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Bajia Rinpoche and the Gesar Monument

King Gesar gets a New Memorial Hall

by Pamela Logan

September 11, 1999

"When I was a little girl," my friend Nyima Lhamo told me, "we didn't have electric lights or TV or anything, so every night my mother told us stories. She was a really amazing woman. She worked as a laborer--had no formal education at all--but she knew a huge amount about Tibetan history. So she told us stories about Milarepa, Akatenba--many things. She told us about Ling Gesar."

Nyima Lhamo and I were traveling together with an intrepid group of American photographers to the far corner of Derge, a place once known as Ling, where legend says King Gesar was born. The area is in modern-day Ashu District, and at its headquarters a memorial hall for Gesar was just opened on August 8 of this past summer. As we bumped along on a seemingly endless dirt road beside the Yalong River, I recalled what I knew of Gesar to my foreign companions.

Gesar was a legendary Tibetan warrior and gyalpo (king) whose exploits are told in an epic tale that has been called the national poem of Tibet. The Gesar epic is thought to have originated in the 7th or 8th century, in pre-Buddhist times, and probably has some historical basis. It was passed orally, as a song, from one generation to the next, embellished at every stage with magical happenings and Buddhist references. Versions of the story have been found in places as far away as Lijiang, Ladakh, and Mongolia, but the Kham version is longest and richest, and is generally taken as "standard". When the epic eventually came to be written down, the resultant book came to 72 volumes. Modern scholars are still actively working to interpret the many stories, collecting and comparing various extant versions.

Nyima Lhama, who is a researcher at Sichuan University, had her own theory about the saga's heterogeneous origins. "Kham people say Gesar was theirs; Amdo people say he was theirs, central Tibetans say he belongs to them. Most people don't understand he wasn't just one man; he was many men, and that's why there are so many stories. Gesar was great, but the poem's authors were also great. It's truly a remarkable product of the Tibetan people."

As our vehicles neared the end of our journey, a brief storm dropped rain on the wide valley of the Yalong. As we at last approached the Gesar monument, the clouds swept aside, and a brilliant rainbow reached down from heaven to touch the memorial hall--an auspicious sign indeed! We pulled through a fence opening onto a large pasture that surrounded the Gyalpo's new digs.

Our host was leader of the Gesar project, an incarnate lama named Bajia Rinpoche. He is the abbot of nearby Tsatsa Monastery, a man of considerable reputation and accomplishment, who raised money for the monument, designed the monument according to the Gesar legends, and saw the project through to completion. He had arranged a large yak-hair tent to be pitched for us, and thukpa (noodle soup) to be prepared on an immense clay stove inside. It was already getting late, so we postponed further exploration, bunking down in various guest rooms attached to the monument.

The next morning, as we sipped butter tea in Bajia Rinpoche's living room, he told us the history of the Gesar Memorial Hall. Originally there had been another monument, a much older one, which was destroyed in the Cultural Revolution. It housed a collection of thankas (paintings) telling the Gesar story, and these thankas were also lost. The monument also had artifacts that purportedly belonged to Gesar weapons, armor, clothing, and other things. Prior to the monument's destruction, many of these precious objects were taken out and hidden. As time has passed and the perceived danger has receded, these objects are slowly coming to light. However, they belong to various private families, and Jiaba Rinpoche has no power to retrieve them. If they are ever to be returned to the monument, they will have to be purchased from their owners. Bajia Rinpoche is seeking donations for this purpose, and to re-paint the lost thankas and build a temple to display them.

That afternoon Bajia Rinpoche showed us around the monument itself, which strongly resembles a Tibetan temple, at least from the outside. The largest image in it is Gesar himself, astride a red horse (as betold by the stories), and surrounded by thirteen protector animals. "When Gesar was in his mother's womb," Bajia Rinpoche said, "he could speak to her and tell her where he wanted to be born, which was where two valleys met, a place called Suhu. Gesar was a quadruplet, and an emanation of Padmasambhava." He proceeded to point at statues in the temple, explaining them one by one "That's Gesar's younger brother Lo-ong Lhotrup Oden. That's another brother Cho-ong Doncho Karpo. That's Nyenchen. That's Padmasambhava. Those two are 'white heaven gods'..."

I looked over at my companions, who were keen to get out of the dank temple and outside where they could photograph the colorful village under blazing afternoon sun. In addition to Gesar's protectors, I counted eight serving girls and thirty-six warrior statues in the temple, not to mention dozens of other features. If we heard the story behind each one, we would be here for hours. As politely as I could, I interrupted His Eminence and asked if we couldn't perhaps hear the rest at some later time. He was puzzled by my friends' lack of fascination, but allowed us to adjourn.

Before we left Ashu the next morning, Bajia Rinpoche gave us all gifts of souvenir Gesar coins, color brochures, and long white silk scarves. For me he had a special present a volume of the Gesar epic itself, which has been printed by modern machines onto traditional loose-leaf paper and republished. My volume, which is number 63, has 251 pages of Tibetan script pressed between two hard covers.

I'm sorry to say that my Tibetan reading level is not up to this book, but perhaps I'd better study until it is. You see, many believe that Gesar is coming back. In the Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling, Alexandra David-Neel write she met a Mongol lama in Beijing who prophesied that Gesar will return to "exterminate all those who oppose the reign of justice...To the conquest of the world, he will lead the millions of Asiatics who, today, are drowsing....We shall invade [the] countries in the West, and everywhere the cleansing army will have passed nothing will remain, not even a blade of grass!"

With China's steadily increasing clout in world affairs, the day of this prophesy's fulfillment might be sooner rather than later. I'd better get to work.