The Many Faces of King Gesar: Preface (original) (raw)
Related papers
Journal of American Folklore, 2016
The Gesar/Geser epic cycle is a warrior epic known throughout the Tibetan and Mongolian-speaking regions of Asia and is still largely sustained through a shamanistically-tinted oral tradition. This article focuses on the epic motif of the hero’s divine descent and constructs both a “constitutional mythology” for the epic based on this motif and a reconstruction of the probable archaic core of the epic motif. It also focuses in particular on the representations of the hero’s sky-god father. The variability in the representation of this figure reflects the cross-cutting religious infuences on this Silk Road epic. These range from archaic “native” Inner Asian traditions concerning sky and mountain gods, to Buddhism (and its debt to Indian Vedic religion) and even Silk Road Manichaeism.
in Kapstein M. and C. Ramble (eds.) The Many Faces of Ling Gesar: Tibetan and Central Asian Studies in Homage to Rolf A. Stein. Leiden: Brill, 2022
The cultural complex of the Tibetan Gesar Epic is one in which, like other Northern Asian epic traditions, roles of shaman and storyteller are entwined. This article argues that the deep narrative structure of the Gesar epic, as well as some of its prominent motifs (here the motif of the hero's "spirit helpers" is singled out) mirror core aspects of the shaman's restorative journey, transposed into a chivalric setting. Some historical conjectures are also offered concerning the evolution of the Gesar Epic in Tibet and its connections to Mongol settlement on the high plateau.
Tibetan Buddhism and the Gesar Epic
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2017
In both eastern Tibet and in Mongolia, the Buddhist cult surrounding the figure of Ling Gesar (Gling ge sar) or Geser Khan in Mongolian versions is an outgrowth of Gesar's standing as the eponymous hero of an elaborate oral epic tradition. Today, the epic and the Buddhist cult exist side by side in a relationship of symbiosis. Gesar's sanctification as an enlightened being—as the combined manifestation of the Three Bodhisattva Lords and as an " emissary " or " manifestation " of Padmasambhava—whose tricksterism is enacted on behalf of the forces of goodness, justice, and the White Side in its perennial battle against the forces of evil, injustice, and the Dark Side—is both an outgrowth but also a source of nourishment for the epic tradition as it has continued to adapt and develop up to our own times.
Cahiers d’Extrême-Asie, 2017
This article is a brief literary study on the potential illumination that the oral-traditional epic of Ling Gesar can provide for an understanding of cultural attitudes concerning the concept of "law" (khrims) in premodern Tibet. Gesar is presented as a symbol of "law" in a variety of classical (non-epic) Tibetan sources, and "the law" is one of the recurrent themes which make up oral-traditional epic of Gesar's "pool of tradition". The article thus surveys the theme in a variety of sources ranging from classic Tibetan "legal texts", to historic recensions of the epic ( 19th and early 20th centuries) and also the published répertoires of near-contemporary Tibetan epic bards. Cet article propose une brève étude littéraire sur l'éclairage que l'épopée orale traditionnelle de Ling Gesar pourrait apporter à la compréhension et aux attitudes culturelles tibétaines envers la loi (khrims). Gesar est représenté en tant que symbole de la loi dans diverses sources classiques, et la loi, conçue d'un point de vue général, est l'un des thèmes récurrents qui constituent « le réservoir d'éléments traditionnels » de l'épopée. Cet article s'appuie sur dif-férents matériaux, dont les textes légaux classiques ; ceux de l'épopée historique (datés des XVIII e , XIX e et XX e siècles) ; et des publications des répertoires oraux des bardes quasi contemporains.
Kesar of Layul: A Central Asian Epic in the Shina of Gultari
The wide-spread Tibetan folk epic "Gesar of Ling" [གེ་སར་རྒྱལ་པོ] has a few versions in eastern dialects of Shina. Of extra-linguistic interest is the transposition of the original's Buddhistic setting to accommodate the preferences and expectations of an Islamic audience