Recently, I was talking with friends about "Gesar" shooting anime movies, and I couldn't help but think of stories about "Gesar".
This is the Grassland Horse Race in Nagqu Town (Tang Zhaoming, summer 1987)
One day in the middle of summer in 1987, the town of Nagqu, the capital of the northern Tibetan steppe, was holding an annual traditional horse race. I saw that there were all kinds of tents here, crowds of people, and busy commodity trading. I saw from a distance, in a wide meadow, hundreds of spectators sitting cross-legged, listening to a man in a painted hat on the open stage comparing something.
This is the legendary story of rapper Ada rapping "Gesar" at the Jockey Race (Photo by Cai Long in 1987)
When I inquired closer, I learned that this was Ada, a famous rap artist in the northern Tibetan grasslands, rapping the "Gesar" epic, and I couldn't help but sit down and listen. He sang in a special tune of "one changeable song", interspersed with chanting. As he spoke, he sang: "The beautiful girl is in the lingguo, she can be worth a hundred horses in one step forward, and she is worth a hundred cattle and sheep in the next step; in winter she is warmer than the sun, and in summer she is cooler than the moon; she is full of fragrant flowers and bees are surrounded by flocks; although there are countless beautiful women on earth, only she is worthy of the king of heaven; King Gesar went to the north, and now she is guarding the empty house..." Ada said and sang, and the audience applauded and laughed from time to time.
People say that in the steppe of northern Tibet, the mountain peaks carry the story of the hero Gesar, the rivers flow with the legend of the hero Gesar, and the tents recite gesar's immortal poems.
This is a thangka depicting the story of "Gesar" (tang zhaoming, 1989)
Perhaps it is hard to believe that humanity will have a heroic epic of more than 20 million words. In terms of length alone, "Gesar" is longer than the ancient Babylonian epic "Gilgamesh", the ancient Greek "Iliad" and "Osset", the ancient Indian "Ramayana" and "Mahabharata" combined, known as the "Homer epic of the East", also known as the world's longest, largest, "living" folk literature.
"Gesar" is a heroic epic created collectively by the Tibetan people. It is mainly divided into three parts: first, the birth, that is, the birth part of Gesar; second, the conquest, that is, the process of Gesar's surrender of demons; and third, the end, that is, Gesar's return to the celestial realm. It is characterized by the relatively stable opening and closing parts. Artists must follow this argument, but the middle part is an open structure, and artists can exert their talents according to how much knowledge they have, and enrich the development of the middle conquest part. In this way, as the "Gesar" epic continues to circulate, its content continues to increase, and its length continues to increase, like a snowball, rolling bigger and bigger. Some experts believe that it is precisely because of this open structure that "Gesar" has become the longest epic in the world.
Before there was no writing, the Tibetan people used the collective form of memory inheritance to verbally record and transmit various cultural information of ancient times. The epic "Gesar" was uttered by people in this way. This epic rap, which began around the tribal era of the ancient Tibetans, is said to have been more than 2,000 years ago.
This is the divine dance performance at the Naqu Jockey Race (Tang Zhaoming, 1987)
The northern Tibetan grassland is the region with the strongest cultural heritage in Tibet, because the pastoral lifestyle is extremely primitive and relatively little influenced by modern times, so the legendary stories of Gesar suppressing evil and promoting good, promoting Buddhism, and spreading culture are recited here. Gesar was a hero they were proud of.
Like other national epics and folk literature, "Gesar" has two basic ways of dissemination: one is oral singing by folk artists; the other is preserved and disseminated by manuscripts and woodcuts. The most basic and important thing is that it is passed down from generation to generation by many folk artists. Manuscripts and woodcuts are also based on oral rap by folk artists. Therefore, we can say that in the process of the circulation of "Gesar", those talented folk rap artists played a huge role.
As a work of folk literature, the main feature of the "Gesar" language art is that it is simple and natural, and it is easy to understand. This colloquial, popular, and popular characteristics are closely related to the circulation form of epic oral transmission. In the long-term process of circulation, the language of "Gesar" has been tempered and refined, reaching the point of pure fire, which has concentrated on the characteristics and advantages of the Tibetan language and is a treasure house of Tibetan language art. This is also an important reason why "Gesar" will always maintain the vitality of art and be welcomed by the masses.
The singer of "Gesar", called Zhongken in Tibetan. "Zhong" means the story, and refers only to the story of Gesar; "Ken" means man, rapper. These "Zhongken", or wearing rap hats or carrying thangkas painted with Gesar stories, travel in all directions. In the vast grassland, as long as there is an audience, they can perform, often as soon as the conversation box is opened, it is like a rolling river, gushing endlessly. In the past, the cultural life of the grasslands in northern Tibet was relatively monotonous, and the story of "Gesar" was like a torch that illuminated the hearts of herders, painting a bright color for the spiritual life of the grasslands.
This is a variety of tents at the Nagqu Racecourse (Tang Zhaoming, 1987)
According to statistics, there are currently more than 120 rap artists in Nagqu City, Tibet Autonomous Region, distributed in various corners of the grasslands of northern Tibet.
In the past few decades of interviews in the northern Tibetan grasslands, I have often been able to see many natural landscapes named after the scenes, characters, and artifacts in the "Gesar" story, and I can often hear the "Gesar" fragments that ordinary herders casually come out, the heroic epics that originated in the vast northern Tibetan grasslands, which have been passed on by word of mouth in the flow of time, retaining the most essential parts and constantly enriching them, becoming a rare treasure of Tibetan culture and even human culture.
For example, there is a lake and a mountain in the north of Bangor County in northern Tibet. The lake is a borax lake, surrounded by nine wide rings of lakes, the mountain is called Tajap Mountain, which means a very steep mountain of iron piles. Mount Tagap was originally a poor land, and it is rumored that this demon had nine heads and nine lives. It took a fancy to Gesar's princess, Mensa Benji, and blew a demonic wind that swept Mensa Benji from Xikan to the Barda steppe.
Gesar raised an army to fight against Dui Aqian, the sword in his hand flashed cold, and successively cut off the nine heads of Dui Aqian, and Heap Aqian lost nine lives in a row, and the lake water also fell nine times in a row. The last trump card of The Poor was a wild yak, and Gesar killed the wild yak with his sword, and the lake water suddenly retreated to the center of the lake.
Gesar was victorious, and the rescued Mensa Benji nailed an iron stake to the steep stone with his own hands and tied Gesar's red war horse to the iron stake.
Gesar triumphed, and when seven more sisters came out to stand in the way, Gesar won again. Now one can see a mountain range not far from the shore of the lake, Theodya Pumbendui Mountain, which is adjacent to seven dark brown gullies, like pillboxes. Some people say that it is the Seven Sisters of the Demon Girl who were defeated by Gesar.
This is a horse running shooting competition at the Naqu Jockey Club (Tang Zhaoming, 1987)
Rooted in the fertile soil of social life at that time, "Gesar" not only summarized the major stages and processes of Tibetan historical development, revealed the vast social life, but also shaped hundreds of characters. Among them, whether it is a positive hero or a negative tyrant, whether it is a man or a woman, whether it is an old man or a young man, they are portrayed with distinct personalities, prominent images, and leave an indelible impression, especially the most outstanding depiction of the heroic images headed by Gesar, thus becoming an immortal poem in the history of Tibetan literature.
In 2009, "The Biography of King Gesar" was inscribed on the United Nations Representative List of the Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, thus pushing the research and protection of "Gesar" to a higher level.
"Gesar" represents the glorious achievements of ancient Tibetan folk culture and oral narrative art, and is also a heroic epic that is still alive and well, which amazes the world! (China Tibet Network text, photo/ Tang Zhaoming)