The Dalai Lama

by Alexander Norman

  Ultimately the disastrous standoff between Sera Che and the government had no impact on ensuing events, and it is doubtful whether the Dalai Lama was even informed. For him, the most important aspect of this New Year festival was his induction at Drepung Monastery, which marked his formal entry into the course of learning that would culminate in the award of the geshe degree. Something like a doctorate in the modern Western university curriculum, it is this that qualifies a monk to take students and to be a teacher of the Buddhadharma.

  The Dalai Lama’s junior tutor, Trijang Rinpoché, records a lighthearted moment during a rehearsal for his young student’s debut at Drepung when all those present had a fit of the giggles as the preliminary prayers were being chanted. First Ling Rinpoché burst out laughing, then the boy, then the abbot of Namgyal Monastery, the Lord Chamberlain, the chief attendant, and, finally, the junior tutor all “laughed uncontrollably.” Everyone, that is except Taktra Rinpoché, the regent, who looked on sternly.

  In the event, the Dalai Lama gave an impressive demonstration of his abilities, to the great satisfaction of his tutors. But with the 1946 New Year festival concluded, events in Lhasa took a turn for the worse. The agreement to postpone the case against the Sera monks turned out to be nothing more than that. The regent had no intention of dropping the charges. Instead he planned to arrest the abbot of Sera Che when he came to the Norbulingka later in the year for the traditional reception of the monastery leadership by the Dalai Lama. Perhaps warned, the abbot avoided the ceremony, claiming ill health. He then called on his monks to join him in open revolt against the government. But in another twist, part of the college refused to support him. Realizing that without their full backing there was no chance of facing down the government, the abbot resigned on the spot and, together with his closest supporters, fled in the direction of his native place.

  The government, alerted to what had happened, immediately sent troops to apprehend the abbot, dead or alive. But while he himself escaped, disguised as a beggar, his brother, who was with him, was mortally wounded in an engagement to the east of Lhasa. Because of their strong family resemblance, the soldiers mistakenly assumed that they had killed the abbot. Only when his head and hands arrived back in Lhasa, sent as proof of mission accomplished, was it realized that the intended target had escaped. He, meanwhile, sought refuge with the Chinese, who gave him a warm welcome. At last, however, the government was able to prosecute the monks it had sought for so long. They were all duly flogged.

  Reting Rinpoché, now returned to his own monastery and following events from afar, was incensed. At first he wanted to go to Sera Che and lead a rebellion against the government in person, lamenting that it was he himself who had given Taktra his position first as assistant tutor to the Dalai Lama, then as senior tutor, and finally as regent. And although he was eventually dissuaded from taking so drastic a course of action, Reting’s next move could only be interpreted by the government as a staggering betrayal. Writing directly to Chiang Kai-shek, he asked for Chinese support against the Tibetan government on the grounds that the regent was pro-British. If the Nationalists would send troops to enable him to take back the regency, he, Reting, would cooperate fully with the Chinese.

  As if this were not enough, the ex-regent’s closest advisers urged immediate action. Reting Rinpoché argued that his people should wait until the Chinese responded. But those surrounding him were desperate men, and while he might be a Buddhist practitioner gifted with extraordinary insight, Reting’s judgment in temporal matters was decidedly poor. To their continued entreaties, he replied that he would support them in whatever they decided was necessary, adding only that they should be careful. Rashly, they decided that what was needed was Taktra’s liberation from earthly existence. The problem they now faced was that the regent rarely ventured out in public. Two possibilities were considered. One was to ambush him as he returned to Lhasa from his hermitage later in the year. This would enable the attack to take place at night, far from the city. Ultimately this plan was abandoned. Instead he was to be hit with hand grenades during his inspection of the butter sculptures at the conclusion of the next Great Prayer Festival.

  As it happened, Taktra did not venture out on the evening to inspect the torma. At this time another political faction, the Tibet Improvement Party, had begun recruiting members. Founded by a group of dissident monks—which included Kumbela, Lord Chamberlain to the Great Thirteenth, exiled following the latter’s death—and supported by a wealthy trader from the eastern province of Kham, the group was allied to the Chinese Nationalists and committed to the overthrow of the government, by revolutionary means if necessary. Aware of its existence, and recognizing his own unpopularity with many who felt that, when it came to graft, he was no better than his predecessor, Taktra remained out of sight. He did, however, move to ensure that the Dalai Lama himself was further isolated from the looming crisis by curtailing his mother’s access to him. His concern was that she was “misinforming” her son. As a result, not only did she have to arrange her visits in advance, but also she needed to be accompanied by an official.

  Whether or not Taktra Rinpoché had anything to do with the death of the Dalai Lama’s father shortly after the Great Prayer Festival of 1947 is a matter for conjecture. What is known is that the yabshi kung became ill soon after eating a large amount of a pork, a meat of which he was particularly fond. It is plausible that trichinosis was the cause of death, given that he was ill for almost three weeks. But many say that he was poisoned. He was, after all, deeply unpopular with large numbers of the aristocracy and, from the regent’s point of view, immensely dangerous: he remained close to Reting, his eldest son was being touted as the next abbot of Kumbum Monastery, and his second son was a personal guest of President Chiang Kai-shek in China, not to mention that his fourth son was Dalai Lama. A family legend contends that the poisoner was the manager of the yabshi kung’s country estate outside Lhasa. But whether or not the accusation is true—and the Dalai Lama himself retains an open mind on the matter—it was certainly to the regent’s advantage for this increasingly well-connected ally of Reting’s to be taken out of the picture at this time.

  One might expect the death of his father to have had a considerable impact on the Dalai Lama, but in fact they rarely saw each other, and in contrast to his reaction to the deaths of others close to him, the Dalai Lama has never made much of this loss.

  Meanwhile, given that the regent had no scheduled public appearance before mid-April, the Reting plotters, impatient to act, turned to still more desperate measures. They devised a package bomb consisting of a wooden box concealing a standard Mills bomb of British manufacture. Once the firing pin was withdrawn, a sliding lid held the trigger in place. The device was delivered to the regent’s secretary with a message identifying the contents as a secret report from the governor of Kham. Since it was usual for important missives to contain a gift, the size and weight of the box would not have aroused suspicion.

  Unfortunately for the plotters, their plans fell victim to the traditional Tibetan habit of interpreting the word “urgent” to mean something other than a requirement for immediate action. The package was placed in a drawer, where it sat for several weeks. After some time, one of Reting’s associates threw an anonymous note through the window of Taktra’s residence suggesting that important information was being withheld from him. This, however, was seen as nothing more than a crude attempt to sow discord and was ignored by Taktra’s household. A servant of the regent’s secretary became curious about the package, however, thinking it might contain something valuable, and decided to see for himself. Carefully opening the box, he heard a hissing sound and, judging it possessed, ran from the room, narrowly escaping injury when it exploded.

  News of the assassination attempt was passed back from the British mission to London, where the story found its way into the newspapers. The Daily Mail published a report under the headline “Trouble in Shangri La.” But although the regent’s office was unab
le to trace the individual who had delivered either the bomb or the later message, the regent was now alert to the serious danger in which he stood.

  Two weeks passed before Taktra hit back. When he did so, it was on the basis of a top-secret telegraph message received in Lhasa from the Tibetan representative in Nanjing (the Nationalists’ capital, also known as Nanking). His contacts had obtained direct proof of Reting Rinpoché’s request for urgent military assistance from the Chinese. This was incontrovertible evidence of the ex-regent’s treachery. Taktra moved with unusual haste. That very night he dispatched two ministers and a detachment of two hundred troops to Reting Monastery. Meanwhile, orders were given for Reting Rinpoché’s Lhasa residence to be sealed and searched. As Taktra hoped, this yielded plenty of incriminating evidence, including at least one grenade wrapped in silk brocade. But some of Reting’s men, apprised of the impending raid, escaped in the direction of Reting Monastery, hoping to alert the ex-regent to the danger he faced.

  When, the following week, soldiers arrived at his monastery, they discovered Reting Rinpoché innocently feeding birds on the roof of his house. Although this was an arrest, it was conducted with the full formality that was the ex-regent’s due; the officers all prostrated themselves three times and offered a kathag. He gave them his blessing in return. They then “invited” him to go with them back to Lhasa. But of course it was on their terms, not his. He was compelled to ride a mule rather than his usual mount, a horse called Yudrug, which they dared not let him ride, as it was well known to possess supernatural powers.

  As soon as news of Reting’s arrest reached the monks of Sera Che, an angry mob demanded that the senior monk scholars compel the abbot to intercede with the government. But although they tried, the abbot was an appointee of Taktra’s and not inclined to act. On realizing that the scholars had been rebuffed, the mob immediately stormed the abbot’s house. They were met by his chief steward, who, fearing for his master’s life, pulled out a revolver and shot the ringleader and wounded another of the rebels. Unluckily for him, his revolver then jammed and he was in turn cut down with a sword, along with two of his servants. Meanwhile, the abbot, who lived upstairs, ran onto the roof and tried to make good his escape. But coming to a gap between buildings, he hesitated to jump and was slain by the monks pursuing him.

  Sera Che was now in open rebellion against the government in support of their beloved brother, the ex-regent. One of the college’s incarnate lamas declared himself “war leader” and set about organizing troop dispositions. A plea to negotiate with the government was swiftly rejected; instead, a group hastened to Lhasa with the intention of breaking into Reting’s house to retrieve the weapons locked inside. They were prevented from carrying out their plans, though they did inflict a number of casualties in the attempt.

  Undaunted, the Sera monks, correctly assuming that the party escorting Reting back to Lhasa would pass in front of the monastery, lay in wait. When the posse appeared, the monks unleashed what fire they could muster from their depleted armory. The government’s forces fully anticipated this, however, and, as soon as the monks appeared, began to shoot. One eyewitness described how a stream of monks burst from the monastery precincts, only to be driven back by the weight of fire. Many died that day, while Reting himself was duly incarcerated.

  Another eyewitness to this dreadful scene was the young Dalai Lama, watching events unfold from the roof of the Potala. With his telescope he had a good view of Sera Monastery a mile distant. For him, the spectacle was first and foremost a matter of wonder and excitement. “At last,” he recalled, “this was some proper work for my telescope to do.” But we do not get any sense that he was alert to the danger he himself was now in. With Reting out of the way, the only limit to the regent’s power would be the person of the Dalai Lama, who, as a twelve-year-old boy cut off from his family, would be in no position to fight his own battle, should that prove necessary.

  Next day, the Sera monks launched another attack on Lhasa to try to seize some weapons kept in a house belonging to a trading partner of the Reting estate. Fearing just such an attempt, the government had already sealed the house, but this time the monks were successful. With the loss of only three of their number, they managed to make off with a large consignment of matériel. In response, the army was ordered to deploy the artillery. The first attempts to shell the rebel monastery later in the day were unsuccessful, however. To the jeering of the monks, the army commander sent urgently for J. T. Taring, one of the officers who had trained with the British in India. Describing how he was summoned during the night, Taring subsequently recalled how, as if in presentiment of what was to follow, he and many others heard a loud moaning sound “like the call of the guardian deity of the cremation ground.”

  Re-sighting the guns, Taring scored a direct hit on one of the buildings where the monks were suspected of hiding. But even though it was by now clear to the rebels that the government was prepared for all-out war, they refused negotiations. They would back down only if the government released the ex-regent, fully restored his rights and property, and dropped all charges against the bomb plotters. Short of that, they announced, they would have no regrets even if Sera Che were reduced to rubble.

  By the time the crisis had fully played out, at least two hundred monks would die, though some estimates put the eventual death toll at nearer three hundred. Around thirty government soldiers were also killed.

  When the monks finally gave in, they put down their weapons, returned to their cells, and resumed their prayers as if nothing had happened. The five ringleaders were immediately seized and thrown in jail, there to spend the rest of their lives. A minority continued to defy the government, and it would be several more weeks before they were captured. They were all flogged, with between one and two hundred lashes apiece, before being put in irons and having the cangue fastened around their necks.

  While the siege of Reting Rinpoché’s alma mater was moving toward its bloody conclusion, the ex-regent himself remained in custody. Because the government now had in its possession not only copies of the letters he had sent to the Chinese but also a clear instruction to kill Taktra, he had no room to maneuver. His only real hope was to appeal personally to Taktra Rinpoché in his capacity as the regent’s chela, or spiritual son. This bond is regarded as sacred and therefore impossible to abrogate. But his captors ensured that the appeal was not heard. In the meantime, Reting faced calls for various torments, including that his eyes be put out, as Lungshar’s had been, or that he be sewn inside an animal hide and thrown off a high cliff in accordance with a seventh-century edict of King Songtsen Gampo.

  For more than a week the government ministers deliberated over what punishment should be meted out to the ex-regent. At one point, the Precious Protector was approached (it is not clear by whom) to intervene on Reting’s behalf while the ex-regent lay incarcerated in the dungeons below the Potala. But as he explained later, “my position was hopeless.” With his father dead and himself isolated not just from Lobsang Samten but also, lately, from his mother, the future ruler was given no opportunity to express any opinion he might have, let alone influence proceedings at this critical moment. Then, on May 8, Reting suddenly died. He had recently complained of a headache and asked that he be moved to a brighter, less cramped cell. This request was refused, but he was permitted a visit by a doctor, who prescribed medicine. It is said that around midnight, piercing screams could be heard coming from the area of the Potala where Reting was imprisoned.

  Immediately rumors began to spread. According to one, the ex-regent had died from having his testicles crushed, supposedly in punishment for having broken his vow of celibacy. Another, more plausible, held that the medicine he had been given was in fact poison. Still another charged that he had been strangled. But whatever the cause, all Lhasa was in shock. In spite of his many faults, Reting Rinpoché was held in highest regard for his spiritual accomplishments, and his popularity among the laity was immense. Loud were the shouts of sorro
w that went up when mourners came to view his body, displayed in the temple at his Lhasa residence.

  No sooner was Reting out of the way than the regent took the opportunity to revisit the question of the identity of the Dalai Lama himself. Support for Ditru Rinpoché, the nephew of the Great Thirteenth, still remained strong in certain circles. It would be hugely advantageous to Taktra if he could show that Reting had made a mistake in the selection process. The prestige Reting had enjoyed as the one who had found the Dalai Lama would then be his. Accordingly, with the connivance of the National Assembly, it was agreed to put the question to the deities once more, and Nechung was publicly invoked in a trance.

  This was a startling development. It amounted to an attempted coup d’état, though in the face of Taktra’s disloyalty to the young Dalai Lama, the deities made it resoundingly clear that the current occupant of the Lion Throne had been correctly identified. Yet this was still not enough for the Dalai Lama’s detractors, and, astonishingly, the matter was put to the deities one more time. And even when this additional investigation came down clearly in favor of Tenzin Gyatso, there was a move—unsuccessful—to question them yet again.

  Humiliatingly, Taktra had been publicly rebuked by the deities. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that from this point on, though he had defeated his opponent, the regent found himself completely isolated. His plan to keep the Dalai Lama in a similar state of isolation became increasingly ineffective. Showing considerable initiative, the Precious Protector used his close relations with the sweepers to maximum effect. From them he learned not only about the petty injustices they had to face on a daily basis but also about the inequity of the taxes imposed on the lower classes. On one occasion, with their help, he eavesdropped outside the door when the regent and other high officials were hearing a complaint brought by a peasant. “The officials started bullying him, and they just would not allow him to talk,” he recalled. Gradually, the young Dalai Lama began to get a sense that social and political reform was urgently needed.