TROUBLED TIBET

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23702, 9 January 1939, Page 8

TROUBLED TIBET

DEATH OF THE REGENT Foreign missionaries, on the Tibetan border have reported the death of the Regent, through whom the Dalai Lama, or Political Pontiff of Tibet, acted. Tibet (says the New York Times) thus is without three key figures. The thirteenth Dalai Lama died in December. 1933. The Panchen Lama, who ranked as spiritual ruler of the country, but who had been in exile since 1924. died in November, 1937. The Regent’s death, the missionaries reported, precipitated a struggle for domination of the country among the landed gentry, the Young Tibetan Party, the heads of three large monasteries near Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and the army. The advices said that an attempted revolt in the army had been crushed, but that the rebel leader escaped, and was continuing to foment trouble.

Since the Dalai Lama died a search has been carried on for the child whom Buddhists believe would be his reincarnation.

Rites for the Panchen Lama still are being carried out at Kanze, on the Tibetan-Chinese border, with the late dignitary’s army followers still unable to obtain permission to transport the body into Tibet for burial. The Panchen Lama died at Jyekundo, in Western China, while trying to make his way back to Tibet.