Between renewal & rebirth: The Dalai Lama succession

The stage is set for a metaphysical standoff: One Dalai Lama born of visions, dreams, and ritual recognition; another produced by committee, installed by fiat. It is less a theological debate than a collision between historical memory and statecraft — between a displaced people's spiritual continuity and China’s political choreography

- Nirupama Rao

In Tibetan Buddhism, the bardo is the space between lives —a liminal zone where the soul hovers, neither here nor there, waiting for its next embodiment. It is a place of uncertainty, transformation, and reckoning.

Since 1950, Tibet has lived in such a state.

That year, Chinese forces entered Tibet, marking the start of a profound shift in the region’s political and cultural landscape. In the years that followed, many Tibetans left their homeland, facing dislocation and uncertainty. Religious institutions were restructured, traditional ways of life transformed, and the Tibetan language and identity came under increasing strain. The Dalai Lama sought refuge in India in 1959, followed by thousands of his people. Around the world, there was sympathy, but little action. Tibet — never formally recognised as an independent State by the major powers — drifted into a kind of political bardo: Not entirely forgotten, but no longer central to the world’s attention.

Today, that suspended state is once again being tested.

The 14th Dalai Lama, turning 90 today, has signalled that his successor will be born in exile, and identified through traditional methods — not selected by any government. Beijing, predictably, has other plans. It has codified its authority to approve all reincarnations of Tibetan lamas and declared that the next Dalai Lama must be chosen according to Chinese law. The State even claims the right to employ the Golden Urn, an 18th-century ritual once used to select high-ranking reincarnate lamas, to give its candidate a supposed veil of legitimacy.