China's Panchen Lama holds key ritual for first time in 50 yrs

For the first time in 50 years in Tibet, China-backed Panchen Lama today began a rare Buddhist ritual, amid criticism from overseas Tibetan groups that Beijing was trying to legitimise him as a religious leader and challenge the Dalai Lama's spiritual hold over Buddhism.
The first tantric Kalachakra instructions delivered by the 11th Panchen Lama Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu formally started inXigaze in Tibet with some 40 monks beginning a closed-door observance of Didam, the Kalachakra deity, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
The Kalachakra (the wheel of time) ritual, a very important Buddhists rite for activating dormant enlightenment, has not been carried out in Tibet for half a century, it said.

The ritual includes a series of tantric teachings and initiations given by gurus to help Buddhists through the cycle of life. Itis estimated that some 50,000 Buddhists will attend the four-day long event.
The 81-year-old Dalai Lama, who fled his homeland in 1959 and lives in exile in India, has carried out the ritual overseas.
The 25-year-old Panchen Lama, regarded in Tibetan Buddhist hierarchy as second most important after the Dalai Lama, has been making efforts to establish his control over the deeply religious Tibetan population which revere the Dalai Lama.

Bainqen Erdini was officially selected as Panchen Lama in 1995 in controversial circumstances after China removed the then-incumbent abbott of Tashilhunpo Monastery Gedhun Choekyi Nyima as he was appointed by the Dalai Lama.

While whereabouts of Nyima were not known, a Tibetan official said in September last year that he is receiving education, and living normally.
London-based Free Tibet said the resumption of the ritual was intended to increase the standing of the young monk who many Tibetans regard as a fake.
"The officially atheist Chinese government has long tried to impose its authority on Tibet by co-opting Tibetan Buddhism," Free Tibet director Eleanor Byrne-Rosengren said.
The Panchen Lama's "presence at this Kalachakra stems from the Chinese occupation rather than from genuine religious legitimacy", he said in a press release.