The Search for the Panchen Lama

by Isabel Hilton

"An excellent primer on Tibetan history and ....a chilling picture of the brutality of Chinese repression in Tibet."― Wall Street Journal In May 1995, a seven-year-old Tibetan boy and his family were taken from their home by Chinese security forces. They have not been seen since. The boy's devotees believe him to be the eleventh incarnation of the Panchen Lama, the second most important incarnation in the Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy.  Isabel Hilton tells the gripping inside story of how this child became the pawn in a battle between the Chinese regime and Tibet's exiled religious leader, the Dalai Lama. In revealing the political intrigue that accompanied the race to choose and enthrone the eleventh Panchen Lama, Hilton "clarifies a great deal about the nature of Tibetan culture and history and the complexities of Tibet's relationship with China" ( New York Times ). "Lively and vastly entertaining.... Hilton has seen―and participated in―one of the final moments of a lost Tibet."― Boston Sunday Globe "Riveting ....captures the panoramic scope of a remarkable story.... The ending is heartbreaking."― Los Angeles Times "[A]n outstanding book, well-researched, lively, scholarly, humorous, sympathetic, and eminently readable."― The Tablet "[A]n important book, a work of impeccable scholarship, erudition and great personal courage."― Literary Review "[A] crash course in Tibetan history and affairs in addition to a rattling good story."― The Spectator "Hilton's excellent new book is a cool and intelligent explanation of the political intricacies surrounding the Panchen Lama."― The Observer 21 black and whtie photographs

Genres: Nonfiction, Buddhism, History, Biography, China, Religion, Politics

362 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bettie's Books

17:05:2015: China urged to release Panchen Lama after 20 years: Tibetan exiles are calling for China to release a high-ranking monk who disappeared 20 years ago when he was just six years old. The boy was detained by the Chinese authorities just three days after the Dalai Lama declared him to be the reincarnated Panchen Lama.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilton does an excellent job of explaining all the historical and political complexities of the position of the Panchen Lama in Tibet. The book serves as a fascinating biography of the tenth Panchen Lama, and exposes the steps behind the recognition of the eleventh, and the inhumane steps the Chinese government took to discredit the Dalai Lama's true choice. I highly recommend this book for anyone with interest in Tibet.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a devastating and deeply researched account of how the Chinese government has brutally crushed Tibetan independence and spiritual traditions. I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to understand the precarious situation of the Dalai Lama. It became clear to me after reading this book that, most likely, the 14th Dalai Lama will be the last.

The Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama are the two most important spiritual leaders in Tibetan Buddhism. When one dies, the other confirms the reincarnated successor. The exiled Dalai Lama is revered by Tibetan Buddhists, but the Chinese government fears his influence and has waged a relentless campaign to discredit him.

Following the death of the 10th Panchen Lama, the Chinese governmnent, in their heavy-handed attempt to control Tibet, kidnapped a 7-year old Tibetan boy & his family that the Dalai Lama had chosen as the eleventh reincarnation, installing another boy in his place.

The political intrigue in this story is heartbreaking to read. The author provides superb context for this terrible story by detailing the historical complexities of the Panchen Lama and the Dalai Lama and their relationship throughout Tibetan history. It can be difficult to follow this unfamiliar history with unfamiliar names sometimes, but the author reminds us as we read of who the individuals are and how they connect with the story.

There's a good review by Robert MacFarlane in the London Review of Books at http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n23/robert-m....

[Amz · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting book. I picked it up because it deals with a very specific question - how the atheist CCP handles the issue of spiritual reincarnation in one of its most sensitive territories - and because Isabel Hilton is one of the most badass china journalists of her generation. i loved reading about her adventures driving through the Tibetan highlands and talking her way into cordoned off temples and the Dali Lamas private office.

Still, the book didn’t really pick up for me until the final, nail-biting and tragic section on how the new Panchen Lama was identified and his fate. before that there are somewhat dense explanations about the hierarchies of Tibetan Buddhism and the long and fractious history of the Tibetans and the leaders in Beijing. All important context but I found a lot of it a bit hard follow.

A niche pick for the China nerds (who make up about 30% of my GR friends) but one I’d recommend nonetheless. the ending is really sad.

[Ambar · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 10th Panchen Lama himself it's a big mystery surrounding Tibetan political scene. He arguably very influential Lama after the Great Dalai Lama. The story really show how China repression into country based religious such as Tibet. He being prisoner since the 1964 until 1977, married and have a daughter. But his political view been swing between supporting Chinese or condemned them as destroying Tibetan cultures.

Isabel Hutton telling this profoundly 10th Panchen Lama to give reader understanding the political struggle and determination of Tibetan people to maintain their identity among other 'tribes' in China. While the conversation about Tibet getting warm, the 10th Panchen Lama also give better understanding about Lamas and Buddhist believe of no violence and life after death.

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is right up there with Seven Years in Tibet. It will make you despise the Chinese Communist Party on so many levels. I slowed down near the end because picking up the book literally made me sad. A good read and full of history!

[Heather Goff · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the few non-fiction books that have Really Riveted me.
And about something I (and the rest of the world?) had known little about.

[Obio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Informative, exciting, enlightening, sad. Good read.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little hard to wade through all the facts at times, but all-in-all a fascinating account. I learned much about Buddhism, the Dalai and Panchen Lamas, Tibet and China.

[Clarissel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book on the plight of the current Panchen Lama

[Chelsea · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fascinating but one sided. It's so horrible that Tibetans have lost their language, culture, religion, etc. Yet, somehow they have survived.

[Sonya Underdahl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Written by Hilton OBE, trusted correspondent of HH Dalai Lama, China expert, and one of the contributors to one of the most sensitive and controversial Tibet China reports published - A Poisoned Arrow by Panchen Lama 10 it was a pleasure to read. Easy to read and makes a complex situation easy to understand. A must read.

[Marilyn Saul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back in the 70s, I was swept into a group of Maoists who had regular study sessions. It was all quite fascinating and "forbidden". Now, decades later, I very much enjoyed this thoroughly informative book that explores all the intricacies of the politics of the time and reveals the information that we were not privy to back in our "political" days.

[Olivia Newton · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I have ever read. This story shows the tenacity and courage of the author more than anything else.

[Mills College Library]

294.3923 H6564 2001

[Shannon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not a very happy ending here. The Communist Party of China committed many atrocities against the Tibetan people, not the least of which was the CCP meddling in the selection of the Panchen Lama.

[Jenn Diamond · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved it

[Chris Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book.

[Claudia Putnam · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure how helpful this book would be to those who know little of the history of Tibet or the complexity of its religion and politics. The summaries are perfunctory and do little justice to the realities and may leave readers more confused than ever, or worse, with the belief that they have some actual understanding.

Hilton reveals the shallowness of her own understanding when she lists "Muslims" as among the ethnicities of the region, along with, say, Tibetans and Mongols. She also gives, IMO, rather too much weight to foreign meddling in the affairs of Tibet prior to the Chinese invasion. She'd have us believe that Britain, Russia, and China had hands in a country notorious for keeping foreigners out, and that both the Dalai and Panchen lamas were playing all three of these great powers against one another. Maybe so, but this helps justify rather than undermine the rationale for China's invasion. I seem to remember other analyses that there was just one Brit in Tibet at the time of the invasion and that was the whole reason China was said to have invaded. I'd be wary of Hilton's account--it smacked too much of the assumption that the great powers have had everything to do with everyone's fate, when I would argue that Tibet might be the one place where great power machinations have actually never had much traction. Tibet might simply have made its own mistakes, and China might simply have been impossible to withstand in any event.

I also don't think she has a grip on the history of Buddhism in general or of Tibetan Buddhism in particular or of the relationship of Tibetan Buddhism to the rest, but I'll leave it for experts to sort her out on that. Just: reader beware. Read it with a grain of salt.

Sit up and pay attention about 2/3 through, when the hunt for the PL tightens down and the DL tries to settle it, and and all hell breaks loose. The DL, unsurprisingly, is quite fallible when conducting a delicate state matter from afar with no reliable communications technology. I've said this before but whenever I read of Tibet I feel like I'm in a medieval heroic story. The place names! The lineages! The mythical beasts! The lost princes of the blood! The magic! And it's going on right now.

Equally amazing is China's behavior. Not only its heavy-handed arrests and tortures right in front of the whole world, even of a 6-year-old boy, but it's flat-footed propaganda. The Soviets were no better at enjoining the proletariat to this or that act of patriotism (is clumsy PR a peasant thing?), but the subtleties of trying to merge a fundamentally atheistic ideology with a deeply religious culture in Tibet in order to motivate the Tibetan people to cooperate with their own subjugation have really been beyond the Chinese.

Painful as it is, it's worth reading about.

Meanwhile, dear Tibetans: You speak of enlightenment, but your lines of transmission are all male-to-male. Given all the other upheavals and endangerments and extinctions, it might be time to reconsider this. Maybe you'd have more flexibility if these lamas could incarnate as women. Just a thought.

[Roger · Rating 5 out of 5]

At his ordination, the Great 5th Dalai Lama (1617—1682) bestowed the title of Panchen Lama (Great Scholar) on Lobsang Choekyi Gyaltsen, his mentor and spiritual guide. Lobsang Gyaltsen became known as the 4th Panchen Lama as the title was applied posthumously to three of his predecessors. The Panchen Lama was given the Tashilhunpo Monastery which has been the seat of the Panchen Lamas ever since. When Lobsang Gyaltsen died in 1662 at the age 95, the 5th Dalai Lama immediately began a search for his reincarnation. Thus began the tradition of the Dalai Lamas and the Panchen Lamas taking responsibility for finding each other's reincarnations.

At the time of the 1959 Uprising, the 14th Dalai Lama fled to India, leaving the 10th Panchen Lama as the highest ranking Buddhist official in Tibet. The Panchen Lama was only 21 years old. The Tibetans were no match against the vastly superior Chinese occupation forces. It was a very delicate balancing act for the Panchen Lama and some would accuse him of being a collaborator. Nevertheless, against the advise of his staff, he wrote a 70,000 character impassioned critique of how the Chinese were mistreating Tibetans. This eventually lead to him being denounced, publicly humiliated, and sent to prison for 14 years.

After the Cultural Revolution, the Panchen Lama was partially rehabilitated and permitted a limited role at Tashilhunpo Monastery. During a dedication ceremony at the monastery, the Panchen Lama died under mysterious circumstances. He was 50 years old.

The monks at Tashilhunpo insisted that, by tradition, only the Dalai Lama could select the boy who would be the next reincarnation of the Panchen Lama. The Chinese government, however, would not allow the exiled Dalai Lama, whom they consider to be traitor, to have any role in the selection.

This is the setup for Isobel Hinton's book, The Search for the Panchen Lama. The author had access to many of the key players: monks, officials and the full cooperation of the Dalai Lama himself. In the process of telling this story, she provides the reader with what may very well be the definitive primer on Tibetan politics. This well-researched and well-written book reads like a thriller with a smattering of humor to release the tension from time to time. This is an indispensable book for anyone interested in the intricate politics of Tibet.

[Pradeep · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was quite impervious to the tibetan movement prior to reading this and has made me want to read a lot more about their struggle. Their struggle to retain their land, culture, spirituality and identity strikes deep inside. The lack of todays headline news of the missing child is quite understandable considering the clout of the country in current economic and political world.

Though i admit I am reading this book 15 years later, it provides a well researched and quite subjective context to the events leading up to the current day. The title of the book is misleading, more than the search, it focus more on historical facts as well the life of the prior panchen lama. I in particular appreciated how the author painted the panchen lama as a human being thrown into struggle very early in his life and how he attempts to right his wrongs later in his life.

The writing is simple and light and written in a journalistic style. I enjoyed her personal observations often at simple things in life just how the dalai lama himself would have wanted it. Definitely a must read.

[Rigzin]

The whereabouts of a boy who was recognized as the 11th Panchen Lama is still not known and his disappearance at the age of five made him the youngest political prisoner held in captivity by the Chinese government. It is absurd for someone who denounces religion as poison to be meddling in religious affairs as the Chinese did when they placed a boy of their own choice as the 11th Panchen Lama and then to have kidnapped the real Panchen Lama who was recognized by the search committee and approved by HH The 14th Dalai Lama, it goes to show the hideousness of the Chinese government. Isabel Hilton traces back the story to previous Panchen Lama whose death under mysterious circumstances led to the search for a reincarnation which came under the scornful wrath of the Chinese, and a boy who happened to be the Panchen Lama lost his freedom forever.

[Heather · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was an informative, well researched book that teaches a lot about Tibetan Buddhism. However, unless you are really interested in the subject, it probably tells you more than you wanted to know. There were probably only about 30 pages of the book that I found compelling to read and I had to wait 200 pages to get to that part. I learned some interesting things along the way, but I had to push myself to read it... and I really like to read. I am impressed at the author's getting so close to the subject and being willing to take quite a few risks in order to do so. She deserves a lot of credit for that. One helpful fact I learned: Panchen lama means wise teacher, Dalai lama means Ocean of wisdom. The Dalai lama is more powerful.

[John Eliade · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an important (and inside look) book about the Panchen Lama's death and subsequent, politically fraught recognition. The Panchen Lama is the second highest incarnation in Tibet after the Dalai Lama. The two men have had an intimate and interesting relationship throughout history, finally culminating in the latter events of the 20th century when the Dalai Lama's exile government and the PRC fought over Buddhism vs. proper Beijing procedure, leading to the worst tragedy in Tibet since the Cultural Revolution... admittedly not a very long time. It's a book that represent and reveals that the damage the Communist government in China is doing is ongoing and unrelenting.

It's really depressing, honestly.

[Greg Schmidt · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author provides deep context for the disappearance of the Panchen Lama - historical, religious, socio-economic. The book is full of first hand interviews, including audiences with the Dalai Lama, as well as other key players - all witnesses to the build-up, execution and/or aftermath of the young lama's disappearance. Fascinating insight into the development of Tibetan lamaism and its unfortunate repression within the tragedy of Chinese domination and aggression, along with a view into the exile community and the person of the Dalai Lama himself. A most compelling, thoroughly investigated and well-presented read.