September 11 ,2000
Legacy of a Tibetan storyteller

By Tan Hongkai

An unexpected piece of information that surfaced during an interview in Lhasa last year aroused our curiosity and initiated a journey into the mountains of Medro Gongkar in Tibet to see a legendary "Gesar" artist.

Gesar is the hero of the fairy-tale-like Tibetan epic that takes his name. A figure that is venerated by the Tibetans, Gesar is thought to be a knight from the Kingdom of Heaven sent to earth to save and protect Tibetans.

The Gesar myth is important enough for the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences to have two Gesar artists on its payroll, said academy research fellow Kalsang Yeshes.

Gesar's story has been passed from generation to generation by wandering folk artists. To preserve it more formally, the academy decided to record it in writing. So far, more than a dozen volumes of Gesar stories have been published.

Both specialists on the academy's payroll are what Tibetans call "god-instructed" artists, Kalsang Yeshes said.

Gesar artists are often illiterate, but are able to recount numerous stories with extraordinary literary sophistication.

Each of them has a fantastic account of how they became a Gesar artist. The purpose of our journey to Medro Gongkar was to meet one of them.

Our vehicle pulled up in front of the Chaqilhamo Monastery after turning off a paved road in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

Night rain had left puddles on the muddy ground. Prayer flags fluttered gently in the morning breeze.

A curtain above the door of the monastry, its red, green, blue, yellow and white seeming to mix with the morning mist and the curling smoke from the fire of pine and cypress twigs.

A young man hurried out of the monastery, a sack in his hand. His shaved head was typical of Tibetan Buddhist monks. But his old grey Western-style jacket confused me.

He was going our way, said Solang Gelai, our guide. We were not told who he was.

The man picked up some vegetables and a box of beer before we left Lhasa and headed east. He was silent for most of the long and bumpy ride. All we knew was that we were headed for a place called Nyima Gyangrai.

Our vehicle stopped amid bright yellow flowers and lush green barley by the river that we had been following. The sun had just painted a stroke of gold on the snow-capped mountain top we could see before us.

On a gentle slope sat several Tibetan courtyards guarded by mud walls supporting piles of firewood.

"That is Samdrub's house," Solang Gelai said, pointing at one of the yards.

An 80-year-old man in a dark green jacket came out to greet us. Samdrub.

Like most Tibetans his age, Samdrub's sun-tanned face was carved with deep wrinkles. His long grizzled hair was braided and coiled up on the back of his head. He had an uncommon gentlemanly elegance.

We were ushered into his living room. The young man came in behind us.

He was Quzha, 23, a monk and the sixth of Samdrub's seven children, Solang Gelai told us. He'd come here to bring home fresh vegetables and beer for us, guests from Beijing.

The family was preparing for its annual migration to the summer pasture. Bulging sacks were piled in a corner of the room.

The wall was decorated with "thangkas" (painted Tibetan Buddhist wall hangings), and yellow tongues of flame from a line of butter burners danced beneath them.

No sooner had we settled down on the carpeted seats, buttered milk tea was served.

Though we were eager to listen, Samdrub did not begin telling his story until we had our second cups of tea and tried the fresh yak milk his oldest son, Solang Zhaba, had boiled for us.

Once he started talking however, he went so fast that Solang Gelai complained he could not keep up with the translating. Now and then, he requested a break to explain important details.

And now, Samdrub's story.

Born to a poor herdsman's family in the Tibetan region of Chamdo, Samdrub had no option but to start herding sheep and cattle as soon as he was able. During the grazing season, he would drive his herds uphill to graze in the morning and back by noon for milking.

"Other people thought I was an idiot because I was taciturn and eccentric," he said.

However, something happened when he was 13 that changed his life forever.

He was caught in heavy rain while grazing sheep on a hillside. He dashed to shelter under a tree.

"Suddenly I heard a cuckoo sing: 'god comes, god comes.' I was mesmerized by the sound and fell asleep," Samdrub said. He did not wake up for three nights and four days.

His anxious family thought he might have been killed by a bear and set out to search for him.

They discovered him lying on a tiny patch of grass on a rock crevice, which was impossible for a person to reach without help.

"I was awake and saw them, but could not speak a word," Samdrub said.

Samdrub tells his life story as one of his grandson looks on.

A rope was thrown down from the top of the cliff and he was pulled to safety.

Samdrub fell ill after he was taken home and his family asked a local lama to treat him.

The lama took Samdrub to his monastery, where he promised to cure the illness. In exchange, he asked Samdrub to graze the monastry's sheep.

"There was no special treatment except that every day he gave me some clean water to drink," Samdrub recalled. "I felt intensely homesick after two dull months at the monastry and wanted to leave."

The lama instructed Samdrub to drink and eat only clean things.

"The lama told the local headman in a letter that I was not an ordinary boy and should be exempted from service," said Samdrub.

When Samdrub began to speak again, he was found reciting the Gesar, the Tibetan legend.

"Nobody knows exactly how many chapters the epic has," our guide said. "But Samdrub is able to recount 60. Few living Gesar artists can do this. What is more, his versions display impressive artistry and humour."

According to Buddhist tradition, Gesar was a son of the king of Heaven. The king was touched by the sufferings of black-haired people and sent one of his sons to earth to rescue them. Since it was not a pleasant job, the king threw a dice to decide the candidate. Gesar was chosen.

"I found myself dreaming endless dreams every night in which I came across different people and things," Samdrub said. "When I woke up I would be able to recount all the details, and I have never forgotten them."

Twelve years passed. Samdrub became tired of living at home.

"I had nothing of my own except a wife I shared with my brothers," Samdrub said. "So I decided to leave home and see the world."

Like many Tibetan pilgrims who walk across the region to visit sacred mountains and lakes, Samdrub traveled from the north of Tibet to the south and then into Bhutan.

On his travels he did not take any tsampa, the Tibetan staple made of highland barley flour. His ability to recount Gesar stories made him welcome everywhere.

Gesar epic enriches life of the Tibetans

"Gesar was so popular in Zham (in northern Tibet) that people prepared horses to take me around, Samdrub said with a broad smile of pride unfolding on his wrinkled face. Sometimes they had quarrels about who should be the first to invite me home."

On his way back north, he spent years in a monastery in Lhozhag County in today's Shannan Prefecture. From there he made several visits to Lhasa, where he befriended members of the local elite. At the age of 35, he eventually moved to Lhasa and married.

For a time, he was a popular guest of Lhasa nobles, including the police chief and religious celebrities.

During the armed rebellion of 1959, he was wrongly imprisoned for four months because he owned a rifle and handgun and due to his close ties with upper circles.

He was in the Medro Gongkar prison when the land reforms began. His wife was given a plot of land and after he was confirmed innocent and released they started to build their new home there.

Samdrub borrowed money from friends in Lhasa, where he also bought cloth and tea to sell in Medro Gongkar's rural areas. He and his wife built their own house two years later.

However, the whirlwind of collectivization reached Samdrub's region during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76). Private businesses became taboo and Gesar, like numerous other literary classics in China, was labeled a "poisonous weed."

"I did not understand why, but I knew I had to put it aside," Samdrub said.

The silence extended for more than 10 years, Samdrub was so depressed that when the autonomous region's Federation of Literature invited him to recount the epic in 1979, he repeatedly refused.

His fear did not abate until 1982, when the federation brought the Party secretary of Medro Gongkar over in a desperate attempt to persuade him.
"
I was afraid of being imprisoned again because at that time I already had a big family to support," Samdrub said. "But I finally agreed because the Party secretary promised to assume all liabilities if anything bad happened to me."

He agreed to perform for the federation after learning that his stories would be recorded and printed in books, Samdrub said.

"My only ambition at that time was to record my accounts in a book," he said.

When the Tibetan Academy of Social Sciences established a special office and set about collecting portions of the epic, Samdrub was invited to join the academy.

For every 60-minute cassette he recorded, the academy paid him 9 yuan (US$1.10). The payment for each cassette later went up to 15 yuan (US$1.80).

Since last year, Samdrub has been receiving an additional 500 yuan (US$60) per month. The academy also pays his wife 100 yuan (US$12) a month for looking after Samdrub, according to Solang Gelai.

Samdrub has recorded more than 2,000 cassettes. Many of his stories have added fresh new chapters to the Gesar, Solang Gelai said.

"I do nothing every day but record Gesar," said Samdrub. "But speaking to a machine is totally different from facing a real audience. You know how disappointing it is when you find out you were talking to a recorder that had already stopped."

Suffering from heart troubles, he can finish only one cassette a day.

"I am leaving what I have to our nation's future generations. This is my biggest consolation."

To Samdrub, Gesar is a real, living guardian of Tibetan Buddhism and of all people with black hair.

"The Tibetan and Han peoples are the children of one mother," he said.

"Gesar does exist," Samdrub said, full of piety. "No Gesar, no Tibet."

When we asked Solang Gelai if we could hear Samdrub recite Gesar's epic, Solang Gelai shook his head.

"You do not have the time for it," he warned us. "And it is impolite if you interrupt him once he starts."

As we stepped out of the room and headed for our vehicle outside, Samdrub was changing his clothes. He was in a white shirt and putting on a black Tibetan coat made of fine wool, his best suit.

We were obviously not supposed to leave immediately. Samdrub's sons had spread a Tibetan carpet on the green grass close to our vehicle and brought out a plastic bucket of barley wine plus the box of Lhasa beer.

After presenting each of us with a white silk hada -- a Tibetan gift of greeting -- Samdrub sat down on the carpet. Smiling, he asked his sons to present us each with a cup of barley wine.

"This is how we see respected guests off in our family," said Solang Gelai. "You better try the barley wine."

We did try it. A lot of it.