Details of thangka; Dukmo, Gesar's wife is seated next to his throne. Gesar is also depicted as a divine warrior near the top.

The synoptic version of the epic given later in this text is adapted from Francke’s manuscript collections to give an idea of this thematic kernel.

The epic is built around the hero’s duality, centering on his repulsive character and appearance in youth and his lordly nature as an adult.  In his youth, he is known as Joru, a name David-Neel suggests signifies caste or descent.  It is a corruption, she believes, of a term meaning “having honorable ancestors.”  Used in derision, it refers to the hero’s birth as the son of a servant by an unknown father.  This segment of the epic resembles the well-known story type, the “divine trickster.”  Only when he is enthroned as king of Ling does the ugly, nasty child reveal his true character as the great messianic warrior.  Then he receives the name Gesar.  But glimmers of his early career shine through in his military strategems and practical jokes.

The later chapters are still evolving.  The oldest portion, “The Conquest of the Eighteen Great Castles,” depicts the expansion of Gesar’s empire and thus of heavenly law.   But the newest chapters, dating from 1931 and 1975, have known authors.  These texts, “Conquest of Germany” and “Victory over the Lord of Death,” borrow the style of the older works, and demonstrate that the Gesar epic remains a living source of literature.  Even the government of the People’s Republic of China points to the Gesar epic as a cultural treasure.  Last July, the China Tibetan Music Art Troupe staged a one-hour performance of “King Gesar” in London, carried live on BBC.

A synoptic view of the epic

I. The street child

The Gods knew that Ling was chiefless.  Not that the land was without a king, but that that king would be unable to defeat the evil that was growing around the country.