of
power.
The democratic faction
Within the Tibetan community there
are a few exiled Tibetans brought up in western
cultures who have carefully begun to examine the
ostensible democracy of Dharamsala. In a letter to the
Tibetan
Review for example, one Lobsang Tsering wrote:
„The Tibetan society in its 33-years of exile
has witnessed many scandals and turmoils. But
do the people know all the details about these
events? ... The latest scandal has been the 'Yabshi
vs. Yabshi' affair concerning the two older brothers
of the Dalai Lama. [Yabshi is the family name
of the Dalai Lama’s relatives.] The rumours keep
on rolling and spreading like wildfire. Many still
are not sure exactly what the affair is all about.
Who are to blame for this lack of information?
Up till now. anything controversial has been kept
as a state secret by our government. It is true
that not every government policy should be conducted
in the open. However, in our case, nothing is
done in the open” (Tibetan
Review, September 1992, p. 22). [4]
We should also take seriously the
liberal democratic intentions of younger Tibetans
in the homeland. For instance, the so-called Drepung
Manifesto, which appeared in 1988 in Lhasa, makes
a refreshingly critical impression, although formulated
by monks: „Having completely
eradicated the practices of the old society with
all its faults,” it says there. „the future Tibet
will not resemble our former condition and be
a restoration of serfdom or be like the so-called
‘old system’ of rule a succession of feudal masters
or monastic estates.” (Schwartz, 1994, p. 127).
Whether such statements are really intended
seriously is something about which one can only
speculate. The democratic reality among the Tibetans
in exile gives rise to some doubts about this.
It is likewise a fact that the
protest movement in Tibet, continually expanding
since the eighties, draws together everyone who
is dissatisfied in some way, from upright democrats
to the dark monastic ritualists for whom any means
is acceptable in the quest to restore through
magic the power of the Dalai Lama on the “roof
of the world”. We shall return to discuss several
examples of this in our chapter War and Peace. Western tourists
who are far more interested in the occult and
mystic currents of the country than in the establishment
of a “western” democracy, encourage such atavisms
as best they can.
For the Tibetan within and outside
of their country, the situation is extremely complicated.
They are confronted daily with professions of
faith in western democracy on the one hand and
a Buddhocratic, archaic reality on the other and
are supposed to (the Kundun imagines) decide in
favor of two social systems at once which are
not compatible with one another. In connection
with the still to be described Shugden affair this contradiction
has become highly visible and self-evident.
Additionally, the Tibetans are
only now in the process of establishing themselves
as a nation, a self-concept which did not exist
at all before — at least since the country has
been under clerical control. We have to refer
to the Tibet of the past as a cultural community and not
as a nation.
It was precisely Lamaism and the predecessors
of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama, who now sets himself
at the forefront of the Tibetan Nation, who prevented the
development of a real feeling of national identity
among the populace. The “yellow church” advocated
their Buddhist teachings, invoked their deities
and pursued their economic interests — yet not
those of the Tibetans as a united people. For
this reason the clergy also never had the slightest
qualms about allying themselves with the Mongolians
or the Chinese against the inhabitants of the
Land of Snows.
The “Great Fifth”: Absolute
Sun King of Tibet
Historians are unanimous in maintaining
that the Tibetan state was the ingenious construction
of a single individual. The golden age of Lamaism
begins with Ngawang Lobsang Gyatso, the Fifth
Dalai Lama (1617–1682) and also ends with him.
The saying of the famous historian, Thomas Carlyle,
that the history of the world is nothing other
than the biography of great men may be especially
true of him. None of his successors have ever
achieved the same power and visionary force as
the “Great Fifth”. They are in fact just the weak
transmission of a very special energy which was
gathered together in his person in the seventeenth
century. The spiritual and material foundations
which he laid have shaped the image of Tibet in
both East and West up until the present day. But
his practical
political power, limited firstly
by various Buddhist school and then also by the
Mongolians and Chinese, was not at all so huge.
Rather, he achieved his transtemporal authority
through the adroit accumulation of all spiritual resources and energies,
which he put to service with an admirable lack
of inhibition and an unbounded inventiveness.
With cunning and with violence, kindness and brutality,
with an enthusiasm for ostentatious magnificence,
and with magic he organized all the significant
religious forms of expression of his country about
himself as the shining center. Unscrupulous and
flexible, domineering and adroit, intolerant and
diplomatic, he carried through his goals. He was
statesman, priest, historian, grammarian, poet,
painter, architect, lover, prophet, and black
magician in one — and all of this together in
an outstanding and extremely effective manner.
The grand siècle of the “Great
Fifth” shone out at the same period in time as
that of Louis XIV (1638–1715), the French sun
king, and the two monarchs have often been compared
to one another. They are united in their iron
will to centralize, their fascination for courtly
ritual, their constant exchange with the myths,
and much more besides. The Fifth Dalai Lama and
Louis XIV thought and acted as expressions of
the same temporal current and in this lay the
secret of their success, which far exceeded their
practical political victories. If it was the concept
of the seventeenth century to concentrate the
state in a single person, then for both potentates
the saying rings true: l'état c'est moi ("I am the
state”). Both lived from the same divine energy,
the all-powerful sun. The “king” from Lhasa also
saw himself as a solar “fire god”, as the lord
of his era, an incarnation of Avalokiteshvara. The year
of his birth (1617) is assigned to the “fire serpent”
in the Tibetan calendar. Was this perhaps a cosmic
indicator that he would become a master of high
tantric practices, who governed his empire with
the help of the kundalini
("fire serpent”)?
In the numerous visions of the
potentate in which the most important gods and
goddesses of Vajrayana appeared before
him, tantric unions constantly took place. For
him, the transformation of sexuality into spiritual
and worldly power was an outright element of his
political program. Texts which he himself wrote
describe how he, absorbed by one such exercise
by a divine couple, slipped into the vagina of
his wisdom consort, bathed there “in the red and
white bodhicitta” and afterwards
returned to his old body blissful and regenerated
(Karmay, 1988, p. 49).
Contemporary documents revere him
as the “sun and moon” in one person. (Yumiko,
1993, p. 41). He had mastered a great number of
tantric techniques and even practiced his ritual
self-destruction (chod) without batting an eyelid.
Once he saw how a gigantic scorpion penetrated
into his body and devoured all his internal organs.
Then the creature burst into flames which consumed
the remainder of his body (Karmay, 1988, p. 52).
He exhibited an especial predilection for the
most varied terror deities who supported him in
executing his power politics.
The Fifth Dalai Lama was obsessed
by the deliriums of magic. He saw all of his political
and cultural successes as the result of his own
invocations. For him, armies were only the executive
organs of prior tantric rituals. Everywhere, he
— the god upon the Lion Throne — perceived gods
and demons to be at work, with whom he formed
alliances or against whom he took to the field.
Every step that he took was prepared for by prophecies
and oracles. The visions in which Avalokiteshvara appeared to
him were frequent, and just as frequently he identified
with the “fire god”. With a grand gesture he dissolved
the whole world into energy fields which he attempted
to control magically — and he in fact succeeded.
The Asia of the time took him seriously and allowed
him to impose his system. He reigned as Chakravartin, as world ruler,
and as the Adi
Buddha on earth. Chinese Emperors
and Mongolian Khans feared him for his metaphysical
power.
One might think that his religious
emotionalism was only a pretext, to be employed
as a means of establishing real power. His sometimes
sarcastic, but always sophisticated manner may
suggest this. It is, however, highly unlikely,
then the divine statesman had his occult and liturgical
secrets written down, and it is clear from these
records that his first priority was the control
of the symbolic world and the tantric rituals
and that he derived his political decisions from
these.
His Secret Biography and the Golden Manuscript which he
wrote (Karmay, 1988) were up until most recently
kept locked away and were only accessible to a
handful of superiors from the Gelugpa order. These
two documents — which may now be viewed– also
reveal the author to be a grand sorcerer who evaluated
anything and everything as the expression of divine
plans and whose conceptions of power are no longer
to be interpreted as secular. There is no doubting
that the “Great Fifth” thought and acted as a
deity completely consciously. This sort of thing
is said to be frequent among kings, but the lord
from the roof of the world also possessed the
energy and the power of conviction to transform
his tantric visions into a reality which still
persists today.
The predecessors of the Fifth
Dalai Lama
The organizational and disciplinary
strength of the Gelugpa ("Yellow Hat”) order formed
the Fifth Dalai Lama’s power base, upon which
he could build his system. Shortly after the death
of Tsongkhapa (the founder of the “Yellow Hats”)
his successors adopted the doctrine of incarnation
from the Kagyupa sect. Hence the chain of incarnated
forebears of the “Great Fifth” was fixed from
the start. It includes four incarnations from
the ranks of the Gelugpas, of whom only the last
two bore the title of Dalai
Lama, the first pair were accorded the rank
posthumously.
The chain begins with Gyalwa Gendun
Drub (1391–1474) , a pupil of Tsongkhapa and later
the First Dalai Lama. He was an outstanding expert
on, and higher initiand into, the Kalachakra
Tantra and composed several commentaries upon
it which are still read today. His writings on
this topic, even if they never attain the methodical
precision and canonical knowledge of his teacher,
Tsongkhapa, show that he practiced the tantra
and sought bisexuality in “the form of Kalachakra
and his consort” (Dalai Lama I, 1985, p. 181).
His androgynous longings are especially
clear in the hymns with which he invoked the goddess
Tara so as to be able to assume
her feminine form: “Suddenly I appear as the holy
Arya Tara, whose mind is beyond samsara” he writes.
“My body is green in color and my face reflects
a warmly serene smile ... attained to immortality,
my appearance is that of a sixteen-year-old-girl”
(Dalai Lama I, 1985, pp. 135, 138).
This appearance as the goddess
of mercy did not, however, restrain him from following
a pretty hard line in the construction of the
legal system. He determined that prisons be constructed
in all monasteries, where some of his opponents
lost their lives under inhuman circumstances.
The penal system which he codified was intransigent
and cruel. Days without food and whippings were
a part of this, just like the cutting off of the
right hand in cases of theft or the death penalty
for breach of the vows of celibacy, insofar as
this took place outside of the tantric rituals.
His severity and rigor nonetheless earned him
the sympathy of the people, who saw him as the
arm of a just and angry god who brought order
to the completely deteriorated world of the monastic
clergy.
The title Dalai Lama first appears during
the encounter between the arch-abbot of Sera,
Sonam Gyatso (1543–1588) and
the Mongolian Khan, Altan. The prince of the church
(later the Third Dalai Lama) undertook the strenuous
journey to the north and visited the Mongols in
the year 1578 at their invitation. He spent a
number of days at the court of Altan Khan, initiated
him into the teachings of the Buddha a and successfully
demonstrated his spiritual power through all manner
of sensational miracles. One day the prince of
the steppes appeared in a white robe which was
supposed to symbolize love, and confessed with
much feeling to the Buddhist faith. He promised
to transform the “blood sea” into a “sea of milk”
by changing the Mongolian laws. Sonam Gyatso replied,
“You are the thousand-golden-wheel-turning Chakravartin or world ruler”
(Bleichsteiner, 1937, p. 89).
It can be clearly gathered from
this apotheosis that the monk conceded secular
authority to the successor of Genghis Khan. But
as an incarnated Buddha he ranked himself more
highly. This emerges from an initiatory speech
in which one of Altan's nephews compares him to
the moon, but addresses the High Lama from the
Land of Snows as the omnipotent sun (Bleichsteiner,
1937, p. 88). But the Mongol prince called his
guest “Dalai Lama”, a somewhat modest title on
the basis of the translation usual these days,
“Ocean of Wisdom”. Robert Bleichsteiner also translates
it somewhat more emotionally as “Thunderbolt-bearing
World Ocean Priest”. The god-king of Tibet thus
bears a Mongolian title, not a Tibetan one.
At the meeting between Sonam Gyatso
and Altan Khan there were surely negotiations
about the pending fourth incarnation of the “Dalai
Lama” (Yonten Gyatso 1589–1617), then he appeared
among the Mongols in the figure of a great-grandchild
of Khan’s. Bleichsteiner refers to this “incarnation
decision” as a “particularly clever chess move”,
which finally ensured the control of the “Yellow
Hats” over Mongolia and obliged the Khans to provide
help to the order (Bleichsteiner, 1937, p. 89).
The Mongolian Fourth Dalai Lama died at the age
of 28 and did not play a significant political
role.
This was taken over by the powerful
Kagyupa sect (the so-called “Red Hats”) at this
stage in time. The “Red Hats” recruited their
members exclusively from national (Tibetan) forces.
They had attacked Sonam Gyatso’s (the III Dalai
Lama’s) journey to the Mongols as treason and
were able to continually expand their power political
successes so that by the 1630s the Gelugpa order
was only savable via external intervention.
Thus, nothing seemed more obvious
than that the “Great Fifth” should demonstratively
adopt the Mongolian title “Dalai Lama” so as to
motivate the warlike nomadic tribes from the north
to occupy and conquer Tibet. This state political
calculation paid off in full. The result was a
terrible civil war between the Kagyupas and the
followers of the prince of Tsang on the one side
and the Gelugpas and the Mongol leader Gushri
Khan on the other.
If the records are to be trusted,
the Mongol prince, Gushri Khan, made a gift of
his military conquests (i.e., Tibet) to the Fifth
Dalai Lama and handed over his sword after the
victory over the “Red Hats”. This was not evaluated
symbolically as a pacifist act, but rather as
the ceremonial equipping of the prince of the
church with secular power. Yet it remains open
to question whether the power-conscious Mongol
really saw this symbolic act in these terms, then
de jure Gushri Khan retained
the title “King of Tibet” for himself. The “Great
Fifth” in contrast, certainly interpreted the
gift of the sword as a gesture of submission by
the Khan (the renunciation of authority over Tibet),
then de
facto from now on he managed affairs like
an absolute ruler.
The Secret Biography
The Fifth Dalai Lama took his self-elevation
to the status of a deity and his magic practices
just as seriously as he did his real power politics.
For him, every political act, every military operation
was launched by a visionary event or prepared
for with a invocatory ritual. Nevertheless, as
a Tantric, the dogma of the emptiness of all being
and the nonexistence of the phenomenal world stood
for him behind the whole ritual and mystic theater
which he performed. This was the epistemological
precondition to being able to control the protagonists
of history just like those of the spiritual world.
It is against this framework that the “Great Fifth”
introduces his autobiography (Secret
Biography) with an irony which
undermines his own life’s work in the following
verses:
The erudite should not read
this work, they will be embarrassed.
It is only for the guidance
of fools who revel in fanciful ideas.
Although it tries frankly
to avoid pretentiousness,
It is nevertheless corrupted
with deceit.
By speaking honestly on whatever
occurred, this could be taken to be lies.
As if illusions of Samsara
were not enough,
This stupid mind of mine is
further attracted
To ultra-illusory visions.
It is surely mad to say that
the image of the Buddha's compassion
Is reflected in the mirror
of karmic existence.
Let me now write the following
pages,
Though it will disappoint
those who are led to believe
That the desert-mirage is
water,
As well as those who are enchanted
by folk-tales,
And those who delight in red
clouds in summer.”
(Karmay, 1988, p. 27)
Up until recent times the Secret Biography had not been
made public, it was a secret document only accessible
to a few chosen. There is no doubting that the
power-obsessed “god-king” wanted to protect the
extremely intimate and magic character of his
writings through the all-dispersing introductory
poem. One of the few handwritten copies is kept
in the Munich State Library. There it can be seen
that the Great Fifth nonetheless took his “fairy
tales” so seriously that he marked the individual
chapters with a red thumbprint.
Everything about Tibet which so
fascinates people from the West is in collected
in the multilayered character of the Fifth Dalai
Lama. Holiness and barbarism, compassion and realpolitik, magic and power,
king and mendicant monk, splendor and modesty,
war and peace, megalomania and humility, god and
mortal — the pontiff from Lhasa was able to simplify
these paradoxes to a single formula and that was
himself. He was for an ordinary person one of
the incomprehensibly great, a contradiction made
flesh, a great solitary, upon whom in his own
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