September 6, 2008
The Brother Who Was Sent to Kill the Dalai Lama
Taktser Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama's eldest brother, who spent his life advocating independence for Tibet, passed away yesterday afternoon in Bloomington, Indiana at the age of 86. According to Larry Gerstein, who phoned me on his way to be with the family, Taktser died peacefully. Taktser’s given name was Thupten Jigme Norbu. Rinpoche is survived by his wife Kunyang Norbu, and three sons.
When I met Taktser Rinpoche for the first time a few years ago—I was in Bloomington to interview Arjia Rinpoche for Tricycle Magazine – Taktser’s failing health had confined him to a wheel chair. But his medical problems in no way compromised his mental vitality, nor his good looks. During our interview he was alert, extremely engaged in our discussion about the plight of Tibetan refugees and he was most interested in being updated about the lives of mutual friends with whom he had known and worked in his early years in America.
I had just published “Buddha’s Warriors”, which included a fairly extensive retelling of his incredible early years. Even before his more famous brother the Dalai Lama was born, Taktser had been recognized as the reincarnated abbot of Kumbum, one of the most important Tibetan monasteries located in the northeast province of Amdo. Early on, the communist Chinese targeted Kumbum when they invaded Tibet in 1949-50.
Taktser became more or less a prisoner of the People’s Liberation Army, his every move and word carefully monitored. He was constantly interrogated and forced to submit detailed reports of all the properties of the monastery and of the nobles. He was also asked searching questions about the rank, property and activities of everyone he knew, which laid the groundwork for future communist persecution.
After nearly a year of ineluctable bullying, to no avail the new Chinese Governor made a proposal to Taktser: He should go to Lhasa and personally indoctrinate the Dalai Lama. If he succeeded in turning Lhasa into a puppet of the communist party, Taktser Rinpoche would be given untold power. In his autobiography, Taktser remembers:
“What I had to listen to was so monstrous that I had difficulty in concealing my feelings. It was nothing less than a promise to make me Governor-General of Tibet if on my arrival in Lhasa I managed to persuade the Tibetan Government to welcome the entry of Chinese communist troops into Tibet as liberators and to accept the Chinese People’s Republic as an ally.
“At this point they even let me see quite clearly that if necessary they would regard fratricide as justifiable in the circumstances…”
It was an extremely precarious tightrope he was forced to cross. On the one hand, he had to give the impression that he was going along with the Chinese, but on the other hand he had no intension of harming his little brother. He traveled to Lhasa and, in a private meeting with the Dalai Lama on the top floor of the Potala Palace, he revealed the true extent of Chinese treachery—including the proposed “disposal” of the Dalai Lama at the hands of his own brother.
Having betrayed the Chinese plan, Taktser had no choice but to flee Tibet forever.
Thereafter, he became instrumental as a translator and advisor for the American government who began to support the Tibetan freedom fighters in the mid-to-late 1950s.
Throughout the intervening years, although a devout and dedicated follower of the Dalai Lama, Taktser Rinpoche nevertheless took a different stand on Tibet's status to his brother, calling instead for the complete independence of Tibet as opposed to the model of autonomy put forward by the Dalai Lama.
Taktser went on to enjoy a prolific writing career, including his autobiography, “Tibet Is My Country”, one of the first books on the Tibetan experience to have scholarly credibility. He served as Professor of Tibetan Studies at Indiana University where, in 1979, he founded the Tibetan Cultural Center.
But I will always see Taktser Rinpoche as that young man leaving the Potala Palace after warning his younger brother, the Dalai Lama, of the dangers that awaited him. Again, from his autobiography:
“My brother thanked me warmly and then I left…
“I walked down the stone steps of the Potala with a great feeling of relief…
“I was grateful when attendants helped me to mount my horse…
“I turned my head and looked back at the Potala towards the window of the room in which the young ruler of my country now sat thinking over the new anxieties that I had been instrumental in bringing to him.”
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