Dalai Lama confirms he will have a successor after his death

In a rebuke to China, the Tibetan spiritual person says lone his instauration has the powerfulness to recognise his successor.

The Dalai Lama has confirmed that helium volition person a successor chosen successful accordance with “past tradition”, ending years of speculation astir the centuries-old office.

In a video connection connected Wednesday, conscionable days earlier his 90th birthday, the Tibetan spiritual person said the Gaden Phodrang Foundation, which helium established to sphere the institution, volition person the powerfulness to recognise his future reincarnation.

Tibetan Buddhist leaders volition search for his successor, helium added, stressing that “no 1 other has immoderate specified authorization to interfere successful this matter”.

The 14th Dalai Lama said helium had received galore messages successful caller years from Buddhists calling for the office’s continuation.

“In accordance with each these requests, I americium affirming that the instauration of the Dalai Lama volition continue,” helium added.

He made the comments during a three-day spiritual league successful Dharamshala, the bluish Indian municipality wherever helium has been based since 1959, erstwhile helium fled Tibet for India aft a failed uprising against China.

Speaking to Al Jazeera, the Tibetan writer and activistic Tenzin Tsundue described the Dalai Lama’s announcement connected Wednesday arsenic a “punch successful the face” for China, which governs the Tibet Autonomous Region and which has claimed that it has the powerfulness to name his successor.

The Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama, whom China brands a “separatist”, has antecedently warned Beijing not “to meddle successful the strategy of reincarnation of lamas, fto unsocial that of the Dalai Lama”.

In effect to his comments connected Wednesday, China said the Dalai Lama’s succession indispensable beryllium approved by the cardinal authorities successful Beijing.

Thupten Ngodup, a spiritual advisor to the Dalai Lama, said that ordinarily determination would not beryllium speech of a successor during the existent leader’s lifetime.

“But this treatment is happening present chiefly due to the fact that the Chinese authorities is interfering with the reincarnation of His Holiness,” helium told Al Jazeera.

In Tibetan Buddhism, it is believed that the spiritual person volition beryllium reincarnated successful the assemblage of a child.

Monks be the 15th Tibetan Religious Conference successful the bluish elevation municipality of Dharamshala, India, connected July 2, 2025 [Anushree Fadnavis/Reuters]

Born into a farming household connected July 6, 1935, the existent Dalai Lama was chosen for the relation astatine the property of two.

A hunt enactment sent by the Tibetan authorities picked him aft helium identified items belonging to his predecessor, according to his website.

In the wintertime of 1940, helium moved to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, wherever helium became his people’s spiritual leader.

His successor tin beryllium of immoderate sex and does not person to clasp Tibetan nationality, an authoritative astatine the Dalai Lama’s spot said connected Wednesday.

In 2011, the Dalai Lama handed governmental authorization to a democratically elected Tibetan government-in-exile.

Source:

Al Jazeera and quality agencies