TIBETIAN BELIEF

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 August 1939, Page 9

TIBETIAN BELIEF

SELECTION OF NEW DALAI LAMA.

FIVE-YEAR-OLD PEASANT ROY PROCLAIMED.

A five-year-old peasant boy has been proclaimed the 14th Dalai Lama. He was found in the tiny village of Tahcrhzhc, in the Kokoner province of China and has been sent to Lhasa, capital of Tibet, and site of the palace, stated a recent cable from Chungking, According to the belief of the Lamas, the Dalai Lama, their supreme head, spiritual and temporal ruler of Tibet, does not die, but from time to time lays aside his human form and is rejuvenated or re-born, his spirit passing into the body of a child born at the exact moment of the physical body be-

ing cast aside. The last Dalai Lama died in Lhasa in 1933, and this is the second report of his successor being found. The last report, in July, 1937, announced that a two-year-old boy, son of a wealthy pastoralist on the Kokonor Plateau, had been discovered answering to the sacred description of the new Dalai Lama after nearly three years' search by the monks and soothsayers.

The Dalai Lama is the political head of the country, and since 1933 the power which will belong to him has been in the hands of a group of his supporters called Gudras. The child sought must be born at a certain hour and bear certain physical marks such as the faint stripes of a tiger on the legs and imprint of a conch shell on the head, and experiments' are made to sec if the baby recognises any of the belongings of the past Dalai Lama. The place of his discovery was kept secret until the time should come for his presentation to the people.