BENGALURU: The eight-year-old US-born Mongolian boy, who was anointed as the 10th Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa Rinpoche by the Dalai Lama in an initiation ceremony on March 8 Dharamshala may come to India for monastic studies, sources told TNIE.
The 10th Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa is the head of the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and the Buddhist spiritual head of Mongolia.
“Following his initiation, the Tulku (reincarnate boy) is now the head of the Jonang tradition of Tibetan Buddhism and the Buddhist spiritual head of Mongolia. There is a possibility of him coming to India for spiritual studies because of the lineage and better monastic facilities. The ninth Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa was affiliated with the Jonang Takten Phuntsok Choeling Buddhist Monastery in Shimla. Some of the monks in Jonang monastery also study at Drepung Monastery in Mundgod in Karnataka. It is possible that the Tulku takes up his monastic studies at these centres,” sources added on condition of anonymity.
According to unofficial reports, the Tulku, who was born in the US in 2015, was anointed as the 10th Khalkha (largest district of Mongolia) Jetsun Dhampa (Lord of Refuge) in a ceremony at Mongolia’s biggest Gandantegchinlen Monastery in February. The ceremony was attended by the Abbot of the monastery and the high Lamas of Mongolia.
“He was accorded legitimacy after he was declared a reincarnation of the ninth Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa on March 8 at the culmination of the exercise that the Dalai Lama undertook when he visited Ulaanbaatar in 2016,” sources said.
“The eight-year-old Tulku may become the latest and yet another point of friction between India and China with the latter coming down aggressively to claim ownership of Tibetan Buddhism and reincarnations of Lamas. Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa is considered one of the most important spiritual leaders in Tibetan Buddhism,” added sources.
“There are concerns regarding the Tulku’s security after what happened to Gedhun Choekyi Nyima soon after his initiation as Panchen Lama in 1995,” they said.
A month after his initiation, he was abducted by the Chinese and to date, he remains the world’s youngest political prisoner. He has been missing for 27 years. The Chinese spared no time in announcing their own Panchen Lama six months after Choekyi’s abduction when they announced that they had found the “real” reincarnation of the Panchen Lama in Gyaltsen Norbu - a Tibetan boy and the son of two Communist Party members.
Panchen Lama is second to the Dalai Lama in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy and plays a key role in recognising the next reincarnation of the Dalai Lama, who in turn, finds the reincarnated Panchen Lama. Mongolia being a landlocked country is heavily dependent upon China and may not want to antagonize its powerful southern neighbour. A week after the Dalai Lama’s visit in 2016, China, besides issuing a warning to Mongolia to never invite the Tibetan spiritual leader again, had also imposed fees on commodity imports from the country, charging additional transit costs on goods passing through a border crossing into China’s northern region of Inner Mongolia.
The ninth Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa lived with his family in Darjeeling, Mysuru, Madhya Pradesh and Dharamshala, where in 1991 he was officially enthroned as the Ninth Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa by the Dalai Lama. He died in 2012 in Ulaanbaatar.