The Song Of Enemy Gods: A Comparative Study Of Tibetan Myths And The Gesar Epic

The Tibetan "Gesar" Epic is on of the world's famous epics, namely as famous as the great Indian and Greek epics. These were passed on during a period of time with mythical legends and historical stories as contents, further; these came along in form of poetic songs. Nowadays the form of an epic is still brilliantly alive in Eastern songs. This kind of oral literature is spreading among Tibetan people with open structure and various contents. In epics the original images, mythical true figures, ancient religious rituals and so on are shown everywhere within its long history.Bon records and religious rituals are the main carriers of ancient Tibetan myths. Especially in the living records of Bon ritual texts a large number of high research of myths and legends can be found; these contents profoundly show the mode of cultural structure in folkloric oral tradition. It is also the first headstream of the style of the Gesar Epic.The Myth is the focus of this paper, the exploration of the perspective of cultural studies on religious beliefs, rituals and social systems of ancient Tibetan clan society, and on "Gesar" as the fundamental model for the comparative study. By analyzing written and oral texts it is shown that these texts are not only explaining and interpreting the creation and development of the myth, but also strengthens and preserves the folk belief and oral poetry, mutual, "Gesar" epic which plays a very important role in its passing on and the transmission.The total of six chapters:The fist chapter, the introduction section, gives a brief review of the various schools of mythology at home and abroad and its theoretical ideas. Based on that, it reviews the academic community of Tibetan mythology, as well as the relationship between myth and epic research results. The latter part argues the purpose and meaning-based research methods and innovative content of this topic. In the second chapter, the "Myth of the Creation of the World"; The author first organized the research from relevant material related to Bon religion and early ancient of Tibetan from which the ancient myth originated. Then, some original myths from Ladakh and other versions of Gesar were picked for the comparative research. With brief introduction of the relation between the epic and the myth, the myth is used in the epic itself.The third chapter talks about the "Gesar" epic, on the mythical origin of humankind. Focusing on and analyzing the relationship between the Tibetan Myth of Oviparity and the Myth of Rhesus Macaque and the epic itself; by expounding that the myth is the source and fundament of the epic. But due to different cultural backgrounds oral historic myths and the Gesar epic have differences in expressing and transmitting methods.In the fourth chapter research on the content of the origin of ancient Tibetan myths, myths on Mountain Gods, warfare, worship etc. is analyzed. Further, the content, circumstances of the formation problem of the Gesar epic is discussed; hence, the interaction between myth and epic, the specific condition and historic background of Gesar epic are compared.In the fifth chapter ritual through transition is analyzed, focused on the Gesar epic's subjects of enthronement rituals or horse-races, by mainly discussing the important role of courtship and the adult's rituals in myths and in the Gesar epic, and illustrating the ancient ritual in the epic during changes due to developing processes and a variety of circumstances. While the weisang ritual as an important pre-war enemy gods' ceremony and the disguised form of original blood sacrifice ritual in the epic are contents of a comparative study.