Gyaltsen Norbu has been groomed since childhood to prepare for his role as the 11th Panchen Lama, the reincarnation of the 10th and the second-most important figure in Tibetan Buddhism. But while he received politically vetted religious training under the close watch of China’s leaders, another boy is believed to have grown up under house arrest, dubbed the world’s youngest political prisoner. The first boy was chosen by the Chinese government. The second, Gedhun Choekyi Nyima, was anointed by the Dalai Lama, Tibet’s spiritual leader and Beijing’s nemesis since he fled to India in 1959 after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

On November 27, 2007, while attending an interfaith conference in the north Indian city of Amritsar, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama suggested he might not be reborn, ending a 600-year-old tradition of reincarnation as a small boy after his death. His Holiness was concerned that the Chinese government plans to seize control of his reincarnation and assign the 15th Dalai Lama by breaking with the traditional selection process.