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This article introduces and presents an annotated English translation of what appears to be an early, and perhaps our earliest, Tibetan Gesar bsang (purifying smoke offering) ritual text. The translation is preceded by a discussion of the association between Gesar as a "worldly deity," and the autochthonous Tibetan rite of smoke purification, and a tentative suggestion concerning Gesar's role in the "Buddhicisation" of the bsang rite in Eastern Tibetan popular ritual culture. The article then gives a brief exposition of the layers discernible in the text's presentation of Gesar: as the hero of a predominantly secularorientated chivalric-shamanic folkloric tradition, and his apotheosisation as a Buddha. The article then explores the difficulties in dating and attributing the text. The attribution to Karma Pakshi is ultimately rejected, in favour of a tentative attribution to the mid-late 17th century (and to Yongs-dge mi-'gyur rdo-je in particular) which would make sense in light of what can be discerned about the evolution of the Buddhist cult of Gesar in eastern Tibet around that time.
KEYWORDS
The Epic of King Gesar | Tibetan rituals
INTRODUCTION1
In both Tibet and Mongolia, the heart of the ritual culture associated with Gling Ge-sar/Ge-ser (henceforth Gling Gesar) is in the ritual of bsang, or fragrant, purifying smoke-offering. A majority of the Gesar ritual texts compiled by Khamssprul Rinpoche in his compendium the Gling Ge sar sgrub skor (LGGK) are of the bsang type, and in both Mongolia and Tibet bsang texts devoted to Gesar may even predate the extant epic texts that we have. In Mongolia, Heissig found Geser bsang texts he believed to date to the 17th century,2 and in Tibet the text presented below, which appears to be the earliest to yet come to light, probably also dates from the 17th century, though it may in parts be considerably earlier. This text reflects a mature development of the figure of Gesar in a Buddhist register, while also embracing many aspects of his cultic persona within the popular religion of the laity, some of which have persisted into contemporary representations of Gesar, but rarely with such rich and elaborate expression.
The particular connection between the figure of Gesar and the culture of bsang in Eastern Tibet, raises the speculative hypothesis that one ingredient...