In the monasteries throughout Tibet young boys come to join when they are very young. For the family of these boys it
is a great honor that they
join the monastery. From the moment they join they will be educated in all
kinds of ways. They learn how to read and write, how to calculate, how to
meditate, about all the different characters in Buddhism and a lot more. Also
they have to do the household work in the monasteries. Making the Yak-butter
tea is one of them. For all these things the will have teachers. But when the
boys grow older they will need higher education. The Lama will teach the better
educated so they can teach the younger ones. This whole system of education is
build around the Lama. The Lama will reincarnate after he dies. Because he
learned all the people in the monastery everything he knew and what he found
out in his life, they will be able to teach the new reincarnated Lama
everything back again. But they not only teach the new Lama, they also teach
all monks the same in steps. In this way you get the same system as we use in
our modern society for teaching children at school. The only difference is that
all the knowledge stays inside the monasteries and the people outside are not
educated as well. At the beginning of the Buddha religion in Tibet, in the surrounding countries this religion had already been there for a longer time. So when the king Songtsen Gampo married with two princesses , one for China and one from Nepal the Buddha religion was introduced in Tibet. Two generations later the Tibetan people learned more about the religion from the priests of India. Later they changed a number of things and at the same time the surrounding countries were not so active anymore. In later ages The Indian priests came back to learn things from the Tibetans again. In that way there was a cross-education in Buddhism.
The Lama is the one that takes
care that the system will continue to work. The Lama often possess a library of
his own. The books are written in the Tibetan alphabet. This is not an alphabet
as we know it. It is something between the Chinese script and the western
alphabet. Parts are letters and parts are sounds. When a sound is described an
extra part is added to the letter. Writing in the Tibetan alphabet first
started around 630. You must know that an authentic book in Tibet is a pile of
loose paper with two boards on each side. But before the paper is put between
the boards it is packed in cloth to protect the sides. It is a lot of work to
keep the books together in this way. In the monasteries it is just like
everywhere else in the world. I have seen bookshelves that looked real tidy.
But I have also seen a Lama at work in his "Study" and his desk was
one large pile of loose sheets of paper. So not all Lama's are the same. Just
like around you not all people are the same. In 1578 the Lama Sonam Gyatso received the tittle of Ta-le (Dalai) from the Mongolian ruler Altan Khan. Because he was the third reincarnation found in a row he became the third Dalai Lama. In the table you can find all the Dalai Lama's with their own name.
Even long before the first Dalai Lama was born, the first Panchen Lama was already born. The Panchen Lama is believed to be directly under the Dalai Lama. But that does not mean that they always have lived in peace. In the 1920s the 9th Panchen Lama and the 13th Dalai Lama had a dispute about taxes and the right to self rule . The Panchen Lama has his residence at the Tashilhunpo monastery. But because of the fight he had to leave the monastery and he went to China. The 10th Panchen Lama didn't spent much time at the Tashilhunpo monastery to because the Chinese would not let him leave Beijing. He died in 1989.