The Epic of Gesar of Ling ~ Hardcover Book
The Epic of Gesar of Ling—Gesar’s Magical Birth, Early Years, and Coronation as King is the translation of the first three of over one-hundred volumes of the national epic of Tibet, sung by bards since the 12th century C.E. and compiled as a woodblock under the direction of the great Ju Mipham Jampel Gyepai Dorje in the 19th century. It represents a true treasure of Tibetan culture that, due to the Tibetan diaspora, now incorporates itself within the Western canon of great philosophical and religious works.
The inspiration and endeavor to translate these volumes began over two decades ago with the late Dr. Robin Kornman, who was both a student of Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and a scholar of comparative literature. Fortuitously, he met Sangye Khandro and Lama Chonam, and they worked for many years together on the initial translation. Several months of the year, Sangye and Chonam sat at Robin’s dining-room table in his eastside Milwaukee lower flat, working—word-by-word and line-by-line—through the text with illuminating digressions spurred by Robin’s great curiosity and expansive mind. Each session was recorded. Later on, Jane Hawes became Robin’s close friend and Tibetan student; and after Robin’s death in 2007, she, Sangye Khandro, and Lama Chonam pursued a collaboration that completed the translation. Jane listened to the tapes of all the sessions; and again line-by-line, the three translators worked through the text.
This is a marvelous story of the foils of human existence told as the Tibetan bards sung it in prose, in proverbs of the cultural wisdom of Tibet, and in poetry of the precious jewel of Buddhism.
Translated by Robin Kornman, Lama Chonam, Sangye Khandro
Also available in paperback.
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