BEIJING — Somewhere in a monastery deep in Tibet, surrounded by doting monks and religious teachers, a 6-year-old boy sits in the eye of a raging theological storm.

On one side of the religious dispute is the world's last major Communist country, where the state religion is atheism. On the other side is the man many believe to be the world's most perfect living Buddha, the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled religious leader.

At stake is the Communist government's determination to control all aspects of Chinese life, even if it means delving directly into religious controversies and theological questions.

Meanwhile, the Dalai Lama has his own political agenda.

The boy's earthly name is Gedhun Choekyi Nyima. He was born April 25, 1989, to a perfectly terrestrial father and mother in Lhari district, Nagchu, Tibet, 200 miles northeast of Lhasa.

But according to signs carefully observed by teams of Tibetan priests--omens such as reflections in a holy lake, birthmarks discovered on the child's body and revelations received in prayer--the boy is the 11th Panchen Lama, second only to the Dalai Lama in the living pantheon of Tibetan Buddhism.

The boy was announced as the reincarnation of the controversial 10th Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, by the Dalai Lama himself in a May 14 news release.

"It is with great joy that I am able to proclaim the reincarnation of the Panchen [Lama]," the Dalai Lama said in a statement faxed to supporters around the world from his home in exile in Dharamsala, India.

Strangely enough, the Communist government in Beijing does not dispute the spiritual legitimacy of the boy.

In fact, he was on a short list of candidates compiled by a Beijing-backed search committee of Buddhist holy men from the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, Tibet. Since 1570, Panchen Lamas have served as abbots of the Tashi Lhunpo Monastery.

"I'm sure it is the same candidate," said Melvyn C. Goldstein, director of the Center for Research on Tibet at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. "The Chinese government has not once said this is the wrong guy."

What the Chinese government does dispute, however, is the Dalai Lama's right to make the announcement. The government also accuses the Dalai Lama of violating the last Panchen Lama's deathbed request by failing to perform an important rite using barley dough balls and a golden urn to verify the true reincarnation.