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The purpose of this article is to offer a brief introduction
to studies of the bards of the epic of King Gesar. I
shall try to bring up their situation, classification,
their forms of chanting and their contribution to the
Gesar epic. All of the research materials are from the
first hand fruits of the author's investigation of this
topic during the 1980s.
The Tibetan epic 'King Gesar', the
longest epic in the world, is still alive among the
Tibetan people. It has been handed down for generations
and the oral tradition is still very much alive today.
The epic enjoys a wide popularity in Tibetan areas thanks
to the singing by generations of local bards. Therefore
it seems logical that studies of the bards will provide
the key to trace the sources and the popularity of the
'King Gesar'. I visited various regions to interview
nearly 40 bards in the 1980s, and have drawn a picture
of the situation of Gesar bards, including the biography
of 26 bards, among whom two are Mongolian and one Monhur
(Yang 1995).
According to the survey, there are
about one hundred bards in Tibet .The forms of and props
for chanting Gesar vary with the regions, as the epic
has been propagated in different ways in the process
of being handed down.
The Gesar bards can be divided into
five groups:
1). Divinely inspired bards (vbabs-sgrung), who claim
to have experienced a miraculous dream, and then, as
soon as they woke up, found themselves able to chant
the Gesar epic. From then on they have spent the rest
of their lives recounting the epic. Most of these bards
are from families famous for chanting Gesar. There are
26 divinely inspired bards still to be found, most of
them living in the Nag-chu and Chub-mdo areas of the
Tibetan autonomous area, and the Mgo-log and Gyu-shul
regions in Qinghai province. The most important tool
for divine bards when chanting Gesar is a special bard's
hat (sgrung-zhav), which endows the bards with magical
powers. Before he/she commences, the bard should hold
the hat in his or her left hand, stretching out the
right hand to point around the hat to tell the origin,
the shape, and symbolic meanings of the hat. Only afterwards
can he/she begin his/her singing. They say that as soon
as they have put on the hat, the story of epic falls
into their minds. Most of them are now old and some
of them have passed away in recent years.
2). Knowing-from-hearing bards (thos-sgrung).
They are brought up in surroundings in which the epic
chanting is usual. They grow familiar with Gesar by
hearing the story over many years and begin to chant
themselves. Half the bards belongs to this group.
3). Epic bards (gter-sgrung). Bards
from this group find the inspiration for the story by
taping it from the material world and and from the spiritual
world, then write this down for chanting. Most of them
are from the Rnying-ma-pa school of monks. This follows
the tradition of the Rnying-ma-pa who believe that Master
Padmasambhava introduced the Buddhist scriptures into
the material world and the spiritual world. Only very
few people had access to them, and these people were
called masters of exploration. One epic-taping bard
named Gu-ru Rgyal-mthsan (1967-) was discovered in the
Mgo-log area of Qinghai province. He has completed his
written epic in about 13 volumes. One of them entitled
'The Pedigree of Gesar and His Place' was published
by the Qinghai Nationality Publishing House.
4). Sing chanter (dan-sgrung), who
boast good voices and the ability to read, so they usually
sing Gesar from a text to the accompaniment of a rich
melody. The bards of this group live in Gyu-shul in
southern Qinghai and Sde-ge, in the western part of
Sichuan province. Both these places are located in areas
which are more open to contact and education is more
underspread. There many people who can chant Gesar from
texts.
5). Divinely inspired-by-mirror bard
(pra-pa), who can 'see' the written forms of the Gesar
epic in a bronze mirror, from which the epic can be
copied out and spread by chanting. Only one bard of
this kind, named Kha-tsha pra-pa nyang-dbang rgyam-mtsho
(1913-1992), was found in Ri-bo-che county of the Chab-mdo
area. He was not only a divinely inspired-by-mirror
bard, but also enjoyed the reputation as a famous diviner
among his people. As a pra-pa bard, he copied 11 volumes
from a bronze mirror. One of them, entitled 'Ti-dkar',
has been published by the Tibetan People's Publishing
House.
The best bards are divinely inspired
bards who live in pastoral areas. Most of them are now
elderly and they are illiterate. There are very few
female bards. The bards have the following characteristics
respectively:
1). They have an extraordinary memory.
Most of them are illiterate but can sing one or two
dozen, even several dozen or even perhaps hundreds of
volumes. At a reserve estimate, an average volume has
five thousand lines, 20 volumes would have 100,000 lines
or about 1-2 million words if the prose part is also
calculated. All this is memorized. The recording of
the bard Grags-pa (1906-1986) lasted 998 hours, that
of female bard, Gyu-sman (1957-), lasted 859 hours.
Bsam-grub (1922-) has completed a recording of 2312
hours and Tshe-ring Dbang-vdus (1932-) 620 hours. And
this is only a part of the story in their minds. Thus
it would be fair to say that the bards are a living
library of the epic.
2). They all have had dreams at various
times when they were still young after which they began
singing the epic. Grgs-pa at 9,Gyu-sman at 16, Tshe-dbang
vgyur-med (1915-1994) at 13, Bsam-grub at 15, and Tshe-ring
Dbang-vdus at 13.The plots of the dreams were also different.
Some (eg. Tshe-dbang vgyur-med) dreamed of certain scenes
in the epic in which he himself was present. Some (eg.
Grags-pa and Agayu-med) dreamed of God or a hero of
the epic ordering them to spread Gesar's story by singing
the epic. Some (eg. Bsam-grub, an illiterate) read many
hand-written volumes of the epic in their dreams and
learned to sing the epic this way. Another bard, Tshe-ring
dbang-vdus had a series of dreams from which he received
the epic.
3). Some of them have been born into
bard's families with a father or grandfather who knew
the epic. Most of them live in an area where Gesar is
well-known. They were immersed in the ambience of the
story King Gesar before becoming a new generation of
bards.
4). They have all had special social
experiences. Oce bards had a very low social status.
Most of them used to be forced to wander around the
plateau and lived by singing the epic. This meant that
their lives were full of rich experiences. As they travelled
along, they were also able to enrich their performances
by interacting with other bards. This is how they became
and still become great bards. The bards mentioned above
are typical examples.
Although there are certain volumes
of hand-written copies and woodcut copies of the epic
recorded by scholars or Buddhist monks, it is still
difficult to spread the epic in a written form among
the people, for most of them are illiterates. Therefore,
the epic King Gesar has been spread by the chanting
of the bards for a thousand years.
The bards are the bearers of the Gesar
epic, because they have kept so many volumes of the
epic by their memories. Their mysterious way of passing
on the epic from generation to generation, complete
with forms of chanting, rich melodies, old language,
and special chanting complexes are valuable materials
for scholars who are in search of the origin and circulation
of the Gesar epic.
In the past, the status of bards was
very low, resembling that of a beggar, living by their
chanting. They were forced to spend most of their lives
travelling around the plateau. Recently the best of
them have been invited to universities and institutes
to record their singing, so as to keep the epic alive
forever. If such steps are not taken, the epic will
be lost once they have gone.
We have a long way to go in this field.
References:
Yang Enhong: Popular Divine Poets: Study on the Singing
Tradition of 'King Gesar', published by Chinese Tibetology
publishing house, 1995 Beijing.
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About the author:
YANG, Enhong, Professor
Tibetan Literature Division, Director
Oral Traditions Research Center, Deputy Director
Institute of Ethnic Literature
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
FL-1101, 5 Jiannei Dajie, Beijing 100732, CHINA
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