A Living Buddha or Casanova

All these disappointments greatly upset the young Dalai Lama, who abandoned his studies and even visited the 5th Panchen Lama, who was the teacher of Tsangyang Gyatso for religious studies, to attempt to renounce his novice monk vows. But the 5th Panchen Lama discouraged him.

Wearing the clothes of a normal layman, he only kept the temporal prerogatives for being the Dalai Lama. He visited parks and spent nights in the streets of Lhasa, drinking wine, singing songs and having amorous relations with young women:

‘A love met in passing,

Girl with the fragrant limbs.

Like finding rare turquoise,

And throwing it away.’

Destination and Transmigration

Finally Tsangyang Gyatso was deposed for his mistaken behaviors, and exiled. In exile, he once wrote to a lady friend:

‘That bird–white crane,

Lend me your skill of wing.

I will not fly far,

From Lithang, I shall return.’

Lithang later turned out to be where the 7th Dalai Lama, Kelzang Gyatso, was born. Word has it that Tsangyang Gyatso passed away on his way to Beijing at the age of 25, while some others think he traveled and left his footprints in many places including China, India and Nepal, and spent his remaining years in peace until his death at the age of 64.

He was not considered a great Dalai Lama in history, but nobody could deny his dedication to Tibetan poetry. Tibetan people still sing a song about his legendary life:

‘Tsangyang Gyatso, the sixth Dalai,

Don’t blame him for philandering.

Since all his quests and pursuits,

Are no more different than us all.’

By Pan Qingyi

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