Every house is being scrubbed clean and decorated to welcome the Dalai Lama here on Sunday, in what is turning out to be a historic visit to this famous monastery town in the eastern Himalayas, the Arunachal Pradesh capital. The bone-chilling day-time temperatures have made no difference to the spirit of preparations. Banners with Buddhist mantra inscribed on them are being unfurled on homes and in public squares. Old-timers say the fervour of welcome the last time the spiritual leader was here was not of the same order.
The 1962 aggression continues to be a bad memory. It is common to hear that a key reason why China has been so strident about the holy man’s visit is his relatively recent acknowledgement that Arunachal Pradesh, which Beijing claims, is a part of India.
In an interview the Dalai Lama accepted the legitimacy of the McMahon Line as forming India’s boundary with Tibet. The Tibetan spiritual leader had visited the Tawang region in 2003. When asked to comment on this issue, he had refrained from a direct answer.
There is palpable excitement about the spiritual leader’s visit across the state, as this correspondent saw on a long road journey from Guwahati. The Dalai Lama is scheduled to spend five days at the renowned monastery here. He will take part in special prayers and religious rituals, and inaugurate a super-speciality hospital to which he has donated Rs 20 lakh. The older monks are engaged in giving last minute touches, and getting ready a new museum that will hold rare treasures and artefacts of Tibetan Buddhism, which is the local faith here and of which the Dalai Lama is the high priest.
“We have been preparing for his visit for a year,” says Tulku Rinpoche, a monk authorised by the Tawang Monastery to be the interlocutor with the outside world. An array of gifts that include a silver and gold dharma chakra (held by Lord Brahma), a conch (held by Lord Indra), and a butter lamp with intricate inlay work encrusted with corals and turquoise, designed by skilled craftsmen from Karnataka, have been brought to present to the Dalai Lama. An idol of Ami Tayus, worshipped to wish for long life, and a red and yellow robe tailored at Dharamsala, will also be gifted.
The trainee child monks at the monastery are preparing in a special way for the visit. They are revising Buddhist philosophy, a subject introduced recently at the monastery’s Centre for Buddhist Cultural Studies, in case the grand visitor pops them a question.
Eight-year old Jambe Wangchu is visibly excited, hoping that the pontiff, who is revered as God, will direct a question at him. So, he is cramming hard to prepare. Prema Dakpa, now 15, was here when the pontiff last visited, and this would be his second opportunity to see the Dalai Lama. “Twice in a life-time!” He thinks he is blessed.
Over 500 monks will be performing a special puja or worship-session for the Dalai Lama’s long life and good health.
A close aide of the Dalai Lama, T.G. Rinpoche, said, “We will not only pray that he has a long life, but also that peace, compassion, and kindness be instilled in Chinese hearts.”
The aide has been elected three times to the state Assembly from here. Tawang, one of Tibetan Buddhism’s oldest monasteries, is largely dominated by Buddhists of the Monpa tribe, who hold the Dalai Lama in great reverence. The international interest in the spiritual leader’s proposed visit, and Beijing’s cutting remarks opposing it, have acted as a catalyst for the Monpas to present a spectacular show of religious devotion. They have not left any stone unturned to prepare for the occasion.
“We have not been able to understand the reason for China’s opposition to the Dalai Lama and its claim on Arunachal Pradesh”, said T.G. Rimpoche. “If the opinion of the people is any indication, more than 80 per cent of the electorate came out to vote in the frontier state in the recent Assembly election”, he pointed out. As for language and tradition, the Monpa tribe has characteristics similar to the others in Arunachal Pradesh and the adjoining north-eastern states. Hindi is the state’s link language. Most Arunachalees speak it fluently. “There is no written history that tells us when Hindi came to the region but we have been using it as our link language since our childhood. Children often converse in it,” T.G. Rimpoche said, in Hindi, naturally. Raju Mahajan, a tourist from Mahrashtra, points out, “In some north-eastern states, not knowing the local language was a handicap. But I found Arunachal quite unique for its widespread use of Hindi.”
The Monpa are five per cent of the state’s tribal population. Their faith in the Dalai Lama is all the greater because Tawang was the birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama. Also, in March 1959, the present pontiff (the fourteenth Dalai Lama) made his history-making escape from Tibet — occupied by China in 1951 — to India through Tawang, and stayed at the monastery here.