Legendary Epic Of King Gesar Who Descended From Heaven And The Ancient Tarna Monastery

A. Sutherland - AncientPages.com - It took several years to fully restore an ancient Tibetan Buddhist Tarna Monastery in  Northwest China's Qinghai province. It was damaged after a 7.1-magnitude earthquake in Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture on April 14, 2010. Still, this important historical building was renovated some years ago.

Monument of legendary Tibetan hero Gesar of Ling in Yushu City, Qhinghai. Credit: Mario Biondi writer - CC BY-SA 4.0

The Tarna Monastery, located in Nangchen county in Yushu Tibetan autonomous prefecture, is an ancient Tibetan monastery built in the 11th Century.

The monastery is related to Gesar, a legendary warrior ruler and hero of the Tibetans mentioned in an 11th-century ballad about a half-human, half-god Tibetan king. Gesar of the Kingdom of Ling conquered the devils of other tribes and sought to help ordinary people. He waged war with the nearby Kingdom of Hor, lived without fear of his formidable enemies, subdued monsters, helped the poor, controlled the strong, and benefited the ordinary people.

Talking about Tibetan culture, something you can't miss is the ballad called "King of Gesar," a legendary folk epic - regarded as one of the longest poems - that has been popular in Northwestern and Northern China for hundreds of years.

The Epic of King Gesar - the Orient's Homeric Epic - is deeply rooted in folklore and oral tradition from the Tibetan generations. In 1716, the Epic of King Gesar was ordered to be translated from Tibetan by the Qing Emperor. It is considered the most extended literary work in the world, consisting of over 120 volumes and 20 million words in more than 1 million verses.

In The Song of King Gesar, written by Alai, the adventures of this legendary King are beautifully described as the reader travels to foreign lands and learns the significance of this great epic. King Gesar's story begins in "Gling, which is present-day Khampapa. To be more precise, the Gling of the past is now part of the immense land named Kham- papa.

Its grasslands are shaped like an enormous drum, the plateau encircling a slight rise in the middle. Sometimes you can almost hear surging drumbeats or a pounding heart inside. Snowcapped mountains circle the grasslands, like fierce beasts galloping at the sky's edge.
In those days, people felt the earth was big enough to contain many different worlds. We speak now of the land as a village, but back then, people looked towards the sky's edge and wondered if there might be more worlds beyond the horizon – wickeder than theirs, perhaps, or more prosperous.

The Song of King Gesar is one of the world's great epics, as significant for Tibetans as the Odyssey and Iliad were for the ancient Greeks. Passed down in song from one generation to the next, it is sung by Tibetan bards even today. Set partly in ancient Tibet, where evil spirits mingle with the lives of humans, and partly in the modern day, the tale tells of two lives inextricably entwined.

Gesar, the youngest and bravest of the gods, has been sent down to the human world as an infant king to defeat the demons that plague the lives of ordinary people. Jigmed is a young shepherd who is visited by dreams of Gesar, of gods, and of ancient battles while he sleeps. So begins an epic journey for both the shepherd and the king. Gesar grows from a willful child of the gods into the warrior-king of Ling, and will unite the nation of Tibet under his reign. Jigmed will learn to see his troubled country with new eyes and, as the storyteller chosen by the gods, must face his own destiny. Read more

Gling was a small world; its people were divided into clans. Those peoples cultivated the seeds of many plants; they smelted gold, silver, copper, iron, featherweight mercury¨, and heavy lead.

By the time the newly enlightened inhabitants of Gling began to separate domesticated horses from wild ones, other worlds had long since left behind the age of barbarism.

They erected statues; they wove hemp and silk; they became civilized. They believed they had destroyed all the demons – or, at least, if there were still demons, they were hidden in human hearts, scurrying around in human blood, laughing like hyenas.
But in Gling, the curtain was about to rise in a battle between humans, deities, and demons.

The people of Gling began to pursue wealth – pastures, palaces, treasure, and, for the men, beautiful women. Tyrants fought one another for power, and life in Gling became a struggle between the noble and the lowly, the powerful and the powerless. An unlucky shadow shrouded their eyes as desire burned in their hearts, just as rivers, wishing to flow beyond their beds, are muddied as they rush against their banks. The people of Gling believed that an evil wind had blown the demons into their world to destroy Gling's peace.

Mural depicting King Gesar of Ling. Credit: Gruschke - CC BY-SA 3.0 DE

Who could have blown the evil wind their way? They were not expected to ask – if they did, the sages might look foolish. They could ask: Where did the demons come from? And the answer would be: They came with the evil wind.

Once the evil wind began to blow, dark clouds covered the bright sky. The grass of the pastures yellowed. War horns echoed over the grasslands and among the snow-capped mountains.

Worst of all, the kindly were revealed as wicked, and it became impossible for the people of Gling to live in harmony.

It was to these grasslands, riven with the cries of battle, that King Gesar descended from Heaven." 1

There used to be a lot of folk artists in Tibet who could recite the entire work or large portions. Altogether, "King of Gesar" contains more than 120 episodes. But over time, fewer local musicians can sing the crowning masterpiece of Tibetan folk literature.

The Epic of King Gesar, listed as a World Intangible Cultural Heritage item by UNESCO, is considered a masterpiece of Tibetan folk literature.

There are also 31 towers on the hillside beside the monastery, standing for Gesar and his 30 generals. The towers and an ancient Buddhist Hall in the sanctuary were seriously damaged in the earthquake.

Renovation work on the monastery was launched in 2011. Since the monastery is located at a high altitude,  it took several years to restore its original appearance fully.

Written by – A. Sutherland  - AncientPages.com Senior Staff Writer

Updated on November 28, 2023

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