Prayers mark Dalai Lama's birthday in Karnataka

Calcutta News.Net
Tuesday 6th July, 2010

Prayers and cultural activities at India's largest Tibetan settlement at Bylakuppe in Karnataka marked the 75th birthday of Tibet's temporal and spiritual head the Dalai Lama.

The celebrations began with Tibetan flag hoisting. Saplings were planted, according to Phuntsok Tsering, in-charge of the settlement.

Celebrations were also held at Mundgod settlement in Uttara Kannada district, about 450 km from here. Tibetan youth hostels for men and women in Bangalore organised prayers and cultural activities.

Around 40,000 Tibetans stay at the Bylakuppe settlement, some 200 km from here.

Born July 6, 1935, to a farming family in a small hamlet in Taktser in Amdo province in northeastern Tibet, the two-year-old child, earlier named Lhamo Dhondup, was recognized as the reincarnation of the 13th Dalai Lama, Thubten Gyatso, in 1937.

He fled Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese rule in 1959, basing his Tibetan government-in-exile in Dharamsala.

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