Kritik am Buch „The Shadow Of The Dalai Lama ... - Neues von Shi De

up until the Enlightenment. Thus, when the Kundun says in 1996 in an interview that “my proposal
treats Tibet as something like one human body. The whole Tibet is one body”, this is not just intended
allegorically and geopolitically, but also tantrically (Shambhala Sun, archives, November, 1996).
Strictly interpreted, the statement also means: Tibet and my energy body are identical with one
another.
Tibet on the other hand is a microcosmic likeness of the sum of humanity, at least that is how the
Tibetan National Assembly sees the matter in a letter from the year 1946. We can read there that
“there are many great nations on this earth who have achieved unprecedented wealth and might, but
there is only one nation which is dedicated to the well-being of humanity and that is the religious land
of Tibet, which cherishes a joint spiritual and temporal system” (Newsgroup 12).
The mandala as the organizational form of the Tibetan state
There is something specific in the state structure of the historical Buddhocracy which distinguishes it
from the purely pyramidal constitution of Near Eastern theocracies. Alone because of the many
schools and sub-schools of Tibetan Buddhism we cannot speak of a classic leadership pyramid at the
pinnacle of which the Dalai Lama stands. In order to describe in general terms the Buddhocratic form
of state, S. J. Tambiah introduced a term which has in the meantime become widespread in the
relevant literature. He calls it “galactic politics” or “mandala politics” (Tambiah, 1976, pp. 112 ff.)
What can be understood by this?
As in a solar system, the chief monasteries of the Land of Snows orbit like planets around the highest
incarnation of Tibet, the god-king and world ruler from Lhasa, and form with him a living mandala.
This planetary principle is repeated in the organizational form of the chief monasteries, in the center
of which a tulku likewise rules as a “little” Chakravartin. Here, each arch-abbot is the sun and father
about whom rotate the so-called “child monasteries”, that is, the monastic communities subordinate to
him. Under certain circumstances these can form a similar pattern with even smaller units.
Mandala-pattern of the tibetan government (above)
and the corresponding government offices around
the Jokhang-Temple (below)