Word: potala
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...that they had put down the three-day revolt in Lhasa that had served to cover the God-King's escape. Point-blank artillery fire drove diehard lamas from the Norbulingka, summer palace on the city's outskirts. Red infantrymen surged into the vast warrens of the Potala winter palace, rounded up defiant monks in narrow passages and dark rooms where flickering butter lamps made Tibet's grotesque gods and demons seem to caper on the walls. The corpses of hundreds of slain Lhasans lay in the streets and parks of the city, from the gutted medical...
...marry, was gradually overborne by the celibate Yellow Hat sect. This was made official in 1557 when a Mongol khan gave the seal of rulership to the leading Yellow Hat monk and named him Dalai (Ocean of Wisdom) Lama. The fifth Dalai Lama is famous for building the vast Potala. He also felt the need to honor his favorite teacher by naming him the Panchen (Teacher) Lama, and put in his keeping Tibet's second largest city, Shigatse. He thus created a rivalry that has plagued Tibet ever since. Generally, the Dalai Lama has had the support of whatever...
Education. In the vast (1,400 rooms) winter palace of Potala, the Palace of Gods, and in the smaller summer palace two miles away, the young Dalai Lama spent his days studying religion and philosophy, and training in the practices of dyhyana (meditation) as developed by the Mahayana Buddhist School. His mother was the only female he was allowed to receive within his household of servants, monks, abbots and the State Oracle, given to appropriately vague pronouncements ("A powerful foe threatens . . ."). The few Western visitors who, bearing sacred scarves, got audiences, found him a studious, insatiably curious and dedicated...
...world. Since then, though Radio Peking has on occasion quoted the Dalai Lama in dutiful denunciation of the American imperialists, he has in fact shown a captive's ability subtly to defy authority. The old saying is still true: "To hold Tibet firmly, the conqueror must win the Potala's top floor...
...India it was an embarrassing moment: the Indians hope to stay out of the trouble, and Prime Minister Nehru has repeatedly scoffed at exaggerated reports of Tibetan resistance. Last week the Indian consulate, lying between the Potala and Red headquarters, radioed New Delhi that there was "fighting in the immediate vicinity of the consulate. The situation is tense and rising." Then the radio fell silent. At Gyangtse, a large trading center 100 miles southwest of Lhasa, the citizens attacked the Red Chinese garrison. From Phongdo, the force of Khambas and fighting monks pushed toward the capital. At week...