Perched on a valley hill in China's bleak and far-flung west, all appears as it should at Kumbum monastery, with peaceful and appropriately chaste monks in flowing crimson robes chanting morning mantras to rhythmic drum beats.
Others go about their monastic chores, polishing small golden cups that burn yak-butter candles, sweeping the temples of this arcane late 16th century monastery or working as ushers.
But other than the hordes of tour groups something else is not quite right at Kumbum, this one of six most important monasteries of Tibet's predominant Gelug Sect or Yellow Hat Buddhism headed by the Dalai Lama.
Unlike the usually friendly atmosphere found at Buddhist temples in Thailand, Cambodia or Bhutan, a palpable tension exists here. Monks don't smile, nor make eye contact and quietly decline to answer foreigners' questions saying it's "not convenient" to talk.
One young monk asked about current Chinese government policies at the monastery said: "You know I can't tell you that," then added tartly, "but I hear Taiwan has a good government, but then that's not part of China."
The fact that the temple is open, however, is an improvement. In 1958 the Chinese government, in the midst of its revolutionary campaign to inculcate communism and atheism and wipe out religion it all its forms, closed the monastery north of Xining in Qinghai province.
Yet after decades of violent oppression by China's ruling Communist party, Buddhism and Islam have managed to make a comeback over the last 20 years, though religious activity remains firmly under the heavy-handed control of the ruling-communist party.
"It is a place where people can practice their religion freely," Kumbum's chief monk Sai Chi, a living Buddha or Rinpoche, stiffly told a group of journalists surrounded by Chinese officials from the Religious and Cultural Affairs bureau.
Asked how he reconciled that the Dalai Lama was a persona non-grata in Beijing and that monks who expressed their allegiance to the exiled Tibetan leader were routinely jailed, Sai said: "We as a religious centre do not get involved in politics and this is a political issue."
Unless Sai himself wants to do a long stint in a Chinese jail neither could he say that Kumbum crawls with shifty plain-clothed Chinese men whom are neither tourists nor monks and that the party dedicates considerable time and money on checking the growth of Buddhism as well as pro-Tibet sentiment.
Sai said he had no knowledge of Jigme Dasang, a monk who according to Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy was arrested in May 2005 for allegedly distributing pro-Tibetan independence literature in the monastery.
"I have not heard of him or any monk being arrested here," he said.
Since the dictatorial communists swept to power in 1949, Kumbum's dark, ornate temples, once home to some 3,600 monks but now only 500, has faced a string of political troubles.
When it was closed in 1958 its head abbot Agya Rinpoche was forced to slave in the fields. Then during the destructive Cultural Revolution of 1966 to 1976, Red Guards vandalised objects of worship and Buddhist scriptures.
In 1998, Agya, who was recognised as the reincarnation of the father of Tsongkapa, the founder of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism, fled to California in protest of party policies.
Agya said in a statement issued then that his religion and beliefs were being compromised when the party insisted that he be present in Lhasa for the rigged ceremonial selection of Gyaltsen Norbu as the reincarnated Panchen Lama, Tibetan Buddhism's second most important position.
The present Panchen Lama was chosen by Beijing in 1995 over another boy anointed by the exiled Dalai Lama and has never been seen again although the party claims that he is safe and in good health.
"As Abbot of the Kumbum Monastery, I would have been forced to help the government have its choice of the Panchen Lama accepted by the Tibetan people. This would violate my deepest beliefs," Agya said.
Although China claims that it allows religious freedom it last year issued a secret document ordering the nation-wide promotion of atheism, in order to check the spread of religion, according to the Texas-based Christian group China Aid Association.
The decree, entitled "Notice on Further Strengthening Marxism Atheism Research, Propaganda and Education", urged party cadres everywhere to step up Marxist atheism teachings and integrate them into all sectors of society.
Sent to all provincial governments it specifically demanded Party organs in China's multi-ethnic and religiously diverse border areas and the Muslim-populated western region to increase local leaders' understanding of Marxist atheism.
Ma Qiaqing, director Donghuan mosque in Qinghai's Xining city, one of China's four largest and first built seven centuries ago by Persian and Arab traders that plied the Silk Road, said there was no contradiction between his faith and Marxism.
"There is equality and minorities and everyone is free to practice religion," Ma, a member of the Islam practising Chinese Hui minority, told journalists.
"In China religious persecution does not exist because our rights are guaranteed by the constitution," he said as party officials whispered in his ear.
Comments
Comments are closed.