The Dalai Lama

Tibetan Buddhism's spiritual leader faces a struggle over his successor, writes Stephen Armstrong

- Stephen Armstrong

Today is the Dalai Lama's 90th birthday, with celebrations kicking off with his Compassion Rising world tour — a series of events organised to promote "peace, unity, and the enduring message of His Holiness".

Meanwhile, the Tibetan monk has used his birthday to cause a little trouble in big China by confirming in a video message that he will have a successor, putting to rest speculation over whether the 600-year-old institution will end when he dies - and setting India and China against each other.

Dalai Lamas are reincarnated after they die, according to tradition, and in his most recent memoir, Voice for the Voiceless, published in March, the 14th Dalai Lama said his successor will be born in the "free world".

The Chinese government, which annexed Tibet in 1950, disagrees, insisting that the Communist party would choose a successor from inside China.

India, home to the Dalai Lama and over 100,000 Tibetans in exile, backs the Buddhist leader, setting up a potentially explosive final chapter in his life. To add a little spice, he has suggested he may return as a "mischievous blonde woman".

Alexander Norman, author of the first authorised biography, The Dalai Lama: An Extraordinary Life, suspects that the priest may already have chosen who will follow him.

The Dalai Lama has said that we ordinary folk cannot manifest an emanation before death, but superior Bodhisattvas such as he, who can manifest themselves in hundreds or thousands of bodies simultaneously, can. It's a sharp political move if he has. By anointing a living successor, he can ensure that the process can proceed without the missing 11th Panchen Lama, one of the key figures in that process, who was kidnapped by Chinese authorities in 1995.