Lama’s Flight Dashes Hope for Tibet-Beijing Accord

A Tibetan lama’s dramatic escape from China this week appeared to dash whatever hopes remained for a compromise between Beijing and Tibet’s traditional Buddhist leadership.

The 17th Karmapa, a 14-year-old boy who occupies one of the most exalted positions in Tibetan Buddhism, arrived in the northern Indian city of Dharamsala with blistered feet and bloodied hands from an arduous trek through the Himalayas to join thousands of fellow Tibetans in exile.

The elevation of the 7-year-old in 1992 had been seen as a last-ditch attempt by some Tibetan religious leaders to reach an accommodation with their Chinese overlords that would allow Tibetans to worship freely.

A circle of influential Buddhist scholars secured the unprecedented agreement of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese government for his ascension. But some Tibetans, especially those in exile, criticized the approval of the 17th Karmapa, whose given name was Ugyen Trinley Dorje, as a sellout to the Chinese.

By making his secret journey to India, the Karmapa not only spurned his erstwhile Chinese patrons but also fled into the arms of the exile movement led by the Dalai Lama, who left China in nearly identical fashion 41 years ago. As the leader of the Kagyu branch of Tibetan Buddhism, the 17th Karmapa joins the leaders of the other three branches now living outside their homeland.

“This was the last hope for a decent agreement between the Tibetans and Chinese,” said Robbie Barnett, a research scholar at Columbia University in New York. “This is terribly embarrassing for the Chinese to have him walk away.”

The Communist government in Beijing, criticized across the globe for its suppression of Tibetan culture and religion, tried to put the best face on the young lama’s departure. The official New China News Agency reported that the Karmapa had left behind a note saying that he had left the country to retrieve musical instruments for a Buddhist Mass and a type of black hat traditionally worn by the leaders of his Buddhist sect.

The Karmapa did not mean to “betray the state, the nation, the monastery or the leadership,” the New China News Agency said.

The 17th Karmapa left the 800-year-old Tsurphu monastery in central Tibet late last month, telling his guards that he was going on a religious retreat. Later, disguised as a commoner, he and a group of attendants trekked for days across the mountains toward the border with Nepal. At some point along the journey, Tibetan sources said, they were able to use jeeps. The group made its way across Nepal and into India.

On Friday, Tibetans in Dharamsala, the seat of their government-in-exile, celebrated the arrival of the newest defector. The Karmapa, whose line stretches back even further than that of the Dalai Lama, is staying at a guest house in the Himalayan town.

Wearing a maroon gown and yellow cape, the Karmapa, who is believed to be the reincarnation of a revered Buddhist teacher, blessed well-wishers who came to see him by placing his palm on their heads.

“We told him, ‘You look very fine, and we are glad you are here,’ ” said Pema Lhundup, editor of Rangzen, a Tibetan newspaper. “The Chinese have not allowed him to practice his religion freely. He needs to be here.”

Officials with the Tibetan government-in-exile confirmed the Karmapa’s arrival in Dharamsala but said little more. They stressed that the Dalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of the exiled Tibetans, had no knowledge of the Karmapa’s planned escape. Some officials said they expect the boy to ask for asylum in India.

“We had no idea that he was coming,” a Tibetan official said.

The escape of the 17th Karmapa comes at a critical time for Tibetan exiles, many of whom fled after the Chinese invasion of the country in 1959. Since then, human rights organizations have documented widespread abuses by Chinese authorities, including arbitrary arrests, torture and the suppression of religious worship.

Today, 100,000 Tibetans live outside their homeland, and with the Dalai Lama in his mid-60s, many believe that time is running out for a return to a free Tibet. Some are calling for an accommodation with the Chinese, while others push for confrontation. The Dalai Lama, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989, espouses the “Third Way”--nonviolent resistance with the goal of securing independence from China or autonomy within.

Tibetan leaders have long accused Chinese leaders of trying to co-opt the leadership of Tibetan Buddhism--as with the disputed choice in 1995 of the Panchen Lama, the second-highest Tibetan lama.

To many Tibetan experts, the 1992 agreement that led to the ascension of the 17th Karmapa represented an attempt on both sides to try to live together. The arrangement called for the Karmapa to recognize the dominance of the Chinese in exchange for being allowed to travel abroad and practice his religion.

For a time, the deal seemed to hold. The 17th Karmapa appeared with President Jiang Zemin at National Day ceremonies in 1994.

Tibetan experts say that the deal soured because the Chinese didn’t live up to the bargain. The Chinese forbade the Karmapa from traveling, and they stepped up repression of Tibetan Buddhists. According to Amnesty International, Chinese authorities now routinely demand that Tibetan monks and nuns denounce the Dalai Lama and submit to Chinese preeminence if they want to continue worshiping.

“Initially, the Karmapa thought it was possible to remain in Tibet and still be effective,” said Donald S. Lopez, professor of Buddhist and Tibetan Studies at the University of Michigan. “He obviously decided it wasn’t.”

The Karmapa’s is the most publicized of recent flights from Tibet. In 1999, about 4,000 Tibetans left their country on foot across the Himalayas, most of them going to Nepal and India. It’s a treacherous journey: Many die along the way, and others lose limbs to frostbite. Most, like the Karmapa, are fleeing repression in their own land.

“Tibetan Buddhists look at a lama the way people in America would see an astronaut, a presidential candidate and a religious leader--all in one,” said Robert Thurman, professor of Indo-Tibetan Studies at Columbia. “For lamas to be able to flourish in freedom--and for people to have access to them--is considered crucial to the survival of their culture.”

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Anthony Kuhn of The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.