Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, called for the establishment of compassion as the new universal religion ironically on a day when a special court in India sentenced three men to death for complicity in a militant attack on Parliament a year ago.

Speaking at a ceremony on Wednesday in New Delhi, where the Washington-based International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) presented its 'Light of Truth' award to the people of India, the Dalai Lama said violence resulted from a ''lack of awareness of reality'' which in turn resulted from an absence of compassion.

Hollywood star and ICT chairperson Richard Gere presented the award, which was accepted on behalf of the Indian people by former speaker of the Lok Sabha (lower house of Parliament) Rabi Ray, also chairperson of the Indo-Tibetan Friendship Society.

The ceremony marked the end of a week-long Tibetan festival of compassion which, according to the Dalai Lama's spokesman Tashi Wangdi, had particular relevance to a world newly threatened by terrorism and also by excessively violent reactions to it.

''We pick up one cause to a complicated situation and we act against it, even annihilate it but this is the result of lack of true knowledge or an understanding of reality,'' the Dalai Lama said in addressing the keynote address entitled 'compassion: an antidote to terrorism'.

Deep sadness

Speaking to an audience that spilled out of the auditorium of the sprawling India Habitat Centre and on to the lawns, the Dalai Lama said there was no greater reality than ''interdependence'', which to him was the governing principle not only of this world but to other galaxies as well.

Earlier, Wangdi explained that one reason for holding the festival of compassion was the deep sadness the Dalai Lama felt due to the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But, he added, the Dalai Lama ''clearly did not think that an aggressive military response was the way to deal with the problem''.

Following those terrorist attacks, India's right-wing government, led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), pledged military and other assistance to the United States in prosecuting a war against the al-Qaeda network, whose leader Osama bin Laden had his base in Afghanistan.

Wednesday's death sentences on Mohammed Afzal, Husain Guru and S A R Geelani were passed by a special court set up for the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) that was passed by the BJP government in reaction to the Sept 11 attacks and to increased 'jihadist' attacks on Indian territory.

The convictions were in fact the first under POTA, which includes under the definition of terrorism, support for it. None of the three, who may appeal against their sentences, were directly involved in the Dec 13, 2001 attack. Fourteen people died in the attack, including members of the five-man suicide squad.

Justice S Dhingra, who passed the sentences, said the men had intended to ''capture Parliament and kill the prime minister and home minister''.

India laid blame for the incident on neighbouring Pakistan and mobilised its armed forces threateningly, unmindful of the fact that the two countries are armed with nuclear weapons and have since independence been warring over the possession of Kashmir.

Tolerance and self-respect

''Compassion is not something special for Tibetans all major religions teach compassion, forgiveness, tolerance and the idea of self-respect,'' the Dalai Lama said, as if in admonition to preparations underway for carrying the US-led 'war against terror' into Iraq.

Soon after the terrorist attacks on the United States, the Dalai Lama, who won the 1989 Nobel Peace Prize for his non-violent approach to finding a solution to the Tibetan problem, urged US President George W Bush to ''think seriously whether a violent action is the right thing to do and in the greater interest of the nation and people in the long run''.

Wednesday's function was preceded by a Tibetan prayer for peace by members of India's 100,000 strong Tibetan expatriate community, many of whom had followed their leader to exile in India in 1959, in the wake of an aborted uprising against Chinese rule.

Representatives of various religious denominations, heeding a call from the Dalai Lama, gathered at Raj Ghat, the mausoleum in the capital of Mahatma Gandhi, who led India to independence from British colonial rule through a classic non-violent movement.

But Gandhi, who failed to prevent the partition of India into Islamic Pakistan and secular but Hindi-majority India, was himself assassinated by Hindu fundamentalists, who have in recent years sought to reassert themselves through violent means.

Earlier this year, Gandhi's home state of Gujarat was torn by a pogrom against the minority Muslim community, in which at least 2,000 people died and more than 150,000 people were turned into refugees after their homes and businesses were burned down.

Said Swami Pragyanand, a Hindu leader who joined the inter-faith gathering: ''We are here under the guidance of the Dalai Lama who is troubled by growing intolerance in the world.''

Gere said the Light of Truth award was being given to India for its role in sustaining the Tibetan diaspora and said the recognition was a long overdue one.

''No nation has helped the Tibetan people more than India,'' Gere said. ''We (the ICT) will never forget this,'' he added. IPS