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

group of five wrathful gods, who together are called the “protective wheel”. It seems sensible to make
a few thoughts about this prophesying god, who has for centuries exercised such a decisive influence
upon Tibetan politics and still continues to do so.
In iconographic representations, Pehar has three faces of different colors. He wears a bamboo hat
which is crowned with a vajra upon his head. In his hands he holds a bow and arrow, a sword, a
cleaver, and a club. His mount is a snow lion.
Pehar’s original home lay in the north of Tibet, there where in the conception of the old Tibetans (in
the Gesar epic) the “devil’s country” was to be found. In earlier times he reigned as war god of the
Hor Mongols. According to the sagas, this wild tribe was counted among the bitterest opponents of
the pre-Buddhist Tibetans and their national hero, Gesar of Ling.
Old documents from Tunhuang describe the Hor as “flesh-eating red demons” (Stein, 1993, p. 36).
Their martial king had laid waste to the Land of Snows and stolen its queen, the wife of Gesar of
Ling. After terrible battles the Tibetan national hero defeated the rapacious Hors, to whom we are
indebted for the word horde, and won their commitment and that of their chief god, Pehar, with an
eternal oath of loyalty. Over the centuries the term Hor was then used to refer to various Mongolian
tribes, including those of Genghis Khan. Hence, Pehar (the principal oracle god of the Dalai Lama)
was originally a bitter arch-enemy of the Tibetans.
Where Gesar had rendered the Mongol god harmless, it was the Maha Siddha Padmasambhava (Guru
Rinpoche) who brought Buddhism to Tibet who first succeeded in actually putting Pehar to work.
The saga tells how Guru Rinpoche pressed a vajra upon the barbaric god’s head and thus magically
mastered him. After this act, Pehar was able to be incorporated into the Buddhist pantheon as a
servant. For seven hundred years his chief residence was the founding monastery Samye, by the
construction of which he had to assist as a “forced laborer”. About 900 years later the “Great Fifth”
transported him (i.e., his symbol) to Nechung in the vicinity of the Drepung monastery and advanced
the former war god of the Hor to state oracle. Since, after his “Buddhization”, he did not want to be
reminded of his former defeat (by the national hero, Gesar), not a single verse from the Gesar epic
was allowed to be cited in the Drepung monastery or at any other location where he had stayed.
The question soon arises as to why of all gods Pehar, the former ferocious and cruel opponent of the
Land of Snows, was given the delicate office of being a supernatural governmental advisor to the
Tibetan “god-king”. Surely this would have sooner been the entitlement of a Bodhisattva like
Avalokiteshvara or a national hero like Gesar of Ling.
With this question too, the key is to be sought in the “political theology” of the “Great Fifth”. We may
recall that both the conferring of the title of Dalai Lama and the establishment of the hierarch’s
secular power were the actions of the Mongolians and not of the Tibetan people. In contrast, as we
have reported, in the 17th century the national forces of the country were actually gathered under the
kings of Tsang and around the throne of the Karmapa (the leader of the “red” Kagyupa sect). Thus, it
does not take much fantasy to be able to sketch out why Pehar was chosen as the advisor of the
“yellow” Buddhist state (then represented by the Fifth Dalai Lama). It was expected of the former
Mongolian god and opponent of Tibet that he tame the recalcitrant Tibetans (who supported the
Karmapa). In this his interests were in complete accord with those of the “god-king”. Additionally,
the “Great Fifth” himself was a descendant of an aristocratic family which traced its lineage back to