Sikkim Govt wants Centre to solve Karmapa controversy

Sikkim Govt wants Centre to solve Karmapa controversy
UNITED NEWS OF INDIA

GANGTOK, MARCH 18: The Sikkim Government wants the Centre to solve the Karmapa controversy as the Tibetan Buddhism tangle of the Kagyu sect had become an international issue.

"Earlier, we had requested New Delhi to install the 16-year-old Ugyen Thinley as the 17th Karmapa at the seat of Rumtek monastery near here, but now the situation has changed,'' Sikkim Chief Minister Pawan Kumar Chamling told a group of visiting journalists here from Calcutta.

Rumtek monastery, 28 kms from here, is now the headquarters of the Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism since the 16th Karmapa fled the Tsurphu monastery in Lasha in 1960 to avoid Communist China's "repression'' and made Rumtek as his supreme religious centre in exile.

The 16th Karmapa died in 1981 and the eight-year-old shepherd Boyugyen Thinley was identified as his reincarnation since 1992. Tibetan Buddhist temporal head the Dalai Lama and two other heads of Buddhist sects also recognised Ugyen Thinley as the real inheritor of Rumtek monastery.

But Shamar Rimpoche, one of the three Rimpoches of Rumtek, opposed Ugyen's stand, claiming Thinley Thaye Dorji was the real inheritor to the Kagyu sect. Addressing mediapersons, Chamling said the latest position relating to Karmapa had become a "sensitive matter'' and the Centre should solve the tangle. The Chief Minister indirectly referred to the latest opinions of Rimpoches of the Rumtek regarding the real inheritor and arrival of Ugyen Thinley from Tibet to Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh.

Meanwhile, different Buddhist groups in Sikkim and other parts of the country have been pressuring the Sikkim Democratic Front State Government to ensure safe entry of the 17th Karmapa in Rumtek as soon as possible.

Chamling said there was a demand from the people that the new Karmapa should come to his throne in Dharma Chakra centre in Rumtek and perform his puja for the welfare of the world. "I am not going to decide who will hold the reign of Kagyu sect of the Tibetan Buddhism. My job is only to ensure peace and transquility in the state,'' Chamling said adding, "it is only the pundits (Buddhist religious leaders) who should decide who will hold the seat of Rumtek in Sikkim. And the matter of coming of the Karmapa in Sikkim, should be settled by the Centre.''

Chamling said the Karmapa issue had now become international and was a sensitive matter. "Therefore my Government will not intervene,'' he added. A Buddhist devottee told UNI here that since the 17th Karmapa left his Tsurphu monastery in Tibet and was now residing in Dharamshala he must have his seat of centre in Rumtek. "He is not an ordinary lama to have any monastery to stay in. Either he has to be in Tsurphu monastery in Tibet or the Rumtek monastery in Sikkim. For study or any higher ritual learning the Kagyu's living god may stay to any monastery but he has to be sheltered in Rumtek since his predesessor the 16th Karmapa chose Sikkim as his new religious centre.

Meanwhile, many Buddist associations have expressed their differences over the real successor to the 16th Karmapa of the Rumtek monastery.