Tibet’s Rising Son

In recent years, the younger monk has been increasingly seen under the Dalai Lama's wing. The two live near each other in Dharamsala. Foreign delegations seeking audience with the Dalai Lama often find the Karmapa Lama included, or are urged by the Dalai Lama himself to seek out the newcomer. "He has grown up to be a very attractive lama to the general public," Lobsang says, "but also, importantly, to the young. They can connect with him. He's of the same age. They know the hardships he went through to escape."

At the meeting of Tibetan exiles in November, at least five of 15 working groups listed the Karmapa as a suitable candidate to lead the community in the future. He was mentioned by the prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile as a potential leader, and also by the Dalai Lama, who named him among several monks who might emerge to lead the movement. In one scenario, the Dalai Lama would appoint the Karmapa now, to serve after the senior monk's death as a formal regent, providing theological and temporal leadership until a new Dalai Lama comes of age.

By naming a young and popular regent now, the Dalai Lama could assure a smooth transition to a figure who has become like a son to him, while dashing Chinese hopes of simply outwaiting the Tibetan exiles. He might also help to head off a full-blown power struggle over succession. As it is, any new leader—or joint leadership—will have to balance sectarian rivalries, win over alienated youth in Dharamsala, mollify the demands of sympathizers abroad and possibly deal with rival claimants to the title of the next Dalai Lama (each with his own powerful tutors and advisers).

The Karmapa Lama is not the only possible choice to forestall a succession struggle. The Dalai Lama has spoken highly of other monks, including the reincarnation of his former teacher. In a theological twist, the Dalai Lama also ruled last year that he can, under a doctrine called madey tulku, select his own reincarnation while still alive (dualism of this kind—alive, yet already reincarnated—rarely bothers Tibetans). This would allow the Dalai Lama to shorten the period without a leader, and control the selection and education of his replacement. But Chinese officials immediately disputed the ruling, insisting they alone have the historic right to choose the Dalai Lama's successor. This means that two rival Dalai Lamas would likely emerge, clouding the issue of succession for decades. Here the Karmapa offers another potential solution: he is the only major tulku, or reincarnation, currently recognized by both the Chinese and the Dalai Lama. He could be the hinge on which relations between Tibetans and China swing in a new direction.

The Karmapa's monastic order holds a prayer festival every January in Bihar, India's poorest province, at the spot where Buddha is believed to have attained enlightenment in the sixth century B.C. Called Monlam, the prayer festival had about 200 attendees in 1993. But several years ago, when the Karmapa Lama began to appear himself, the crowds swelled, and now 10,000 monks, nuns and lay people attend. They mostly want to hear the teachings of the Karmapa—regarded as the living manifestation of the four-armed goddess of compassion—accompanied by deep-voiced, ritualistic Tibetan chants and trumpets. This year the grounds of the pilgrimage site sometimes resembled a Buddhist Woodstock, with juniper smoke and an aroma of yak-butter candles blowing over the massed ranks of monastic adepts in saffron- and wine-colored robes.

Among several thousand lay people present, Tibetan exiles—women in striped aprons, and men in off-the-shoulder-jackets—barely outnumbered those speaking in the accents of Boston, Birmingham and Berlin. Although it is rarely acknowledged, foreign followers translate into power. Donations from Asia and the West help build new monasteries, wealthy supplicants fill begging bowls with silk and cell phones, and lamas who can shuttle between Boulder and Bihar assume greater importance than those who cannot. The temptations of the material world are not unknown even here: at the Monlam festival, the Karmapa sacked the administrator of a monastic center in Gangtok for corruption. A sweating and visibly nervous replacement was led out of a meeting with the Karmapa as a reporter from NEWSWEEK was brought in to an interview.