Dalai Lama Video Goes Viral, Twitter Reacts

A video showing the Dalai Lama kissing a child on his lips and then asking him to "suck his tongue" has triggered a row.

The video, which has gone viral on social media, shows the Dalai Lama planting a kiss on the boy's lips when he leaned in to pay his respects.

The Buddhist monk is seen sticking his tongue out as he asked the child to suck it. "Can you suck my tongue," he is heard asking the minor boy in the video.

The venue and date of the event were not immediately clear.

The video evoked angry reactions from Twitter users, terming the act as "disgusting", "outrageous" and "condemnable".

Sharing the video, Twitter user Joost Broekers wrote, "So the Dalai Lama is kissing an Indian boy at a Buddhist event and even tries to touch his tongue. He actually says "suck my tongue". Now why would he do that?"

"This is unbecoming and no one should justify this ill-conduct of @DalaiLama," wrote another Twitter user Deepika Pushkar Nath.

In 2019, the Dalai Lama had sparked a huge controversy for saying that if his successor were to be a woman, she should have to be "attractive".

"If a female Dalai Lama comes, she should be more attractive," he said.

The comments, which attracted criticism around the world, were made in an interview with the BBC in 2019 from the Nobel peace prize winner's exile in Dharamsala.

He had later apologised for his controversial comments.

Last month, the Dalai Lama had named a US-born Mongolian boy as the 10th Khalkha Jetsun Dhampa Rinpoche, the third highest rank in Tibetan Buddhism.

The move to anoint the eight-year-old as the third-highest lama in Tibetan Buddhism is likely to irk China, which has been adamant that it will only recognise Buddhist leaders chosen by its own government.

Beijing has accused the Dalai Lama of fomenting separatism in Tibet and it does not recognise the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA), which represents about 100,000 exiled Tibetans living in around 30 countries including India, Nepal, Canada and the US.