China had several possible motives for staging his “escape,” including a desire to strengthen his claim to the title at a time when the rival contender (backed by important interests in India, Bhutan, and Taiwan) appeared to be gaining ground. Had Dorje remained in Tibet, he could have lost out to his rival, because the 280-year-old Rumtek monastery, the Kagyu school’s holiest institution, is where the sect’s all-powerful “black hat,” the symbolic crown of the Karmapa – believed to be woven from the hair of female deities – is located.