Epic of Manas

The Epic of Manas (Kyrgyz: Манас дастаны, Azerbaijani: Manas Dastanı, Turkish: Manas Destanı) is a traditional epic poem dating to the 18th century but claimed by the Kyrgyz people to be much older. This opens the possibility of Manas having spoken a dialect of Turki similar to that of the Kazakhs and Nogay people today. The plot of Manas revolves around a series of events that coincide with the history of the region in the 17th century, primarily the interaction of the Turki-speaking people from the mountains to the south of the Dasht-i Qipchaq and the Oirat Mongols from the bordering area of Jungaria.

The government of Kyrgyzstan celebrated the 1,000th anniversary of Manas in 1995. The eponymous hero of Manas and his Oirat enemy Joloy were first found written in a Persian manuscript dated to 1792-3. In one of its dozens of iterations, the epic poem consists of approximately 500,000 lines, and while Kyrgyz historians consider it to be the longest epic poem in history, the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata and the Tibetan Epic of King Gesar are both longer. The distinction is in number of verses. Manas has more verses, though they are much shorter.

In 2009, a parliament member suggested its nomination for the "longest epic story in the world" because “the great heritage of Kyrgyz people should find its place in the world history.” [1] There have likewise been attempts to identify Manas as Mannasseh of the Old Testament. [2]

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