11th Panchen Lama visits Lhasa's major monastery
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The 11th Panchen Lama visited Jokhang Temple, the most renowned monastery in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, early Saturday.
The 20-year-old living Buddha arrived at the temple before 6 a.m., and was greeted by lamas dressed in crimson robes, holding Tibetan incense, prayer flags and "hada", a long, scarf-like white silk used by the Tibetans for blessings.
The Panchen Lama visited major halls of the temple, paid homage and presented hadas to the statues of Buddhas.
He led a 30-minute sutra chanting ceremony, where he and more than 100 lamas at the temple prayed for the prosperity and stability of the country and a bumper harvest.
The ceremony was followed by a head-touching ritual to bless the lamas.
The Panchen Lama arrived in Lhasa Friday for a series of Buddhist activities, which have become his annual routine in recent years.
He spends most of the time studying Buddhism in Beijing and also visits areas inhabited by Tibetans for religious services.
The Jokhang Temple, which houses a life-sized statue of Buddha Sakyamuni as a 12-year-old, is often the first stop of his Lhasa tour.
It was before this statue that he was selected as the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Erdini in November 1995, through the traditional method of drawing lots from the golden urn. He was then six years old.
The 11th Panchen Lama, Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu, was born in February 1990 in Tibet.
As one of the two most senior living Buddhas in Tibetan Buddhism, he has given head-touching blessings to hundreds of thousands of believers, and ardently participated in activities for the public good.
Two days after a 7.1-magnitude quake shook Yushu, a predominantly Tibetan area in northwest China's Qinghai Province, the Panchen Lama donated 100,000 yuan (14,662 U.S. dollars) and led monks in downtown Beijing's Xihuang Temple in prayers for the victims.
He paid a visit to Yushu in mid May to host prayer services for the victims.
Early this year, the Panchen Lama was elected vice president of the Buddhist Association of China, and became a member of the National Committee of Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the country's top political advisory body.
