A Tample of Geser

Geser Singer Sambalnorbu

Playing Geser Khan

Playing Two Queens of Geser Khan

The Mongolians has splendid history and brilliant civilization. Throughout centuries, the Mongolian people have created the world famous culture of the prairie nomadic. From its vast expanse of misty-ocean of folk literature, we can find the heroic epic of Geser, which is glimmering as a bright pearl.

The Geser has common origins with Gesar spreading in Tibetan area. The heroic epic of Geser is public collective create and crystallization of intelligence and grows up in cradle of the Mongolian folk literature of ancient myths, legends, stories, ballads, proverbs and short and medium-length epics. It describes the story of Geser who from the horizon to the world and born in a poor herdsman’s family; He had gone through all kinds of hardship and difficulties while as a child, and extraordinarily brave and with wit out of ordinary, subdued demons, helped the weak and poor, punished evil-doers and encouraged people to do good, work for the interests of the people, became a Ten Direction Lord of Geser Khan; Led of warriors to wage a series of just wars to against the invasion and to protect the peace; At last, he defeated the all enemies and made the people have a well-being life. The epic portrays a heroic of Geser through the soul stirring and fascinating of the grand spectacle of wars, and wonderful plot of go to heaven, into the earth and with god helps, and extols the glorious achievements of Geser. And also describes the complicated relations among the various ethnic groups in ancient times, expresses the good wishes and lofty ideals of the Mongolian people and reflects the moral concepts, religious beliefs and social customs of the ancient people.

Geser is an influential and widespread heroic epic that is not only transmitted both orall and written form in Mongolians lived area of Xinjiang, Qinghai, Gansu, Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Liaoning, Jilin and Hei longjiang provinces, but also has been spread with same form to Mongolia, to the Republic of Buriat and Republic of Kalmuck in Russia, and at the same time it has been spread by orally to Republic of Tuva of Russia. Geser has formed unique etiquette and taboo while it spreads. Besides, still derive out a lot of beautiful interesting scenery of legends, sacrificial words, divining words and instructive words etc. Geser was also been a war god, many tamples were built up for the people sacrificial offerings, and formed Geser culture, a unique landscape of Mongolian civilization.

We found over 40 kind editions of Geser until now, among them, the Story of Ten Direction Lord of Geser Khan is the earliest epic edition of the Geser (Gesar) which published by block printing in 1716 Beijing and that is the earliest epic edition in history too. And this edition was introduced to Europe at first in 1776 and have been translated into Russian, German, French, English and Japan etc over ten kind of languages, it have caused the concern about the Chinese epics of international academic circles. Its trend world has driven the whole Geser study’s flourishing development in the world. More of Geser songs may be rated as a unique of Mongolian epics it includes different style of 400 chapters (episodes). It is known at the moment there are nearly 100 ballad singers of Geser, and seven of them who named the Geser singer by the government are Sambalnorbu, sulfungga, Lubsang, Uzer, Huyagt, Loirov and Zhao dorji etc. Pajai who was once met by Chairman Mao Zedong was named the outstanding singer of Geser.

Geser as heroic epic, it not only a great work tells about the fighting history of Geser’s life and his next generations, but also reflects all-around too that the ancient social life of the ethnic group of the Mongols. While the long time’s spreads and disseminates, different eras have left their respective historical and cultural brands in the epic, thus making it an important heritage for the people to learn about it and to understand the Mongolian history, religion, language, literature and folklore.

Geser is an epic spreads by both oral and writing. Two kinds of transmission for that exist side by side, blend each other and develop together, is formed the literature wonder with same of theme and close content. What is most valuable is that at present there are many ballad singers in China who narrate and sing the epic in the primitive and simple way among the Mongolian folk, they are the spreaders as well as creators of the epic. One edition of Geser epic that sang by famous singer Jimbajamsu and has over 86,000 lines is the longest work of verse Geser up to now. the text of Geser epic, many manuscripts and block printing copies that have been transferred to this day are an extremely precious cultural heritage of mankind. In the meantime, with the advancement of the times, other forms of presentation of Geser, such as opera, story and picture-story-book have been keep exuberant vitality. The Geser culture centers have been established in some areas, which has become a new form of continuation and development of the Geser epic.

Since the early 80s of 20th century, the Chinese Government has devoted enormous human and material resources to rescue Geser and carried out very extensive, organized and planned work for research, collection, collation, publication and translation of Geser. These works have been made key projects of the nation and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences for 20 years. To develop these works, the four departments i.e. the State Nationalities Committee, Ministry of Culture, China Literary Association and Chinese Academy of Social sciences have jointly set up a National Gesar (Eeser) Work Leading Group and established a standing office in Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. At the same time, leadership and work organization have been set up in Tibet, Xinjiang, Qinghai, Siquan, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and Gansu to undertake the work of collection, collation, publication, translation and research for Geser epic overall. In the past 20 years, two nation-wide commendation meetings, one ballad-singer naming ceremony, one achievements exhibition, five international conferences have been held by the above four departments. And the national scientific conference once holds in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region too. Up to now, 23 episodes (including 15 episodes of Geser Series in Mongolian language those are already published) of Geser have been published in Mongolian language, 6 episodes have been translated form Mongolian into Chinese and 6 academic monographs and collections of research paper of Geser have been published. Over 300 papers have been published and 1000 hours of epic song have been tape-recorded. A Complete Edition of Geser (volume I), the key project for research of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences published in 2002, is a scientific edition with an organic whole for collation and annotation, photomechanical printing and research, and that is the first achievement in accordance with current standard of the international academic circles in history of Geser document study both at home and abroad. This academic achievement ip praised as a significant achievement o Geser study by the academic circles.

Under the strong support of the Government, the rescue, collection, collation and research work of Geser have accomplished the great achievements through the joint effort of colleagues in the Geser study circles of the whole country and won the recognition and high opinion of the international academic circles. An important branch of the international Mongol Studies has formed initially and displayed the powerful developing momentum.

By the Leadership Group Office of Gesar (Geser) in China
Add: No. 5 Jian Guo Men Nei Street, Beijing China
P.C:100732
Tel:00-86-10-85195630
Fax:00-86-10-85194585