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Auspicious signs: how the Dalai Lama is identified
Fourteen Dalai Lamas have guided Tibet's Buddhists for the past six centuries, which believers say are reincarnations of each other, identified in opaque processes ranging from auspicious signs to divination.
China says Tibet is an integral part of the country, and many exiled Tibetans fear Beijing will name a rival successor, bolstering control over a land it poured troops into in 1950.
The 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was born to a farming family in 1935 and has spent most of his life in exile in India.
He has said that if there is a successor, they will come from the "free world" outside China's control.
Here is how previous reincarnations were identified -- and what the current Dalai Lama says will happen.
- Oracles -
With the Dalai Lama turning 90 on July 6, he has said he will consult Tibetan religious traditions and the Tibetan public to see "if there is a consensus that the Dalai Lama institution should continue".
He has said he will "leave clear written instructions" for the future.
But he has alternatively suggested his successor could be a girl, or an insect, or that his spirit could transfer or "emanate" to an adult.
Responsibility for the recognition lies with the India-based Office of His Holiness the Dalai Lama.
The search and recognition of another leader must be "in accordance with past Tibetan Buddhist tradition", he said.
That includes consulting a protector deity, Palden Lhamo, and the oracle of Dorje Drakden, also known as Nechung, who communicates through a medium in a trance.
- Reincarnation recognition -
Tibetan Buddhists believe in all reincarnations of the "Bodhisattva of Compassion", an enlightened being who serves humanity by delaying salvation through another rebirth.
All so far have been men or boys, often identified as toddlers and taking up the role only as teenagers.
The last identification process was held in 1937.
The current Dalai Lama, then aged two, was identified when he passed a test posed by monks by correctly pointing to objects that had belonged to his predecessor.
- Auspicious signs -
Others were revealed by special signs.
The year the eighth Dalai Lama was born, in 1758, was marked by bumper harvests and a rainbow that seemingly touched his mother.
He was finally identified after trying to sit in a lotus meditation position as a toddler.
"Most ordinary beings forget their past lives," the Dalai Lama wrote in 2011.
"We need to use evidence-based logic to prove past and future rebirths to them."
- Golden urn and dough balls -
Divination, including picking names written on paper, has also been used to confirm a candidate is correct.
One method conceals the paper inside balls of dough. Another time, the name was plucked from a golden urn.
That urn is now held by Beijing, and the current Dalai Lama has warned that, when used dishonestly, it lacks "any spiritual quality".
- Tibet and abroad -
Dalai Lamas have come from noble families and nomadic herders.
Most were born in central Tibetan regions, one came from Mongolia, and another was born in India.
The Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, was born in 1682 in Tawang, in India's northeastern Arunachal Pradesh region.
- Secrecy and disguise -
Past decisions have also been kept secret for years.
The Fifth Dalai Lama, Lobsang Gyatso, was born in 1617 and recognised as a toddler.
But his discovery was kept hidden for more than two decades due to a "turbulent political situation", the Dalai Lama's office says.
And, when he died, he told monks to say he was simply on a "long retreat".
When visitors came, an old monk would pose in his place, wearing a "hat and eyeshadow to conceal the fact that he lacked the Dalai Lama's piercing eyes".
It would take 15 years before his successor was announced.
pjm/rsc/mtp
