'Living Buddha' defects to Dalai Lama

South China Morning Post, January 7, 2000
By Rafiq Latta And Agencies

The most senior religious figure in Tibet, the 17th Gyalwa Karmapa, has fled China to the Dalai Lama's government-in-exile, Chinese media reported on Friday.

Ugyen Trinley Dorje, 14, and a small group of followers left the Tsurpha monastery near Lhasa on December 28 and made the arduous seven-day journey to Dharmsala in northern India on foot.

The ''living Buddha'', who is Tibetan lamaism's third most important leader, left a letter saying he was going ''abroad this time to get the musical instruments of the Buddhist mass and the black hats that been used by the previous living Buddhas.

''This did not mean to betray the State, the nation, the monastery or the leadership,'' said Xinhua (the New China News Agency), playing down the defection.

The Karmapa's flight, however, will come as a body blow to Beijing, at a time when the leadership stressing national unity. Rights groups have reported increased repression in Tibet over the past year.

This Karmapa was considered relatively pro-Beijing, making a high-profile visit to the capital in 1994. Some analysts had speculated the authorities might have manipulated the Karmapa by driving a wedge between his sect and the dominant Gelugpa sect of the Dalai Lama.

He was enthroned on September 27, 1992, aged seven. It was the first time China had recognised the enthroning of a living Buddha.

His predecessor, the 16th Karmapa, defected in 1959, the year of an uprising against Chinese rule in Tibet.