From Gesar: The Place This Time

To frame the two different but mysteriously related questions right away, and in the right way, we should ask, “Who is Gesar?” and “Where is Gesar?” or perhaps “Where is From Gesar (Phrom Ge-sar)?” The first question is not all that easy to answer, but if we just call him Tibet’s national epic hero, I think it’s easier than the second question. It is this other less familiar usage of Gesar as a place name that I want to talk about. Origins are not destiny, as we all know from personal experience. But I think we can say with as much ease as justice that the origins of the name Gesar are in the name, or cognomen* if you prefer, Caesar (Kaiser, Czar, etc.). Now I know this may look like just one more example of Tibet-outsiders finding — or creating or inventing or constructing — ‘linkages’ with Tibetan culture for some strategic reasons of their own. And I won’t argue very strongly against this possibility today.

(*Look on this page under the entry ‘tria nomina’ for an explanation of how the three parts of Roman personal names were supposed to work. Coincidentally, names used in Tibetan imperial times also tended to have three different parts called the rus, the mying and the thabs. Someone ought to do a serious comparison. Meanwhile, have a look at the PDF of this article by the late Hugh Richardson.)

In this blog entry, I would just like, first of all, to point out two or three significant discussions of Phrom Ge-sar in modern academic writings that might easily be overlooked. You will find after that a list of Phrom and Phrom Ge-sar references from (mostly relatively early) Bon historical works. If strings of Tibetan syllable transcriptions are a source of irritation or anxiety for you, no reason to give it much more than a glance. I only do this to make the case that these terms occur quite a bit in more-or-less datable Bon works (most of these haven’t been looked into let alone used much if at all by academics). This is not an exhaustive listing, and I’ll leave for another time occurrences in non-Bon Tibetan sources... along with the brief mentions by modern Tibetanists such as R.A. Stein, H. Hoffmann, Namkhai Norbu, et al.

I think Caesar of Rome is by far the most likely explanation for From Gesar, although at the same time, as I already hinted, one ought to be wary of the tendency of western-world-based researchers in particular to find things close to their ‘home’ in the faraway materials they study. I discussed Gesar some with a few modern Tibet-born savants, and learned that these days the tendency among them is to find a regional ruler of around the 12th century (in the eastern Tibetan plateau or Kham) as the historical personage behind the epic stories.* They give an apparently ‘nativistic’ explanation of Ge-sar as a Tibetan word referring to the anthers of flowers. But, as some past Tibetan glossary makers were aware, the ‘Tibetan’ word ge-sar is actually a direct borrowing from Indic ke-sa-ra (this being in turn a Tibetan transcription of the Sanskrit word kesara, which generally means ‘hair’ but also those filaments found at the center of a flower). Not only that, but the name Καίσαρ itself was first given because of somebody’s luxuriant mane of hair... but then again, the name may have been awarded ironically, since Julius Caesar suffered from premature balding.

(*There are local Kham stories about his relics still there to be seen, especially in the former kingdom of Nangchen.)

From (Phrom) comes via Hrom (pronounced From) from Rome, meaning the eastern Rome of the Byzantines, not that one in Italy you’ve been told about.

 Anthers are called ge-sar or ze-'bru in Tibetan

I do believe the Tibetan evidence for Phrom Ge-sar is very likely to prove relevant to Fromo Kesaro as found in some coin inscriptions, somehow — the Tibetan manuscripts are all much later than the coins, true, but may incorporate earlier texts or oral traditions that would be closer at least to being contemporary. But I should clarify that the Tibetan epic hero is not commonly known as Phrom Ge-sar. When he isn’t called just Ge-sar or King Ge-sar, he’s usually called Gling Ge-sar.  That last name tends to connect him with Gling-tshang area of Kham in eastern part of the Tibetan plateau where, anyway, relics of his are kept and shown to pilgrims. 

Coin of a Turk Shahi king inscribed with "Fromo Kesaro" etc.

[True, some moderns do conflate these two Gesars, the person and the place, but that’s a modern complication in my opinion. To judge from the glossaries available to me, it would seem that even though the Gesar epic is full of geographical names — after all, he conquered countries in every compass direction — the place name Phrom is not to be found in the epics themselves, that is, if you will allow me to avoid addressing the complication that Phrom is often spelled as, or confounded with, Khrom, which does occur there. If this is giving you a headache, you are not alone. Where did I put that box of aspirins?]

One fairly early academic discussion somehow at least moderately relevant to the problem of Fromo Kesaro / Phrom Ge-sar is in Bailey’s article, at p. 427. Bailey considers the idea that a Khotanese name/title rrispurä kheysarä, ‘Prince Kheysara,’ really has ‘Caesar’ behind it. And he mentions the Phrom Ge-sar of Tibetan documents. He notices in this connection kesarî (maned one, lion) and kesara (filament of a flower) as two Sanskrit words that were borrowed into Khotanese, getting slightly altered in the process. He finally concludes that the personal name Caesar is not to be found in Khotanese after all.

Also, have a look at the discussion of Phrom and Ge-sar by F.W. Thomas in Tibetan Literary Texts and Documents Concerning Chinese Turkestan, Part III (London 1955), pp. 79-82. It’s still worth considering what he had to say there. The late Ron Emmerick’s Tibetan Texts Concerning Khotan (p. 69) has a translation from a Tanjur text that does something very exceptional in calling ’Phrom Ge-sar a ‘king’ (rgyal-po).  This King From Gesar's daughter Huronga (Hu-rong-ga) married the Khotanese king and had two daughters who became nuns...

I checked the OTDO, and even though six occurrences of the syllable phrom occur in the Old Tibetan (Dunhuang) texts and inscriptions that have been added to this database, not even one of them looks like a proper name in its context. As Old Tibetanists know, prom is simply an alternative spelling for phrom, and this results in four hits, among which one (or two) may be a place name, I’m not sure yet (if you do go to the site, try khrom, too, but you will see that it mostly has the senses of ‘marketplace’ or ‘center of administration’ or part of a personal name). Searching for “ge sar” comes up with nothing. This might be a significant absence, but until all the Old Tibetan documents have been put up on the site, it would be difficult to be sure. And even then we shouldn’t necessarily build arguments based on its non-appearance.

Starting here, you will find quite a few, but not all, Bon sources (with some bits of texts, mostly not critically edited or ‘corrected,’ and with some very quickly done translations and paraphrases that are not yet ready for primetime academic publication or citation). I’ve tried to give some idea of the dating of each of the texts.  These are passages of singular importance that must be accounted for in future Gesar studies.  Still, I imagine there are people who will want to stop here or skip forward to the conclusion.

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SOURCE: G.yung-drung Bon-gyi Rgyud-’bum, as contained in Sources for a History of Bon, Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre (Dolanji 1972), pp. 1-46, at p. 23. 

Context: A discussion of Tibet in around the time of Dri-gum Btsan-po (legendary emperor several centuries prior to 600 CE when externally verifiable historical narrative more or less begins in Tibet). 

Date: This particular history belongs to the Rma family lineage histories that date between early 12th through mid or late 13th centuries more or less:

dus de tsam na / rgya gar [23] na chos yod skad / 

rgya nag la gtsug lag rtsis / phrom la sman spyad / bod dang zhang zhung gi yul na bon gyis ’dul zhing spyod pa las / gzhan gang yang med pa lags so //

sman spyad ’di bon gyi lag tu spyod pa lags so //

I interpret this as saying (roughing out a quick translation): In about that time, in India there was Dharma, it is said; in China, gtsug-lag calculation [astro-sciences and divination]; in Phrom, medical treatments; in Tibet and Zhang-zhung countries, apart from practicing and being civilized by Bon there was nothing else. This medical treatment was practiced at the hand of Bon.

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SOURCE: ’Dul-ba Gling-grags, as contained in Sources for a History of Bon, Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre (Dolanji 1972), pp. 114-140, at p. 120.

Context: Part of a list of Bon teachings given by Teacher Shenrab’s emanations in different countries.

Dating: This history also belongs to the Rma family group of histories.

Text passage: phrom gyi yul du gye sar bya zhu can la / dgra lha dang ba dang / dgra sri mnan pa bstan nas rtan la phab pa mdzad do // //

Translation: Then [Teacher Shenrab] taught to Gye-sar Bya-zhu-can in the country of Phrom [the teachings called] Dgra-lha Dang-ba and Dgra Sri Mnan-pa and established their texts (reading gtan for rtan of course).

Comments: I think that Bya-zhu-can means he had a bird hat (reading zhwa for zhu, which is entirely possible in these Bon texts, believe it or not). To myself, at least, this does suggest the wings found in many Sassanian crowns... 

I see no problem at all with reading Gye-sar as Ge-sar. 

The teachings taught in Phrom have to do with the ‘enemy god[s]’ (Dgra-lha, although Bon sources usually spell it Sgra-bla). It is usually believed that one of them accompanies each individual human’s body, and that their task is to provide personal protection and the fortitude to overcome one’s enemies (see for example Namkhai Norbu, Drung, Deu and Bön [Dharamsala 1995], pp. 60-62, which is the most succinct English-language discussion I can think of.)

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SOURCE: ’Bru-ston Rgyal-ba-g.yung-drung (compiler, b. 1242), Gzungs-’dus, Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre (Dolanji 1974), in 2 volumes. Vol. 1, pp. 37-119: Byams-ma Chen-mo Rtsa-ba’i Gzungs (excavated by Khro tshang ’Brug lha). Chapter Seven (Skyon-gyis ’Jig[s]-skyobs-ma zhes bya-ba’i Gzungs), pp. 92-102, at p. 92.

Context: This chapter 7 contains the story of the second [legendary] Tibetan Emperor Mu-khri-btsan-po with a brief part at the end about subsequent emperors (which is the context of the passage that follows). In the more specific context, six great scholars of the world collectively called the ’Six Ornaments of [our world of] Jambuling’ are named.

Dating: The Byams-ma texts are considered quite old, and may have ‘emerged’ in mid or late 11th. 

Variants marked ‘C’ are from another text. 

Text: stag gzigs la mu tsa tra he se / [la: C nas kun shes skyang don la mkhas; mu tsa tra he se: C dmu tsa tra he se] rgya gar la lha bdag sngags grol / [rgya gar la: C rgyar na; sngags grol: C sngag dro; C adds: nang rig pa la mkhas] rgya nag la legs thang rmong po / [rgya nag la: C rgyag; legs thang rmong po: C leg tang rmang ba; C adds: phyi rig pa la mkhas] phrom la gser thog lce ’byam[s] / [C adds: gso ba rig pa la mkhas] zhang zhung la rtswo men rgyung / [C: zhang zhung na tso man gyer rgyung; C adds: sgra rig pa la mkhas]] bod dang me nyag la nam ra rtse sku rnams grag go // [nam ra rtse sku: C rnam ra tsa ku; grag go: C grags so; C adds: srid pa dang rgyud la mkhas]

Discussion of content: The name of the one in Phrom is Gser-thog-lce-’byams (this name appears in very many Bon histories, which may all be assumed to be later, with the possible exception of the list of translators at the very end of the Mdo-’dus biography of Lord Shenrab), which might be interpreted ‘Gold Lightning Tongue Spread Out,’ and the note in C adds that he was a scholar in the science of healing. It’s interesting, too, to see here the Tazig (Stag-gzigs) scholar named Mu-tsa-tra-he-se (noting the Mu in his name, which may be spelled Dmu-tsa-dra-he-pe, etc.).

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SOURCE: The Srid-pa’i Rgyud-kyi Kha-byang Chen-mo (SKC), Tibetan Bonpo Monastic Centre (Dolanji 1976), may be considered the culmination of the Rma family group of histories, and probably dates to a little after 1300 CE. There is a citation of the same passage in the early 20th century Bon history by Shar-rdza, translated by Samten Karmay as Treasury of Good Sayings (1972), p. 80, and for simplicity’s sake I’ll just quote his English translation.

Karmay’s translation (I’ve changed some capitalizations only): “Spe Ne-gu, Phrom-bon Mthu-chen, Bhe Shod-kram, and Rgya-bon Legs-tang Rmang-po, etc. (assisted the king) in bringing ’Jang, Ga-gon, Phrom, China, Mon, and many other countries under Tibetan rule with their miraculous powers.”

Notice the Bonpo of Phrom with ‘Great Magical Power’ (Mthu-chen) [called Phrom-bon Rgyal-ba Mthu-chen in SKC]. And note that Phrom is listed along with Nan-chao, Ga-gon (some Khaganate or another?), China and Mon.

Phrom is mentioned several times in SKC (pp. 23, 42, 90), but most interesting here is the one time it mentions Phrom Ge-sar, on p. 44. The passage on Phrom Ge-sar takes up almost an entire page (again, the context is Lord Shenrab’s emanations in many countries). It does inform us that it is in the northern quarter (byang phyogs Phrom Ge-sar-kyis yul...), while Tazig (Stag-gzig) is in the western. It says that its Bon king is named Phrom-bon Mthu-chen (“Bon-gyi rgyal-po Phrom-bon Mthu’-chen bya-ba yod”). It says the Bon ministers are called E-ber and Ting-wer. I’ll save a full translation of this difficult passage for another time (a second text is badly needed, and some have become available recently, just not available to me yet). It has some interesting references to warfare and weapons of war.

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SOURCE: The Khyung-po Blo-gros-rgyal-mtshan, Rgyal-rabs Bon-gyi ’Byung-gnas, as contained in Three Sources for a History of Bon (Dolanji 1974), pp. 1-196, at p. 43.

Dating: 1439 (?), or possibly 1499 (?).

Note: When first published by Sarat Chandra Das in Darjeeling (1900) and then in Calcutta (1915), the title page of the original text was missing along with the title, so Das just made one up that means ‘Royal Succession Bon Origins.’ The real title ought to include the words Gling-bzhi [i.e. Gleng-gzhi] Bstan-pa’i ’Byung-khungs (‘Original Source of the Teachings, the Scene Setting’), since this is how it is cited in other Bon histories. The 1974 edition was simply copied from the Das edition. Nowadays more manuscripts have been popping up in the form of photocopies, but none of them have been published yet.

Text: mdo las / byang phyogs ge sar phrom gyi yul / mtha’ ras sha zan bod kyi gnas / nying sha nying gi za ba’i yul / zhes dang / mi la gdug pa che ba ni / phrom gyi mtha’ ras bod mi yin / bod la gdug pa che ba ni / nyang dwags kong po gsum yin te / de gsum las gdug pa che ba ni / kong po gdug pa’i mi rnams yin / zhes dang / ...

Comments: The general context is about the countries visited by Lord Shenrab (a long list was just given on p. 42, and Khrom Ge-sar is among them, although it would seem, to judge from the punctuating space, to be divided into two countries, Khrom and Ge-sar... it happens). The discussion is about who the nastiest people in the world might be. The word mtha’-ras is a problem for me, but I judge the meaning from context (the S.C. Das dictionary’s definition “piece-goods imported from border countries” just does not fit). 

Rough translation: The Sûtra says, ‘In the north is Ge-sar, the country of Phrom. At its borders is the place of the flesh-eating Tibetans. It is a country where they eat their own flesh themselves (or, where they eat flesh freshly killed on the same day?)’ and ‘The most despicable of humans are the Tibetans who live on the borders of Phrom. The most despicable of Tibetans are the three [regions] Nyang, Dwags and Kong-po. The most despicable of the three are the despicable people of Kong-po.’

{{The second sutra citation comes from the Gzer-mig (Tibet ed.), p. 491-2: mi las gdug pa che ba ni / phrom gyi mtha’ ras bod mi yin / bod las gdug pa che ba ni / myang dwags kong dang gsum po yin / de gsum la yang gdug pa ni / kong srin gdug pa’i mi rnams yin /}}

Note: The point of this all is that, in his quest to recover his seven stolen horses (yes, I know, the sun has seven horses), Lord Shenrab ends up in Kongpo, home of the worst of the worst. From his external perspective Tibet is truly a savage and forbidding place. (Gdug-pa doesn’t quite mean ‘despicable’ but oh well. Try inserting the translation ‘vicious’ instead.  It seems to have this meaning, also.)

Another note: See S.C. Das’ famous Tibetan dictionary, at p. 845: “Phrom n. of a country situated to the north-east of Yarkand and north of Tibet where Buddhism flourished in and before the 10th century A.D.; but thereafter it became desolate, though traces of its existence are occasionally discovered by travelers. This country in the 6th century A.D. is said to have been under the rule of king Gesar; acc. to Bon : byang phyogs ge sar phrom gyi yul in the north the country of Phrom of Gesar (G. Bon.).”

And while you have your Das dictionary out, have a look at the entry for Ge-sar on p. 224 which says, uniquely I think, that he was a powerful king ruling in Shensi in China.

I don’t see any need to swallow any of the speculative stuff served up here, but note at least that “G. Bon.” means the very same history Das published in 1900, and the very same passage I’ve supplied above.

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In general, to judge from these instances in Bon histories of roughly 10th to 15th centuries, we may say that Phrom is characterized in interesting ways. It’s in the northern quarter (from the perspective of western Tibet?). It’s associated with expertise in medical treatments. It’s associated with warfare (the passage in SKC I didn’t entirely translate, and notice, too, the teachings on enemy gods). It’s always used as a place name rather than a personal name (and the same could be true or nearly true of Ge-sar when it occurs alone) in these Bon sources.

Part of our problem is that the Tibetanists of today are so familiar with the epic hero Gesar that they may not be reading the early sources with their intended meanings. Those sources do not mean him at all, or so I contend.

It would be a mistake of a different order to take the ‘etymologist’ view and think that these Tibetan usages of From Gesar must mean, or ‘truly’ mean, Caesar of Rome. I think the writers of these histories had in mind someone (or some place) closer to home, their home.

But finally, to answer the question Were these Phrom people Turkic? The answer is: Yes, I think so; etymologically or properly it means Roman, ‘Byzantine’ or Greek ethnicity, I suppose...  But ethnonyms do quite often shift from one group of people to another. In order to make this argument in favor of their Turkish identity we have to turn away momentarily from the Bon histories and go to the Tibetan genre of ‘Bone Treasuries’ (Rus-mdzod), which means records of patrilineal descent groups (very likely based on nomadic oral histories recited on speech-making occasions...). Few of these have now become available in printed form. But the Ladakhi Yoseb Gergan (d. 1946, he was one of those Christian converts that were more rarely encountered than udumbara flowers) collected information from several of them in his history published by his son in 1976. Gergan’s history forms the main basis of Roberto Vitali’s recent study in Lungta [a publication of the Amnye Machen Institute, McLeod Ganj, India], vol. 16 (Spring 2003), a special issue entitled “Cosmogony and the Origins,” an article with the title “Tribes which Populated the Tibetan Plateau, as Treated in the Texts Collectively Called the Khungs chen po bzhi,” on pp. 37-63. 

If you look near the bottom of p. 55 in Vitali’s article, you will see that the Ge-sar descent group is made up of Gar-log, Phrom, Gru-gu and Hor. Gar-log means Qarluk Turks, Gru-gu (pronounced Drugu) means Turk of some kind or another, but probably located in or around the western side of the Tarim. Hor means Uighur Turks. Therefore, in this source at least it is clear as day that the people of Phrom are Turkic and counted  among the Ge-sar Turks.

(But look just above Ge-sar on that same page in Vitali, and you see the peoples listed among the Tazig: Tho-gar, Bru-zha, Ju-lig, Gur-khus, Sig-nis, I-ni, A-sog, Ku-tsa-lag, Lag-ring and Gar-ge. The first two are pretty clear, the [western] Tokharians and the Burusho. But who are the others? I haven’t a clue at the moment.  But it sure is fun to give it a shot, or at least to wonder.  Perhaps Gur-khus is Kyrgyz?)

I would like to be able to say, by now, since we will soon bring this blog entry to a close, that there is some simple ending to the story. I will just remind anyone who might have had doubts that what we're doing here is research. The meaning is found more in the path than in some goal that can’t really be known until you get there. Is there a broader pattern, that our Tibetan Caesar could fit into, or is this an anomaly?  a fluke?

The Byzantines, the original ‘Romanians,’ were more connected to Tibet than we have yet imagined.  Just as Roman coins have been found in hoards along the coasts of South India, Byzantine coins have been found in the regions to the north of Tibet, regions that at some times fell under Tibetan imperial power. Significant Greek or Greek-inspired Persian or Byzantine silver vessels were preserved in Central Tibet, including rhyton-type drinking vessels.  It will be argued, in a forthcoming paper, that a Byzantine physician,* likely from roughly the region of Trabizond, near the Black Sea coast of what is now eastern Turkey, came to be a court physician to the Tibetan emperor in the middle of the 8th century.  There are still more indications of Greek and Byzantine Roma connections.  

(*In the Tibetan form, his name appears as Tsan Ba-shi-la-ha.  This could rather closely transcribe the name of one Basileos, with the Tsan representing his clan name...)

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“One year later, in 739, Tegin shah abdicated the throne of Gandhara in favor of his son, Fu-lin-chi-p’o (also known as Fromo Kesaro, the Bactrian form of his name)...  The name implies an anti-Arab programme and propaganda at the time, which might be explained by Fromo Kesaro's having entered into manhood as an er at (meaning ‘man’s name’) in 719, the year in which a Byzantine delegation travelled through Tokharistan on their way to the Chinese emperor and informed the kingdoms of Central Asia of the great victory they had won over the Arabs the previous year.”

—  Harmatta and Litvinsky, p. 380 

This 'map' is based on textual descriptions of the geography of the world surrounding Tibet as found in the 15th-century Rgyal-rabs Bon-gyi 'Byung-gnas, although very similar maps* are known in quite a few Bon texts starting as early as the 11th century, and in certain non-Bon texts as well (I call this mappa mundi “The 18 Great Countries”).  You can see that Tazig (Stag-gzig) and Orgyan are located west of Tibet (here named by  the epithet ‘Having Glacial Mountain Ranges’).  Even further west, the country Phu-na is the same as Spu-na (in other versions), which is an understandable (but only in cursive manuscripts) misreading of Yu-na, which means the Yavanas, or Ionian Greeks.  Gesar and Hor — Uighurs, evidently — are in the north.  Tazig, Gesar, India and China were among the most important countries in the surroundings of Tibet.  Clearly, Tibet was not a part of any one of those foreign countries. These Tibetans located Tibet in the center of the world, like most peoples did. Like some still do.

(*For more on these maps, see Martin's article.)

Was there a conclusion hiding here somewhere? How did Gesar, originally the name Caesar awarded to or adopted by a Turk Shahi king in the region of Kabul who was able to hold out against the Arab invaders, come to be used in Tibet for both a country to Tibet's north and for their only real national epic hero? Should we end with a question? Haven't we gone some distance toward finding answers?

Has anyone ever heard of Digenes Akrites ?

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There is some follow-up discussion, if you’re interested, at Amritas.com.

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Have a look at some of these writings if you want to —

H.W. Bailey, Kusanica, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 14, no. 3 (1952), pp. 420-434. Available at JSTOR, if you can get to it...

Solomon George Fitzherbert, The Tibetan Gesar Epic as Oral Literature, contained in: Brandon Dotson, et al., eds., Contemporary Visions in Tibetan Studies, Serindia (Chicago 2009), pp. 171-196.  

J. Harmatta and B.A. Litvinsky, Tokharistan and Gandhara under Western Türk Rule (650-750), contained in: B.A. Litvinsky, Zhang Guang-Da, R. Shabani Samghabadi, eds., History of Civilizations of Central Asia, Volume III: The Crossroads of Civilizations A.D. 250 to 750, Motilal Banarsidass (Delhi 1999), pp. 367-401.  If you can't find the book, UNESCO has thoughtfully provided the world with a PDF of the entire volume on the www here.

Amy Heller, The Silver Jug of the Lhasa Jokhang.  Freely available online here. 

H. Humbach, Phrom Gesar and the Bactrian Rome, contained in: Peter Snoy, ed., Ethnologie und Geschichte. Festschrift für Karl Jettmar, Franz Steiner Verlag (Wiesbaden 1983), pp. 303-309.

H. Humbach, New Coins of Fromo Kesaro, contained in: Gilbert Pollet, ed., India and the Ancient World: History Trade and Culture Before A.D. 650, = Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta, vol. 25 (1987), pp. 81-85 plus plates.  

Samten Karmay, The Theoretical Basis of the Tibetan Epic, contained in: Samten G. Karmay, The Arrow and the Spindle: Studies in History, Myths, Rituals and Beliefs in Tibet, Mandala Book Point (Kathmandu 1998), vol. 1, pp. 472-487.  This was previously published as: The Theoretical Basis of the Tibetan Epic with Reference to a ‘Chronological Order’ of the Various Episodes in the Gesar Epic, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, vol. 65, no. 2 (1993), pp. 234-246.  

Lin Lianrong, History and the Tibetan Epic Gesar, Oral Tradition, vol. 16, no. 2 (2001), pp. 317-342. This article is especially significant for drawing attention to Chinese studies of Gesar done in the 1930’s and ’40’s. On p. 322:  “In addition, Han [Han Rulin, in 1988] criticizes the far-fetched claim that Ge sar was Caesar of Rome. However, his criticism did not reach Gesar researchers outside China, who continue to follow in their predecessors’ footsteps.”

D. Martin, Greek and Islamic Medicines’ Historical Contact with Tibet, forthcoming in: Anna Akasoy, Charles Burnett and Ronit Yoeli-Tlalim, eds., Islam and Tibet: Interactions along the Musk Routes, Ashgate (Farnham 2010).  Look here for a TOC.

D. Martin, Tibet at the Center: A Historical Study of Some Tibetan Geographical Conceptions Based on Two Types of Country-Lists Found in Bon Histories, contained in: Per Kværne, ed., Tibetan Studies, The Institute for Comparative Research in Human Culture (Oslo 1994), vol. 1, pp. 517-532.

Hugh Richardson, Names and Titles in Early Tibetan Records, contained in:  High Peaks, Pure Earth: Collected Writings on Tibetan History and Culture, Serindia (London 1998), pp. 12-24.

Geoffrey Samuel, Ge-sar of gLing: The Origins and Meanings of the East Tibetan Epic, contained as Chapter 8 in: Tantric Revisionings: New Understandings of Tibetan Buddhism and Indian Religion, Ashgate (Hants 2005), pp. 165-191. Someone has nicely put this up on the web in HTML here. I hope the link will work for you.  

R.A. Stein, Introduction to the Ge-sar Epic, The Tibet Journal, vol. 6, no. 1 (Spring 1981), pp. 3-13.  On p. 13:  “It is still unknown what really happened.  But it is sure that Ge-sar is a transcription of first the Greek, and later Turkish title kaisar (“king” or “emperor”) and that Khrom, or better Phrom represents Frûm, an Iranian form of the name Rûm that is Eastern Rome (Byzance) and Turkish Anatolia.”  

Uray Géza, Vom römischen Kaiser bis zum König Ge-sar von Gliṅ, contained in:  W. Heissig, ed., Fragen der Mongolischen Heldendichtung, Teil 3, Otto Harrassowitz (Wiesbaden 1985), pp. 530-548. Since this paper is precisely on the topic, I regret not having a copy available to me at the moment. Perhaps you have better library resources.

Lin Yin, Western Turks and Byzantine Gold Coins Found in China, Transoxiana, vol. 6 (July 2003), available on the internet here.  Solidus (pl. solidi).  Byzantine coins found in tomb excavations.  Coins were placed in the mouths of aristocratic corpses at burial, a practice known as obolus.

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There is actually quite a bit about Gesar the epic hero scattered about the internet.  I’d especially recommend this blogpage at Tibet Talk.

Someone named Khechok has in the past put up a lot of translations of Gesar material, with poetic verses that impress you with their super-masculine fortitude, honestly. First go here for an introduction, and then go to the blogsite itself. It’s called Echoes in Exile.

The late Robin Kornman — he went on to a purer land in 2007 — used to have a beautiful website devoted to Gesar Epic, with some samples of his carefully crafted translations, but it seems to have been taken down.  The archived version might still be available somehow.

There is a long Wiki entry on Gesar where I find too many reasons for feeling confused and dissatisfied, as is usually the case when there are too many cooks. That’s not to say that the soup of solitary cooks always turns out well.

(No guarantees these links are still working!)

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A passage from an introduction to a reading from the Gesar epic by Prof. Matthew Kapstein (Chicago and Paris), located at this webpage (I apologize that this link leads nowhere; I will try to fix it if I can):

“It is not clear whether, during the same early period, one of the heroes thus lauded was Fromo Kesaro, “Caesar of Rome.” This was the title of a Turkish ruler of what is now Afghanistan, whose reign began in about 738 and who was allied for a time with Tibet in its conflicts with other Inner Asian powers. Though later Tibetan history forgot all about this Turkish warlord who had adopted an ancient Mediterranean title (which was, of course, still in use in the contemporaneous Byzantine empire), the name nevertheless lived on in the person of Ling Gesar, who early sources sometimes refer to as “Phrom (or Khrom) Ge sar,” a close transcription of Fromo Kesaro.”

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I bounced some this blog and its Gesar materials off members of the Yahoo discussion group called Sogdian-L some time ago, and derived benefit from some of the ensuing discussions.

La verità non sta in un solo sogno, 

ma in molti sogni.  

—  Paolo Pasolini's 1974 version of One Thousand and One Nights.  

One dream doesn't tell the whole story.

The truth lies in many dreams.

The Tibetan Olympics of 1695. The Nine Men's Sporting Events

A famous 1900 photo of the Potala Palace, Lhasa, by the Kalmuck Buddhist Ovshe Norzunov.  The darker building in the center is the Red Palace, which contains among many other things the funerary chorten of the Great Fifth Dalai Lama. This is one of the very earliest photographs taken in Lhasa. (Double click on the picture for more detail.)

It’s an Olympic year, in case anyone has noticed. Please, I’m joking, of course you noticed. Even I noticed. Now let me say first, before the opening shot so to speak, I truly dislike talking about things about which I know very little. But as much as I dislike it, I suppose by scrupulously circumventing this problem I would end up saying hardly anything at all. One of those things (the things about which I know very little) is this: sports. 

Ugh! It’s not just that I never majored in kinesiology. Maybe it was that sadistic physical education teacher in high school. He would make us run in circles endlessly, and if we seemed to lag behind he’d slap our bare thighs with a long measuring stick as we passed by. He made us do leg lifts, lower our legs until just four inches from the ground, and then command us to hold that position despite the heightened sense of excruciating pain this exercise caused us. He would make us hold our arms straight out to the sides horizontal with the ground, making the shape of the cross, for as long as fifteen minutes at a time until we started to feel, well, crucified. 

I never saw very much point in all this pain-inducing asceticism — I never bought into the Charles Atlas cult — although I suppose I sometimes enjoyed playing actual competitive sports, particularly soccer, even softball and basketball from time to time. For a few years in college I got addicted to occasional long bouts of ping pong playing. My opponents, who were largely of Chinese origins, taught me both to serve and return the balls with a very nasty spin attached. I won as many times as I lost, which to me sounds good, but hardly made me Olympic material. Not very long ago I attended a talk in which someone tried their best to communicate the rules of cricket. I really had (and have) no idea. Rule-governed behavior? No thank you. We get enough of that.  Where’s the fun exactly?  

These days most of my exercise seems to take place on the computer keyboard, but when that gets old, as it tends to, I take a walk or jump on my stationary bike and spin for awhile. Sorry, I didn’t mean to go on about my high school phys.-ed. teacher, although obviously this still rankles some ulterior lobes of my psyché. I did have another purpose in mind besides grousing about a childhood that could have been a little more perfect.

Today is the day when His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama’s two envoys arrive in Beijing to hold talks with Chinese government officials. I write this blog today in honor of the occasion, as a small tribute to its huge possibilities. I’m betting on optimism and hoping, even if cautiously as every Tibetan in the globe certainly is today, that the outcome will be positive. Since I know this means a lot to a whole lot of people in the world, I’ll also make a wish for a successful Olympic Games in Beijing, something for everyone to take pride in, as unlikely as this may seem at the moment. And I’m not even holding out for any particular outcome for Tibet and his proud people except that it must be a good one. Independence would be great. He (yes, that's right, he, for Tibetans know their country as a Father Land, Pha-yul) was an independent nation in the past, which would fully justify an independent future as a part of the world’s community of nations. Or failing that, autonomy that would include some degree of reliance on Beijing for one or another reason. I think it’s not wise for either side to have any hard preconditions, since this — the level or the definition of Tibet’s future autonomy — is precisely the solution that has to be arrived at through the coming dialogue and negotiation. Talking is one of the Olympic sports. The main thing is to get the game started.  Don’t pre-determine the outcome. That would be unsportsman-like. Perhaps even unfair.

Did I say talking is one of the Olympic sports? I guess I did. I imagine you might be wondering why. Well, all in the Tibetan past was not darkness and dread as Beijing’s self-serving polemical version of Tibetan history, now enshrined in a brand new museum, would have its intended victims believe. Tibetans are not opposed to games. Just the contrary. Tibetans in centuries past not only managed to find love and have fun, they even played games. Besides children’s games — about them I will say not one more word today — there were more serious games for mature athletes. These are known in pre-modern Tibetan literature as pho rtsed sna dgu, which means, translating syllable-for-syllable, except in reverse order: ‘Nine Different Games [of/for] Men.’*

{*There is a second way of enumerating the nine sports, but I'll save that for another time.}

Here they are. They come in triads:

1. Talking.

2. Letters.

3. Calculating.

4. Archery.

5. Stone[lifting and carrying].

6. Jumping.

7. Foot racing.

8. Swimming.

9. Wrestling.

1-3) Of course the first trio doesn’t appear to contain any ‘sports’ at all. Seeing the renewed popularity of the spelling bee, I would expect to see it there, perhaps. No. 1, talking, is in Tibetan a word that might tend to mean oral/verbal skills of all kinds, but more particularly story telling and speech making. I'm thinking, since I’ve not found any explanation, that ‘letters’ means calligraphy, but I'm not sure.  It could include spelling, which is certainly challenging sometimes.  'Calculating' in your own head without technological assistance, a mental skill (the two earlier ones were in some sense verbal), is basically a lost art, although when I was a child we took a lot of pride in it.

4) With ‘archery’ we find a most popular art among the Tibetans (in neighboring Bhutan, it is even a kind of cultural madness). Here is a depiction of an archery competition from the Tibetan Olympics of 1695 (I haven't made myself absolutely confident of the exact date yet) as found in wall paintings inside the Potala (I apologize for the poor quality of the digital photo... They will improve, I promise). These Potala murals are meant to depict the celebrations that took place following the completion and consecration of the Red Palace and the Fifth Dalai Lama's tomb-chorten in 1694-95.  The murals themselves are believed to date to that same time more or less, although they have no doubt been retouched in later centuries:

In Tibet, as in other neighboring cultures, the arrow is practically synonymous with manhood, so much so that arrows may serve as stand-ins for the male member of the family in various rituals (where women are represented by spindles), although at times it symbolizes long life as well.

5) Stone lifting is of course identical to weight lifting, only without the nicely designed equipment. Generally this involves not only lifting the infernally heavy hernia-inducing object, but carrying it some distance as well. Even the Jesuit Father Desideri, although he had hardly much of anything to say about Tibetan sports when he told of his time in Tibet in the 2nd decade of the 18th century, did say something about the stones (it's interesting that he, too, mentions archery first): 

Their games are archery, or shooting at a target with a musket, at both they are exceedingly expert. At other times they play with heavy stones as we do in Europe with quoits.

About 200 years later, Waddell would summarily describe Tibetan sports and games like this (Lhasa & Its Mysteries, p. 422):

The chief amusements of the men are horse-racing, wrestling, putting the stone, archery, quoits, dominoes, and a game like droughts called ‘Pushing the Tiger’.

The written Tibetan inscription on the Potala mural of the stone lifters specifies that the competitors in the stone lifting event were ‘Khampas, Mongolians, Tibetans and others’ (the exact reading is this:  644 kham sog bod pa sogs rdo mgyogs 'gran par nang zan glang ru 'ba' lug rtser son pa /).  I think it rather resembles the highland Scottish Stone Carry.

6) Jumping.  Jumping in Tibetan usage mostly resembles the broad jump, but with special Tibetan characteristics.  Melvyn Goldstein long ago wrote the classic article on the subject.  In old days there were, in Sera and Drepung Monasteries just outside Lhasa, groups of monks within the category of Dobdob, who would meet periodically for sporting events. And the main events would seem to have been variations on the broad jump done after running to the top of a ramp and leaping off (sometimes throwing stones at targets could be part of it... See Goldstein's article for more).  The setup for the jumping contest was called the chongra (mchong-ra), the ‘jumping enclosure.’  The following is after Goldstein’s article:

Charles Bell took a very nice photograph of such an event held by monks at Gyantse, with the competitor suspended in mid-air for all eternity.  It has been published many times, not only in Bell's own book, but also in David MacDonald’s Twenty Years in Tibet.  Try looking here, where the photograph itself is curiously missing, although you do find a description of it.

7) Foot racing. This was and has remained one of the most popular spectator competitions in ancient and modern Olympic games. It's relatively straightforward in its rules. Get to the ending point faster than the others. Given the altitude of the Tibetan Plateau, I don’t suggest that any foreigners try competing in this event. Well, perhaps some Peruvians.  In my understanding the Tibetan bang refers to footraces only, but it could be that horse racing (rta-rgyug) is also included here.  It ought to be included somewhere, since there is so much horse racing, racing that involves all kinds of fancy riding tricks, all over the plateau during the late summer months.*

{*Perhaps the most formal and elaborate of the annual sporting events was one called "Gallop behind the Fort" (in Tibetan rdzong rgyab zhabs 'bel or rdzong rgyab zhar 'phen) held in Lhasa in winter, on the 26th day of the first month.  In the Doring biography, it is called the rdzong rgyab rtsal rgyug.  All the Lhasa officials would attend it in their finest robes.}

8) Swimming.  The swimming event in the 1695 Olympics took place in the Kyichu River.  It’s maybe interesting enough to try and translate a few of the labels on the Potala mural paintings:

Don't these swimmers remind you of the "swimmer's" in our last weblog?  Only these swimmers are enjoying themselves, not going to a watery grave.

488 Among the water sports were these:  sitting [on top of the water] in the Vajra Posture and...

489 ...diving [and]....

490  ...carrying banners into the middle of the current [evidently an underwater swimming competition to judge from the mural, with flags to indicate their locations].

You see the cross-legged figure in the Vajra Posture on your left.  Another figure is clearly walking on the water like Saint Peter on the Sea of Galilee.  The divers are on your right. It looks like one of them is getting a slight push.  The three things at the bottom are the banners mentioned in an inscription.

Here are the shorter Tibetan inscriptions in the painting:

488 chu rtsal gras / rdor dkyil dang /

489 gting 'dzul /

490 chu gzhung dar lcog 'khyer ba /

9) Wrestling.  I don’t know much about Tibetan wrestling. It certainly is not as famous to the world at large as Mongolian wrestling, and of course the Japanese wrestling style called Sumo are. Nowadays it would seem that the top Sumo wrestlers are ethnic Mongolians, like Asashoryu. It seems that Tibetan wrestling is primarily done with the arms while avoiding the use of the feet, just as classical Graeco-Roman wrestling did.  In any case, that’s how it appears in this piece of the Potala mural.

The inscription tells us that most of the wrestlers were Mongolians (643 sog po shas che ba'i sbar kha rgyab par drang ma byung ba /... notice how the word for 'wrestling' which ought to be sbe-ka, is here misspelled sbar-kha). The Tibetan word for wrestling probably is, as Berthold Laufer argued over a century ago in his famous article on Tibetan loanwords, borrowed from the Sanskrit word bheka, which means ‘frog’ (as it does in Hungarian, also, strangely enough). I'm still trying to find a good explanation for this. Is there something frog-like about wrestlers? You be the judge.

One last ‘sport’ I would just like to mention is rope sliding. Sometimes it’s classed with acrobatics, but I believe it actually belongs in the category of ‘extreme sports’ or the dare-devilry of earlier times. I think it’s probably much more dangerous than bungee jumping. Many foreign travelers to Lhasa witnessed it.  And there are wonderful old photographs which you should go and look at right now at this website. Waddell (Tibetan Buddhism, p. 505, n. 4) says:

The games include archery; putting the stone (and called Ling-sing ch'en gyal-po), in which the losers pay forfeits; acrobates, in the Lhâsa festivals these come usually from Shigatse (Tsang-jo-mo-Kha-rag), and slide down long ropes of yak-hair from the gilt umbrellas on the top of Potala to the foot of the edict pillars.

Another work by the same British imperialist scholar, describes it like this (Lhasa & Its Mysteries, pp. 397-8):

At the foot of the great staircase stands a tall monolith, a counterpart of the one outside (see photo, p. 336), but bearing no inscription. To this is fixed the lower end of the great rope for the "Flying Spirits" at the festival of the New Year, the upper end of the rope being tied to the topmost roof of the palace, over 500 feet above, and down this terribly dangerous incline slides an acrobate, carrying good luck for the incoming year admidst the huzzas of 50,000 people. The man who personates the flying spirit belongs to a class of professional acrobats. He rides a wooden saddle, and encases his body in thickly padded vestments to counter-act the friction of the rope. Taking his stand on the top of the palace, he throws a libation of wine and dough images of men and animals to the devils and then slides down the rope, sometimes sitting astride as on a horse's saddle, at other times flying with the saddle under his breast. Although he travels down with terrific speed, and the dangers of being killed or lacerated by the friction are great, he seldom suffers accident, the present performer having accomplished the feat for several consecutive years. Its object is to confer good fortune on the Grand Lama and his country, and the "Flying Spirit" appears to take the part of a good angel rather than a scape-goat, as he is fêted and does not flee into retirement.

(A footnote adds that the practice, as known in Garhwal, is described under the name "Barat" by Dr. Moorcroft.)

Spencer Chapman, who attended the event at the Tibetan New Year in 1937, described it like this (I’ve abbreviated considerably):

Then followed a ceremony that all Lhasa turned out to see. In the old days a yak-hair rope was stretched from the roof of the Potala to a stone edict pillar at the foot of the southern staircase, hundreds of feet below. Then several men, protected by leather saddles, slid down the rope at terrific speed. To provide these men was a form of taxation levied on certain villages. The men usually arrived at the bottom in a half-dead condition, and on one occasion a performer slipped beneath the rope in his descent and was nearly killed. So the Dalai Lama stopped this performance on the grounds of cruelty, and substituted another acrobatic feat, which I was lucky enough to witness and photograph from the flat roof of the "War Office" building overlooking the edict pillar.

Here a tall pole, say fifty feet high, and swathed in yak-hair cloth to prevent it splitting, was put up on the flat paved platform at the foot of the wide Potala staircase, and was held in position by yak-hair shrouds. Meanwhile crowds of people were settling themselves down to wait on the steps ...

All at once there is a hush, and a man looking — and probably feeling — singularly like a sacrifice, is swung astride a rope preparatory to being hauled to the top of the pole. While he is only just above the heads of the crowd he starts to chant, and drinks a cup of tea which is handed up to him. His head is bound with a white cloth. On the summit of the pole is a small platform on which there is just room to stand. Above this projects a short rod of iron. To begin with the man, chanting all the time, stands for a moment on the platform; but a strong wind makes this too precarious, and he is obviously not too confident. After all, the pole was only put up a few hours ago, and he cannot have had much opportunity for rehearsals. He takes his boots off and throws them down into the crowd. Several times he stands up with his arms outstretched, but only for a brief moment. Then, tying a bobbin-shaped piece of wood on to his stomach, he fits this over the top of the metal rod and, with arms and legs outstretched, starts to spin round and round. After he has repeated this several times he is allowed to return to terra firma, where he bows down three times towards the Potala, offering thanks that his ordeal is safely over. Many of the crowd throw coins into his hat as they disperse to their homes.

The Tibetan names for this acrobatic performance have been given as “Sliding Down a Rope Like a Bird” (bya mkhan thag shur), "Rope Sliding" (thag bzhur), “Rope Sliding from the Royal Fortress” (rgyal mkhar thag bzhur), and “Sky Dancing Rope Game” (gnam bro thag rtsed).

So now that I’ve gone on and on much longer than I intended to, I’d just like to end by saying that I believe it is now well enough established that the 1695 Tibetan Olympic Games were an international sporting event. This is explicitly stated in the label to one part of the mural, where it says that athletes from China, Mongolia and Tibet attended. Observe the different hats in the picture below and try to decide which is which if you can. I was going to say something about Tibetan “psychic sports,” about psychic heat, trance running and the like, but maybe some other time. Oh, and I also thought I would pick out a particular, and particularly Tibetan, sport for nomination to the Olympic board for future inclusion in the international gaming events, perhaps before the 2012 London games. There is time enough for that. And anyway, we ought to include a sport or two that originated in China.  The only Asian games that will be included in the Beijing Olympics are two, one from Korea and the other from Japan.  

We know that the Nine Men’s Sports were the basis for the 1695 Olympics.  Just look at the first words of this long inscription: pho rtsed sna dgu.

READ more & then some more then even more than that:

Tamim Ansary, What Makes a Sport 'Olympic'?  Available online here. Highly recommended. Charmingly written. Quite readable. Insightful. Gives good links. This article ought to demonstrate to anyone's satisfaction that the original Olympic sports were similar in number and content to the Tibetan Olympic sports. Much more so, of course, than the modern Olympics.

Gerald D. Berreman, Himalayan Rope Sliding and Village Hinduism: An Analysis, Southwestern Journal of Anthropology, vol. 17, no. 4 (Winter 1961), pp. 326-42. The performance of rope sliding was once widespread in Garhwal district in India bordering western Tibet. On p. 330 are references to English literature on the event that took place annually at the Potala Palace.

Chabpel Tseten Puntsog (Chab-spel Tshe-brtan-phun-tshogs), Bod mi rigs kyi srol rgyun lus rtsal pho rtsal sna dgu zhes pa'i skor cung zad gleng ba, Bod ljongs zhib 'jug, issue no. 59 (3rd issue of 1996), pp. 98-114, 164.

F. Spencer Chapman, Lhasa the Holy City, Readers Union (London 1940), pp. 313-314.

Ippolito Desideri, An Account of Tibet: The Travels of Ippolito Desideri of Pistoia S.J., 1712-1727, tr. & ed. by Filippo de Filippi, George Routledge & Sons (London 1932), p. 189.

Doring Tendzin Paljor (Rdo-ring Bstan-'dzin-dpal-'byor), b. 1760, Rdo ring pandi ta'i rnam thar, Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Chengdu 1987), in 2 volumes, at vol. 1, p. 182, makes reference to the Nine Men's Sports (pho rtsal sna dgu'i gras kyi mda' rdo mchongs gsum dang / bang rkyal sbo gsum sogs kyis rtsed 'jo'i go chod sbyong brdar dang...; note the mispelling sbo instead of sbe) and elsewhere in this biographical work there are plentiful mentions of horse races, archery contests and so on. This information ought to be included in a future study.

Melvyn Goldstein, A Study of the Ldab-ldob, Central Asiatic Journal, vol. 9, no. 2 (1964), pp. 125-141.  This has nicely been made available as a PDF at the author's own website.

Siegbert Hummel & Paul G. Brewster, Games of the Tibetans, FF Communications (Folklore Fellows Communications), vol. 77, no. 187 (1963).

Könchog Jigmé Wangpo (Dkon-mchog-'jigs-med-dbang-po, Chos kyi rnam grangs (=Mdo rgyud bstan bcos du ma nas 'byung ba'i chos kyi rnam grangs shes ldan yid kyi dga' ston), Mtsho sngon mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Xining 1992), p. 121. This is my main authority for the list of Nine Men's Sports: pho rtsed sna dgu ni / gtam yig rtsis gsum / mda' rdo mchong gsum / bang rkyal sbe gsum rnams so.

Kunga T. Dorji & Tashi Phuntsho, Archery: The Real Game is Played Elsewhere, reprint from Kuensel newspaper here.  And try this video about Bhutanese Da.

Berthold Laufer, Loan-Words in Tibetan, contained in:  Sino-Tibetan Studies, ed. by Hartmut Walravens, Aditya Prakashan (New Delhi 1987), vol. 2, pp. 483-552.  Sbe-ka appears at entry no. 33 on p. 534.  Malla is the usual Sanskrit word for 'wrestler.'

Lobzang Chödrag (Blo-bzang-chos-grags), De sngon se 'bras kyi grwa pa rdab rdob kyi gnas tshul dang de'i shed ngoms rtsal rtsed kyi skor, Gangs ljongs rig gnas, issue 6 (2nd issue of 1990), pp. 55-59.

Andrea Loseries-Leick, Körperkultur und Klosterleben, contained in: G. Bernhard, et al., eds, Traditionssport in Tibet, evidently a special issue of Spektrum der Sport-wissenschaften, vol. 8, no. 1 (1996), pp. 108-116. I've never seen this, but it seems interesting.

Andrea Loseries-Leick, Psychic Sports: A Living Tradition in Contemporary Tibet? contained in: Helmut Krasser, Michael T. Much, Ernst Steinkellner, Helmut Tauscher, eds., Tibetan Studies I & II: Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna 1997), vol. 2, pp. 583-593.

Alex C. McKay, The Other "Great Game": Politics & Sport in Tibet, 1904-1947, The International Journal of the History of Sport, vol. 11, no. 3 (1994), pp. 372-386.

Ferdinand Meyer, The Potala Palace of the Dalai Lamas in Lhasa, Orientations, vol. 18, no. 7 (July 1987), pp. 14-33.

Robert & Beatrice Miller, On Two Bhutanese New Year's Celebrations, American Anthropologist, n.s. vol. 58, no. 1 (February 1956), pp. 179-183.

Mingyur Je (Mi-'gyur-rje), Bod rigs kyi srol rgyun lus rtsal dang bod kyi gna' bo'i rtsed rtsal rta thog po lo'i skor cung zad gleng ba, Bod ljongs zhib 'jug, vol. 9 (2nd issue for the year 1984), pp. 13-26. On the history of Polo.

W. Müller, K. Pieringer, B. Stockinger, T. DeVaney, K. Gmoser, Traditional Tibetan Sports: A Field Documentation. A paper given at the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies at Schloss Seggau, Austria in (1995), abstract only.

Rosalind O'Handlon, Military Sports and the History of the Martial Body in India, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, vol. 50, no. 4 (2007), pp. 490-523.  Recommended if you are interested in the history of martial exercises, bodybuilding and sports, archery and wrestling included, in India during the last 4 or 5 centuries.  With two very interesting illustrations.

Katrin Pieringer, Bewegungskultur in Tibet: Vom Festcharakter zum sportlichen Ereignis, doctoral dissertation, University of Graz (1998).

Katrin Pieringer & Wolfram Müller, Traditionelle tibetische Bewegungskultur: Tibet auf dem Weg zu einer differenzierten Sportkultur? contained in: Helmut Krasser, Michael T. Much, Ernst Steinkellner, Helmut Tauscher, eds., Tibetan Studies I & II: Proceedings of the 7th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Graz 1995, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna 1997), vol. 2, pp. 769-784.

Christian Schicklgruber, Race, Win and Please the Gods: Horse-race and Yul-lha Worship in Dolpo, contained in: Anne-Marie Blondeau, ed., Tibetan Mountain Deities, Their Cults and Representations, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Vienna 1998), pp. 99-108.  Like the following article by Elke Studer, this one emphasizes the important link between the local deities (generally mountain deities) and the horse races that are regarded as an integral part of the offerings made to them.

Elke Studer, Ritual under Change: Mongolian Influences on Horse Races & Mountain Divinity Worship in Tibet, Inner Asia, vol. 4, no. 2 (2002), pp. 361-373.  This advances the interesting idea that Tibetan horse race events may have been influenced in the 17th and 18th centuries by Mongolians, with their own traditional set of three men's sports called Naadam.  That means wrestling, horse racing and archery.

Elke Studer, Wettreiten für die Götter. Ritual im Wandel: Religiöse, politische, historische und rezente Veränderungen des nordtibetischen Reiterfestes in Nagchu, Diplomarbeit, University of Vienna (Vienna 2002).

Tubten Puntsog (Thub-bstan-phun-tshogs), Bod kyi lo rgyus spyi don padma ra ga'i lde mig, Si khron mi rigs dpe skrun khang (Chengdu 1996), vol. 1 (stod cha), pp. 330-335. Although brief, this is as far as I know the best general survey of Tibetan sports and sporting events down through history. I haven't made much use of it, but list it here for your information only.

Hugh Richardson, Ceremonies of the Lhasa Year, Serindia (London 1993).

Tsepak Rigzin (Tshe-dpag-rig-'dzin), Tibetan-English Dictionary of Buddhist Terminology, p. 172. This dictionary translates the nine men's sports as 1. oratorship, 2. writing, 3. calculation, 4. archery, 5. weight lifting, 6. jumping, 7. running, 8. swimming, 9. stick-games. All these translations seem fine, with the exception of the 9th.

L. Austine Waddell, Lhasa and Its Mysteries, with a Record of the British Tibetan Expedition of 1903-1904, Dover (New York 1988), reprint of John Murray (London 1905).

L. Austine Waddell, Tibetan Buddhism with Its Mystic Cults, Symbolism and Mythology, Dover (New York 1972), reprint of W.H. Allen (London 1895).

Wang Yao, An Inquiry into Polo: Tibetan Contribution to the Athletic Sports, Tibetan Studies: Proceedings of the 5th Seminar of the International Association for Tibetan Studies, Narita 1989, Naritasan Shinshoji (Narita 1992), pp. 849-52.

- - -

See the webpage “Life on the Tibetan Plateau,” January 29, 2007, for a photo with description, Tibetan Horse Festival in Amdo.  Another fine photo here.  Or try this extremely brief video (watch very carefully).  This 4-minute video is very artistically done, and well worth seeing for the racing with yaks alone.  Here is a PRC site (you will find in this strong arguments for the impossibility of automated machine translations from Chinese... this absolutely requires direct human mental input, imho; anyway I apologize that the link has gone dead), with some very interesting pictures, including a photo of Tibetan-style tug-of-war, which is done by two opponents using a long loop of rope.  The two men loop the rope loop around the backs of their necks facing away from each other.  Then they let the two ropes go between their legs, go down on all fours, and use both feet and hands to push like crazy.  This makes it quite different from tug-of-war (which was once an Olympic sport) as normally understood in the rest of the world. Namkhai Norbu also describes this in his book (in Tibetan) about nomadic culture. He supplies a drawing, and calls it Gurten (sgur-'then, literally ‘pulling while hunched over’), although most dictionaries give the name just as Tagten (thag-'then, 'rope pulling'). Are you thinking what I’m thinking? Could this be the Tibetan Olympic sport the world has been waiting for?

POSTSCRIPT (08/08/08):

I would like to refer you to a fascinating story of how Beijing's propaganda efforts to make it appear as if traditional Tibetan horse races were being held in homage to the Beijing Olympics have, for the moment at least, fallen flat (a few days ago the words "Tibetan Olympics" popped up in the straight (non-blog) media for the first time, and Yes we do wonder where that came from!).  A recent blog entry from Agam's Gecko tells it well. Go there as soon as you can.  It won't take long to read.

Two giant pieced-fabric tangkas hanging in front of the Potala, as depicted in a mural inside the Potala.  The cloth image (göku, gos-sku) 0n your right with the red Amitabha was commissioned by the Regent Sanggyé Gyatso in 1683, soon after the actual death of the Fifth Dalai Lama, and displayed on the anniversary of his death on the 30th day of the 2nd lunar month of the Tibetan calendar.  It measures about 47 by 55 meters.  The two göku became worn and had to be replaced at least twice in Tibetan history.  Once in around 1787, and again in the early part of the 1940's, after the enthronement, in 1940, of His Holiness the XIVth Dalai Lama.

Since the nearly one-fifth million Tibetans living in exile were denied entry into the Beijing Olympics (the application of Team Tibet met with complete silence from the IOC), they are holding their own.  Look here.  (And here.)  This event will be held from the 15th through the 25th of May 2008 in Dharamsala, India, the headquarters of the Tibetan Government in Exile. I could be wrong, but I don’t believe its organizers have ever heard of the Nine Men’s Sporting Events, although I’m thinking somebody ought to tell them.