by Yang Enhong

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