Gesar's epic tradition
The epic Gesar, with its unique beaded structure, combines many myths, legends, stories, ballads and proverbs, forming a "super story" with great momentum and voluminous length. In a sense, the epic rap tradition is a collection of local knowledge-religious belief, local knowledge, folk wisdom, ethnic memory, mother tongue expression and so on. , are fully loaded. The epic rap tradition is also the source of inspiration for the creation of traditional folk arts such as Thangka, Tibetan opera, playing and singing, and the source of modern art forms, which constantly strengthens the cultural identity and historical continuity of people, especially the younger generation. Therefore, the epic tradition of Gesar can be called national culture. In September 2009, Gesar Epic Tradition was selected into UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.
The epic Gesar is the longest epic in the world, and it can be called a vivid sample of the great oral expression art of mankind.
Epic is an art with a long history, which is widely spread in the civilized traditions all over the world. Homer's epic and ancient Greek mythology are recognized as the origins of western literature. The Forgotten One in Babylon, Mahabharata in ancient India, Beowulf in old English, Song of Nibelon in old Germanic, Song of Roland in old France, Soundiata in Mali, Africa, etc. , are widely sung, far-reaching influence. Aristotle in ancient Greece elaborated on the connotation and characteristics of epics, and gave a high evaluation of this artistic style, which opened a precedent for human beings to know and comment on epics. People all over the world have formed different forms and complex styles of epic narrative traditions according to their respective natural environment and cultural traditions. Numerous epics have become monuments of human oral narrative culture.
Gesar, a large epic mainly sung by Tibetans and Mongolians (Gesar for Tibetans and Gessler for Mongolians, hereinafter collectively referred to as Gesar), is a vivid sample of the great oral expression art of mankind. Many of its features are amazing.
Gesar has countless stories and is the longest epic in the world. Before Gesar was known to the world, western reference books said that the longest epic in the world was Mahabharata in ancient India, with 6,543,800+Odes, or 200,000 lines. As for the length of Gesar, there is no accurate statistics so far, but it can be roughly known that there are more than 100 kinds of "parts" recorded in Tibetan epic texts, and there are more than 100 lines in verse alone.
Probably no singer can fully grasp this scale. Sang Zhu Neng, a Tibetan singer in his 80s, is playing 65 Gesar. About two-thirds of the Gesar stories he sang are being copied and printed one after another. The scale of the plan is 46 volumes, with an average of 400 pages each, printed in Tibetan, which is several times the length of A Dream of Red Mansions! He is recognized as the best rapper of Gesar's stories. Because the tradition of the epic Gesar is still developing and changing, it is difficult for us to determine how many "ministries" there are and how many "words" there are. For Tibetans, Gesar is their only epic, which is rare in the world. Most of the nations that produce the epic narrative tradition have rich epic communities and are not "prominent". This phenomenon among Tibetans is related to the structural characteristics of Gesar. It is a beaded structure with strong openness, constantly containing and absorbing new story content, and absorbing many Tibetan narrative genres, such as myths, legends, stories, folk songs and proverbs, into the epic, forming a spectacular narrative picture. This is also a miracle in the history of human oral recitation.
Gesar is an epic with a long history and wide coverage, which is rare in the world because of its wide geographical area and many languages involved.
There are many types of storytellers in Gesar. As far as Tibetan singers are concerned, according to the different ways of obtaining and inheriting rap skills, they are mainly divided into several categories: God-given artists, hearing artists, Tibetan-digging artists, chanting artists and circle artists. Among the above five types of artists, talented artists are the most special group of artists. Most of them claim to have had strange experiences, and the ability to tell stories and stories comes from "God-given". Most of these artists live in ancestral artists' families or in areas where Gesar is widely circulated, and have special life experiences. They have excellent memories. Although most of them can't read, they show amazing oral creativity. Artists can generally rap at least a dozen or twenty songs.
"Gesar" also includes manuscripts and prints, which gave birth to a family of manuscripts, who copied for a living from generation to generation. The Butga family in Yushu, Qinghai is such a family. The earliest existing manuscripts can be traced back to14th century (in Tibet Museum). The earliest existing woodcut is the Beijing woodcut version of the Biography of Gestler Khan, the Master of the Ten Sectors, dated 17 16.
The epic Gesar also penetrated into different artistic categories. The artistic forms with the theme of heroes in Gesar, including Thangka (Tibetan scroll painting), statues, murals, Tibetan operas, playing and singing, show the popularity and reputation of Gesar from another side. In contemporary times, Gesar's story has also entered modern art forms such as film and television, radio and novels. In Tibet, all kinds of thangkas and handicrafts with portraits of King Gelsall, as well as epics and printed materials, are regarded by local people as mascots to drive away evil and filth.
The artistic charm of Gesar is also reflected in its extraordinary communication power. Gesar originated in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where Mongolians and Tibetans lived side by side for a long time. Gesar probably took root in these two ethnic groups at the earliest, and then spread widely among the surrounding ethnic groups. It was sung in Tu, Yugur, Naxi, Pumi, Bai and other regions, and geographically spanned Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang and other provinces. Overseas, Bhutan, Nepal, Sikkim, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Russia and other countries also spread. The art of language expression with such a wide spread and involving so many languages is rare in the world.
With the change of traditional lifestyle, the cultural ecology on which the epic rap tradition depends has undergone tremendous changes, and the epic rap tradition is facing challenges.
Nowadays, the study of Gesar has attracted the attention of international and domestic scholars, and the academic achievements are numerous. Foreign scholars have made a systematic study of Gesar since the beginning of last century. Among them, French scholars david nail and Shi Taian have made outstanding achievements in the study of Tibetan Gesar and have far-reaching influence. 1839, Academician Schmidt translated and published the Seven Chapters of Beijing in German for the first time, and introduced the Mongolian Gestalt to foreign countries. Domestic scholars first introduced Gesar to Mr Ren Naiqiang, who wrote several articles in the 1930s and published them in newspapers.
Since 1950s, China has done a lot of work in the collection, arrangement, publication and research of epics. A large number of outstanding folk artists have been confirmed and put on record, and the outstanding ones have entered the provincial and national lists. All kinds of manuscripts, engravings, manuscripts, collations and translations are spectacular. A large number of audio files and video materials have been accumulated in various places. There are more than 100 editions of Gesar published in Tibetan, Mongolian and Chinese, and some chapters or story outlines have been translated into English, Russian, German, French, Japanese and Finnish. China has published about 20 monographs on the research results of Gesar. 15 research collection, integration and papers; The number of papers published in academic journals at home and abroad is considerable; Five international academic seminars on the epic Gesar were held in China. In recent years, there has been a special forum on the epic Biography of King Gesar at the International Tibetan Studies Seminar. The study of Gesar has become an important branch of international Tibetan studies and international epic studies.
However, the rap tradition of Gesar is also facing new challenges-the change of traditional lifestyle has led to great changes in the cultural ecology on which the epic rap tradition depends. Over the years, a group of old artists have passed away one after another, and professional artists have begun to shrink; The number of native English speakers is decreasing, and the audience is also decreasing rapidly. In order to actively cope with the above situation, the inheritance law and protection strategy of epic are discussed in the soil of local society and folk culture. As the leading protection unit of the epic tradition of Gesar, the Institute of Ethnic Literature of China Academy of Social Sciences opened the project of "oral tradition field research base", promoted a series of protection and revitalization measures, and explored effective measures for the survival and development of the epic of Gesar.