The English translation of her work, The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling, was reprinted by Shambhala publishers in 1987.

Throughout the 1950s, significant contributions were made to the study of the epic.  In 1950-51, Ligeti’s research on the Mongolian version, published in Acta Orientalia I(Budapest), established concordances with the Tibetan texts and concluded that the Mongol names in the epic are translations of oral Tibetan.  French scholar R.A. Stein objects to this conclusion, but agrees that the Tibetan versions predate their Mongolian counterparts.  Stein is quick to point out, however, that the earliest complete literary edition of the epic is a text published in Peking in 1716.  It is, he says, a “printed edition, partly translated, but already greatly adapted to Mongolian background.”

The Bon faith of pre-Buddhist Tibet

The underlying themes of the Gesar epic are rooted in the pre-Buddhist culture of Tibet.  At that time, Stein writes, Tibet was “protected (i.e., ruled) by the Bonpos, the storytellers and the singers of riddles.”  Each of these ritual specialties reflects an important aspect of early Tibetan society.

The Bon faith that dominated Tibet at that time is commonly seen as indigenous, primitive, and shamanistic.  The Bonpo was undoubtedly a cantor of sorts—probably for sacrificial and divinatory rituals—as the word Bon itself is a corruption of a term meaning “to mutter magical spells.”  The “storytellers” and “singers of riddles” were held in equal regard, as recitations of genealogies and creation myths were sacred works.  Then, just as Christianity adapted older European celebrations, Buddhism absorbed Tibet’s older religious culture, forming a synthesis now called Lamaism.  Lamas, the Tibetan Buddhist religious teachers, sometimes discouraged people from reading the Gesar epic, saying it could arouse negative emotions, thus disturbing spiritual purity and inner tranquillity.

One of the early practices which emerges in all versions of the Gesar epic is mo, or divination.  The art of divination is everywhere entwined with the other threads of Tibetan civilization, remaining an important aspect of life, from birth to death, from business to marriage.  Mo-pe, or full texts, serve as guides to the practice.  Dream interpretation is one form of divination, and texts on this subject are quite popular.  Divination with dice, prayer-beads, and sacred rope knots is still practiced in Tibetan exile society.