28 March 2008

Born divine as reincarnated whatever, this poor young high-ranking Tibetan Lama loses his freedom of owning a large quantity of female companions and serfs, but restrained to have one girlfriend at a time and one servent lama by his side.

Do not unholily speculate that he is a Chinese government planted fake lama, used to demonstrade how unholy the Tibatan lamas can be. Mind you, this is a holy tradition right from the previous reincarnations of his holiness the 14th Dalai Lama (according to Lamaism's claim, they are essentially the same person, aren't they?).

Truth Behind Old Tibet & Lamaism
Myth and Reality of Tibet
by elle

In the thirteenth century, Emperor Kublai Khan created the first Grand Lama, who was to preside over all the other lamas as might a pope over his bishops. Several centuries later, the Emperor of China sent an army into Tibet to support the Grand Lama, an ambitious 25-year-old man, who then gave himself the title of Dalai (Ocean) Lama, ruler of all Tibet. Here is a historical irony: the first Dalai Lama was installed by a Chinese army.

His two previous lama “incarnations” were then retroactively recognized as his predecessors, thereby transforming the 1st Dalai Lama into the 3rd Dalai Lama. This 1st (or 3rd) Dalai Lama seized monasteries that did not belong to his sect, and is believed to have destroyed Buddhist writings that conflicted with his claim to divinity.

The Dalai Lama who succeeded him pursued a sybaritic life, enjoying many mistresses, partying with friends. For these transgressions he was murdered by his priests. Within 170 years, despite their recognized divine status, five Dalai Lamas were killed by their high priests or other courtiers.

Where ruling lamas lived

Where serfs lived

Earlier visitors to Tibet commented on the theocratic despotism. In 1895, an Englishman, Dr. A. L. Waddell, wrote that the populace was under the “intolerable tyranny of monks” and the devil superstitions they had fashioned to terrorize the people.

In 1904 Perceval Landon described the Dalai Lama’s rule as “an engine of oppression.”

At about that time, another English traveler, Captain W.F.T. O’Connor, observed that “the great landowners and the priests… exercise each in their own dominion a despotic power from which there is no appeal,” while the people are “oppressed by the most monstrous growth of monasticism and priest-craft.” Tibetan rulers “invented degrading legends and stimulated a spirit of superstition” among the common people.

In 1937, another visitor, Spencer Chapman, wrote, “The Lamaist monk does not spend his time in ministering to the people or educating them. . . . The beggar beside the road is nothing to the monk. Knowledge is the jealously guarded prerogative of the monasteries and is used to increase their influence and wealth.”

A 1999 story in the Washington Post notes that ... few Tibetans would welcome a return of the corrupt aristocratic clans that fled with him [Dalai Lama] in 1959 and that comprise the bulk of his advisers. Many Tibetan farmers, for example, have no interest in surrendering the land they gained during China’s land reform to the clans. Tibet’s former slaves say they, too, don’t want their former masters to return to power.