The Superhuman Life only offers a glimpse of the Tibetan warrior-king who slew the enemies of Buddhism on a flying horse.
The countless adventures of Gesar have lived in the memories of Tibetan ballad-singers for more than a thousand years. They constitute the longest epic of all time — one that presents a familiar world to fans of mythic heroes.
Gesar springs from the forehead of his virgin mother, who had drunk holy water steeped in peacock feathers. As a toddler he foils all plots against him with shapeshifting magic and superhuman strength.
Every few chapters, a divinity turns up to warn him about the black demon of the North or to reassure him that he is Thubpa Gawa incarnate, with the gods on his side. When he wills his own disappearance, he promises to return with a sword in each hand when his country needs him.
The epic is set in a 10th-century Tibet where tigers and snake deities roam. Our hero battles local chiefs and worshipers of the “nine-headed Brahma” with a confidence rarely shaken by false gods or armies of forty thousand.
The occasional use of untranslated words like tulka and mo lends a flavor of foreignness that is in keeping with the tone of the translation as a whole: that of an enthusiastic, curious, and very Western visitor.
This translation is based on a French version by the spiritualist and explorer Alexandra David-Neel (1868-1969). Sneaking into a sealed-off Tibet in the 1920s, the indomitable Neel befriended a prince, met the Dalai Lama, and later returned in disguise.
Hers is the dated voice of the Orientalist who calls East Asia “the Yellow country” and marvels at “quaint” Tibetan practices, such as describing silver-grey animals with the word nonpo. “It was one of my amusements, while traveling in Tibet, to hear my horses and mules spoken of as blue, as in a fairy tale,” she writes. Her footnotes reveal a fascination with the ethnographic particulars of Tibetan foodstuffs, clothing, and taboos.
Vividly present throughout the story, David-Neel writes herself into its final chapter, in which she styles herself as a foreign mystic long sought-after by a traveling lama. (”I came to the conclusion that he was a passable scholar,” she writes patronizingly.) They talk of the war raging in Europe, and Neel, feeling the world has gone topsy-turvy, is reminded of Gesar’s promise to return when he was needed.
The Superhuman Life may not suit readers looking for a rigorous, documented translation, or one that includes more variations of the oral tales. It does, however, rank high for readability and storytelling in its presentation of “the ideal warrior, the principle of all-victorious confidence.”*
* Chogyam Trungpa, Foreword
Translation: David-Neel, Alexandra and the Lama Yongden. The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling. Trans. with the collaboration of Violet Sydney. Boston: Shambhala, 1987. 271 pages.
See also:
- Composer Peter Lieberson’s 1992 chamber work “King Gesar.”
- Excerpts from Robin Kornman’s unfinished translation, as well as beautiful Buddhist scroll paintings (tanka)
