Dalai Lama's successor will be from India: Here's how he escaped and saved his culture

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Spiritual leader Dalai Lama
Spiritual leader Dalai Lama

New Delhi : Tibetan Buddhist Dalai Lama has spent 60 years of his life in India and on the anniversary of leaving Tibet, he said that after his death his successor can be from India. He said if we see two Dalai Lama in the future, one from the free country and the other comes from China, then it is clear that the Dalai Lama declared by China will not be respected. 

Dalai Lama said his rebirth for China is very important and is worried about the next Dalai Lama after himChina on the other hand rejected the Dalai Lama's assertions that his successor could be from India and a nominee by Beijing would not be respected, saying the nest spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism has to be approved by the Communist government.

It was in 1959 that the 83-year-old Nobel peace laureate fled to India from Tibet. He was identified as the reincarnation of Thubten Gyatso, the 13th Dalai Lama when he was just two years old. The reincarnation system has been there for hundreds of years. The 14th Dalai has also been recognised in the religious rituals and was approved by the central government. " Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told reporters.

The current Dalai Lama, whose actual name is Tenzin Gyatso, was born on 6 July 1935 in a farming family in a village in north eastern Tibet, Lhamo Dhondup. In 1959 there was an uprising in Lhasa, Tibet. With China cracking down on the rebellion, the Dalai Lama and his followers started their journey to escape Tibet, with the help of CIA agents, on 17 March 1959. The Dalai Lama and his officials, who had also escaped from the palace, rode out of the city on horses to join his family for the trek to India. They crossed over to India on 30 March 1959, and reached Tezpur (Assam) on 18 April.

Since then the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan-government-in-exile are based in Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh. Besides being the Tibetans’ most revered spiritual leader, the 14th Dalai Lama, a Nobel Prize laureate, is a global symbol of peace and tolerance.

In an interview taken on November 2013, Dalai Lama said “Whether they (the Chinese) love me or not, the Tibetan problem is there. It’s not only the Tibetan problem, but it’s the problem of the People’s Republic of China. They have to solve this. Using force failed. So they must now carry out a policy to respect Tibetan culture and Tibetan people.”