Dalai Lama has announced that he will have a successor after his death

Tibetan Buddhism’s spiritual leader made the declaration on Wednesday in a video message to religious elders gathering in Dharamshala, India, where the Nobel Peace laureate has lived since fleeing Tibet after a failed uprising against Chinese communist rule in 1959.

am affirming that the institution of the Dalai Lama will continue,” the Dalai Lama said in the pre-recorded video, citing requests he received over the years from Tibetans and Tibetan Buddhists urging him to do so.

“The Gaden Phodrang Trust has sole authority to recognize the future reincarnation; no one else has any such authority to interfere in this matter,” he added, using the formal name for the office of the Dalai Lama.

The office should carry out the procedures of search and recognition of the future dalai lama “in accordance with past tradition,” he said, without revealing further details on the process.

The Dalai Lama has previously stated that when he is about 90 years old, he will consult the high lamas of Tibetan Buddhism and the Tibetan public to re-evaluate whether the institution of the dalai lama should continue.

Wednesday’s announcement  delivered days before his 90th birthday this Sunday  sets the stage for a high-stakes battle over his succession, between Tibetan leaders in exile and China’s atheist Communist Party, which insists it alone holds the authority to approve the next dalai lama.