Crown in Peril

From the gilded rooftop of Lhasa's Potala Palace, heralds blew 14-foot-long copper trumpets. Below, in the building's ornate Assembly Hall, a bright-eyed, 16-year-old boy sat on a high throne, about which clustered Tibet's most powerful lamas, abbots and monks. They had come in the country's hour of peril, with Chinese Communist invaders lodged deep in the Himalayan upland, to witness the coronation of the 14th Dalai Lama, the reincarnated Buddha of Mercy. Hours of prayer and ritual reached a climax when the adolescent god-king accepted the great jade seal of supreme Tibetan authority on which is engraved the motto "Victory in All Directions."

It was an emergency investiture. Traditionally, the Dalai Lama waits for his 18th birthday before formally assuming power. By staging the ceremony two years ahead of schedule, Lhasa's theocrats seemed to be preparing for the worst. They closed the regency of septuagenarian Takta Rimpoche, abbot of Tiger Rock Monastery. They bolstered the spiritual position of the Dalai Lama should he be forced to leave Lhasa for exile abroad and should the Communists try to install a rival on his throne.

The theocrats tried other emergency action during the week. They were reported sending a truce mission to dicker with the slowly advancing Chinese. They also cabled a petition to the U.N. The petition flatly rejected Communist claims of suzerainty over Tibet, contended that Tibet had "complete independence" from the time of the Chinese revolution of 1911 ("Tibet thereafter depended entirely on her isolation, her faith in the wisdom of Lord Buddha, and occasionally on support of the British in India for her protection"), denounced the Reds' "unwarranted act of aggression," appealed for U.N. aid because "we understand the United Nations have decided to stop aggression wherever it takes place."

At first, no one would sponsor Lhasa's case. Then, to everyone's surprise and embarrassment, El Salvador's Dr. Hector David Castro insisted on an Assembly debate and condemnation of Red China's "unprovoked aggression." What, if anything, the U.N. would do for an independent Tibet remained to be seen.

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