The Tibetan Gesar epic, considered “the world’s longest poem,” has been the object of countless retellings, translations, and academic studies in the two centuries since it was first introduced to European readers. In The Many Faces of Ling Gesar, its many aspects—historical, cultural, and literary—are surveyed for the first time in a single volume in English, addressed to both general readers and specialists. The original scholarship presented here, by international experts in Tibetan Studies, honours the contributions of Rolf A. Stein (1911-1999), whose studies of the Tibetan epic are the enduring standard in this field.
With a foreword by Jean-Noël Robert, Collège de France.
Contributors are: Anne-Marie Blondeau, Chopa Dondrup, Estelle Dryland, Solomon George FitzHerbert, Gregory Forgues, Frances Garrett, Frantz Grenet, Lama Jabb, Matthew W. King, Norbu Wangdan, Geoffrey Samuel, Siddiq Wahid, Wang Guoming, Yang Enhong.
Matthew T. Kapstein, Ph.D. (1987), Brown University, is Professor emeritus at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL Paris Research University, and Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies at the University of Chicago. He has published widely in the fields of Indian and Tibetan Studies; his works include The Tibetan Assimilation of Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2000).
Charles Ramble, D.Phil. (1985), University of Oxford, is Professor at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, PSL Paris Research University. His publications include numerous works on Tibetan and Himalayan religion and social history, including The Navel of the Demoness (Oxford University Press, 2007).
advanced students and enthusiasts interested in Tibetan Studies, Tibetan literature, epic and oral literatures, world literature.