The Superhuman Life of Gesar of Ling by Alexandra David-Neel

Author:Alexandra David-Neel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shambhala

1. Initiation, transmission of energy. See With Mystics and Magicians in Tibet and Initiates and Initiations in Tibet.

2. In the Ladak version the way in which Gesar is delivered from the effects of the spells that have caused his loss of memory is told differently. Instead of receiving an angkur from Chenrezigs, two crows let their excrements drop into his mouth while he is in a faint. This makes him vomit, and in this manner he rids himself of the noxious drugs that Dumo had made him absorb. He leaves for Ling and Dumo follows him with her daughter. Arriving at a ford, she clings to the tail of Gesar’s horse and the child clings to her. In the middle of the river the horse starts kicking and flings them both on to the bank from which they have just come, while Gesar lands on the opposite bank. In her anger Dumo kills her child and, dividing the body into two parts, throws the upper half to Gesar, telling him to eat it. She herself devours the lower half. Gesar bums the portion of the corpse that has been given to him and builds a monument over the ashes.

3. These are miniature chörtens made in clay, with which, sometimes, as in the above cases, powdered bones of the dead have been mixed.

4. Singlen, the King of Ling, had gone on a pilgrimage before the birth of Gesar and had passed for dead (see Chapters 1 and 2). When had he come back?. . . The very fact of the poem being sung in detached fragments permits the bards to dispense with any logical sequence of events. Singlen reappears and seems to have been in regular intercourse with Gesar before the latter’s departure for Lutzen’s kingdom. It is possible that other bards than those I have heard, or other manuscripts than those I possess, mention circumstances connected with the return of Singlen to Ling and his relations with Gesar, who had become King in his stead. The information that I have gathered on this subject is vague. Therefore, provisionally, we must content ourselves with the knowledge that Singlen had returned to Ling and that he, as well as his son, Gyatza, had been on very friendly terms with Gezar.

5. See the chapter concerning this curious rite in Magic and Mystery in Tibet.

6. Gesar, to whom Singlen’s servant gave birth a little after the King’s departure, passed as Singlen’s son and the brother of Gyatza. Consequently, Gyatza’s son regarded Gesar as his paternal uncle. The Hero afterwards adopted the boy and the present King of Ling claims to be the latter’s descendant.

7. When the poem is recited all these details are retold at length.

8. These tulpas or tulkus, magic creations, are capable, so the Tibetans say, of performing all the acts of which the person or the animal that they represent is himself capable.

9. The Tibetans have the habit, when they travel or are out for the day, of carrying with them a bowl from which to drink tea.

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