The Dalai Lama has announced that he intends to reincarnate, paving the way for a successor to take on a mantle stretching back 500 years after his death.

The Dalai Lama says he'll have a successor, after all, ending years of speculation that he might be the last person to hold the role and meaning he'd be reincarnated.

In a significant diplomatic signal, India on Thursday affirmed that the succession of the Dalai Lama will be determined solely by the current Tibetan spiritual leader and through established Buddhist conventions—a stance seen as a clear rejection of China’s attempts to assert control over the process.