John Gittings, in Qinghai province, visits the birthplace of the spiritual leader
High up on a dusty plateau in the village of Taktser lies the only shrine to the Dalai Lama to be found in China. It is in the house where he was born, and is lovingly cared for by a nephew.
On the altar is a photo of the exiled spiritual leader, some ritual brass bowls which he sent from India, and a letter written in his own hand.
“I was born here with the name of Lhamo Dhundup,” it reads. “I was discovered to be the reincarnation of the previous Dalai Lama and went away. I have never forgotten my home village. I pray for its people and hope they are safe.”
His prayers may slowly be answered. Last year Beijing allowed a delegation from the Dalai Lama’s seat of exile in Dharamsala, India, to meet Chinese officials in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa. Gyalo Dhundup, one of his two elder brothers, visited Taktser.
Now there is at least a slim chance that the he may one day return home. So if he did, what would he find there?
The balcony outside the house looks across a courtyard decked with prayer flags to a village which has changed very little since 1938, when a search party of high-ranking lamas found the new, three-year-old, Dalai Lama.
A wide valley stretches in the distance to Mount Tsongkhapa whose peak, say the villagers, resembles the Buddha’s head.
In 1986 the Chinese government rebuilt the family home which had been destroyed in the cultural revolution, as a gesture in its dialogue with the Tibetan government in exile. Yet no agreement has ever been reached: the house is closed to pilgrims.
At Kumbum, 25 miles from Taktser, stands one of the six great monasteries of Tibetan Buddhism. It is a peaceful morning in the courtyard and all that can be heard is the hum of pilgrims’ prayers, the cooing of pigeons and the creak of prayer wheels.
Yet the tranquillity is deceptive in this most sacred spot: not only is it close to the Dalai Lama’s birthplace, it is also where the 14th-century Tsongkhapa, founder of Tibet’s main spiritual sect, was born.
Although Kumbum lies outside the Tibet Autonomous Region, it has been subjected to the same tight controls.
Beijing’s “patriotic education” campaign, designed to sever the spiritual ties between the monks and the exiled Dalai, has been enforced in recent years.
Discontent Eastern Qinghai province, part of the area known to the Tibetans as Amdo, has produced many great religious figures. If recent hints of movement in the dialogue between the Dalai Lama and Beijing turn into anything concrete, then the status of Amdo, now part of China proper, will become a central issue.
The monks of Kumbum whisper their discontent, watching out for the black-jacketed loafers who are probably spies.
“We used to have 3,100 monks here, now it is 700, too few, too few,” murmurs an elderly monk, pressing his hands downwards to press home his point. Then he moves quickly away.
The official limit is 500: here, as in other monasteries, the figure has crept up, but every so often, the local religious affairs bureau conducts a purge.
On a terrace overlooking the monastery, a young monk quietly complains.
“Only photos of the late Tenth Panchen Lama [Tibet’s second spiritual leader who was tolerated by Beijing] are allowed. The government makes so many obstacles for us,” he says.
In the great hall, a picture of an earlier Panchen has been placed, by official order, on top of a casket belonging to the Dalai Lama.
Some illegal pictures can still be found: two in a small chapel to which the door is normally locked, another tucked daringly behind a carving in one of the open halls; all that can be seen is the glint of his glasses.
In Kumbum as elsewhere, the monks were required to denounce the Dalai Lama in order to “pass the test”. From his exile he recognised their dilemma, advising the faithful to “do that [denounce him] without hesitation”.
Agya Rinpoche, abbot of Kumbum, was caught up in the political manoeuvring over the succession to the Tenth Panchen Lama, who died in 1989: rival reincarnations have been picked by Beijing and by the Dalai Lama.
Outwardly loyal for many years he could no longer bear the pressure and fled to the US, where he explained that he was escaping from “almost total Chinese control over my life”.
The Agya is still popular among the flock he has left. “He was very strong, he taught us very well, we all admired him,” says the young monk on the terrace.
Despite the grumblings, Kumbum is one of the luckier monasteries. An official survey of Qinghai province records that out of more than 700 monasteries, only the two most famous, Kumbum and Qutan, have survived.
Qutan’s temples remained intact because they were turned into granaries, although all the images of the Buddha were melted down. Kumbum, near the provincial capital of Xining, was better protected as a “cultural relic”.
Many monasteries have since been rebuilt but always on a much smaller scale. Xiazong monastery, on the other side of the mountain from the Dalai Lama’s home, was once a rural retreat for high lamas, and the seat of Thubten Jigme Norbu, another elder brother.
A small temple stands on the ground once occupied by the great prayer hall; a winding path leads upwards to a handful of smaller shrines.
“This is all that survives from then,” says the 75-year-old monk who is the only custodian. He points to a green standing stone by the side of the path.
Photographs show that a five-storey building once spread across the ridge, with separate sections for the Dalai Lama, the Panchen Lama and the Dangcai Lama (the Dalai’s brother).
It was levelled in the cultural revolution: local people collected the rubble for building material. The walls of their homes now sit on a solid foundation of monastery granite: the villagers are Han Chinese and not much interested in Buddhism.
Back in the Dalai Lama’s birthplace in Taktser, the large prayer wheel in the room where he was born remains still. Only 30 of Taktser’s 50 households are Tibetan today, reflecting a demographic change which will have profound implications should the Dalai Lama ever come back.
“The people of Tibet weep every night and pray for him to return,” says a devout Buddhist in the area. “We are 5 or 6 million Tibetans, scattered over a vast land. We can do nothing without him.
“If he does return, of course he must go to Lhasa; but we hope he will visit his old home on the way.”
