The monastery extends its green and yellow roofs to the west of Ulaanbaatar. With its prayer wheels, its dozens of monks in red robes, its immense Buddha of compassion, Gandan is the epicenter of religious life in Mongolia. It was in one of its rooms that nine children and their fathers were gathered one evening in 2016. In front of them, that day, two religious people and an academic displayed rosaries, books of sacred scriptures and even clothes that belonged to the highest national religious authority, the ninth bogd, who died in 2012, at the age of 79.
One of the babies, a boy of 1 and a half years old, then stood out from the others by without hesitation grabbing the belongings of this revered figure. The academic who coordinated the ceremony, Bataa Mishigish, chairman of the religious studies department at the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, never forgot the moment: “Quite incredibly, he demonstrated his extraordinary identification of precise elements, he tells World. He chose them. No one else has done the same, and at that age you can’t tell a child what to do. » By doing so, the baby was identified as the reincarnation of the bogd, an authority often considered to be the third figure in the stream of Buddhism shared by Tibetans and Mongols. The beginning, for him and for his loved ones, of a life at the heart of geopolitical tensions, in the shadow of the desire for control of the powerful Chinese neighbor.
It must be said that the designation of the major figures of Buddhism dominant in Tibet and Mongolia – the Gelugpa current, or the “school of yellow caps” – is a sensitive matter. Its most famous representative, the Dalai Lama, once chosen according to the same ceremony as the baby of Ulaanbaatar, has lived in exile in India since he fled Tibet occupied by the Chinese in 1959. As for the Panchen Lama, the second most important authority of the Tibetan clergy, he was kidnapped six days after his appointment, in 1995, at the age of 6, and never reappeared in public. At the time, China rushed to appoint another Panchen Lama, this time of its choice. The tenth bogd has a twin, and to ensure the safety of the chosen child, his relatives and Mongolian religious leaders only give the initial of his first name, the same as for his brother: A. Altannar.
Read also | Article reserved for our subscribers The Dalai Lama, from Lhasa to Dharamsala: the story of an endless exile
Add to your selections
After the famous ceremony of 2016, the Dalai Lama went to Mongolia to validate the advent of the little boy. The words he then makes betray the parents’ reluctance: “He is still a child, there is no need to hasten public announcements, insists the Tibetan spiritual leader. In a few years, things will be clearer. » Even if the child’s name is not revealed, China protests against the Dalai Lama’s visit, “wolf in monk’s robes” that she has been fighting for decades. In retaliation, Beijing closed the border with Mongolia for several days, blocking exports of copper and coal crucial to the Mongolian economy while truck drivers had to wait in the cold.
You have 72.59% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
