(TibetanReview.net, Oct21’25) – A religious gathering on the scale of a Kalachakra empowerment ceremony is unthinkable in the grid-managed Chinese ruled Tibet these days. It is therefore noteworthy that China just recently organized a Kalachakra Empowerment Ceremony in Tibet’s Shigatse City, conducted by Gyaincain Norbu, the “11thPanchen Lama” appointed by it in 1995 after abducting and disappearing Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, the then six-year-old who had already been recognized by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnation of the late 10th Panchen Lama.
China’s official media reported on the ceremony by underlining Gyaincain Norbu’s imposing party-state posts, as if these boost his credentials to give the religious empowerment.
From Oct 9 to 12, Panchen Erdeni Chos-kyi rGyal-po, a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, vice-president of the Buddhist Association of China, and president of the Xizang branch of the Buddhist Association of China, conducted a four-day Kalachakra Empowerment Ceremony at Tashilhunpo Monastery in Xigaze, Xizang, reported China’s online Tibet news service eng.tibet.cn Oct, 15 using the Sinicized name ‘Xizang’ for Tibet.
The report, sourced from the regional party mouthpiece Xizang Daily (previously Tibet Daily), called the Kalachakra Empowerment Ceremony the most significant tantric initiation ritual in Tibetan Buddhism, apparently to underline Gyaincain Norbu’s religious competence to confer it.
The report said representatives of Living Buddhas and senior monks from various Tibetan Buddhist sects, as well as monastic and lay devotees, attended the ceremony. However, exile Tibetan media reports have said many of them were forced to attend the event to give a veneer of significance to the event.
Gyaincain Norbu is not recognized as the 11th Panchen Lama by mainstream Tibetan Buddhists. Exile Tibetan media reports have cited sources in Tibet as saying local Tibetans were forced to attend the ceremony, with each family in the area being required to send at least one member to boost the crowd even though it was a busy harvest season.
This was Gyaincain Norbu’s second Kalachakra empowerment teaching. The first was organized by the Chinese government in 2016 at Dechen Phodrang, near Tashi Lhunpo Monastery. It too was controversial, with reports saying Chinese officials had financially incentivised crowds of Tibetans and coerced others to attend it.