The Dalai Lama

by Alexander Norman

  “probably perished”: Tsewang Y. Pemba, Young Days in Tibet (London: Jonathan Cape, 1957), p. 131.

  “their real feelings”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 127.

  “was not made easier”: Nari Rustomji, Enchanted Frontiers: Sikkim, Bhutan and India’s North-Eastern Borderlands (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971), pp. 123, 215.

  We had hardly passed: Rustomji, Enchanted Frontiers, pp. 215, 216.

  “It was evident”: Rustomi’s observation regarding the Panchen Lama was perceptive. The lama subsequently married the daughter of a senior Chinese Nationalist army officer. I had the honor once of meeting the Panchen Lama’s daughter, whose business card, printed on pink stock, identified her unexpectedly as a princess.

  “Their views”: Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 3:343.

  “It was a calm and beautiful”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 127.

  did not share: That said, there were undoubtedly some modernists within the Nehru government who thought Tibetan Buddhism was a hilarious concoction of falsehoods. See the remarks of Apa Pant quoted in Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 3:364.

  “as full of charm”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 129.

  happy to supply: Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 3:377.

  “but one scholar”: The Political Philosophy of the XIVth Dalai Lama: Selected Speeches and Writings (Delhi: Tibetan Parliamentary and Policy Research Centre, 1998), p. 5.

  made it back: Sadutshang, A Life Unforeseen, pp. 196–97.

  “At first he listened”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, pp. 128, 129. As I recall, the Dalai Lama originally said in his book that Nehru did in fact drift off briefly, but it was decided during the editing process to spare the blushes of his Indian readers. Ted Heath, the former British prime minister, whom he met during the early 1980s, likewise fell asleep during a meeting with the Dalai Lama.

  the (Chinese) transcripts: See Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, vol. 2, chap. 11, “The Dalai Lama Visits India.”

  “At first when you say”: Goldstein, 3:422.

  enjoyed a vision: William Meyers, Robert Thurman, and Michael G. Burbank, Man of Peace: The Illustrated Life Story of the Dalai Lama of Tibet (New York: Tibet House, 2016), p. 84. I am assuming he saw this vision while meditating.

  “hell realms”: Trijang, Magical Play, pp. 355–56.

  “There was a lot of submissiveness”: Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), p. 33.

  “please arrange”: Knaus, Orphans of the Cold War, p. 297.

  “When men become desperate”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 132.

  such a plot: Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 3:431. The only written account is that of General Fan Ming himself in his autobiography.

  “being returned to prison”: Trijang, Magical Play, p. 218.

  13. “Don’t sell the Dalai Lama for silver dollars!”

  Zhou Enlai’s promises: Melvyn C. Goldstein, A History of Modern Tibet, vol. 3, The Storm Clouds Descend, 1955–1957 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014), pp. 445–51.

  far fewer: see Jianglin Li, “When the Iron Bird Flies: The 1956–1962 Secret War on the Tibetan Plateau,” unpublished ms., trans. Stacey Mosher, p. 117.

  performing the ritual: Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 3:44. See also The Magical Play of Illusion: The Autobiography of Trijang Rinpoche, trans. Sharpa Tulku Tenzin Trinley (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2018), p. 359.

  “a very bad show”: Goldstein, History of Modern Tibet, 3:44. In fact, many Tashilhunpo monks did attend in the end, but that was clearly not the monastery authorities’ intention.

  “with tears filling my eyes”: Dalai Lama, The Life of My Teacher: A Biography of Kyabje Ling Rinpoché (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017), p. 189.

  The work of: See http://www.jamyangnorbu.com/blog/2014/09/27/the-political-vision-of-andrugtsang-gompo-tashi/ (accessed November 1, 2017).

  “brave, honest and strong”: Kenneth Conboy and James Morrison, The CIA’s Secret War in Tibet (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002), p. 55.

  “completely non-committal”: Conboy and Morrison, Secret War, p. 69.

  “gesturing in the direction”: See opening sequence of the documentary The Shadow Circus: The CIA in Tibet.

  “to ward off colds”: Conboy and Morrison, Secret War, p. 81.

  “monastery religious personnel”: Jianglin Li, Tibet in Agony: Lhasa, 1959 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016), p. 50.

  “we took agreat leap”: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 55. The original population of Namthang township was just under two thousand.

  “excellent”: Li, “When the Iron Bird Flies,” pp. 377, 164.

  an ambitious raid: Conboy and Morrison, Secret War, p. 78.

  progressed to Sera: See Dalai Lama, Life of My Teacher, pp. 190–91.

  “troubled state of mind”: Trijang, Magical Play, p. 228. Here I prefer the more literal translation of the first redaction.

  geshe exams: For a description of the final examination of a Gelug monk, see Georges B. J. Dreyfus, The Sound of Two Hands Clapping: The Education of a Tibetan Buddhist Monk (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 256–59.

  cabled a message: International Commission of Jurists, The Question of Tibet and the Rule of Law (Geneva, 1959), p. 9.

  had been canceled: Here I follow Li, Tibet in Agony, pp. 100–101.

  “cream of scholars”: Dalai Lama, Life of My Teacher, p. 193.

  “hatching a plot”: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 101.

  “make short work”: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 105.

  “Maybe this isn’t”: The autobiography of Phuntsog Tashi Taklha, the Dalai Lama’s chief of security, quoted in Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 111. I had the honor of knowing Phuntsog Tashi when he lived in London. He was not a man of obvious military bearing.

  “all-knowing Guru”: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 112. One might object here that if the Dalai Lama really was all-knowing, he would not need this or indeed any advice from the oracle. But actually the epithet “all-knowing” or “omniscient” is a common one used of high lamas to refer rather to their mastery of the doctrine.

  already been abducted: Tsering Shakya, The Dragon in the Land of Snows: A History of Modern Tibet Since 1947 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), p. 192.

  beat him to death: Shakya, Dragon in the Land of Snows, p. 192. Goldstein also covers the incident in detail.

  “Don’t forget”: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 129.

  Tibet has always been free!: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 157.

  “sitting anguished”: Li, Tibet in Agony, pp. 135, 177.

  volunteers congregated: Tubten Khetsun, Memories of Life in Lhasa Under Chinese Rule, trans. Matthew Akester (Delhi: Penguin for Columbia University Press, 2009), p. 29.

  “not in any fear”: My Land and My People: The Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962), p. 189.

  “stop holding”: Phuntsog Tashi Takhla, quoted in Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 150.

  “The reactionaries”: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 178.

  “the Tibetan people”: Li, Tibet in Agony, pp. 162, 163.

  “He looked haggard”: Li, Tibet in Agony, pp. 179, 157.

  “snatch the egg”: From my conversations with Tenzin Geyche Tethong and Tendzin Choegyal, November 2018.

  issued an order: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 159.

  “keep open the dialogue”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), p. 148.

  “If you think it necessary”: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 184.

  “Someone bearing the name”: Trijang, Magical Play, p. 245.

  “a large gold brick”: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 200.

  “no one looked up”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile, p. 151.

  14. On the Back of a Dzo

  It turns out: I am immensely grateful to D
r. Jianglin Li and to Professor Melvyn Goldstein, both of whom not only shared much unpublished material with me but also took the trouble to enter into lengthy discussions with respect to the question as to whether, as some have claimed, the Chinese deliberately allowed the Dalai Lama to escape. Professor Goldstein inclines to this view; Dr. Li inclines the other way.

  Both, surely, are right, albeit in different ways. It is true, as Professor Goldstein points out, that Mao made clear as early as 1956 that he was not worried about the Dalai Lama quitting Lhasa to live abroad. Mao maintained this position consistently, at least until March 16. As Dr. Li points out, however, it is evident that, at the Politburo meeting on March 17, the day the Dalai Lama fled the Norbulingka, this policy had changed. In essence, now it was “best to try to keep the Dalai Lama in Lhasa. However, if he leaves, it is not a big deal” (Wen Feng, “Tan Guansan Jiangjun Zhihui Lasa Pingpan Shimo” [The Complete Story of How General Tan Guansan Put Down the Rebellion], Wenshi Jinghua 228 [May 2009]: 4–13). No minutes of this meeting have been published, but the three accounts of it that we do have all concur on this point. What is not entirely clear is whether this was Mao’s directive, communicated to Zhang Jingwu, Zhang Guohua, and Huang Kecheng, whom he had summoned to his temporary headquarters at Wuhan, and who had arrived back in Beijing on the train that day, or whether this was the Politburo’s collective view. Either way, it is clear that there had been a change of plan. What we also do not know is when General Tan was made aware of this change. There is no paper trail. The Politburo meeting took place during the afternoon of March 17. It could be that its instructions were communicated immediately afterwards via telephone. It could also be that a cable was sent either on the evening of the same day or sometime the following day. What is clear is that if Tan did receive the instruction on the seventeenth, he did nothing about it. Although he would have had only a few hours to act, he could at least have sent out one or more night patrols that evening; he could have alerted the informants he would certainly have had on the ground to look out for and report any suspicious movements around the Norbulingka; he could have ordered one or more checkpoints to be established on the road leading away from the Norbulingka. It is evident that he did not.

  It is thus correct to say that the Chinese allowed the Dalai Lama to escape, but this was rather an act of omission than an act of commission. They were clearly aware that he might attempt to withdraw from Lhasa, but they did not knowingly permit him to do so—unless we accept at face value the anecdote supplied by Professor Goldstein’s interviewee Li Zuomin, who recounted that an official at the Norbulingka, Goshampa, had contacted Ngabo (by what means is not stated) on the seventeenth to inform him that the Dalai Lama planned to leave that night. Ngabo is said to have passed the message by telephone to Li, who in turn informed General Tan. Tan then called Beijing for instructions. He was told to let the Dalai Lama go.

  The trouble here is that for this to be correct, Tan’s interlocutor in Beijing would have had to ignore the Politburo’s instruction issued earlier that day. This seems implausible. From other evidence, it also clear that Tan did not, in fact, learn until the nineteenth that the Dalai Lama had fled, and indeed it was not until that day that he informed Beijing. There is also no other evidence to corroborate Li Zuomin’s claim. Could he have been lying? It is certainly not unknown even for retired officials to fabricate evidence to save face for the institution they served.

  To me, the most likely sequence is that the Chinese maintained a permissive policy toward the possibility of the Dalai Lama’s withdrawing right up until the seventeenth, changing it only on that day. Very likely General Tan was made aware of this change in the early evening of the same day, but, following receipt of the Dalai Lama’s letter saying that he would like to take up the general’s offer to come to the PLA for safety, Tan did not act on his new instructions immediately.

  Subsequently no effort was made to capture the Precious Protector on account of the instruction “not to worry” should he in fact succeed in getting away. But with the caveat regarding the putative evidence supplied by Li Zuomin, this does not amount to the Chinese leadership knowingly permitting the Dalai Lama to leave. If Li Zuomin’s evidence is true, why have the Chinese not published the communiqués between Lhasa and Beijing that were sent on March 18? The reason is surely that it would be embarrassing to do so.

  “and his cohorts”: Mao’s cable of March 12 has not been published in its entirety, but a summary is quoted in Jianglin Li, Tibet in Agony: Lhasa, 1959 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2016), p. 167.

  “do everything possible”: Jianglin Li, “When the Iron Bird Flies: The 1956–1962 Secret War on the Tibetan Plateau,” unpublished ms., trans. Stacey Mosher, p. 264.

  “the least harm”: The Magical Play of Illusion:The Autobiography ofTrijang Rinpoche, trans. Sharpa Tulku Tenzin Trinley (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2018), p. 245.

  “I found it extremely difficult”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), p. 152.

  mixed up: This story is told by Trijang Rinpoché in his autobiography but not in the published English-language version, Magical Play.

  “must deliberate profoundly”: See Sumner Carnahan and Lama Kunga Rinpoche, In the Presence of My Enemies: Memoirs of Tibetan Nobleman Tsipon Shuguba (Santa Fe, NM: Heartsfire Books, 1998), p. 4.

  seal off: Li, Tibet in Agony, pp. 234, 243, 235.

  “countless guns”: Carnahan and Lama Kunga Rinpoche, In the Presence, p. 4.

  One alternative they considered: http://www.atimes.com/article/dalai-lama-prefer-exile-myanmar-india/ (accessed December 10, 2018).

  a full six days: Carnahan and Lama Kunga Rinpoche, In the Presence of My Enemies, pp. 4–5.

  A famous photograph: See Jamyang Choegyal Kasho, In the Service of the 13th and 14th Dalai Lamas (Frankfurt am Main: Tibethaus Deutschland, 2015), p. 205.

  Prisoners caught saying prayers: Besides the oral histories collected by various organizations, such as the International Commission of Jurists and the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, there are several good firsthand accounts of the period available in English. One of the most thorough is that of Tubten Khetsun (Memories of Life in Lhasa Under Chinese Rule, trans. Matthew Akester [Delhi: Penguin for Columbia University Press, 2009]), a minor aristocrat who served in the Dalai Lama’s administration. Also useful is the biography of Kabshoba, a minister, by his son Jamyang Choegyal Kasho (In the Service). The autobiographies of Phuntsog Wangyal and Tashi Tsering give a flavor of the miseries of life in prison in Beijing. Probably the most famous is that of Palden Gyatso (Fire Under the Snow: The True Story of a Tibetan Monk [London: Harvill Press, 1997]), kept a prisoner for three decades, but other useful accounts are given in Shuguba (Carnahan and Lama Kunga Rinpoche, In the Presence of My Enemies) and Khetsun. David Patt, A Strange Liberation: Tibetan Lives in Chinese Hands (Ithaca: Snow Lion Publications, 1993), provides the stories of Ama Adhe, a nomad woman and mother of two incarcerated for over twenty years, and Tenpa Soepa, a government official jailed for a similar period. Of course, these should all be read with a critical eye, but the increasing availability of Chinese sources, especially those provided by Jianglin Li (Tibet in Agony and “When the Iron Bird Flies”), goes a long way toward substantiating even the more horrific of the claims made.

  This made plain: See Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 301.

  most surprised: See the report for April 5, 1959, of Har Mander Singh, the Indian political officer based at Tawang, http://www.claudearpi.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/April-5-Report-on-the-entry-of-His-Holiness-the-Dalai-Lama-into-India.pdf (accessed December 11, 2018).

  an airplane might be sent: Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 304.

  the last Tibetan villages: This second night was in fact passed at a monastery a short distance away from the fortress. Li, Tibet in Agony, p. 305.

  a large aircraft: Amazingly, the moment was captured on film. It can be seen
near the beginning of the documentary The Shadow Circus, part 3.

  no markings: Dr. Jianglin Li concurs that the lack of markings means that it could not have been Chinese.

  15. Opening the Eye of New Awareness

  “We do not yet know”: http://www.archieve.claudearpi.net/maintenance/uploaded_pics/590330_Nehru_to_Rajedra_Prasad.pdf (accessed November 21, 2018).

  no interviews: Time nonetheless put the story on its cover for April 15, 1959, under the headline “THE ESCAPE THAT ROCKED THE REDS.” An early account can be found in Noel Barber, The Flight of the Dalai Lama (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1960).

  “for their spontaneous”: The full text may be read in The Political Philosophy of the Dalai Lama: Selected Speeches and Writings, ed. Dr. Subash C. Kashyap (New Delhi: Rupa, 2014), pp. 3–5.

  “The so-called statement”: Dalai Lama, My Land and My People: The Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1962), p. 218.

  “to invoke the commitment”: Dalai Lama, The Life of My Teacher: A Biography of Kyabje Ling Rinpoché (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017), p. 200.

  “immediately one of irritation”: Quoted in Lobsang Gyatso Sither, Exile: A Photo Journal, 1959–1989 (Dharamsala: Tibet Documentation, 2017), p. 15.

  “his lower lip”: Dalai Lama, Freedom in Exile: The Autobiography of His Holiness the Dalai Lama of Tibet (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1990), p. 161.

  “focus . . . on religious practice”: The Magical Play of Illusion:The Autobiography ofTrijang Rinpoche, trans. Sharpa Tulku Tenzin Trinley (Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2018), p. 253.

  “tyranny and oppression”: International Commission of Jurists, The Question of Tibet and the Rule of Law (Geneva, 1959), pp. 197–98.

  “one of the most impressive”: Mikel Dunham, Buddha’s Warriors: The Story of the CIA-Backed Tibetan Freedom Fighters, the Chinese Invasion, and the Ultimate Fall of Tibet (New York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2004), p. 332. For an unexpected account of the resistance fighters, see also Chris Mullin, Hinterland (London: Profile Books, 2017).