Okar Research: King Gesar...Phrom and Tazig (743 AD)

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

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ANCIENT KINGDOMS...."the Four Sons of Heaven, the rulers of the four great countries of the Asiatic world: China, India, Iran, Throm (Phrom) in the north with King Gesar." (Stein:1972, pg280)...

Gesar's traditional four enemies were China to the East, India to the South, Tag zig (Persia) to the west, and Hor to the North." (Norbu:1995, pg 225)

"The Four Sons of Heaven, the rulers of the four great countries of the Asiatic world: China, India, sTag-gzig (Iran/Persia), in the north with King Gesar." (Stein:1972, pg280)"

"When we asked (Trungpa) about what meaning Gesar had in terms of the Shambhala teachings, Rinpoche exclaimed: “Gesar is the vanguard of Shambhala.” (It should be noted that in other contexts, the Vidyadhara indicated that the Shambhala terma had originated with the Rigden kings, Shiwa Ökar, or Gesar of Ling.).....http://nalandatranslation.org/projects/articles/gesar-supplication/

Click on the map to enlarge.

"Tazig: appears to signify Persia. 13 days horseback ride from Ling, at a place called Memoyu Thang." (David-Neel: Gesar: 1981..pg 239)

"Until recently, the tale was forbidden reading in many Tibetan monasteries..... In some monasteries, however, rituals invoking Gesar as a major spiritual force are performed..... Given the central role the epic played over the centuries in Tibetan folk culture, Tibetan Buddhism has incorporated elements from it and interpreted them in religious terms. The Gelugpa school disapproved of the epic, while Kagyupa and Nyingmapa lamas generally favoured it, seeing it as an expression of the activity of Guru Rinpoche and as a vehicle for Buddhist teachings, especially of the Dzogch'en school."....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_King_Gesar

".....Gesar text by the Vidyadhara, entitled The Ocean of Play of Buddha Activity: A Daily Supplication to the Warrior Gesar, the Great Being Döndrup, King of Werma, Tamer of Enemies first came to our attention in the fall of 1994.....During our meeting with Namkha Drimed Rinpoche, we asked him to tell us more about how he met the Vidyadhara and came to request the Gesar text from him. Here is some of what he had to say: In July and August of 1958, I attended the Rinchen Terdzö empowerments that Trungpa Rinpoche was giving at Yak monastery in Tsawa Gang. That was the first time I met Trungpa Rinpoche. I already had a very personal connection with Gesar. I had received some Gesar terma teachings, but they were not complete. Realizing that Trungpa Rinpoche was a great master and also had a very special connection to Gesar, I asked him to write something for me. He immediately wrote down the Gesar supplication, The Ocean of the Play of Buddha Activity. After the text was copied, he sealed the original and presented it to me.......During the empowerments, we were occasionally able to talk about our drala, werma, and Gesar visions. Since I was young, I have been guided by visions of Gesar in various forms. Whenever I received prophecies, Gesar was in the form of a young boy dressed in white. I knew that this boy was an aspect of Gesar, but did not know his name. As soon as I mentioned this to Trungpa Rinpoche, he identified the boy as Akar Werma. Today, whenever I perform a Gesar arrow divination, I base it on the Akar Werma sadhana".... .http://nalandatranslation.org/projects/articles/gesar-supplication/

743 AD...."....the supremacy of the Umayyad caliph al-Mahdi and the true conquest of Kabul did not take place until the end of the ninth century. ......An important recent discovery has provided a surprising insight into the events of this epoch. On the coins of some Arab governors, a Bactrian text overstruck on the rim has been discovered...... The reading of the text is as follows: (ppofio Kijaapo fiayo xoaSr/o klSo /So xaz iicavo /opyo o<5o crao /3o oa/3ayo aro i /xo /Jo yaivSo ( Fromo Kesaro, the Majestic Sovereign [is] who defeated the Arabs and laid a tax [on them]. Thus they sent it.)...... These coins formed part of the tax paid by the Arabs to Fromo Kesaro and were over- struck with a legend telling of his victory over them. Obviously, this event occurred during the reign of Fromo Kesaro (739-746) and may have contributed to his transformation in later historical tradition 44 into the Tibetan national hero Phrom Ge-sar, whose figure still survives today in the folklore of the territory of ancient Gandhara."...... HistoryOfCivilizationsOfCentralAsia

Gesar of Ling is considered the world's last living epic. In primarily oral traditions, specific people (such as the bards of the ancient Celts) are charged with the duty of remembering and narrating the legend. There is no single version of King Gesar's deeds. The Gesar repertoire, known throughout the vast Himalayan region, contains material that could fill 37 volumes. And, like the Homeric epics, it existed in the oral tradition for generations before it was ever written down. Scholars seem to agree that the epic has Mongolian origins. Nowadays, there are a number of different versions, but interestingly the Ladakhi one (West Tibetan cultural area) and the Khampa (East Tibetan) are quite similar. One translation, Gessar Khan, a West Tibet version (first appeared in German in 1836) makes reference to Persian non-Buddhist deities. The "Foreward" also mentions the Kalmyk Little Gesser (Riga, 1804.)...The name, Gesar, is evocative of the Latin Caesar, from which we get the German Kaiser, and also the Russian word for "king," Tsar.) Noted mythologist Joseph Campbell (1968, 107) also had this impression, but pointed out that, although some think the Gesar material refers to "the glories that were Rome," there is also a commonality in the pre-Islamic Persian word for "sovereignty" which is sahr. ... (http://www.khandro.net/langnlit_Gesar.htm)

Some 40 Uyghur singers of long rhymed tales that extol heroes in the Turkic tradition—known as dastan in Uyghur and Persian, destansı in Turkish and dasitan (达斯坦) in Chinese—gathered recently in Hami (哈密) for an event that featured seminars and actual performances... “The Shepherd's Dream”: An Excerpt from Alai's “King Gesar” .....(http://www.bruce-humes.com/?p=7028)

HOR..."Hor gling denoted the region north of eastern Tibet in what is now Xinjiang Uighur."..."Hor and Phrom, (Turks and Tartars) north of Tibet. The land of Phrom Gesar of the North." (Stein: 1972..pg 41)..."Hor: where live the Uighurs. Near the Tarim River."...."Hor and Phrom, Turks and Tartars".(Stein: 1972..pg 41)...(80E) ...(See: Hermann: Historical Atlas of China)

"Bön : Dzogchen, Bön, Epic of King Gesar, Machig Labdrön, Zhangzhung, Lopön Tenzin Namdak, Lung, Prayer Flag, Tonpa Shenrab Miwoche, Shenlha Okar"....General Books, 2011 - 40 pages ISBN 10: 1155857992

One of the earliest written instances of the name Gesar, king of Phrom, appears in a ninth-century Tibetan manuscript, and the name also appears on a coin that may refer to the king of a Central Asian kingdom in the ninth or tenth century.

Some Gesar accounts speak of a Bactrian ruler Phrom-kesar, specifically in the Turkish dynasty in Gandhāra, which was ruled by a Turkish Phrom-kesar ("Caesar of Rome"), who was father-in-law of the king of Khotan, around the middle of the 8th.century CE.

In early Bön sources, Phrom-kesar is always a place name, and never refers, as it does later, to a ruler.

In some Tibetan versions of the epic, a king named Phrom Ge-sar or Khrom Ge-sar figures as one of the kings of the four directions – the name is attested in the 10th century CE and this Phrom/Khrom preserves an Iranian form (*frōm-hrōm) for Rūm/Rome. This eastern Iranian word lies behind the Middle Chinese word for (Eastern) Rome (拂菻:Fúlǐn), namely Byzantium (phrōm-from<*phywət-lyəm>).

"The Gesar legends vary according to the cultural tradition of the devotee. In the Bon tradition, Gesar is sent by Shenlha Okar. A Mongolian reference links Gesar and Shakyamuni. For some other Buddhists, he is an emissary of the Wisdom Kings of Shambhala, and for many Nyingmapas he is considered an emanation of Padmasambhava.
The name, Gesar, is evocative of the Latin Caesar, from which we get the German Kaiser, and also the Russian word for "king," Tsar.) Noted mythologist Joseph Campbell (1968, 107) also had this impression, but pointed out that, although some think the Gesar material refers to "the glories that were Rome," there is also a commonality in the pre-Islamic Persian word for "sovereignty" which is sahr (http://www.khandro.net/langnlit_Gesar.htm)

The origins of the Gesar/Geser epic are traced to the figure of the archetypical superhero of proto-Mongol and proto-Iranian cultures and the possible location and ethnic identity of the lost kingdom of Phrom are explored.

670 AD: Tibet invades and conquers Khotan (now known as one of the "four garrisons").
c.670-673: Khotan governed by Tibetan Mgar minister.

"The Gesar epic even seems to have played a small role in the struggle of a Tibetan speaking Muslim people in Pakistan. The Baltistan region, centered around Skardu, is home to some 300,000 people whose mother tongue is Balti, a language of the Tibetan-Ladakhi family. ”We are the only people in this region to have had our own script since the 6th century AD,” says Syed Abbas Kazmi of the Baltistan Cultural Foundation (BCF), ”but due to the ”narrow-mindedness of the mullah class our people were told to stop using Tibetan”. The result is that over the years, the linguistic and literary development of Balti has suffered. Urdu, the Persian/Arabic script of Pakistan was not suitable to writing of the Balti-Tibetan language according to Kazmi “…and hence our language became like a stray animal, our prose and poetry withered.” Kazmi, who is a scholar, has written a monograph on the Balti version of the old Tibetan Epic of King Gesar. He and his organization has, in spite of the harassment of officialdom and the mullahs, printed and distributed elementary Tibetan language textbooks and helped shopkeepers in Skardu put up signboards in Tibetan....http://uyghuramerican.org

"…….early 1920s. Thanks partly to Ungern-Sternberg, the hope of a Shambhalic Messiah grew more specific and even political. The Panchen Lama, at the great monastery of Shigatse, claimed that a predecessor had received a message from the King of the World, written on golden tablets. Expelled in 1923 through a dispute with the more powerful Dalai Lama, he traveled north in the direction of Mongolia, founding colleges allegedly in touch with Shambhala. Mongols began to speak of the War of Shambhala as getting close and to favor the identification of the promised Messiah as Gesar Khan, a hero of their own epic tradition who was destined to return like King Arthur. He would form an Asian alliance against the white races. Alexandra David-Neel, a student of Lamaism who translated the Gesar epic, saw a shrine with an image of the hero, before which a woman prayed for a son who could fight for him. She was assured several times that he was already in the world and would be manifested in fifteen years. According to her own account, the bard who dictated the epic to her gave her a flower that was a present from Gesar himself—a blue flower of a species that bloomed in July, though it was winter at the time. Another Western inquirer was the distinguished Russian artist and anthropologist Nicholas Roerich, remembered especially as Stravinsky’s collaborator in devising rituals for his ballet The Rite of Spring. Hearing of the ferment in Central Asia, Roerich led an expedition that set off in 1923 and assembled many reports and rumors. He respected some of these as predictive but hoped for a new dawn of enlightenment rather than an outbreak of militancy. As a Shambhalic Messiah he preferred the pacific Maitreya to the martial Gesar."

ANCIENT KINGDOMS...."the Four Sons of Heaven, the rulers of the four great countries of the Asiatic world: China, India, Iran, Throm in the north with King Gesar." (Stein:1972, pg280)...Gesar's traditional four enemies were China to the East, India to the South, Tag zig (Persia?) to the west, and Hor to the North." (Norbu:1995, pg 225)..."In Jambudvipa there were six great countries where the true doctrine was propagated: India, Tibet, China, Khotan, Shambhala, and Kailash." (H.H. Dudjom Rinpoche (1904-1987): History of the Nyingma Lineage)......"Three priests were sent for from Kha che, Bru sha, and Shang shung." (Bansal: 1994..pg 41)...."the translators were from Tazig, Zhang Zhung, Sumpa (Shang Shung term for Amdo), China, and Khrom." (Wangyal: 1993..pg 32).... "Kashgar, Khotan, Karashahr, and Kucha (the four garrisons) were defeated by the Arabs in 751 and the whole of inner Asia was lost." (Knobloch: 1972..pg 224)...Four earthly paradises: Basrah, Damascus, Fars, Valley of Samarkand" (LeStrange: 1966..pg 47)

"NINE primordial females (srid pa mo dgu): Ancestress Queen of the Sky, White Menmo of the Sky, Woman Who Does Not Talk, Female Tiger, She Who Develops and Strengthens, Sharp Flaming Point, She Who Rides a Deer, Queen of the Cha, White Goddess"..(Norbu: 1995..pg 166)..."The first of these sisters are known as the Nine females of the world....First of these is gnam-phyi-gung-rgyal. The second is gNam-sman-dkar-mo..(white sman mo of the sky)(The aunt of GESAR)...The third sister is Mi-mkhan ma-mo. She had 8 offspring who are the original progenitors of man. The 5th sister is Shed-za na-ma. She is the goddess of life. She had four offspring, pho-lha, ma-lha, zhang-lha, and sGra-lha. The 7th sister is phyva-tshe rgyal-mo (Queen of Wealth). She is the mother of the gods, of horses, the door, and the hearth." (Karmay: 1975..pg 193)...

GESAR...(etymology: Gesar, Shah, Caesar, Kaiser, Tsar, etc).....(Ancient Persian word for sovereignity is Sahr)(Campbell:1968..pg 107)..[Research note: Gesar seems to manifest in various traditions, for some as an emissary of the Rigden Kings of Shambhala, in the Buddhist tradition Gesar is an emanation of Padma Sambhava, while in the case of the Tibetan Bon tradition, Gesar is sent by Shen Lha Okar. There is a Mongolian reference to Gesar and Sakyamuni Burkhan. It seems to depend upon one's heart connection to a particular lineage.].....Phrom or Khrom is "probably Byzantium and the Anatolian peoples." (Lopez: 1995...pg 272)..."The country of Phrom, where King Ge-sar ruled over the Turks (ie: Eastern Turkestan)." (Hoffman:1979)..."Gesar was the King of Trhom (Phrom), the place name Rum for Byzantium or Anatolia, the ancient Rome of the Near East. Ling is an abbreviation of the term denoting the whole world, ('dzam-gling: Jambudvipa)." (Stein: 1972..pg 280)....Conquered most of western Central Asis in the 7th Century AD..."Phrom or Khrom. Probably Byzantium and the Anatolian peoples." (Norbu: 1995...pg 272)...

PHROM...."The country of Phrom, where King Ge-sar ruled over the Turks (ie: Eastern Turkestan)." (Hoffman:1979)..."Gesar was the King of Trhom (Phrom), the place name Rum for Byzantium or Anatolia, the ancient Rome of the Near East. Ling is an abbreviation of the term denoting the whole world, ('dzam-gling: Jambudvipa)." (Stein: 1972..pg 280)....Conquered most of western Central Asis in the 7th Century AD..."Phrom or Khrom. Probably Byzantium and the Anatolian peoples." (Norbu: 1995...pg 272)...

“In July and August of 1958, I attended the Rinchen Terdzö empowerments that Trungpa Rinpoche was giving at Yak monastery in Tsawa Gang. That was the first time I met Trungpa Rinpoche. I already had a very personal connection with Gesar. I had received some Gesar terma teachings, but they were not complete. Realizing that Trungpa Rinpoche was a great master and also had a very special connection to Gesar, I asked him to write something for me. He immediately wrote down the Gesar supplication, The Ocean of the Play of Buddha Activity. After the text was copied, he sealed the original and presented it to me. ......During the empowerments, we were occasionally able to talk about our Drala, Werma, and Gesar visions. Since I was young, I have been guided by visions of Gesar in various forms. Whenever I received prophecies, Gesar was in the form of a young boy dressed in white. I knew that this boy was an aspect of Gesar, but did not know his name. As soon as I mentioned this to Trungpa Rinpoche, he identified the boy as Akar Werma. Today, whenever I perform a Gesar arrow divination, I base it on the Akar Werma sadhana. "...(https://www.ripaladrang.org/index.php/teachings/written-teachings)

The earliest use of the term "Uyghur" (Weihu), during the Northern Wei( 北魏) Dynasty (386-534 C.E.), in China, refers to them as part of the Gaoche , a group of Turkic tribes, which were later called Tiele people (or possibly Turan). From 745 to 840 C.E. the Uyghur Empire stretched from the Caspian Sea to Manchuria; during this time they converted from Buddhism to Manichaeanism under the influence of Sogdian refugees. After the collapse of the Uyghur Empire in 840 C.E., Uyghur refugees resettled to the Tarim Basin, intermarrying with the local people and becoming the ethnic group designated as "Uyghur" today.

Uyghur from AD 745 to 840 was administered from the imperial capital Ordu-Baliq, one of the biggest ancient cities in Mongolia. During the imperial phase, the term Uyghur (Chinese: 维吾尔; pinyin: Wéiwú'ěr) denoted any citizen of the Uyghur Khaganate, as opposed to the Uyghur tribe. Large numbers of Sogdian refugees from Balkh and Samarkand came to Ordu-Baliq to escape the Islamic conquest of their homeland. They converted the Uyghur nobility from Buddhism to Manichaeism. Thus, the Uyghurs inherited the legacy of Sogdian Culture. Sogdians ran the civil administration of the empire

In 1716, Beijing published the first seven chapters of Biography of King Geser in Mongolian, printed using woodcarving blocks, which soon spread overseas to the great interest of scholars in Russia and Germany. A Russian scholar turned the Beijing edition into Russian in 1936, and made an analysis of the epic........In 1883, G.N. Potanin, a Russian scholar, found a hand-copied volume of the epic in Amdo, and quoted part of it in his treatises, thus beginning the history of the Tibetan epic being introduced to the outside world..........In 1900, A. H. Francke, a missionary, published his edition of King Gesar that contained originals jotted down from singings by folk balladeers. It was published in German and English.

Yang Enhua (1946- ).....Yang graduated from the Tibetan Language Department of the Central University of Nationalities in 1967. She went to work in Nagqu until 1980 when she was transferred to work for the Ethnic Minority Literature Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. She is now director of the institute, and researcher, Ph.D tutor and director of its Gesar Research Center......Yang visited the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau nine times ever since 1986. She did survey in areas where King Gesar is very popular, including Golog, Yushu, Qamdo, Nagqu and Garze. She talked to folk balladeers to create many works on the epic. Her fruits include:....She found 150 folk balladeers of the Tibetan, Mongolian and Tu ethnic groups....She located 289 volumes of hand-copied and woodblock printed editions of the epic in Tibet, Qinghai, Sichuan, Gansu and Yunnan....She recorded 5,000 tapes (5,000 hours) of singing by folk balladeers, including 998 tapes of singing by Zhaba (25.5 volumes), 1,989 tapes of singing by Sangzhub (41 volumes), 900 tapes of singing by Yumei (25 volumes), and 1,057 tapes of singing by Cewang Wangdui (10 volumes).....In 1995 her Folk Poems: Research Into Gesar Artists was published by the China Tibetology Press. The book contains a comprehensive analysis of close to 100 folk balladeers, plus biographies of some 20 of them.

Shakya (Sanskrit: Śākya, Devanagari: शाक्य, Pāli: Sākya) was an ancient janapada (kingdom) of Iron Age India. In Buddhist texts, the Śākyas are mentioned as a Kshatriya clan......Kshatriya, meaning warrior, is one of the four varnas (social orders) in Hinduism. Traditionally Kshatriya constitute the military and ruling elite of the Vedic-Hindu social system outlined by the Vedas and the Laws of Manu......Sanskrit akṣatra, ruling; one of the ruling order member of the Kṣhatriya caste is the derivation for Old Persian xšaθra ("realm, power"), xšaθrya ("royal"), and xšāyaθiya ("emperor") are related to it, as are the New Persian words šāh ("emperor") and šahr ("city", "realm")..... Thai: กษัตริย์ (kasat), "king" or "monarch," and similar-sounding Malay kesatria or satria, "knight" or "warrior", are also derived from it. The term may also denote aristocratic status.

Gesar's traditional four enemies were China to the East, India to the South, Tag zig (Persia?) to the west, and Hor to the North." (Norbu:1995, pg 225)..

KINGDOM of HOR......The kidnapping of 'Brug-mo. His first campaign as king is against Klu-btsan, the man-eating demon of the north. While away, his wife is kidnapped by Gur-dkar (literally: "white tent"), the King of Hor. On his return, Gesar undertakes a second compaign, and uses magic to infiltrate the king of Hor's palace, kills him and retrieves his wife......Geser's war against the three kings of Sharaigol (Hor)

two further campaigns. Gesar wages war against King Sa-dam of 'Jang (sometimes located in Yunnan), and king Shing khri of Mon (sometimes located in the southern Himalayan region).

TAGZIG......The 18 fortresses (rdzong chen bco brgyad). Gesar sets out to conquer the 18 great forts (Tib.: rdzong). They are listed differently according to singers and texts, but these battles nearly always include Tajik (Tib.: Stag-gzig)[54] and Khache Muslim adversaries.

CHINA....There are a number of stories not connected with the foregoing nine branches described above for example, a story in which Gesar shames Gume-Khan of China, or one in which he exterminates the Four Recklings of Evil, demonic beings whose nature is not quite clear.

".....versions of the Gesar epic has led some scholars to the view that the Buryat and Mongolian versions are not directly dependent on a Tibetan original. Setsenmunkh has argued, and the idea was shared by C. Damdinsuren and B. Vladimirtsev, that the written Mongolian versions stem from one source which has not survived...."...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_King_Gesar

Gesar and Turkic heroic poetry... Chadwick and Zhirmunsky consider that the main outlines of the cycle as we have it in Mongolia, Tibet and Ladakh show an outline that conforms to the pattern of heroic poetry among the Turkic peoples. (a) Like the Kirghiz hero Bolot, Gesar, as part of an initiation descends as a boy into the underworld. (b) The gateway to the underworld is through a rocky hole or cave on a mountain summit. (c) He is guided through the otherworld by a female tutelary spirit (Manene/grandmother) who rides an animal, like the Turkish shamaness kara Chach. (d) Like kara Chach, Gesar's tutelary spirit helps him against a host of monstrous foes in the underworld. (e) Like Bolot, Gesar returns in triumph to the world, bearing the food of immortality and the water of life.(f) Like the Altai shamans, Gesar is borne heavenward on the back of a bird to obtain herbs to heal his people. They conclude that the stories of the Gesar cycle were well known in eastern Turkestan before the fall of the Uyghur empire.....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_King_Gesar.

"Oghuz Khagan (Turkish: Oğuz Kağan) was a legendary and semi-mythological Khan of the Turks. Some Turkic cultures use this legend to describe their ethnic origins and the origin of the system of political clans used by Turkmen, Ottoman, and other Oghuz Turks. The various versions of the narrative preserved in many different manuscripts has been published in numerous languages as listed below in the references. The narrative is often entitled Oghuznama, or narrative of the Oghuz.....The legend of Oghuz Khan is one of a number of different origin narratives that circulated among the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. It was first recorded in the 13th century......According to legend, Oghuz was born in Central Asia as the son of Qara Khan, leader of the Turks. He starts talking as soon as he was born. He stops drinking his mother's milk after the first time and asks for kımız (an alcoholic beverage made with horse milk) and meat. After that, he grows up supernaturally fast and only in forty days he becomes a young adult. At the time of his birth, the lands of the Turks were preyed upon by a dragon named Kıyant. Oghuz arms himself and goes to kill the dragon. He sets a trap for the dragon by hanging a freshly killed deer to a tree, then kills the great dragon with his bronze lance and cuts off his head with his steel sword.......After Oghuz becomes the khan, he goes to steppes by himself to praise and pray to Tengri (Sky-God). While praying he sees a circle of light coming from the sky, there was a supernaturally beautiful girl in the light. Oghuz falls in love with the girl and marries her. He has three sons which he names Gün (Sun), Ay (Moon) and Yıldız (Star). Later, Oghuz goes hunting and sees another supernaturally beautiful girl inside a tree. He marries her and has three sons which he names Gök (Sky), Dağ (Mountain) and Deniz (Sea)......After his sons are born, Oghuz Khan gives a great toy (feast) and invites all of his beys (lords). At the feast, he gives this order to his lords:
"I am became your Khan;
Let's all take swords and shields;
Kut (divine power) will be our sign;
Grey wolf will be our uran (warcry);..."

Shah (/ˈʃɑː/; Persian: شاه‎, [ʃɒː], king) is a title given to the kings and lords of Iran and India. It was continuously used in Persia and Greater Iran. In India, it was used by Mughal rulers. The word derives from the Old Iranian, Avestan xšaΘra, "power" and "command", corresponding to Sanskrit (Ancient Indian) kshatriya, "warrior". The full, Old Persian title of the Achaemenid rulers of the First Persian Empire was XšāyaΘiya XšāyaΘiyānām, "King of Kings".....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shah

"Gayō Marətan (or Gayōmard or Gayōmart in later Zoroastrian texts) is the Avestan name of the mythological first Man in Old Iranian culture. The corresponding name in Middle Persian is Kayōmart > Modern Persian Keyumars ."......http://en.inforapid.org/index.php?search=Keyumars

Gar-shāh: Avesta: King of the Mountains
Qeysar (Persian: قیصر‎, "Caesar"), also written as Gheisar, Kaiser and Gheysar, Ghaysar,
Old English: cāsere
Czech: Císař
Russian: Czar
Arabic: Qaysar
Hebrew: Keisár
Persian: Ghaysar قيصر
German: Kaiser

Phrom Gesar & Bactria

"........"the Four Sons of Heaven, the rulers of the four great countries of the Asiatic world: China, India, Iran, Throm in the north with King Gesar." (Stein:1972, pg280...Stein Aurel M. 1929. On Alexander's Track to the Indus: Personal Narrative of Explorations on the North - west Frontier of India. London. Reprint: New York, Benjamin Blom, 1972.)...

Numismatic evidence[Vohra, 1996] and some accounts speak of a Bactrian ruler Phrom-kesar,[Samuel, Geoffrey, 2005] specifically in the Turkish dynasty in Gandhāra, which was ruled by a Turkish Phrom-kesar ("Caesar of Rome"),[Martin 2011] who was father-in-law of the king of Khotan, around the middle of the 8th century CE.[Maconi 2004][Vohra 1996]...In early Bön sources, Phrom-kesar is always a place name, and never refers, as it does later, to a ruler.[23]....https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_King_Gesar

Numismatic evidence....Vohra 1996, p. 217 writes that these coins with the title Fromo Kesaro appear to refer to the successor of Sahi Tegin (700-738 CE:Chinese:烏散特勤灑:MC:uo-sân d'ɘk-g'iɘn ṣai=*Horsān tegin šāhi 'Tegin, king of Khurasan'), ruler of the Second Turki Śāhi dynasty at Kapisa-Udyana, whose reign was between 738 and 745 C.E., and who is identified with the 'Frōm Kēsar' (拂菻罽婆: Fúlǐn jìpó:North Western Tang pfvyr-lḭum-kḭe-sâ) of the Tang shu. SeeHarmatta & Litvinsky 1999, pp. 376,380)....Vohra, Rohit (1996). "Early History of Ladakh: Mythic Lore % Fabulation: A preliminary note on the conjectural history of the 1st millennium A.D.". In Osmaston, Henry; Denwood, Philip. Recent research on Ladakh 4 & 5: proceedings of the fourth and fifth international colloquia on Ladakh. Dehli: Motilal Banarsidass. pp. 216–234. ISBN 978-81-208-1404-2. Retrieved 16 July 2011.

Bactrian ruler.....Samuel, Geoffrey (2005). Tantric revisionings: new understandings of Tibetan Buddhism and Indian religion. Dehli: Motilal Banarsidass Publ. ISBN 978-81-208-2752-3.

Caesar of Rome.....Martin 2011, p. 127:"He received this laudatory epithet because he, like the Byzantines, was successful at holding back the Muslim conquerors."....Martin, Dan (2011). "Greek and Islamic Medicines' Historical Contact with Tibet". In Akasoy, Anna; Burnett, Charles; Yoeli-Tlalim, Ronit. Islam and Tibet: Interactions Along the Musk Routes. Farnham, Surrey: Ashgate Publishing Ltd. pp. 117–144. ISBN 978-0-7546-6956-2. Retrieved 14 July 2011.

King of Khotan.....Vohra 1996, pp. 216–17 writes that Gesar is mentioned in a Khotan text, the Tibetan Li-yul-lun-bstan-pa, ("Prophecy of the Li Country") of the 9th-10th century, and Phrom long identified with a country northeast of Yarkand. Recent opinion identifies the land either with the Turkish Küūsen or the Kushan territories of Gandhāra and Udayana. Gesar may be either someone of Turkish stock or a non-Tibetan dynastic name. The Khotan king Vijaya Sangrama's consort Hu-rod-ga (Hu-rong-ga) was Phrom Gesar's daughter. The Padma-thang-yig records a Tibetan army subduing Gesar, something also mentioned in the Rygal-po'i-bka'i-than-yig ("Pronouncements concerning Kings")......Vohra, Rohit (1996). "Early History of Ladakh: Mythic Lore % Fabulation: A preliminary note on the conjectural history of the 1st millennium A.D.".

King of Khotan.....Maconi 2004.....Maconi, Lara. (2004). "Theatrical Gesar de Pékin? Le sort du Roi Gesar de Gling, héros épique tibétain, en Chinese (post-)maoïste". In Judith. Formes modernes de la poésie épique: nouvelles approches. Bruxelles: Peter Lang. pp. 371–419. ISBN 978-90-5201-196-7.

"...Coins and Tamgas connected with Gesar Certain emissions of coins bearing the title Fromo Kesaro have been identified with the successor of Sahi Tegin.."...Osmaston, Henry, and Philip Denwood, eds.1995. Recent Research on Ladakh 4 & 5. Proceedings of the Fourth and Fifth International Colloquia on Ladakh. Bristol 1989 & London 1992. London: SOAS Studies. ISBN 0 7286 0241 5. 429 pages. Available from the Publications Department, SOAS. Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, U.K.

Fromo Kesaro........"One year later, in 739, Tegin Shah abdicated the throne of Gandhara in favour of his son, Fu-lin-chi-p'o (also known as Fromo Kesaro, the Bactrian form of his name)......The Coins reads in Bactrian script: "The Glory Increased! The Majestic Sovereign!"...this victory occurred during the Reign of Fromo Kesaro (739-746 AD) and may have contributed to his transformation in later historical tradition into the Tibetan national hero Phrom Ge-sar, whose figure still survives today in the folklore of the territory of ancient Gandhara."......History of Civilizations of Central Asia: The crossroads of civilizations....edited by Ahmad Hasan Dan

Fromo Kesaro....." “Who is Gesar?” and “Where is Gesar?” or perhaps “Where is From Gesar (Phrom Ge-sar)?”.....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...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.....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......TIBETO-LOGIC MORE-OR-LESS MONTHLY MUSINGS ON MAINLY ANTIQUARIAN TOPICS OF TIBET-RELATED INTEREST......http://tibeto-logic.blogspot.com/2010/02/from-gesar-place-this-time.html

"... The territory was defined by natural boundaries: the Hindu Kush mountain range ... Beyond the foothills north of Gandhara was the ancient region of Udayana...The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art By Kurt A. Behrendt, 2007

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Email....okarresearch@gmail.com

John Hopkins.....Northern New Mexico….November 2012

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Okar Research

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Saturday, November 10, 2012

King Gesar...Phrom and Tazig (743 AD)

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