In early November Taiwan bore witness to the competing claims of two young monks to be the rightful 17th Karmapa, Supreme Head of the Karma Kagyu sect of Tibetan Buddhism.

Around 11:00 on the night of November 6, a light-skinned and fine-featured youth arrived from Singapore amid a cluster of Tibetan Buddhist devotees including the former film starlet Chen Li-li.

This 16-year-old youth with wire-framed glasses was Thaye Dorje, respectfully known as His Holiness the 17th Karmapa and Supreme Head of the Karma Kagyu Lineage. He had come to expound upon the Kagyu teachings, bless devotees with his presence, and preside over the opening ceremonies of a Kagyu monastery. Among the crowds who came to receive his blessing was, of all people, Anita Mui, the Hong Kong pop idol, who turned up in uncharacteristically subdued attire.

Even more unexpected was the arrival the following day of Tai Situ, another rinpoche (high monk) of the same sect, who arrived in Taiwan from the small state of Sikkim, which borders Tibet. He said he was coming on behalf of the true 17th Karmapa, Ugyen Trinley Dorje. As if to show the validity of his claim, Tai Situ Rinpoche established the "September 21 Earthquake Relief Prayer Foundation." Thus erupted what the local media have come to describe as the "twin Karmapa" controversy.

Exactly what status does the Karmapa have in Tibetan Buddhism? And if there's only one true Karmapa, who is it?

Succession through reincarnation

First, some history: From India, Buddhism took two routes to spread elsewhere in Asia-one south, to Sri Lanka and then to Burma, Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia; and one north, to China, Tibet, Mongolia and then on to Japan and Korea.

Buddhism made its first inroads into China 2,000 years ago during the Eastern Han dynasty. In Tibet, with different geography and customs from central China, and proximity to Nepal and northern India, Buddhism developed a more mysterious and esoteric character. It was, moreover, greatly affected by an influx of tantric masters from northern India who fled to Tibet during the Moslem invasions of the 12th century. Tibet was sparsely populated and vast, so that the teachings of different Buddhist masters began to diverge. As a result, the esoteric Buddhism practiced in Tibet broke into many sects, the four largest of which are the Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug. The Chinese have traditionally referred to them according to the colors of their clothing.

Each sect has its own supreme leader. For instance, the Dalai Lama is the leader of the Gelug (or Yellow) sect, and the Karmapa is the highest figure within the Kagyu (or White) sect.

The source of the controversy surrounding the "twin Karmapas" involves the belief that when a leader of a sect dies, he is reincarnated soon after in the body of a baby boy.

On November 6, 1981, Rangjung Rigpe Dorje, the 16th Karmapa, died at a cancer center near Chicago, and the duty of finding the child who was his reincarnation and successor fell to four of the Karmapa's disciples who were living Buddhas in their own right: the Shampar, Tai Situ, Jamgon, and Gyalstab rinpoches.

Little could anyone have expected that the process of finding a successor would twist and turn like some convoluted film plot, so that ten years passed with no 17th Karmapa having been found. As the four disciples followed leads that took them from Tibet to elsewhere in Asia and even as far as Europe, numerous reports circulated about their finding living Buddhas and spiritual children.

Finally, in 1990 Tai Situ claimed to discover a letter left behind by the 16th Karmapa predicting the whereabouts of his successor. With this letter and an understanding that the Dalai Lama had gleaned from his enlightened meditation, a young boy was found in a herding family in the grasslands of Xikang and subsequently recognized as Ugyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Karmapa, by Tai Situ Rinpoche and Gyaltsab Rinpoche. The Dalai Lama, who holds ultimate political authority among Tibetans as the head of the Gelug Sect, then confirmed Ugyen Trinley Dorje's appointment.

But that was not the end of it, for there remained an internal Kagyu dispute involving the 16th Karmapa's four disciples. Shamar Rinpoche, the oldest among them, raised doubts about the authenticity of the letter Tai Situ Rinpoche claimed had been written by the 16th Karmapa. Instead, Shamar found Thaye Dorje and argued that he was in fact the true 17th incarnation of the Karmapa. He then set up the youngster in a monastery in Bhutan, another small state bordering Tibet.

Since then both Karmapas have had their backers, and outsiders have found it difficult to make head or tail of the quarrel.

The controversy becomes political

Because both camps have loyal devotees in the ROC government, the dispute even found its way into the Legislative Yuan. Chen Li-an, the former president of the Control Yuan and a candidate in the ROC's 1996 presidential election, is an ardent believer in the holiness of Ugyen Trinley Dorje. Bringing money to repair roads, he once led a group that included legislator Hsieh Chi-ta to visit Ugyen Trinley Dorje in the Tsuphu Monastery in Tibet. When Legislator Cheng Yung-chin invited Thaye Dorje to visit Taiwan, the application sparked debate between the two Karmapa's separate camps of followers, and Hsieh Chi-ta and others requested that he be refused entry.

Eventually, under the principle of respecting religious freedom and with help from Kao Koong-lian, the Chairman of the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission, Thaye Dorje was allowed to enter the country under the title of the "Tianjin Imperially Appointed Jiacuo Rinpoche." In response, Ugyen Trinley Dorje sent Tai Situ to represent him.

In fact, Tai Situ Rinpoche explained that he had come to Taiwan largely to offer prayers after the earthquake. Frustrated by the media's obsession with the succession dispute, he noted that Tibetan Buddhism is essentially like other forms of Buddhism, aiming to awaken the Buddha-like nature within people's hearts so that they behave wisely and mercifully. He expressed the hope that the media would cease dwelling on the succession dispute, an obsession, he said, that did nothing but encourage bickering.

The two Karmapas didn't actually come face to face in Taiwan. Nevertheless, the controversy surrounding the Karmapa's succession has left a deep impression on the people of Taiwan about the problems involved in finding the reincarnations of living Buddhas.