The Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, denied any political motive in visiting a sacred town on India’s border with Tibet, as he began a five-day pilgrimage that has generated intense friction between Beijing and New Delhi.

Greeted in icy temperatures by thousands of followers at the centuries-old monastery in the Himalayan village of Tawang, the Dalai Lama rebuffed Chinese accusations that he was trying to stir up tensions between two Asian powers by travelling to the town, located in India’s isolated north-eastern state of Arunachal Pradesh.