https://arab.news/9f88q
- Nobel laureate and one of the world’s most influential figures, the Dalai Lama turns 90 on Sunday
- Spokesman of Tibetan government-in-exile says a statement by Dalai Lama expected this week
NEW DELHI: The Dalai Lama announced on Monday that he was preparing to share details about his succession, as followers gathered to attend a public ceremony ahead of his 90th birthday celebrations in Dharamshala in northern India.
The 14th Dalai Lama, the spiritual head of Tibetan Buddhism, has been living in India since 1959, after he fled Tibet with thousands of others following a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
His residence is in Dharamshala, a town in the state of Himachal Pradesh, which also hosts the Tibetan government-in-exile.
A Nobel peace laureate and one of the world’s most influential figures, the Dalai Lama will turn 90 on Sunday.
“The rest of my life I will dedicate ... for the benefit of others, as much as possible,” he told his followers through a translator as they offered prayers for his long life.
“There will be some kind of a framework within which we can talk about the continuation of the institution of the Dalai Lamas.”
When a Dalai Lama dies, Tibetan Buddhists believe he is reincarnated.
Senior monks and members of the Tibetan government-in-exile search for the child who is the reincarnation, relying on dreams and visions, rituals at sacred lakes, signs at the Dalai Lama’s death, and other omens.
“For the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, it’s not about succession, it’s about reincarnation,” Tenzin Lekshay, spokesperson of the Tibetan government-in-exile, told Arab News.
“There’ll be a written statement by his holiness on July 2.”
The 14th Dalai Lama was 2 years old when a search party decided he was the 14th reincarnation of Tibet’s spiritual leader.
Over the years, he has indicated that the continuation of the Dalai Lama institution was ultimately up to the Tibetan people and if they no longer found it relevant, it could cease to exist, and there would be no 15th Dalai Lama.
“His holiness has said many times also that if the Tibetan people wish the Dalai Lama institution to remain, then the Dalai Lama institution will remain,” Lekshay said.
In his autobiography published in March 2025, the Dalai Lama said he had been receiving petitions requesting that the lineage be carried on, and that when he turns 90, he would “consult the high lamas of the Tibetan religious traditions as well as the Tibetan public, and if there is a consensus that the Dalai Lama institution should continue.”
If they decide in favor, “then formal responsibility for the recognition of the 15th Dalai Lama should rest with the Garden Phodrang Trust (the office of the Dalai Lama).”