Panchen lama

The Panchen Lama (Tibetan: པན་ཆེན་བླ་མ, Wylie: pan chen bla ma) is a tulku of the Gelug school of Tibetan Buddhism. The Dalai Lama is traditionally involved in recognizing the Panchen Lama, and the Panchen Lama is part of the process by which each new Dalai Lama is chosen.Gedhun Choekyi Nyima is recognized by the Gelug school as the Panchen Lama. Within three days of the announcement by the 14th Dalai Lama, the Chinese authorities kidnapped the 6 year old child and his family and instead installed another boy, Gyaincain Norbu in his place as the 11th Panchen Lama. The United Nations and human rights groups have condemned this act.Gedhun Choekyi Nyima has not been seen in public since 17 May 1995.

Gyaincain Norbu who acts as the 11th Panchen Lama in China, is reviled by Tibetans as a fake.

The previous Panchen Lama (Lobsang Trinley Lhundrup Choekyi Gyaltsen) spoke out against Chinese rule many times and wrote a report chronicling Tibet's famines in the 1960s. As a result, he spent more than eight years in jail and died in suspicious circumstances in 1989.

The successive Panchen Lamas form a tulku reincarnation lineage which are said to be the incarnations of Amitābha. The title, meaning "Great Scholar", is a Tibetan contraction of the Sanskrit paṇḍita (scholar) and the Tibetan chenpo (great). The Panchen Lama traditionally lived in Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse. From the name of this monastery, the Europeans referred to the Panchen Lama as the Tashi-Lama (or spelled Tesho-Lama or Teshu-Lama).

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Wikipedia