Hundreds attend Former Tibetan political prisoner Palden Gyatso’s funeral service
DHARAMSALA, Dec 3: Hundreds of Tibetans and supporters in Dharamsala attended the funeral service of Former Tibetan political prisoner Ven Palden Gyatso.
The Tibetan monk who spent 33 years in various Chinese prison and concentration camps in the Chinese occupied Tibet from 1959-1992 where he was extensively tortured passed away at the age of 85 on Nov 30, at the Delek Hospital in Dharamsala.
Central Tibetan Administration’s Finance Kalon Karma Yeshi, some members of the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile, Tibetan settlement officer Dawa Rinchen, abbot of Kirti monastery as well as representatives of various Dharamsala-based NGOs came to pay their respects.
Kalon Karma Yeshi told reporters that, all of us should remember him for his dedication and commitment to the Tibetan movement and pray for his swift rebirth as a Tibetan to lead the Tibetan movement.
The funeral service of Gyatso is being organised by the Kirti monastery here in Dharamsala where the former Tibetan political prisoner lives besides attending to him in the hospital that he has to frequent owing to extensively tortured by the Chinese authorities in prison for over three decades.
The monastery has organised Gyatso’s first-week post-demise prayer service (duntsik) at the Tsug-lag-Khang, the main temple in Mcleod Ganj, Dharamsala to be lead by his root guru, meanwhile, Kirti monastery will conduct all the other prayer services till the 49th day post his demise in accordance with Tibetan Buddhist tradition.
Palden Gyatso was born in a Tibetan village in 1933 and became an ordained Buddhist monk at 18. At age 29, in 1959, after the Chinese invasion of Tibet, he was arrested and charged with being a reactionary element and sentenced to a seven-year prison term. Thereafter, he spent 33 years in various Chinese prison and concentration camps in the Chinese occupied Tibet from 1959-1992. He was ultimately released in 1992 and escaped to India thirteen days later.
