Epic of King Gesar

The Epic of King Gesar (/ˈɡɛzər/ or /ˈɡɛsər/; Tibetan: གེ་སར་རྒྱལ་པོ, Wylie: ge sar rgyal po, "King Gesar"; Mongolian: Гэсэр Хаан, Geser Khagan, "King Geser", Russian: Гесар-хан or Кесар), also spelled Geser (especially in Mongolian contexts) or Kesar (/ˈkɛzər/ or /ˈkɛsər/), is an epic cycle, believed to date from the 12th century, that relates the heroic deeds of the culture hero Gesar, the fearless lord of the legendary kingdom of Ling (Wylie: gling). It is recorded variously in poetry and prose, chantefable or shuochang being the style of traditional performance, and is sung widely throughout Central Asia. Its classic version is to be found in central Tibet. Some 100 bards of this epic (Wylie: sgrung, "tale") are still active today in the Gesar belt of China.Tibetan, Mongolian, Buryat, and Monguor singers maintain the oral tradition and the epic has attracted intense scholarly curiosity as one of the few oral epic traditions to survive as a performing art. Besides stories conserved by such Chinese minorities as the Bai, Naxi, the Pumi, Lisu and Yugur, versions of the epic are also recorded among the Balti of Baltistan, the Burusho people of Hunza and Gilgit, and the Kalmyk and Ladakhi peoples, in Sikkim, Bhutan, Nepal, and among various Tibeto-Burmese, Turkish, and Tunghus tribes. The first printed version was a Mongolian text published in Beijing in 1716.

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