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

placed the rights of the monks far above those of ordinary people. For example, whoever pointed a
finger at one of the ordained risked having it cut off. Anyone who spoke ill of the teaching of the
Buddha would have his lips mutilated. Anyone who looked askance at a monk had his eyes poked out,
and anyone who robbed one had to repay twenty-five times the worth of the theft. For every seven
families in the country the living costs of one monk had to be provided. The ruler totally subjected
himself to the religious prescriptions and is said to have joined a Sangha (monastic community). It is
not surprising that he was murdered in the year 838 C.E. after pushing through such a harsh regime.
The murder of King Langdarma
It is just as unsurprising that his brother, Langdarma, who succeeded him on the throne, wanted to
reverse the monastic despotism which Ralpachan had established. Langdarma was firmly resolved to
work together with the old Bon forces once again and began with a persecution of the Buddhists,
driving them out or forcing them to marry. All their privileges were removed, the Indian yogis were
hunted out of the country and the holy texts (the tantras) were burned. For the lamas Langdarma thus
still today counts as the arch-enemy of the teaching, an outright incarnation of evil.
But his radical anti-Buddhist activity was to last only four years. In the year 842 his fate caught up
with him. His murderer rode into Lhasa upon a white horse blackened with coal and swathed in a
black cloak. Palden Lhamo, the dreadful tutelary deity of the later Dalai Lamas, had commanded the
Buddhist monk, Palgyi Dorje, to “free” Tibet from Langdarma. Since the king thought it was a Bon
priest who had called upon him, he granted his murderer an audience. Beneath his robes Palgyi Dorje
had hidden a bow and arrow. He knelt down first, but while he was still getting up he shot Langdarma
in the chest at close range, fatally wounding him, and crying out: “I am the demon Black Yashe.
When anybody wishes to kill a sinful king, let him do it as I have killed this one” (Bell, 1994, p. 48).
He then swung himself onto his horse and fled. Underway he washed the animal in a river, so that its
white coat reappeared. Then he reversed his black coat which now likewise became white. Thus he
was able to escape without being recognized.
Up until the present day official Tibetan history legitimates this “tyrannicide” as a necessary act of
desperation by the besieged Buddhists. In order to quiet a bad conscience and to bring the deed into
accord with the Buddhist commandment against any form of killing, it soon became evaluated as a
gesture of compassion: In being killed, Langdarma was prevented from collecting even more bad
karma and plunging ever more people into ruin. Such “compassionate” murders, which — as we shall
see — were part of Tibetan state politics, avoided using the word “kill” and replaced it with terms like
“rescue” or “liberate”. “To liberate the enemy of the doctrine through compassion and lead his
consciousness to a better existence is one of the most important vows to be taken in tantric
empowerment”, writes Samten Karmay (Karmay, 1988, p. 72). In such a case all that is required of
the “rescuer” is that at the moment of the act of killing he wish the murdered party a good rebirth
(Beyer, 1978, pp. 304, 466; Stein, 1993, p. 219).
The sacred murder
But all of this does not make the murder of King Langdarma an exceptional historical event. The early
history of Tibet is full of regicides (the murder of kings); of the eleven rulers of the Yarlung dynasty
at least six are said to have been killed. There is even a weight of opinion which holds that ritual
regicide was a part of ancient Tibetan cultural life. Every regent was supposed to be violently
murdered on the day on which his son became able to govern (Tucci, 1953, p. 199f.).