Dalai Lama and Panehen Erdeni 
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Dalai Lama and Panehen Erdeni
When Tsong Kha-pa was alive, he had two famous disciples named Dalai and Panchen, who were later deemed the reincarnations of Tsong Kha-pa and succeeded to the throne of the Living Buddhas after Tsong Kha-pa's death with the titles of the First Dalai Lama and the First Panchen Erdeni. After that, the succeeding Living Buddhas inherited the titles. Up till now already the Fourteenth Dalai Lama and the Eleventh Panchen Erdeni exist. On either side of the statue of Tsong Kha-pa is a throne, the one on the left is for Dalai Lama when he came to preach; the one on the right for Panchen Erdeni. In 1954 Panchen Erdeni held Buddhist ceremonies here. "Dalai" means vast sea in Mongolian, and "Lama" means teacher in Tibetan.
The Reincarnation System
The Fifth Dalai Lama (1617-1682) declared that in the future when a Dalai Lama died his spirit would pass out of the corpse into an infant boy who had been born right at the moment of the Dalai Lama's death. The problem was to find the right child. In some cases the dying Dalai Lama would predict where his incarnation could be found. Quite often there were many babies born at the same moment and the investigation had to last for years. The childs boy must confirm to the ideal shape, notably a large head and generous ears, which were considered indicative of wisdom. Objects belonging to the Dalai Lama were identified, which would help establish whether the child was the living incarnation of the Dalai Lama.
When he was two to six years old, his regents took him to Lhasa from his home for training. The parents of the chosen child, usually of humble origin, were also brought to Lhasa and given noble status. The Regents exercised full power until the Buddha incarnate reached the age of eighteen.
As the old reincarnation system had many disadvantages, Emperor Qianlong introduced in 1792 a new method of "drawing lots from the gold urn." The new system stipulated that many children were to be selected from various places after the death of a Living Buddha, and each child had a lot with his name inscribed on it. All the lots were to be put into a gold urn; lamas were to recite Buddhist scriptures. Buddhists believed that recitation of Buddhist scriptures was a process to reincarnate the dead. While people were watching, the high commissioners sent by the emperor would pick up the lot dropped out of the shaking urn and show it to the people. Therefore, the child with his name on it would be considered the reincarnation of the Living Buddha.
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The wheel is called the Scripture-Turning Wheel. It is said that each wheel, big or small, is stuffed with Buddhist scripture. If you turn it one revolution, it means you have already read all the Buddhist scripture once.
Buddhist Scriptures
Along the walls on both sides of the hall stand bookcases holding 108 volumes of the Buddhist Sutras in Tibetan language translated from ancient Indian language. It is titled The Great Tibetan Buddhist Sutra, with 207 volumes of the sequel of the Sutras. Now very few such Buddhist scriptures are preserved in perfect condition.
Mountain of Five Hundred Arhats ck wood and the arhats modeled out of gold, silver, bronze, iron and tin. Five hundred arhats are worshipped in some Buddhist temples. When Sakyamuni preached, there was no written scripture. Later his 500 disciples wrote down the Great Tibetan Buddhist Sutra according to what he preached. For their contributions, they were upgraded from lamas to arhats. Here a vivid picture shows they were on the road to Buddhahood.
Fish-and-Dragon Evolving Basin
This Fish-and-Dragon Evolving Basin is carved out of ebony wood. Buddhism has it that human beings evolved from fish, and those who have both ability and political integrity could continuously evolve to dragons. Emperor Qianlong had a bath in the basin when he was three days old. His mother hoped that her son would evolve to a dragon. So the basin is also called Three-day-old emperor Washing Basin.
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