The epic King Gesar has a performance tradition of over 1000 years. The epic was originally created by Tibetan nomads on the vast Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. For centuries the heroic song has been transmitted among many peoples within China, including the Mongol, Tu, Yugur, Nahki and Purmi ethnic groups. The major themes of the epic tradition center on the life, deeds, and merits of the divine hero, Gesar, whose mission from heaven to this world was to unify disparate tribes, defeat ravaging monsters, promote the suppression of the strong, while aiding the weak, and rescuing his loved ones from earthly calamities.

As the creators, inheritors, and transmitters of the longest heroic song in the world, over the generations, the Gesar epic singers and storytellers have developed a rich and fascinating oral tradition that still lives today.

The Gesar epic tradition exemplifies the dynamic diversity and artistry of traditional oral poetry. In the Tibetan areas, performers are classified in several ways by how they learn and master the epic. Some singers learn via dreams and spirits (vbab-sgrung) and others through inspired or enlightened hearing (thos-sgrung). There are also the methods of inspiration known as “excavating hidden treasure” (gter-sgrung) and “circular light in the mirror” (pra-mkhan). And there is the basic method of repeatedly chanting the text (vdon-sgrung). In the Tibetan epic tradition performances consist of alternating passages of prose and verse, namely bcad-lhug-spel-ma. This multi-dimensional style of narration is plot-oriented—at once traditional in format, but improvisational in performance. The epic singers may meld concisely worded prose with lyrical verse and over 80 melodies of music. Singers or storytellers often use a variety of performing skills that include gestures, facial expressions, postures, and verbal sound effects to enhance the artistry of their performances.

In Mongolian traditions of Gesar (called Geser), the epic singing is handed down professionally from master to apprentice. Performances usually feature musical accompaniment by stringed instruments called the “horse head fiddle” (morin khuur ) and the “four stringed spiked fiddle” (hugur). The two major singing styles, “improvised melodic singing” (holboga) and “musical storytelling” (bensen ulger), are combined with oral narratives, which highlight vocal singing with deep, broad, and melodious sounds skillfully utilized as needed by the epic singers. One of the most outstanding Mongol epic performers, is 72-year old Jinbajamsu, whose repertoire includes 40 cantos of the Geser story, totaling 86,000 poetic lines.

Though the majority of epic singers and storytellers are illiterate, they possess a dynamic mix of keen memory and verbal creativity. In general, the repertoire of an epic singer consists of thousands upon thousands of lines—in some cases even hundreds of thousands of lines. Bsam-grub, the well-known Tibetan epic teller has a personal record of over 2000 total hours of performance, while Sri-thar-rdo-rje, a 14-year-old Tibetan singer, has mastered 18 branches (rdzong) of the Gesar storytelling repertoire and has orally composed and delivered for six consecutive hours in one performance event.

Tibetan manuscripts of King Gesar can be traced back to the 14th century, while the earliest extant printed edition is the Mongolian woodblock print version titled Geser Khan, Guardian Lord of the Ten Directions, published in Peking in 1716. As of today, there are over 120 different cantos among more than 400 versions on record. Not counting the texts in prose, the portions in verse alone total over one million poetic lines excluding different variation of versions. Meanwhile, researchers have discovered several more performers singing different versions, indicating that the living oral epic—the longest heroic song on earth-- continues to develop as a creative performance tradition.

Gesar epic singers and storytellers play important roles in festival ceremonies, rites of passage, and religious rituals in communities throughout the highland pasture. Epic performances emerge as traditional folkways in local public events that include Tibetan New Year, Horse Racing Fair, Shoton Festival (or Yogurt Banquet), and Mongolian traditional games called Nagadum, as well as Oboga Dahihu, a ceremony to worship gods and spirits. In terms of oral narrative, the Gesar epic is not only the dominant means for communicating with the gods, ancestors, and members of society, but also the major entertainment in local rural communities.

As the longest epic in the world, King Gesar is unique as a wellspring of indigenous cultural diversity and evidence of sustainable, yet dynamic, human creativity.

This oral epic tradition, shared by multiple ethnic groups represents the broad and deep spectrum of nomadic culture, demonstrates the vitality of oral tradition and verbal arts transmitted by generations of minstrel singers, and epitomizes the achievements of traditional Tibetan and Mongolian folklore and oral culture.

As a Tibetan proverb goes, “On every person’s lips there is a canto of King Gesar.” Epic performances in the local communities have been not only the primary vehicle for religious belief, indigenous knowledge, local wisdom, folk memory, and mother-tongue expression; but also a constant inspiration for other art forms. These include traditional forms such as Thangka painting, Tibetan opera, Cham masked dance, and fiddle ballads, as well as contemporary ethnic arts.

For centuries, epic performers have acted as tradition-bearers who enable understanding between the realms of genealogical history, social cohesion, knowledge production, community education, and value systems between social groups and individual members. Epic performances facilitate the distinctive functions of enabling emotional expression, enhancing social interaction, and upholding an encompassing spiritual mind-set. In addition, epic performances help raise the voice of the common people, promote cultural identity, manifest folk aesthetics, and preserve the vitality of the various ethnic languages and local dialects. On the snowy plateau there are still numerous relics and sites that commemorate King Gesar, who lives in the collective memory and oral traditions of the people themselves. “Reality” is regarded as the continuity of epic history, and the present world as the universe created by heroic ancestors. The native people of the region pride themselves on saying: “We are all descendants of King Gesar!” Since the epic circulates among several ethnic groups, its great influence and power lies at a crucial juncture between tradition and local solidarity, while boosting intercultural discourse and mutual understanding between different ethnic groups.

In recent decades, tremendous change has taken place in the traditional nomadic lifestyle, which now is in a risk of gradual disappearance. This situation, in turn, has become a threat to the survival of itinerant singers. The rapid expansion of modern industry and the boom in tourism has stimulated an erosive effect on the social conditions that have always enabled the epic singing tradition. Standardized education is also challenging the oral tradition and folk culture, since young people have increasingly become strangers to the epic legacy of their ancestors. Traditional audiences increasingly shift their attention to the modern entertainment world, which has brought about the outright disintegration of some epic performer communities, greatly impacting the performance and transmission of the epic singing practices. With few young people willing to become successors, and veteran singers continually passing away, a situation has arisen in which “no more singing voices are heard when a singer dies.” According to some statistics, there were 26 outstanding masters among the active 150 singers and storytellers in the 1980s, of whom only 10, all over age 60, are still alive. In general, the socio-cultural space and conditions for the long-term survival of an oral epic tradition have radically declined.

Since the 1980s, China has taken measures to safeguard the Gesar epic by collecting, compiling, and publishing oral texts. These efforts also include the organization of leading groups, establishing a system in which outstanding epic singers are honored by nominations as “folk art masters”, establishing research institutions, sponsoring international conferences, and so on. In 2001, UNESCO designated 2002-03 as the years to celebrate “the 1000th anniversary of the creation of the epic King Gesar.”

In order to revitalize Gesar epic singers, storytellers, and their performance traditions, the present Nine-Year-Action-Plan aims at "putting people first." This will be accomplished by giving priority to long-term targeting of both epic performers and audiences in terms of observation, research, preservation, conservation, protection, and promotion of this longest oral epic in its living traditions. Meanwhile, concerned parties will construct a series of bases situated in relevant communities to ensure that the multiform projects will be carried out in the cultural ecosystem of the epic tradition. Herein, the Action Plan presents strategies based on humanistic and folkloristic perspectives that are conceived with the goal of achieving long-term, sustainable development of epic transmission and performance.

A Nine-Year-Action-Plan

-to build up 9 target bases for safeguarding epic traditions
　　　　　　 6 training schools for supporting young epic performers
　　　　　　12 epic performing spaces for local ethnic communities
-to execute long-term tracking observations and situated field studies
-to create documentation on epic tradition-bearers and Gesar repertoires
-to establish the “National Archive of the Gesar Epic Tradition”
-to organize the “International Festival of Gesar Epic Performance”
-to promote educational programs for transmitting and appreciating epic traditions

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National Leading Groups for Epic Gesar/Geser Researches
Oral Traditions Research Center (OTRC)
Institute of Ethnic Literature (IEL)
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS)

Chinese text by
The Working Project Team
Responsible for submitting epic Gesar/Geser as the candidature files
for
THE PROCLAMATION OF MASTERPIECES
OF THE ORAL AND INTANGIBLE HERITAGE OF HUMANITY
By UNESCO

Team Members:

Yang Enhong, Professor in Tibetan Epic Studies

Chao Gejin (Chogjin), Ph. D. & Professor in Mongolian Epic Studies and Oral Poetics

Norbu Wangdan, Ph. D. & Asso. Professor in Tibetan Epic Studies

Rta-mgrain-mtsho(Yang Xia), M.A. & Ass. Professor in Tibetan Literature

Brtson-vgrus-rgya-mtsho (Li Lianrong), Ph. D. & Ass. Professor in Tibetan Epic Studies

Bamo Qubumo, Ph. D. & Professor in Oral Tradition

Liu Zongdi, Ph. D. & Asso. Professor in Oral Tradition

Yin Hubin, Ph. D. & Professor in Oral Poetics

Cairang Dorji, Ass. Professor in Tibetan Literature

Sechin Menghe, Ph. D. and Asso. Professor in Mongolian Epic Studies