His Holiness The Dalai Lama turns 75 on July 6. Compelled to flee Tibet and seek refuge in India in 1959, he has spent two-thirds of his life in exile. Claude Arpi reports on an enlightening interaction he had with His Holiness along with with a group of Indian and foreign scholars in Dharamsala recently.
The first segment of an exclusive two-part interview:
What fabulous fate for young toddler Lhamo Dhondrub, born 75 years ago in a small village of Amdo province, north-eastern Tibet. At the age of four he was recognised as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama and enthroned as the head of the Tibetan State.
For the Tibetan people, the living incarnation of Avalokiteshvara, the Buddha of Compassion, had again returned.
The serene state of the Roof of the World could have remained unperturbed for centuries, but it was not to be. In October 1950, China's People's Liberation Army walked unhindered on to Tibetan soil. A new ideology, less compassionate than the Buddha Dharma which had come from India 12 centuries earlier, 'liberated' the Land of Snows.
Nine years later, the young Dalai Lama had to flee his motherland and take refuge in India. He has now spent two-thirds of his life in this country. He recently met a group of Indian and foreign scholars at his home in Dharamsala.
In a free-wheeling discussion he explained what Tibet is for him, the importance of the Indian tradition of Nalanda and the differences between Buddhist science, philosophy and religion and why he believes that a 'sort' of cultural genocide is happening in Tibet today.
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