BEIJING -- Tibet's third highest-ranking lama, the only top lama approved by China's communist government and the Dalai Lama, has fled to India in an epic weeklong trek through the snowbound Himalayas, Tibetan sources said on Friday.
China officially reported the departure of the 14-year-old Karmapa Lama, suggesting it was leaving the door open to his return despite a reported meeting with the Dalai Lama, who is vilified in Beijing as a violence-supporting "splittist."Xinhua news agency did not say when or how the head of the Kagyu Sect of Tibetan Buddhism left or where he went but said he left behind a letter saying he did not mean to betray "the state, the nation, the monastery or the leadership."
The letter said the boy, facing a rival claimant to the position who was found in the north Indian state of Sikkim, had gone to get musical instruments and black hats used by previous reincarnations of the Karmapa Lama, Xinhua reported.
The 17th Karmapa Lama, born Ugyen Trinley Dorje, and four attendants arrived in Dharamsala on Jan. 5 and met the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, said Tenzin Chonyi, president of the sect's North American branch.
The Karmapa Lama reached the remote north Indian town after travelling 900 miles from his monastery near Lhasa, completing his trip through the Himalayas on foot in the depths of winter, Chonyi said.
There were no details of how the Karmapa Lama fled from Tsurphu monastery, about 30 miles northwest of Lhasa, where he has been kept under tight security.
The Dalai Lama's office in New Delhi declined to comment, and Tibet experts said they were unsure of the significance of the Karmapa's sudden escape.
Some said the boy appeared to have fled into exile in a repeat of the Dalai Lama's escape to India in 1959 after an abortive and bloody uprising nine years after Chinese Communist troops took over the region.
But some Kagyu sect members said the boy had been wanting to go to India for some time to collect the black hats and musical instruments because they were crucial symbols of his office and possession would undermine the rival claimant.
The boy's escape was a major embarrassment to Chinese leaders striving to suppress the separatist movement in the remote mountainous region and establish religious leaders loyal to Beijing.
Both the Dalai Lama, who advocates non-violence, and Beijing approved Dorje as the 17th reincarnation of the Karmapa Lama in 1992 and China has been grooming him as a "patriotic" lama ever since.
State media have carried reports of the boy chanting for the soul of late Chairman Mao Zedong during a trip to Beijing and pledging allegiance to the Communist Party.
Beijing and Dharamsala attempted similar cooperation over the search for the Panchen Lama, Tibet's second highest lama. But joint efforts failed and each side chose a different boy in 1995.
The Dalai Lama's choice, now 10, and his family have not been seen in public since and are believed to be under house arrest. Beijing's choice was installed in Tashi Lhunpo monastery in Shigatse, but is regarded by many Tibetans as a fake.
As the only Tibetan Buddhist leader recognised by both sides, the Karmapa Lama represented Beijing's best hope as a sympathetic substitute for the 64-year-old Dalai Lama after his death.
His flight was a surprise to many Tibetans, including Chonyi, the former personal attendant of the 16th Karmapa Lama who fled Tibet in 1959 with the Dalai Lama.
"We know the Karmapa is in Dharamsala and that he has met the Dalai Lama," Chonyi said.
"We're all in a state of shock, but we're very joyful--not just us but the whole of the Himalayas and the world," he said. "Every follower has been waiting for the chance to receive his blessing."
The powerful Kagyu sect has a large international following, thanks to the efforts of the previous Karmapa Lama, who died in Chicago in 1981.
Dorje was born to nomadic parents in 1985 in rugged eastern Tibet. He was placed in a local monastery and given special education as the potential reincarnation of a lama, said the sect's U.S. website (www.kagyu.org).
In 1992, monks guided by a letter written by the previous Karmapa Lama found him in a nomad camp the boy had picked out, it said.
The authenticity of the letter was at the centre of a dispute between Tibetan monks, which resulted in the appointment of a rival Karmapa Lama in Sikkim.