Abstracts of the Ganden Phodrang, Regents, and Succession Panelists

Martin Mills, University of Aberdeen
The Ganden Podrang: Sovereignty and Succession Under the Dalai Lamas
The Ganden Podrang, founded during the lifetime of the Second Dalai Lama, Gendun Gyatso (1475–1542) as the enduring patrimonial estate of the Dalai Lama reincarnation lineage, has transformed several times several times during its long history. Originally the personal estate of the First to the Fourth Dalai Lamas, it became the foundation and seat of government from Lhasa under the Fifth Dalai Lama until 1959, whereupon it continued as the centre of the exiled administration in Dharamsala. In 2011, the resignation of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama from political activities meant that the Ganden Podrang returned to a smaller, trust-holding estate closer in nature to its original form under the Second Dalai Lama.  The transformational history of the Ganden Podrang estate gives us insight into the Dalai Lama lineage as a legal and constitutional form. In particular, the historical continuity of the Ganden Podrang as an object of inheritance is centred on the Dalai Lama as a distinct and individual person rather than as an office (as applies to the American President or the British Prime Minister), but. In this regard, the Ganden Podrang estate is (and remained throughout its history) a personal possession, whose inheritance is overseen by those personally close to the Dalai Lama. In the Tibetan context, such relations are primarily understood in karmic terms spanning multiple lifetimes, including relations with other incarnate lineages such as the Panchen Lamas and deities such as Pehar and Palden Lhamo. In each of these cases, the relationship is not a formal constitutional one bound by laws, doctrinal regulations or cosmology, but by personal relations of friendship, tutelage, protection and care. Historically, it is these personal relations with the Dalai Lamas that are drawn upon to secure the reincarnation recognition process, rather than principles of state authority, bureaucratic administration or ecclesiastical authority.

Cameron Warner, Aarhus University
Tibet’s Regents: A Historical Overview of the Men Tasked with Finding the Dalai Lama
In royal successions around the world, the sovereign may transfer their power to a temporary proxy, the regent. In the case of succession at the death of the sovereign, the regent can retain power until the successor is fully enthroned or until such time as the new sovereign asserts their authority. In Tibetan lineages where the line of succession had been determined by reincarnation, such as the Dalai Lama, the regent sometimes assumed the additional responsibility of overseeing the complex process of locating suitable candidates for the next incarnation of the Dalai Lama. After testing, the regent often manuevered the successful boy through a minefield of political obstacles towards a latter process of tonsure, name-giving, and enthronment. This paper serves as an introduction and historical overview of the men who have been tasked with finding a Dalai Lama and how the role of the regent has evolved over time. The paper will include preliminary thoughts on the future position of the regent given the Dalai Lama's decision in 2011 to devolve political power onto a democratically elected executive.

Hon-Shiang Lau, City University of Hong Kong
Chinese Primary-Source Official Records on ‘Using a Golden Urn to Identify a New Dalai Lama’ Show that the Qing Empire Had No Sovereignty over Tibet
People's Republic of China claims that the Qing Empire controlled the search, identification and education of a reincarnated Dalai Lama, and this reflects Qing-Empire’s sovereignty over Tibet. This paper uses numerous direct quotes from China’s primary-source official records (e.g., 《­QVR》) to prove the opposite, i.e., the Qing Empire had no genuine control over the search/ identification/ education of a new Dalai Lama, which in turn contributes to proving that the Qing Empire never had sovereignty over Tibet.