Suddenly the 17th Karmapa Lama is in the news for wrong reasons. His institution and people connected with him were found in possession of millions of foreign currencies. Karmapa is in India as he has been given asylum by Indian Government when he entered India through Sikkim very dramatically in the year 2000.
Karmapa interests me because I along with my German friend had the ‘fortune’ of seeing him when we had gone to Dharmasala, a hill resort in the State of Himachal Pradesh. That is the town where Dalai Lama has his Headquarters and his Government in exile functions. It has a large Tibetan settlement. Further we had also seen Kagyu Monastry which is the Karmapa Headquarters in Rumtek, Sikkim when we had been to Sikkim.
Karmapa means ‘ the embodiment of all the activities of the Buddhas.’ An important institution in the Tibetan religious set-up, the Karmapa Lama is the spiritual head of the Karma Kagyu sect, one of the four sects of Tibetan Buddhism and one of the richest In the Tibetan religious hierarchy, he is considered the third most important Tibetan religious head after the institutions of the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama.
The Karmapa I saw was the 17th Karmapa and was aged about 24 year old. Very young in age and appearance.. I am told he is highly learned in Tibetan studies. His entire day is spent on studies. He is also called a black hat lama because of the black hat presented to the first Karmapa by Kublai Khan, the Mangolian Ruler. He was the son of a nomad born in the year 1985 and he was found by the four senior Lamas in the Eastern Tibet and he was annointed the position of Karmapa in 1992. He escaped from the Chinese in the year 2000. There are several stories regarding his birth, his childhood, the way he was brought up in Tibet and his escape to India etc.
I had almost forgotten my visit to him but suddenly his financial controversy has now catapulted him to the center stage. Anyway, I can say that I saw the 17th Karmapa. But one should not forget that there are three other claimants for the status of Karmapas !!!