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

ebel, a popular hero, a poète maudit, a Bohemian, a romantic on the divine throne, an affectionate
eroticist, as clever and attractive. The others, who view him with disgust, hold him to be a heretic and
besmircher of the Lion Throne, reckless and depraved. Both groups nonetheless describe him as
extremely apolitical.
He became well-known and notorious above all through his love poems, which he dedicated to
several attractive inhabitants of Lhasa. Their self ironic touch, melancholy and subtle mockery of the
bureaucratic Lamaist state have earned them a place in the literature of the world. For example, the
following five-line poem combines all three elements:
When I’m at the Potala Monastery
They call me the Learned Ocean of Pure Song;
When I sport in the town,
I’am known as the Handsome Rogue who loves Sex!.
(quoted by Stevens, 1990, p. 78)
The young “poet prince” stood in impotent opposition to the reigning regent, Sangye Gyatso (1653-
1705), who claimed the power of state for himself alone. The relationship between the two does not
lack a certain piquancy if, following Helmut Hoffmann, one assumes that the regent was the
biological son of the “Great Fifth” and thus stood opposed to the Sixth Dalai Lama as the youthful
incarnation of his own father. Nevertheless, this did not prevent him from treating the young “godking”
as a marionette in his power play with the Chinese and Mongolians. When the Dalai Lama
expressed own claim to authority, his “sinful activities “ were suddenly found to be so offensive that
his abdication was demanded.
Oddly enough the sixth Kundun accepted this without great pause, and in the year 1702 decided to
hand his spiritual office over to the Panchen Lama; his worldly authority, however, which he de jure
but never de facto exercised, he wanted to retain. This plan did not come to fruition, however. A
congregation of priests determined that the spirit of Avalokiteshvara had left him and appointed an
opposing candidate. In the general political confusion which now spread through the country, in
which the regent, Sangye Gyatso, lost his life, the 24-year-old Sixth Dalai Lama was also murdered.
Behind the deed lay a conspiracy between the Chinese Emperor and the Mongolian Prince, Lhabsang
Khan. Nonetheless, according to a widely distributed legend, the “god-king” was not killed but lived
on anonymously as a beggar and pilgrim and was said to have still appeared in the country under his
subsequent incarnation, the Seventh Dalai Lama.
Western historians usually see a tragic aesthete in the figure of the poet prince, who with his erotic
lines agreeably broke through the merciless power play of the great lamas. We are not entirely
convinced by this view. In contrast, in our view Tsangyang Gyatso was all but dying to attain and
exercise worldly power in Tibet, as was indeed his right. It is just that to this end he did not make use
of the usual political means, believing instead that he could achieve his goal by practicing sexual
magic rites. He firmly believed in what stood in the holy texts of the tantras; he was convinced that
could gain power over the state via “sexual anarchy”.
The most important piece of information which identifies him as a practicing Tantric is the muchquoted
saying of his: „Although I sleep with a woman every night, I never lose a drop of
semen” (quoted by Stevens, 1990, p. 78). With this statement he not only justified his scandalous