Talk:Epic of King Gesar

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I have added a section of the translation by Herrmanns (fascinating but in every sense havy book!) and the corresponding reference. Left the unreferenced-mark because I don't know the source of the remaining material in the article and don't have the time to check it. Nannus 22:21, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge from Geser

The article Geser seems to be about the same thing. Can we merge it in to this article? --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 10:08, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

It's similar, and undoubtedly related, but it's not the same thing. The Epic of King Gesar is a Tibetan Buddhist text, the Geser Epic is a Mongolian Tengriist text. -- Takwish 19:09, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
But they are the same story. Surely that means that we should have one article about it. Of course, the differences, comparisons etc should be brought out in the article. --HughCharlesParker (talk - contribs) 15:34, 22 November 2006 (UTC)


I agree, they share the same story-kernel and could be merged. there are many versions in Mongolian (Heissig - Geser Studien 1985) and very many versions in Tibetan. Even within regions/traditions there is considerable narrative variation ( eg Hermman S. 1991 Keser versionen aus ladakh)

[edit] Etymology of the name of Julius Caesar

can someoen tellme what this link has to do with this article? im feeling pretty stupid right now, wondering what the connection is. i didnt mean to make the delete out of vandalism or anything Pirus 05:15, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Some people (many?) think that Julius Caesar and Geser are the same person. Or that Geser refers to Caesar (title) in general. This is evident from sources, but is not present in the Wikipedia text. -- Petri Krohn 09:58, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
that explains a couple things Pirus 05:09, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
FYI, I have a source from this claim in Nicolas Tournadre's Manual of Standard Tibetan.—Nat Krause(Talk!·What have I done?) 04:48, 22 December 2006 (UTC

the argument is that the title "gesar" comes, via a kind of chinese whispers across the civilisations of medieval central asia, from the greek title of the Byzantine emperor, Kaisar (ie caesar - also the etymology of the russian Tsar). This is supported by the fact that some bactrian coinage was found inscribed with the name Fromo Kesaro - who, it is believed, was a ruler in the region of Kabul in the 8th century AD, and was named after the byzantine emperor to memorialise a defeat of the arabs by the latter in the 8th century. The name then came into Tibetan, so the argument runs, as "Gesar Phrom", who is familiar as the archetypal "king of armies" who rules north of Tibet and is associated with the Turks in early Tibetan schematised geography. Gesar of Gling, the hero of the epic, shares this title 'Gesar' with this Gesar Phrom or Gesar Khrom, but he is not the same figure, since Gesar Khrom was a foe of Tibet, while Gesar of Gling was Tibet's champion. george fitzherbert —Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.1.181.133 (talk • contribs) 04:20, 3 January 2007

[edit] Oral transmission

I've nominated the Oral transmission section for a POV-check as the prose is less than neutral, and the supporting citations sketchy at best. —Viriditas | Talk 12:55, 8 July 2007 (UTC)