TEMPEST IN A GOLDEN URN

IN THE WEAK LIGHT OF DAWN ONE morning last week, hundreds of Buddhist monks gathered at the Jokhang temple in Lhasa to select a new Panchen Lama, the second highest religious leader in Tibet. Traditional yak-butter lamps glowed as three ivory markers were placed inside a golden urn. Each marker was inscribed with the name of a Tibetan boy identified, during a six-year search, as a possible incarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989. The urn was turned several times, and then a senior monk withdrew a marker bearing the name of Gyaincain Norbu, 6, who was quickly...