THE boy had seemed destined for a life of affluence and earthly pursuits. Born into the family behind a major mining conglomerate in Mongolia, he might have been picked to someday lead the company from its steel-and-glass headquarters in the country’s capital.
Instead, the eight-year-old is now at the heart of a struggle between the Dalai Lama and the Chinese Communist Party.
He was just a toddler when everything changed. On a visit to a vast monastery in the capital city of Ulaanbaatar, known for a towering Buddha statue gilded in gold, his father brought him and his twin brother into a room where they and seven other boys were given a secret test.
The children were shown a table strewn with religious objects. Some of them refused to leave their parents’ sides. Others were drawn to the colourful candy that had been placed as distractions.
A. Altannar, was different. He picked out a set of prayer beads and put it around his neck. He rang a bell used for meditation. He walked over to a monk in the room and playfully climbed on his legs.
“These were very special signs,” said Bataa Mishigish, a religious scholar who observed the boy with two senior monks. “We just looked at each other and didn’t say a word.”
They had found the 10th reincarnation of the Bogd, one of the three most important figures in Tibetan Buddhism and, for many, the spiritual leader of Mongolia, where nearly half the population is Buddhist.
For the next seven years, the monks kept the identity of the Bogd, known formally as the Jebtsundamba Khutughtu, a secret.
In March, the Dalai Lama introduced the boy at a ceremony in India in front of throngs of worshippers, his tiny frame engulfed by a maroon deel, the traditional Mongolian gown, with his doe eyes and spiky crew cut peeking out above a white surgical mask.
The news that the 10th Bogd had been chosen was cause for celebration in Mongolia.
The Bogd is a symbol of Mongolia’s identity, a position dating back nearly 400 years to descendants of the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, who embraced Tibetan Buddhism and helped spread it across China and other conquered lands.
In the early 20th century, a Tibetan-born Bogd was the theocratic ruler of Mongolia, revered as a god-king figure. Today, the title adorns banks, cashmere boutiques and auto dealerships. When someone sneezes, Mongolians say “Bogd bless you.”
But who gets to be the Bogd is a sensitive question with implications for Mongolia, China and Tibet. The Chinese Communist Party has sought to assert its authority over Tibetan Buddhism even outside China’s borders, part of a long campaign to tighten its control over Tibet.
China regards the 88-year-old Dalai Lama – who fled Tibet as a young man in 1959 and has been living in exile in India since – as an enemy determined to free Tibet from Chinese rule. Although officially atheist, the party has asserted that only it can name his reincarnation, and those of other high lamas.
After the last Bogd died in 2012, there was concern that China would try to choose or influence the selection of the next one. In 1995, China kidnapped a boy the Dalai Lama had named as the Panchen Lama, the second-most-recognisable figure in Tibetan Buddhism.
So when the Dalai Lama appeared with A. Altannar in public this year, it was a defiant assertion of his influence over the faith and a challenge to Beijing’s claims over succession. And it put Mongolia on the spot, straining its delicate relationship with China, its much bigger and richer neighbour.
Then there is the question of whether the tradition of anointing children as lama reincarnates makes sense and still has a place in modern Mongolia. Some have also complained that elite families like the boy’s enjoy too many privileges.
Meanwhile, his American-educated parents are coming to grips with giving up their hopes and dreams, for their son to serve a religious calling they did not choose.
The boy, a third grader with a fondness for TikTok and video games, now faces decades of theological training, a lifetime of celibacy, and the grave responsibility of having to defend Mongolian Buddhism against Chinese pressure. And, in some ways, so does his twin brother.
To obscure A. Altannar’s identity and protect him from overzealous worshippers or worse, the twins, Achildai Altannar and Agudai Altannar, who are identical, are rarely seen in public without each other. In fact, neither the Dalai Lama nor the parents have publicly said which boy was introduced at the ceremony.
“We want our son to grow up in a normal environment, not under pressure, not under scrutiny of heavy teachings,” said Munkhnasan Narmandakh, 41, the boy’s mother. “If he wants to play video games, he should.”
When Bataa, the religious scholar, and the leaders of Gandan Monastery in Ulaanbaatar set out on the search for the next Bogd, they were flummoxed. The process of finding a reincarnation had almost been lost to time. They had to dust off old religious texts from the National Archives and consult with experts in the Dalai Lama’s office in Dharamsala, India.
The team pulled 80,000 names from the list of boys born in Ulaanbaatar in 2014 and 2015, the years after the last Bogd died. They followed an ancient custom of parsing mystical visions and astrology to winnow the selection down to 11 to take the secret test – although the families of only nine boys responded.
That afternoon, the objects that A. Altannar picked up – the necklace and the bell – had belonged to the Ninth Bogd. The monk he climbed on was the Ninth Bogd’s assistant.
Before A. Altannar was identified as Mongolia’s spiritual leader, he was born into Mongolian business royalty.
His grandmother, Garamjav Tseden, is the founder of one of the country’s most successful private companies, Monpolymet, which started in gold mining and has since expanded into making cement. His mother, the company’s CEO, once served as a judge on Mongolia’s version of Shark Tank, a business-oriented reality TV show.
But the family’s success and Garamjav’s former role as a member of parliament and a patron of the previous Bogd have raised questions about privilege and elitism seeping into the process of finding a Bogd.
Shortly after A. Altannar was introduced by the Dalai Lama, Unurtsetseg Naran, an independent journalist, wrote on Facebook: “Why was a rich child selected?”
The boy’s parents say Naran’s posts have fuelled threats online against their family. And they reject any suggestion that they bought their son’s position.
The naming of a Mongolian lama reincarnate ensures Mongolia will be drawn deeper into the political chess match between China and the Dalai Lama.
There are potential ramifications for the US government, too. A. Altannar was born in Washington, D.C., making him an American citizen. That has fuelled speculation that he was chosen because his US citizenship could afford him some added protection from China.
Munkhnasan, A. Altannar’s mother, said her immediate response was a flat-out rejection of the idea. The parents had hoped that their boys would one day study engineering and take over the family business empire.
Munkhnasan and her husband, Altannar Chinchuluun, a mathematician at the National University of Mongolia, had even written to the United Nations Children’s Fund, or Unicef, appealing for help. The reincarnation process, they argued, had robbed their son of his rights.
Eventually, the two decided they would try to strike a balance. The monks could instruct the boy if he also continued with his regular education. Most important, they insisted that it would have to be up to their son when he turns 18 whether he wanted to remain the Bogd.
The boy seems to be traversing his two worlds with growing ease. When he visited Dharamsala for his introduction by the Dalai Lama, he sat still for hours listening to his teachings.
On a recent weekday, he was attentive at school and playful with his classmates, flashing a wide smile as he ran a relay race for gym class. Later, he donned his traditional Mongolian deel to receive his regular religious instruction at the Gandan monastery. In the presence of the monks, his boyish energy was replaced by an aura of calm and maturity as he read sutras and practiced rituals.
“Of course, as a boy, he doesn’t understand everything that’s going on, but he’s definitely not rejecting it,” Munkhnasan said. “He’s very comfortable.
“It’s like second nature to him.” — ©2023 The New York Times Company
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