The Tibetan spiritual leader, Dalai Lama, has said that his deep-rooted relationship with India would not be affected by recent developments, including that of the Karmapa controversy and also in the broader context of India's relationship with China.
At the end of a on “Ethics for the new Millennium” at the D.D. Kosambi Festival of Ideas 2011 here on Monday, the Dalai Lama was answering a specific question whether he was concerned about the implications of the recent controversy and about the otherwise “growing feeling of inconvenience about his relationship which existed over decades” with India.
“Our relationship is not just a matter of a few decades, but a few thousand years. I view this relationship like the guru-chela relationship in the greatest Indian tradition — India our guru and we its chelas.” The Dalai Lama recalled a letter addressed to him by Morarji Desai in response to his congratulatory letter wherein he had described India and Tibet as two branches of one Buddhist tree and said, “the tree grew in India and spread its branch to Tibet. That is the basic sort of relationship with this country.”
He dismissed the Karmapa episode saying it was the result of “carelessness to keep proper records of money” and called it “a mistake and nothing serious” to have any consequences on their long-standing relationship with India and the future of the Tibetan community in India.
