The Answer to a Great Mystery:The Passing Down of Gesar

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The existence, passing down and receiving of the epic gesar differ entirely from those of the much earlier ancient Greek maritime city state epics Iliad and Odyssey and ancient Indian forest epics Mahabharata and Ramayana. Gesar is a plateau epic with the flavor of the wilderness. It is not an epic written by literati of the Court. Rather, it has always been popular among the people and been passed down orally. It has never left its native land and remains full of life even now. Although Gesar has many kinds of texts: manuscripts, wood carvings, recordings and printed texts, these do not match the quantity, scale, audience numbers and coverage of stories orally scattered in the populace; for Tibetans, Gesar is still an epic to be told rather than read.

Talking and singing is how Tibetans spread their folk art, and it has strongly influenced their aesthetic habits. Gesar has over one hundred kinds of singing voices. For experienced singers, almost every character has its formulated voice, some are loud and sonorous, some mild and sentimental, matching each character and fitting each story. For Tibetans, singing Gesar is innate. Singers often become one with the characters and sing passionately. The songs of the epic are beautiful, while the plot of the talking parts is complicated and soul-stirring, flowing incessantly like a great river. The Tibetan people are very fond of this style combining songs and narration.

By the 7th century, the central part of Gesar was complete. After the 11th century, it became an epic and in the 17th century it began to spread widely. During this process, very few records about the contents of the stories in Gesar were written in the Tibetan language. It was not until after the 17th century that some records of the oral tradition appeared. Although after the 17th century Gesar appeared in the form of records, transcripts and wood carving texts, in the whole Tibetan region, Gesar has mostly retained its traditional form of talking and singing. People are its main medium of transmission, not texts. The epic is a chain of memory, gradually constructed through the continuous singing of generations of singers of different times, regions and cultural structures. The epic is alive in the artists’ passionate singing.

Thus we have a revelation: there is an endlessly repeating cycle of spreading and receiving of the epic. Those who live within the area where it is told, hear the epic and receive its memory, absorb it and gain an epic memory themselves. Those who then spread this to other people become epic singers, and their audiences become transformers and keepers of the new epic memory. Thus, each new generation becomes heirs and transmitters of the epic tradition.

The core of this cycle of inheritance is the artists’ singing and memorizing of the epic. Separated from the singers and artists, the epic is like water without a source and a tree without roots. It is through continuous singing that the epic Gesar is passed down. And the memorized information is expressed by mouth and received by ear.

he talking skill of the Kagyu School-- the oral instruction skill of the Sakya School--the listening skill of the Geluk School: the cultural memorytraining of the Tibetan people

The method of passing down Gesar is generally in accordance with that of traditional Tibetan culture; which is based on an innate, empirical, mouth-to-ear means of spreading education.

From Songtsen Gambo in the time of Tubo to the time before the establishment of the monastic education system of the Geluk School, the education of the Tibetan people was basically oral, in accordance with the specific cultural background and tradition of the Tibetan people. It was thus the inevitable choice for the spreading and passing down of Gesar. This cultural inheritance mode, coherent to the Tibetan people, is a unique way for the existence, spreading and receiving of regional culture. Scholars have said that it is impossible to memorize this epic which has dozens of volumes and thousands of lines. The root of this skeptical or negative attitude lies in ignorance of the specific cultural spreading tradition of the Tibetan people, i.e. their cultural inheritance mode. Such scholars do not know that the passing down of some cultural phenomena depends on the transforming and recycling of information memorized by the brain. It is certain that the transformation of memorized information of the epic Gesar is also interrelated to each spreader’s cultural, geographical, humanist, receiving, physical and psychological backgrounds.

According to The Blue Annals, after Thu-mi-sam-bho-da translated some Buddhist scriptures and texts, Songtsen Gambo began to teach these scriptures and texts to his courtiers. The Blue Annals praised this act of Songtsen Gambo as the beginning of Buddhist teaching in Tibet. By the time of the 11th century or so, the teaching and explanation of the Buddhist scriptures had become the order of the day. A series of academies of teaching and explanation appeared. It is recorded in The Blue Annals that before Atisha came to Tibet, most pupils of the famous Master Glu-med at that time became very good at talking. They set up teaching academies in places such as Yurepingzheng. Viewed from the point of inheritance, these academies cultivated new cultural receivers and spreaders through the mouth-to-mouth education method. The Kagyu School is worthy of its name. “Kag” means words and “Yu” means passing down. The Buddhist scriptures were spread through the teachers’ and masters’ words. Master Tuguan on Origins of Buddhist Sects especially emphasizes the teaching method of the Kagyu School--the understanding of the core of words. As for Xamba-bkav-rgyud and Dvags-po bkav-rgyud who both belonged to the Kagyu School, their ancestors were famous people good at talking. Xamba-bkav-rgyud followed Master Gepu. As for Master Marpa, the ancestor of Dvags-po bkav-rgyud, three of his fours pupils studied the Buddhist scriptures by understanding the core of explanation.

The education method of the Sakya School is also inseparable from the mouth-to-ear mode. In early times, the most famous lamdre, the “Path and its Fruition”, the teaching method of the Sakya School was to oral instruction through memory without written records. It was only after Sachen Kunga Nyingpo wrote the Vajrayana Scriptures and the book explaining the lamdre system inherited by nine generations came to Tibet, that written words existed for the lamdre teaching system of the Sakya School. As for Sakya Pandita, it is recorded in Master Tuguan on Origins of Buddhist Sects, ÒFrom his father Jetsun Drakpa Gyaltsen, Sakya Pandita learned all Buddhist essence passed down orally from former Sakya masters.’As for Drogon Chogyal Pakpa, it is recorded in historical documents that at the age of three he could recite the Rites of Happy Vajrayana, and at the age of eight, he could teach and expound scriptures like Jatake. According to Master Tuguan on Origins of Buddhist Sects, the study method of Master Tsongkhapa of Geluk School is listening and hearing. At first, he “studied by listening to the xian sect, then the mi sect. From the age of 17 to 36 he was earnest in hearing and grasping as much knowledge as possible.”Master Tuguan on Origins of Buddhist Sects calls this way of learning the “skill of listening.” Master Tuguan on Origins of Buddhist Sects also records that when Tsongkhapa listened to learn the Basic Scripture of Pinaiye, he memorized by heart 17 pages of the scripture every day. The Buddhist texts he learned by listening included Study of Order, Law Couplets, The Correct Way of Gaining Knowledge, Middle Concepts, Vajrayana Buddhist Scripture, Rgyud, Spyad-rgyud, Highest Volumes, Xu of Mother, Shengle Base, in all of which he was proficient. Because he was so diligent and good at memorizing, when he taught these texts to his pupils, he usually displayed his exceptional memory. Once, he talked about the life of eminent Indian and Tibetan monks, one of whom used to expound 11 scriptures at a time. His pupils asked him, “Master, can you expound so many scriptures at a time?” Tsongkhapa answered modestly, “If I try my best, maybe I can.” Persuaded by his pupils, the master agreed to do so. From the fifth day of the month he began to expound 15 scriptures at a time, every day from dawn to dusk, without a single day missed. He expounded 17 scriptures altogether in 30 days. (5) During his expounding of scriptures, Tsongkhapa recited totally from memory. Vjam-dbyangs chos-rgyal and Zhaxi Baidan were taught by Master Tsongkhapa personally. According to historical documents, the master had him memorize a hundred scriptures. Through his effort he could not only memorize the words and message of 108 volumes of Buddhist scriptures, but also expound them.

This special method of spreading culture still exists among the Tibetan people. Long-term edifying and training in this tradition makes it possible that the best of eminent monks or singers with superior capacity in talking, hearing and memorizing can memorize dozens or hundreds of volumes of classic works or epics. If this is true of abstruse Buddhist scriptures, is it strange that the attractive Gesar with its absorbing plot can also be learned?

It is because of this special method of cultural inheritance that the cultural memory of the Tibetan people has undergone orderly training for hundreds of years. It is quite common in parts of the Tibetan region to transform the hearing of epics into the memorizing of epics and then spread them again. Some of the excellent singers among them, such as the old man Drakpa, the old man Samzhub and Yumei, transform a whole or several volumes of epics into epic memory after their hearing of them. The old man Drakpa began to tell Gesar stories at about 11. Before this, these stories were kept in his mind as memory. When he told the stories to other people, these people received the epic memory by hearing him. Thus, from the Gesar memory in the old man Drakpa’s brain to the receiving of the stories by his audience, a complete epic cycle of existence, spreading and receiving is established. One might ask further: how did the epic memory come into being before the telling and singing of the old man Drakpa? It is doubtless that he was once one of the audience of earlier Gesar artists. At that time, he played the role of “receiving audience” in the existence-spreading-receiving cycle of Gesar. His receiving of the epic was realized from artists who had the memory of the epic Gesar. The old man Drakpa transformed and kept their epic information through ear receiving and brain memory, and then spread the memory as epic information to his audience, continuing the cycle.

Parry-Lord Theory, the latest theory on epic study, which is also called “oral-formulaic theory,” thinks that epics of remote ages in the form of texts which have been passed down until now were all inherited orally. The folk singers can recite complete epics with thousands or even tens of thousands of lines, depending mainly on general plotting frames. When they sing they can enrich the frames according to their personal experience. This theory has provided us with new evidence for our study of the mysterious memory and the magic singing of Gesar artists, and the phenomena of “God-granting saying” and “dream-entrusting saying.”