Tsering Namgyal, Asia Central: Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the 17th Karmapa Lama, arrived in India in January 2000, literally moving from his 12th century headquarters in Tibet onto the front page of international papers. Now, imagine a setting where, as a 28-year old teacher, he holds a few thousand people from all over the world under a spell for a few weeks.

This is precisely what the Karmapa, the head of the Black Hat sect of Tibetan Buddhism and Tibet’s second-most-powerful religious figure, after the Dalai Lama himself, has been doing every winter in Bodhgaya, India.

The size of the gathering at the place of Buddha’s…

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