Union Minister Kiren Rijiju: The Dalai Lama alone has the authority to choose his successor

Lahaul Spiti: On Thursday, Union Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said that the Dalai Lama alone has the authority to choose his successor. According to him, the future Dalai Lama will follow the customs and desires of the current one.

Notably, on July 6, Union Ministers Kiren Rijiju and Rajiv Ranjan will go to Dharamshala on behalf of the Indian government to celebrate the 90th birthday of the Dalai Lama. The spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhism is the Dalai Lama. The 14th in the lineage is the present Dalai Lama.

Ahead of the 14th Dalai Lama’s 90th birthday, Hollywood star Richard Gere has also participated in the festivities in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh.

He told reporters, “I visited the Dalai Lama once when I was very exhausted. Can I quit now, His Holiness? I asked. You may stop when I stop, which is never, he said. This is not a lifelong commitment. This is a lifetime of dedication, not just for Tibet but also for the Tibetan people, who have endured decades of severe mistreatment at the hands of the Chinese Congress Party.”

The Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, said earlier on July 2 that the Gaden Phodrang Trust, an organization he founded, can alone identify future reincarnations and that no one else has the power to make that determination. This claim excludes China from having any influence on the selection of the next Dalai Lama.

“The process by which a future Dalai Lama is to be recognized has been clearly established in the 24 September 2011 statement, which states that this responsibility will rest exclusively with members of the Gaden Phodrang Trust, the Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama,” the Dalai Lama said in a statement on Wednesday. The trustworthy, oath-bound Dharma Protectors, who are inextricably related to the Dalai Lamas’ lineage, and the numerous heads of Tibetan Buddhist lineages should be consulted. As a result, they need to follow historical customs while conducting the search and recognition processes.

“I hereby restate that the Gaden Phodrang Trust is the only entity with the power to acknowledge future reincarnations; no other entity possesses this authority to meddle in this matter,” he said. China’s Foreign Ministry emphasized that the central authority in Beijing must authorize the Dalai Lama’s rebirth.