Over the nearly seven decades since the Dalai Lama led his flock of tens of thousands out of Tibet to escape Chinese persecution, he put himself to the grueling work of sustaining a nation in exile.

自从七十年前带领数万藏人逃离中国迫害以来，达赖喇嘛一直勉励支撑着一个流亡的民族。

As both the spiritual and political leader of Tibetan Buddhists, he established a little democracy in the Indian Himalayas, complete with a parliament and all its routine bickering and beauty. He entrenched a bureaucracy that encouraged a culture of service among a scattered people. In refugee settlements across India, the Tibetan administration runs schools, clinics, monasteries, agricultural cooperatives and even old-age homes.

作为藏传佛教徒的精神与政治领袖，他在印属喜马拉雅山区建立了一个小小的民主政体，拥有议会以及与之相伴的日常纷争与美好。他还建立了一套官僚体系，在四处散落的藏人中培育出服务文化。在遍布印度的流亡藏人聚居地点，西藏流亡政府管理着学校、诊所、寺院、农业合作社乃至养老院。

But as the Dalai Lama turns 90 next month, Tibetans in exile are anxious about the fate of their stateless nation.

但随着达赖喇嘛下月将迎来90岁生日，流亡藏人对他们这个无邦之族的命运越来越感到焦虑不安。

The man who has been Tibetans’ binding force and most recognizable face is growing increasingly frail. His goal of returning his people to their homeland remains distant, with China working to finish the task of crushing the Tibetan movement for autonomy. And as Tibetans confront a future of continued exile, the United States and other global powers have become more unreliable in their support.

达赖喇嘛是藏人凝聚力的源泉，是最耳熟能详的人物，如今他的身体每况日下。他带领流亡藏人回归故土的目标依然遥不可及——西藏的自治运动遭到中国政府的全力扼杀。随着藏人面临归期渺茫的未来，来自美国等全球大国的支持也越来越不可倚仗。

僧侣们在达兰萨拉的藏传佛教寺庙里辩经。

“We are hoping for the best but preparing for the worst,” said Tsering Yangchen, a member of Tibet’s parliament in exile, invoking a refrain from the Dalai Lama himself.

“我们抱最好的希望，做最坏的打算，”流亡藏人议会议员次仁央金说，这也是达赖喇嘛本人挂在嘴边的一句话。

When his birthday is celebrated on July 6, the Dalai Lama has promised, he will reveal a plan for deciding on his successor that factors in the complexities of the moment. The most pressing is dealing with China’s efforts to hijack the process.

达赖喇嘛承诺，在7月6日的庆生活动上，他将公布选定继任者的计划，该计划将考虑到当前形势的复杂性。其中最紧迫的问题是如何应对中国操控这一继任程序的企图。

Under Tibetan tradition, the search for a Dalai Lama’s reincarnation, who becomes his successor, begins only upon the incumbent’s death. After the next Dalai Lama is identified as a baby, there can be a gap of nearly two decades until he is groomed and takes the reins.

根据藏传佛教传统，寻找达赖喇嘛的转世灵童，也就是下一任达赖喇嘛的工作，只有在上一任圆寂后才能开始。从确认转世灵童到完成坐床亲政，期间可能相隔近二十年。

顿珠次仁（Thondup Tsering，左）和丹增晋美(Tenzing Jigme)，他们是达兰萨拉西藏流亡议会的成员，现居美国。比拉库佩藏人定居点的一所慈善医院。

The Dalai Lama has hinted that he might buck these established practices as part of an apparent strategy to throw off the Chinese and avoid a vacuum that Beijing can exploit as it seeks to control Tibetan Buddhism.

达赖喇嘛暗示，他可能会打破这些既定做法，这显然是为了摆脱中国的干预、避免北京利用权力真空期试图控制藏传佛教而采取的一种策略。

He has said that his successor will be born in a free country, indicating that the next Dalai Lama could come from among Tibetan exiles, who number about 140,000, half of them in India. He has also said that his successor could be an adult, and not necessarily a man.

他曾表示，继任者将在自由世界诞生，这表明下一任达赖喇嘛可能来自大约14万藏人流亡者，其中一半居住在印度。他还表示，他的转世可能是一个成年人，而且不一定是男性。

China already has a blueprint for inserting itself in Tibetan successions. After the 10th Panchen Lama, as Tibet’s second highest spiritual figure is known, died in 1989, the boy whom the Dalai Lama recognized as the successor went missing in Tibet when he was 6. He has not been seen since.

中国已经有了干预藏传佛教传承的蓝图。藏传佛教第二大精神领袖第十世班禅喇嘛于1989年圆寂后，达赖喇嘛认定的转世灵童6岁的时候在西藏失踪，至今下落不明。

In his stead, China selected and promoted its own Panchen Lama. Earlier this month, that lama met with the country’s leader, Xi Jinping, and reaffirmed his allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party.

取而代之的是，中国选定并扶植了自己的班禅喇嘛。本月早些时候，中国领导人习近平会见了这位班禅喇嘛，后者重申了自己对中国共产党的忠诚。

But interfering in the succession of the Dalai Lama runs the risk of provoking unrest among the roughly six million people in Tibet.

但干预达赖喇嘛转世可能存在引发西藏约600万民众骚动的风险。

“The Dalai Lama has been out of his house and country for 65 years, and that has already created a great sense of pain, anger, frustration and disappointment among the Tibetans inside Tibet,” said Tenzin Tsundue, a Tibetan activist and poet. “This will, you know, burst into volcano.”

流亡藏人活动家、诗人丹增尊珠表示：“达赖喇嘛离开故土和祖国已65年，这给西藏境内的藏人带来了巨大的痛苦、愤怒、挫折与失望。你知道，这种情绪终将如火山般爆发。”

流亡藏人活动家、诗人丹增尊珠在位于达兰萨拉的家中。

The succession question has become more urgent as the Dalai Lama has become more frail, with his public engagements increasingly restricted.

随着达赖喇嘛的身体日渐虚弱，公开露面的次数越来越少，继任人问题变得愈加紧迫起来。

More than eight decades ago, the Dalai Lama’s ascension was accompanied by another perilous period that instilled a fear of discontinuity that has shaped his lifetime of work.

80多年前，达赖喇嘛的继位恰逢另一段危机时期，这种对传承中断的恐惧，影响了他此后一生的努力方向。

After his predecessor, the 13th Dalai Lama, died in 1933 at age 57, a search committee set out to identify a child who could grow into Tibet’s new spiritual leader.

1933年，57岁的第十三世达赖喇嘛圆寂。此后，一个负责搜寻的委员会开始着手认定一位能成长为西藏新精神领袖的转世灵童。

The boy was discovered after two years of effort. The committee arrived at the family’s door during a harsh Tibetan winter, as they were clearing four feet of snow, the future Dalai Lama’s mother wrote in her memoir.

经过两年的努力，他们找到了这个男孩。未来的达赖喇嘛的母亲在她的回忆录中写道，寻访者在西藏的一个严酷冬日来到了他们家门口，当时他们一家正在清理一米多深的积雪。

达赖喇嘛的身体每况日下。达赖喇嘛的公开露面越来越少。

Moving the boy to Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, required paying ransoms to local warlords. His education, as well as his assumption of political leadership, was fast-tracked because the Chinese government was using the vacuum to tighten its noose around the autonomous region.

将灵童转移到西藏首府拉萨需要向当地军阀支付赎金。由于当时的中国政府正利用权力真空加紧对这个自治区的控制，他的教育和政治领袖地位的继承进程都加速了。

If a similar gap were to happen after the current Dalai Lama’s death — with the added challenge of a nation now in exile — it would be “a disaster,” said Lobsang Tenzin, a Tibetan educator who is better known as the Samdhong Rinpoche.

以桑东仁波切这个尊号而为人所知的西藏教育家洛桑丹增说，如果在现任达赖喇嘛去世后出现类似的空档，再加上流亡政府面临的额外挑战，那将是一场“灾难”。

He served as prime minister in the Tibetan refugee administration and has known the Dalai Lama for more than 60 years. From the start, the Samdhong Rinpoche said, the Dalai Lama wanted to put in institutions and a culture that could hold a traumatized people together in exile after he was gone.

曾任西藏流亡政府总理、与达赖喇嘛相识60多年的桑东仁波切说，达赖喇嘛从一开始就希望建立一种制度和传统，能够在他去世后，将饱受创伤的流亡藏人团结在一起。

“In the first meeting, he told me that now the monks cannot remain just as monks would — just meditating and studying,” the Samdhong Rinpoche said about the early months of their exile, when he was still a teenager. “That we should learn from the Christian monks and nuns. They always work as nurses or teachers or doctors.”

桑东仁波切谈及流亡初期的经历（当时他还不到20岁）时说：“第一次碰面时，他告诉我如今的僧人不能只满足于传统僧侣的生活——只进行冥想和修习。我们应该向基督教的修士和修女学习，他们总是从事护士、教师或医生等工作。”

In the decades that followed, the Samdhong Rinpoche had a front-row seat to the Dalai Lama’s efforts to put some distance between himself and the institutions he was building on lands he had managed to acquire from the Indian government.

在接下来的几十年里，桑东仁波切近距离见证了达赖喇嘛试图在自己与流亡政府体系之间保持距离的努力——这些机构建立在他设法向印度政府争取来的土地上。

He wanted his political powers to be devolved to a self-reliant democracy while he remained the spiritual head of the Tibetan people.

达赖喇嘛希望将自己的政治权力移交给一个独立的民主机构，而自己仅保留藏人精神领袖的地位。

接受达赖喇嘛赐福。

“His Holiness was adamant that sooner or later His Holiness should be irrelevant,” the Samdhong Rinpoche said.

桑东仁波切说：“尊者坚定地认为，他本人迟早应该淡出政治舞台。”

That was easier said than done, given the Dalai Lama’s singular role as the leader of his people and as an international celebrity with a vast fund-raising network.

但鉴于达赖喇嘛作为藏人精神领袖的特殊地位，以及作为国际名人拥有的庞大筹款网络，这说起来容易做起来难。

But his political position was devolved partly in 2001 and entirely in 2011, when Tibetans elected a sikyong, the equivalent of a president, through a vote held across refugee settlements in India and in other Tibetan communities around the world.

实际上他已经将政治权力逐步移交，2001年部分放权，至2011年完全退出——当年，藏人通过遍布印度各难民定居点及全球藏人社区的投票，选举产生了相当于总统的司政。

“He’s my boss,” the Dalai Lama said at an event in 2012 when he introduced the leader elected by the people. “Although when it comes to spiritual affairs, I’m still his boss!”

“他是我的老板，”达赖喇嘛2012年在一场活动上介绍这位民选领导人时说道，“不过在宗教事务上，我还是他的老板！”

The current sikyong is Penpa Tsering, 62. Like his predecessor, he was born in a refugee camp in India and has never been to Tibet.

现任司政是62岁的边巴次仁。与他的前任一样，他也出生在印度的难民营，从未去过西藏。

Twice a year, the 45-member Tibetan Parliament meets in Dharamsala, India, to approve the budget and review the government’s performance. Most of its members have other jobs, like teaching or running restaurants.

由45名议员组成的藏人议会每年在印度达兰萨拉召开两次会议，审议预算并评估政府工作。大多数议员都还有其他工作，比如教书或经营餐馆。

They make heavy use of social media to weave together a nation now in its third generation of exile. The sikyong, during an interview last fall, joked that his role was that of a digital “tour guide” helping Tibetan people connect.

他们大量运用社交媒体，将这个现在已是第三代流亡的民族凝聚在一起。去年秋天接受采访时，现任司政曾笑称自己的角色如同数字“导游”，帮助藏人建立联结。

Much of his time is spent on the road, trying to fill the Dalai Lama’s huge shoes in his advocacy efforts.

他大部分时间都在各地奔走，尽力填补达赖喇嘛在倡导工作上留下的巨大真空。

“Earlier, we didn’t have to work that hard because His Holiness was there,” Mr. Tsering said.

边巴次仁说：“以前，我们不必这么劳苦，因为有尊者在。”

“We don’t command that kind of respect,” he added. “I’m a very ordinary Tibetan from a farmers’ background.”

“我们不具备那样的威望，”他补充道。“我是一个来自农民家庭的非常普通的藏人。”