1.
Panchen Lama
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The Panchen Lama is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is traditionally involved in recognizing the Panchen Lama, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is recognized by the Gelug school as the Panchen Lama. Human rights groups have condemned this act, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima has not been seen in public since 17 May 1995. Gyaincain Norbu who acts as the 11th Panchen Lama in China, is reviled by Tibetans as a fake, the previous Panchen Lama spoke out against Chinese rule many times and wrote a report chronicling Tibets famines in the 1960s. As a result, he spent more than eight years in jail, the successive Panchen Lamas form a tulku reincarnation lineage which are said to be the incarnations of Amitābha. The title, meaning Great Scholar, is a Tibetan contraction of the Sanskrit paṇḍita, the Panchen Lama traditionally lived in Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse. From the name of this monastery, the Europeans referred to the Panchen Lama as the Tashi-Lama, Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen, was the first Panchen Lama to be accorded this title during his lifetime. He was the tutor and an ally of the 5th Dalai Lama, The Great Fifth, as he is known. The 5th Dalai Lama requested the Panchen to accept Tashilhunpo Monastery, built by the 1st Dalai Lama, as his multi-lifetime seat for future incarnations. Since then, every incarnation of the Panchen Lama has been the master of Tashilhunpo Monastery and it is there that they have all received their education, when Panchen Gyaltsen died in 1662, the 5th Dalai Lama commenced the tradition of searching for his next incarnation. He also reserved the title of Panchen which had previously been a courtesy title for all exceptionally learned lamas - exclusively for his successors. Khedrub Je, Sönam Choklang and Ensapa Lobsang Döndrup were posthumously decided by the 5th Dalai Lama to have been an incarnation of Lobsang Chökyi Gyaltsen. Traditionally, there were considered to be four Indian and three Tibetan incarnations before Khedrup, starting with Subhuti, one of the disciples of Gautama Buddha. Gö Lotsawa is considered to be the first Tibetan incarnation of Amitabha in this line, the recognition of Panchen Lamas has always been a matter involving the Dalai Lama. The Dalai Lama was attempting to collect revenue from the Panchen Lamas estate to cover Tibets military expenses, in China, the ninth Panchen Lama worked on plans to develop Tibet. He also held a position in the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, there, he adopted the ideas of Sun Yatsen through revolutionary Pandatsang Rapga of the Tibet Improvement Party. The Republic of China government, then embroiled in the Chinese Civil War, Chinese Nationalist governor Ma Bufang allowed Kumbum Monastery to be totally self-governed by Gyaltsen. The Dalai Lama refused to recognize Tseten, now called Gyaltsen, the 10th Panchen Lama sought revenge on the Dalai Lama by leading an army against him, and requested aid from Ma Bufang in September 1949
2.
Tibet
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Tibet is a region on the Tibetan Plateau in Asia, spanning about 2.4 million km2 and nearly a quarter of Chinas territory. Tibet is the highest region on Earth, with an elevation of 4,900 metres. The highest elevation in Tibet is Mount Everest, Earths highest mountain, the Tibetan Empire emerged in the 7th century, but with the fall of the empire the region soon divided into a variety of territories. The current borders of Tibet were generally established in the 18th century, following the Xinhai Revolution against the Qing dynasty in 1912, Qing soldiers were disarmed and escorted out of Tibet Area. The region subsequently declared its independence in 1913 without recognition by the subsequent Chinese Republican government, later, Lhasa took control of the western part of Xikang, China. There are tensions regarding Tibets political status and dissident groups that are active in exile and it is also said that Tibetan activists in Tibet have been arrested or tortured. The economy of Tibet is dominated by agriculture, though tourism has become a growing industry in recent decades. The dominant religion in Tibet is Tibetan Buddhism, in there is Bön, which is similar to Tibetan Buddhism. Tibetan Buddhism is an influence on the art, music. Tibetan architecture reflects Chinese and Indian influences, staple foods in Tibet are roasted barley, yak meat, and butter tea. The Tibetan name for their land, Bod བོད་, means Tibet or Tibetan Plateau, although it meant the central region around Lhasa. The Standard Tibetan pronunciation of Bod, is transcribed Bhö in Tournadre Phonetic Transcription, Bö in the THL Simplified Phonetic Transcription and Poi in Tibetan pinyin. Tibetan people, language, and culture, regardless of where they are from, are referred to as Zang although the geographical term Xīzàng is often limited to the Tibet Autonomous Region. The term Xīzàng was coined during the Qing dynasty in the reign of the Jiaqing Emperor through the addition of a prefix meaning west to Zang, the best-known medieval Chinese name for Tibet is Tubo. This name first appears in Chinese characters as 土番 in the 7th century, in the Middle Chinese spoken during that period, as reconstructed by William H. Baxter, 土番 was pronounced thux-phjon and 吐蕃 was pronounced thux-pjon. Other pre-modern Chinese names for Tibet include Wusiguo, Wusizang, Tubote, the English word Tibet or Thibet dates back to the 18th century. Historical linguists generally agree that Tibet names in European languages are loanwords from Semitic Ṭībat orTūbātt, itself deriving from Turkic Töbäd, literally, according to Matthew Kapstein, From the perspective of historical linguistics, Tibetan most closely resembles Burmese among the major languages of Asia. More controversial is the theory that the Tibeto-Burman family is part of a larger language family, called Sino-Tibetan
3.
Tibetan Buddhism
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Tibetan Buddhism is the body of Buddhist doctrine and institutions characteristic of Tibet, the regions surrounding the Himalayas and much of Central Asia. It derives from the latest stages of Indian Buddhism and preserves the Tantric status quo of eighth-century India, Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body. Religious texts and commentaries comprise the Tibetan Buddhist canon, such that Tibetan is a language of these areas. Among its prominent exponents is the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet, the number of its adherents is estimated to be between ten and twenty million. Westerners unfamiliar with Tibetan Buddhism initially turned to China for an understanding, there the term used was lamaism to distinguish it from a then traditional Chinese form. The term was taken up by scholars including Hegel, as early as 1822. Insofar as it implies a discontinuity between Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, the term has been discredited, another term, Vajrayāna is occasionally used mistakenly for Tibetan Buddhism. More accurately, it signifies a certain subset of practices included in, not only Tibetan Buddhism, the native Tibetan term for all Buddhism is doctrine of the internalists. There is an association between the religious and the secular the spiritual and the temporal in Tibet. The term for this relationship is chos srid zung brel, in the west the term Indo-Tibetan Buddhism has become current, in acknowledgement of its derivation from the latest stages of Buddhist development in northern India. Tibetan Buddhism comprises the teachings of the three vehicles of Buddhism, the Foundational Vehicle, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna, the Mahāyāna goal of spiritual development is to achieve the enlightenment of buddhahood in order to most efficiently help all other sentient beings attain this state. The motivation in it is the mind of enlightenment — an altruistic intention to become enlightened for the sake of all sentient beings. Bodhisattvas are revered beings who have conceived the will and vow to dedicate their lives with bodhicitta for the sake of all beings, Tibetan Buddhism teaches methods for achieving buddhahood more quickly by including the Vajrayāna path in Mahāyāna. Buddhahood is defined as a free of the obstructions to liberation as well as those to omniscience. When one is freed from all mental obscurations, one is said to attain a state of continuous bliss mixed with a simultaneous cognition of emptiness, in this state, all limitations on ones ability to help other living beings are removed. It is said there are countless beings who have attained buddhahood. Buddhas spontaneously, naturally and continuously perform activities to all sentient beings. However it is believed that ones karma could limit the ability of the Buddhas to help them, there is a long history of oral transmission of teachings in Tibetan Buddhism
4.
Choekyi Gyaltsen, 10th Panchen Lama
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Lobsang Trinley Lhündrub Chökyi Gyaltsen was the tenth Panchen Lama of the Gelug School of Tibetan Buddhism. He was often referred to simply as Choekyi Gyaltsen, although this is also the name of other notable figures in Tibetan history. The 10th Panchen Lama was born Gonpo Tseten on 19 February 1938 in todays Xunhua Salar Autonomous County of Qinghai, to Gonpo Tseten, the Republic of China government, then embroiled in the Chinese Civil War, declared its support for Tseten on 3 June 1949. The Dalai Lamas government in Lhasa still refused to recognize Gyaltsen, the Kuomintang wanted to use Gyaltsen to create a broad anti-Communist base in Southwest China. The Kuomintang formulated a plan where 3 Khampa divisions would be assisted by the Panchen Lama to oppose the Communists, when Lhasa denied Gyaltsen the territory the Panchen Lama traditionally controlled, he asked Ma Bufang to help him lead an army against Tibet in September 1949. The Panchen Lama, unlike the Dalai Lama, sought to control in decision making. In addition, the Dalai Lama regime was tottering, and his government displayed negligence in affairs, the Panchen Lama supported Chinas claim of sovereignty over Tibet, and Chinas reform policies for Tibet. Radio Beijing broadcast the religious leaders call for Tibet to be liberated into Tibet, in 1951, the Panchen Lama was invited to Beijing as the Tibetan delegation was signing the 17-Point Agreement and telegramming the Dalai Lama to implement the Agreement. He was recognized by the 14th Dalai Lama when they met in 1952, in September 1954, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama went to Beijing to attend the first session of the first National Peoples Congress, meeting Mao Zedong and other leaders. In 1956, the Panchen Lama went to India on a pilgrimage together with the Dalai Lama. After a tour through Tibet in 1962, the Panchen Lama wrote a document addressed to Prime Minister Zhou Enlai denouncing the abusive policies and this became known as the 70,000 Character Petition. According to Isabel Hilton, it remains the most detailed and informed attack on Chinas policies in Tibet that would ever be written, the Panchen Lama met with Zhou Enlai to discuss the petition he had written. The initial reaction was positive, but in October 1962, the PRC authorities dealing with the population criticized the petition, a poisoned arrow shot at the Party by reactionary feudal overlords. For decades, the content of this report remained hidden from all but the very highest levels of the Chinese leadership and he was 26 years old at the time. The Panchens situation worsened when the Cultural Revolution began, in October 1977, he was released but held under house arrest in Beijing until 1982. After his release, he was considered by the PRC authorities to be politically rehabilitated and he served as Vice Chairman of the National Peoples Congress. In 1978, after giving up his vows of a monk, he traveled around China. He began courting Li Jie, a soldier and medical student at Fourth Military Medical University in Xian and they personally intervened to wed the couple in a large ceremony at the Great Hall of the People in 1979
5.
14th Dalai Lama
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The 14th Dalai Lama (/ˈdɑːlaɪ ˈlɑːmə/, /ˌdælaɪ ˈlɑːmə/, is the current Dalai Lama. Dalai Lamas are important monks of the Gelug school, the newest school of Tibetan Buddhism which is headed by the Ganden Tripas. From the time of the 5th Dalai Lama to 1959, the government of Tibet. The Gelug schools government administered an area corresponding to the Tibet Autonomous Region just as the nascent PRC wished to assert central control over it. During the 1959 Tibetan uprising, the Dalai Lama fled to India, the 14th Dalai Lama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989. His family was of Monguor extraction and his mother, Diki Tsering, gave birth to him on a straw mat in the cowshed behind the house. He was one of seven siblings to survive childhood, the eldest was his sister Tsering Dolma, eighteen years his senior. His eldest brother, Thupten Jigme Norbu, had been recognised at the age of eight as the reincarnation of the high Lama Taktser Rinpoche and his sister, Jetsun Pema, spent most of her adult life on the Tibetan Childrens Villages project. The Dalai Lamas first language was, in his own words, a broken Xining language which was the Chinese language, a form of Central Plains Mandarin, and his family did not speak the Tibetan language. Sir Basil Gould, British delegate to Lhasa in 1936, related his account of the team to Sir Charles Bell, former British resident in Lhasa. The Regent, Reting Rinpoche, shortly afterwards had a vision at the lake of Lhamo La-tso indicating Amdo as the region to search. This vision also indicated a large monastery with a roof and turquoise tiles. This team, led by Kewtsang Rinpoche, went first to meet the Panchen Lama, the Panchen Lama had been investigating births of unusual children in the area ever since the death of the 13th. He gave Kewtsang the names of three boys whom he had discovered and identified as candidates, within a year the Panchen Lama had died. There they found a house, as described in the vision, according to the 14th Dalai Lama, at the time the village of Taktser stood right on the real border between the region of Amdo and China. When the team visited, posing as pilgrims, its leader and he held an old rosary that had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama and the boy Lhamo Dhondup, aged two, approached and asked for it. The monk said if you know who I am, you can have it, the child said Sera Lama, Sera Lama and spoke with him in a Lhasa accent, in a language the boys mother could not understand. The next time the party returned to the house, they revealed their real purpose, one test consisted of showing him various pairs of objects, one of which had belonged to the 13th Dalai Lama and one which had not
6.
Gedhun Choekyi Nyima
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Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is the 11th Panchen Lama of Tibetan Buddhism as recognised by the Dalai Lama and various other Tibetan Buddhist leaders. He was born in Lhari County, Tibet, on 14 May 1995, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima was named the 11th Panchen Lama by the 14th Dalai Lama. After his selection, he was taken into custody by authorities of the Peoples Republic of China and has not been seen in public since 17 May 1995. Another child, Gyancain Norbu, was named as Panchen Lama by the Peoples Republic of China. After the Dalai Lama named Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as the 11th incarnation of the Panchen Lama on 14 May, according to the Tibetan Government in Exile, he was replaced by Sengchen Lobsang Gyaltsen, so chosen because he was more likely to agree with the party line. Sengchen had been an opponent of both the Dalai Lama and the 10th Panchen Lama. The new search committee ignored the Dalai Lamas 14 May announcement, in selecting a name, lottery numbers were drawn from a Golden Urn, a procedure used in Tibet by the Chinese emperor in 1793. The Tibetan method involves using possessions of the former Lama to identify his reincarnation, Chinese authorities announced Gyancain Norbu as the search committees choice on 11 November 1995. Since his selection, the whereabouts of Gedhun Choekyi Nyima have been unknown, officials state that his whereabouts are kept undisclosed to protect him. Human rights organizations termed him the youngest political prisoner in the world, no foreign party has been allowed to visit him. Those who say Nyima is the 11th Panchen Lama call upon the Chinese authorities to prove that he is safe, the Committee on the Rights of the Child requested to be told of Nyimas whereabouts on 28 May 1996. Xinhua declined, responding that Nyima was at risk of being kidnapped by separatists, the Committee requested a visit with Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, supported by a campaign of more than 400 celebrities and associations petitioning for the visit, including six Nobel Prize winners. According to statements by the Chinese government from 1998, he was leading a normal life. He is currently in upper school, he measures 165 cm in height and is easy-going by nature. He studies hard and his results are very good. He likes Chinese traditional culture and has taken up calligraphy. His parents are both State employees, and his brothers and sisters are either working or at university. The allegation that he disappeared together with his parents and that his whereabouts remain unknown is not true
7.
Qing dynasty
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It was preceded by the Ming dynasty and succeeded by the Republic of China. The Qing multi-cultural empire lasted almost three centuries and formed the base for the modern Chinese state. The dynasty was founded by the Jurchen Aisin Gioro clan in Manchuria, in the late sixteenth century, Nurhaci, originally a Ming vassal, began organizing Banners, military-social units that included Jurchen, Han Chinese, and Mongol elements. Nurhaci formed the Jurchen clans into an entity, which he renamed as the Manchus. By 1636, his son Hong Taiji began driving Ming forces out of Liaodong and declared a new dynasty, in 1644, peasant rebels led by Li Zicheng conquered the Ming capital, Beijing. The Ten Great Campaigns of the Qianlong Emperor from the 1750s to the 1790s extended Qing control into Central Asia, the early rulers maintained their Manchu ways, and while their title was Emperor, they used khan to the Mongols and they were patrons of Tibetan Buddhism. They governed using Confucian styles and institutions of government and retained the imperial examinations to recruit Han Chinese to work under or in parallel with Manchus. They also adapted the ideals of the system in dealing with neighboring territories. The Qianlong reign saw the apogee and initial decline in prosperity. The population rose to some 400 million, but taxes and government revenues were fixed at a low rate, corruption set in, rebels tested government legitimacy, and ruling elites did not change their mindsets in the face of changes in the world system. Following the Opium War, European powers imposed unequal treaties, free trade, the Taiping Rebellion and the Dungan Revolt in Central Asia led to the deaths of some 20 million people, most of them due to famines caused by war. In spite of disasters, in the Tongzhi Restoration of the 1860s, Han Chinese elites rallied to the defense of the Confucian order. The initial gains in the Self-Strengthening Movement were destroyed in the First Sino-Japanese War of 1895, in which the Qing lost its influence over Korea, New Armies were organized, but the ambitious Hundred Days Reform of 1898 was turned back by Empress Dowager Cixi, a conservative leader. Sun Yat-sen and other revolutionaries competed with reformist monarchists such as Kang Youwei, after the deaths of Cixi and the Guangxu Emperor in 1908, the hardline Manchu court alienated reformers and local elites alike. The Wuchang Uprising on October 11,1911, led to the Xinhai Revolution, General Yuan Shikai negotiated the abdication of Puyi, the last emperor, on February 12,1912. Nurhaci declared himself the Bright Khan of the Later Jin state in both of the 12–13th century Jurchen Jin dynasty and of his Aisin Gioro clan. His son Hong Taiji renamed the dynasty Great Qing in 1636, there are competing explanations on the meaning of Qīng. The character Qīng is composed of water and azure, both associated with the water element and this association would justify the Qing conquest as defeat of fire by water
8.
Gyaincain Norbu
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Gyaincain Norbu is a Tibetan individual selected by the government of the Peoples Republic of China to represent the Panchen Lama of Tibetan Buddhism. He is also the president of the Buddhist Association of China. He is reviled by many Tibetans as a fake, neither the Chinese nor the Tibetan exile governments recognize each others selection for the Panchen Lama. Gyaincain Norbus full religious name is Jêzün Lobsang Qamba Lhünzhub Qögyigyäbo Bäsangbo, meaning Dharma king, this name can also be written Qögyigyäbo, Qögyi Gyäbo, Qoigyigyaibo, Qoigyi Gyaibo, Chökyi Gyalpo, Choekyi Gyalpo, or, in Wylie transliteration, Chos-kyi Rgyal-po. The Chinese equivalent is Quèjí Jiébù, the secular name, Gyaincain Norbu, can also be written Gyaencaen Norbu, Gyancain Norbu, or Gyaltsen Norbu. Gyaincain Norbu was born on 13 February,1990 in Lhari County in northern Tibet Autonomous Region and he is the son of two Communist Party members. He developed altitude sickness when he first moved back, but overcame it quickly, since his selection as Panchen Lama, he has studied Tibetan Buddhism, to his studies he added Tibetan language, sutra, and logic at ten, he is bilingual in both Tibetan and Chinese. He spent most of his childhood studying Buddhism in Beijing. In a rare appearance for his adolescent age, Norbu delivered a speech in Tibetan for the ceremony of the 2006 World Buddhist Forum about Buddhism. Reportedly, it received a reception among delegates, with fellow Buddhists making no attempt to greet Gyaltsen Norbu during greeting ceremonies ahead of the conference on Wednesday. Two years later, in 2008, he denounced anti-Han riots in Lhasa, saying We resolutely oppose all activities to split the country, China promotes him as the public face of Tibetan Buddhism. On 3 February,2010, Norbu was elected president of the Buddhist Association of China. Later that month, at 20 years old, Norbu became the youngest member of the advisory body National Committee of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Conference. He was not, however, made vice chairman of the CPPCC, as Choekyi Gyaltsen, still, the Tibetan government in exile expressed concern that his appointment could prejudice his position on the next Dalai Lama, who normally requires approval from the Panchen Lama. On May 2010, he reported to the ethnically Tibetan earthquake zone of the 2010 Yushu earthquake, in June, he gave speeches at Tibet University and Tibet University of Traditional Tibetan Medicine in Lhasa promoting the value of education. In response to the 2010 Gansu mudslide, in which Zhugqu County and he pays visits to the Tashilhunpo Monastery, the traditional seat of the Panchen Lama, although he does not live there. The Asia Times describes him as A slight man who wears thick glasses, in Hong Kong on 26 April,2012 Gyaincain gave his first appearance outside of mainland China to address over a thousand monks at the Third World Buddhist Forum on the topic of Dharma. The head of the Chinese governments Panchen Lama search committee at the time and he planned to submit the Dalai Lamas favored choice to the government
9.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
