Numerous women have over the years offered to marry the Dalai Lama, the celibate Tibetan spiritual leader told a German magazine.
The exiled leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner told the weekly Die Welt am Sonntag, due to appear on Sunday, that many women have followed him on his travels and “lots of them have said they wanted to marry me.”
The Dalai Lama had addressed an ecumenical gathering of Germany’s young Christians in Berlin on Friday.
He said he did not watch all the films that have been made about him. “We are subjected to so many deceptions and illusions, there is no need to impose supplementary ones,” he said.
The Dalai Lama, a vegetarian, said he preferred watching animal documentaries that “show true life,” and that he sometimes was afraid that in his next life he would be reincarnated as an animal.
Tibetans hold the Dalai Lama to be the 14th reincarnation of the Avalokitesvara, the Buddha of Compassion, and as such, their political and spiritual leader.
Born in 1935, the Dalai Lama fled Tibet after an abortive uprising against Chinese rule and established a government-in-exile in Dharamsala in northern India.
Since then, he has lobbied hard on the part of Tibet with world leaders and personalities, efforts that netted him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989.
But he told Die Welt am Sonntag that he intended to gradually withdraw from political functions, but “I will continue until my death to devote myself to the promotion of human values and harmony.”
China, which has ruled Tibet since 1951, has been accused of trying to wipe out its Buddhist-based culture through political and religious repression and a flood of ethnic Chinese immigration.
