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Updated: Dec 25, 2019 12:06 IST

Spiritual leader Dalai Lama has a message for China on Christmas: “We have the power of truth. Chinese communists have the power of gun. In the long run, power of truth is much stronger than power of gun.”

“China has one of the highest population of Buddhists in the world. And slowly, the Buddhists there havs started realising that the kind of Buddhism we practice is true,” he further said.

The Tibetan spiritual leader made the remarks in Bihar’s Gaya where he will stay for 14 days.

The Dalai Lama is in one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites. According to a report in HT’s sister publication Hindustan, the Dalai Lama will deliver teaching on ‘A Guide to Bodhisatva’s Way of Life’, a revered Buddhist scripture. The book was composed in the eighth century by an Indian monk Santideva.

He will also deliver a lecture on Buddhism on January 6 in the presence of 50,000 people.

China and the Tibetan Buddhists are locked in a fight over Dalai Lama’s successor. While China has been insisting that the tradition of reincarnation of the Dalai Lama should continue, many Tibetans are opposed to Beijing’s apparent attempt to “impose” a successor.

The Dalai Lama has himself downplayed the issue, saying it was too early to discuss it. “All of you discussed a lot about my reincarnation. I am 84 or 85 years old and I am quite well. So why are you in a hurry about my reincarnation?” the Nobel Peace Prize winner recently said.

Even the United States has said that the issue of reincarnation should be taken up by the international bodies, including the UN.

“There are many people who follow the Dalai Lama and don’t live in China. He is a well-known spiritual leader throughout the world and deserves respect and deserves the succession process picked by his faith community...,” US Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Samuel Brownback said at a news conference in November.

China accuses the Dalai Lama as a “splittist” working for Tibetan independence. The 14th Dalai Lama fled to India in early 1959 to escape from the Chinese occupation and lives in exile in the hill town of Dharamshala.