By STEPHEN HUTCHEON, Herald Correspondent in Ulan Bator

India's Ambassador to Mongolia, who is also a senior Buddhist lama, has questioned the validity of the religious process by which Beijing recently selected and installed the new Panchen Lama, Tibet's second-highest-ranking cleric.

In an interview this week, Kushok Bakula Rimpoche described as a "futile exercise" China's decision to annul the selection of a child named by the Dalai Lama as the reincarnated Panchen Lama and induct its own candidate.

"I did not participate in the selection process," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But even for a lay Buddhist, it is difficult to understand how a system that was so anti-religious is now carrying out the traditions which are supposed to be of religious significance."

Bakula stressed he was speaking as a lama and not as a diplomat, but his comments, though measured, were revealing given the sensitive nature of his temporal duties and the location of the interview.

Bakula has been credited as the major force behind the revival of Tibetan Buddhism, or Mahayana, in Mongolia, which adopted Tibet's version of the belief as its State religion in the 13th century.

The Soviet-backed Communists who came to power in 1921 tried to root out the religion. During their rule, which ended in 1990, most of Mongolia's 300 monasteries were destroyed and many of its 110,000 monks were either killed or dispersed.

Mongolian Buddhist believers worship the Dalai Lama as fervently as do their counterparts inside Tibet. Beijing recently branded the Dalai Lama as "ringleader of the separatist clique and a pawn of international anti-China forces" and banned believers from displaying his Photo.

"Here is an issue [the search for the reincarnation] that has been made into a political problem; it should not have been that way," said Bakula, himself an incarnate lama.

"Religion is a belief. People cannot tell you what to do. It has to come from within. For any government to say this is the Panchen Lama [and expect people to believe it] is a futile exercise."

A native of Ladakh in northern India, the ambassador was recognised as the 20th incarnation of Arhat Bakula, an incarnate lama, in 1923. At the age of 10 he was sent to study in Tibet where he met the late Panchen Lama, the present Dalai Lama and his predecessor.

Relations between the Dalai Lama, who lives in exile in India, and the Chinese Government hit a new low last year over the search for the reincarnation of the 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989. In November, several months after rejecting the Dalai Lama's choice, Beijing announced it had "discovered" the reincarnation in another six-year-old boy, who has since been installed as the 11th Panchen Lama.

China dismissed the Dalai Lama's choice, saying he failed to observe the proper religious conventions. Several monks from the Panchen Lama's home temple of Tashilunpo in Xigatze thought to have collaborated with the Dalai Lama have been detained and his chosen "soul boy" is missing.