Escape into Exile
Tibetan Buddhist Encyclopedia is now 14 years old
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One winter day of 1959 (March 10), General Zhang Chenwu of Communist China extended a seemingly innocent invitation to the Tibetan leader to attend a theatrical show by a Chinese dance troupe.
When the invitation was repeated with new conditions that no Tibetan soldiers were to accompany the Dalai Lama and that his bodyguards be unarmed, an acute anxiety befell the Lhasa population.
Soon a crowd of tens of thousands of Tibetans gathered around the Norbulingka Palace, determined to thwart any threat to their young leader's life and preventing His Holiness from going.
On 17 March 1959 during a consultation with the Nechung Oracle, His Holiness was given an explicit instruction to leave the country.
The Oracle's decision was further confirmed when a divinity performed by His Holiness produced the same answer, even though the odds against making a successful break seemed terrifyingly high.
A few minutes before ten o'clock His Holiness, disguised as a common soldier, slipped past the massive throng of people along with a small escort and proceeded towards the Kyichu river, where he was joined by the rest of the entourage, including some of his immediate family members.