Word: lhasa
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...Into Lhasa, bleak Forbidden City of windswept Tibet, last week a swaying caravan brought home Tibet's "living god." This 14th Dalai Lama, sovereign pontiff of Tibet, a bright, intelligent lad of five named Tanchu, had been discovered in western China (TIME, Aug. 21). Instead of taking him direct to Lhasa, the caravan went some hundreds of miles out of the way to Chungking, China's capital, where an attendant held the button-eyed god aloft before the populace. Thence representatives of the Chinese Government accompanied the caravan to Lhasa...
...Since the death of Ngawang Lopsang Toupden Gyatso in 1933, Tibet has been ruled by a council of lamas. Last month, a new Dalai Lama was discovered* in a remote village of Kokonor. Last week his caravan was winding through snow-swept mountain passes toward his sacred city of Lhasa...
Until his satisfactory identification through omens, portents, visions & oracles, this 14th reincarnation of Buddha was a 5-year-old peasant boy named Tanchu, "quiet mannered with bright penetrating eyes." Now Tanchu will live in a gold-domed penthouse atop the Potala, his massive fortress-palace at Lhasa, spend the next 13 years under the lama regency learning about his previous incarnations and the intricate Lamaist ritual. If he reaches the age of 18 he will be consecrated, rule for the rest of his days...
...months in Tibet are described in Penthouse of the Gods. An unusual travel book, particularly outstanding for its photographs, it describes his journey from India through the 18,000-foot passes of the Himalayas, the diplomatic wangling which got him an official invitation to the "forbidden city" of Lhasa, his novitiate in the big monasteries of Drepung, Sera and Ganden, with monk populations from 5,000 to 10,000. The climax is, of course, the fussy, interminable ceremony at which he became a full-fledged Lama, a Western reincarnation of a long-dead Tibetan saint. For readers who picture Tibet...
...stately procession, they encamped at night in lamaseries or caravansaries, surrounded the Panchen Lama with hundreds of yak-butter lamps. The caravan finally arrived in Kanze, where the Panchen Lama remained last week, sitting odorously in his cerements. The Chinese troops wished to accompany the body to Lhasa; the Tibetans wanted no foreign soldiers; neither side gave in. Of authentic infant candidates to reincarnate and succeed either the Dalai or Panchen Lamas, no word had reached the outside world last week...