King Gesar of Ling Stories

King Gesar of Ling Stories
Kagyu Samye Ling 1997,
translated by Pema Lama © Rokpa Trust, Scotland, UK
 
Akong Rinpoche asked Uncle Sherab to tell the story of Gesar of Ling because Uncle Sherab knows a lot of Gesar stories and also Rinpoche said a lot of people think the Gesar story is just some mythical, made up story, which it is not. If Uncle Sherab would tell the story he could tell the origins and everything properly, that would be very nice, he said.
 
So Uncle Sherab would like to begin with the origin of the Ling Gesar story, because many people hear the middle of the story or just the activities of Gesar, but not the origin, and it is quite important to get the origin. Then one sees why the stories are true.
 
At the time of Buddha Shakyamuni in India, Buddhism flourished and he gave 84,000 different teachings. It is said that when Dharma flourishes, then negative spirits also flourish. So there is this struggle between the Deities wishing all the goodness for sentient beings and the negative spirits working in opposition to that. All the Deities wish that sentient beings would not commit the ten negative actions (not to kill, lie etc.) and not to do the five things which accumulate immeasurable negativity, like killing one’s parents etc. So the Deities urge beings not to do things like that whereas the negative spirits work in the opposite way. This is the struggle between the Dharma and negative spirits.
 
Dön is a Tibetan word and I translate that as a negative spirit or devil. The negative spirits’ intention is always that beings commit the ten negative actions like killing and stealing or that they commit the five immeasurable actions like killing one’s parents. That is their work and because they have this intention they cause all sorts of obstacles and all the bad things happen to beings, whereas the Deities wish that beings would not commit these things and that they get liberated. That’s the difference. The negative spirits even though they might not work actively, because they have this intention and motivation, these things happen by themselves in their presence.
 
Buddha Shakyamuni took five hundred pure reincarnations and five hundred impure reincarnations to help other beings, and then achieved realisation at the end of it. Then he gave teachings to the beings and these döns or negative spirits got really worried thinking, “Now he is going to give all these teachings and all the beings are going to be liberated. And there are not going to be any beings left, everybody is going to be very positive.” So they worried and got together. There are many döns, but there are eight main ones; some of them live in this world and others live in other worlds. These eight main spirits got together, had a discussion and said, “We should do something to stop this.” They had lots of different plans and some of the döns took the form of Buddha’s servants or Buddha’s son or brother; just to cause obstacles they took different forms. There is one particular dön, whose name is Lhahjen, and he was very keen to do these things.
 
These döns did lots of negative things. If they took Buddha’s brother’s or son’s form, they tried to kill him; or maybe they took an animal form and tried to kill him. They had a nickname for Buddha: go-re, which just means “funny head”, someone who has no hair. They used to call Buddha that and cause all sorts of obstacles for him. There are lots of stories of how they caused different obstacles in Buddha’s various lives, although we are not going into all those details now.
 
The döns caused many obstacles but still in the end Buddha reached enlightenment. That’s when the eight big döns had a meeting and arrived at the conclusion, “We have to do something now, we have made all these obstacles and yet he reached enlightenment. Now he is going to give the teachings and it is going to be really harmful for us. They said, “Right, what do we have? We are all very powerful.” Some of them could produce fire from their mouths or others poison and scorpions, all really harmful things could come from their mouths. They made a bowl of poison and put all their power into it and they said that whoever even smelled this poison would not take Buddha’s teaching as truth.
 


The Buddha was teaching his disciples and the döns brought this bowl, but they were too frightened to go right across to them, so they were hanging back in the area with this bowl. Then Buddha talked about his nirvana and he said, “I will live till the age of 84, and then I will pass away. But if beings request me to live longer and give teachings, then I could do that.” He gave this teaching, but because the döns were there with the bowl, the beings did not hear the part about if they requested, he would live longer. No-one heard that part, they just heard that he was going to pass away at the age of 84.
 
So, at the age of 84, when Buddha was passing away, all beings gathered; not just human beings but nagas and gods, all the non-human beings, everybody was there. At that time, if anyone made a wishing prayer, it would come true, but because of the effect of the negative döns, nobody remembered to make any wishing prayer, except for the dön himself, Lhahjen, one of the main negative spirits. He made a prayer saying, “We haven’t been successful in wiping out your Dharma but I pray that I will do that at some point. And I hope, please that you die now.” That was his prayer. If somebody hadn’t prayed that Buddha wouldn’t have died then he would have lived and then died later but the dön made this prayer that Buddha would die soon and that he would be able to cause the destruction of the Dharma.
 
So, even though there were many people present when the Buddha was passing away, nobody knew that the negative Lhahjen was making those prayers, except for one small young god, whose name was Son of Lhatsampa. He saw the dön was making this prayer and very quickly he made another prayer saying, “May I destroy this dön .” There was a disciple of Buddha called Ösung, and he heard the prayer made by the young god and he made another prayer saying, “May I help this young god in his work destroying the negative spirit.” Another goddess called Kunga Lhamo heard the prayer of the dön (negative spirit) and the young god, and she also made this prayer: “May I help the young god in his work.”
 
Over time the Buddha’s Dharma flourished, and wherever it did so, the place was protected with a circle of fire or a lot of weapons or things like that. The döns or negative spirits could not enter these places at all. If they tried to enter there would be a rain of weapons on them.
 
The negative spirits could just go round and round outside, they could not enter the circle of fire and weapons. Over time, when the karma of the beings inside diminished, gradually the fire would not be so fierce, and then it became red in colour, which meant a smaller fire. Also the rain of weapons would not be as much. Even though these things diminished a bit, still the negative spirits could not enter. Towards the end this fence of fire and weapons completely disappeared, so that the döns could enter. They had many bowls of poison and they threw these bowls in all the directions and caused big winds.
 
The döns entered the place and they took miraculous forms of many different beings so that they were born as beings. In all the places where they threw the bowls some beautiful flowers with leaves would grow and the döns in the form of beings would say, “This is a very nice flower and if one eats this flower then it does a lot of good.” So they enticed people to try these flowers, and when people smelled it, it had lovely scent. Then they ate it. When they ate the flower, the effect of Dharma when they heard it was reduced, and things like that. In the stories we say these things are related to smoking and things. In the beginning they start with a flower, but now we see them in the form of cigarettes and different intoxicants and they all come from the wishes of the negative spirits.
 
These things are made from ingredients that have been blessed by döns, the negative spirits. When people take them the effect of Dharma is reduced for these people. Even if these people try to practice, it’s not so beneficial or else they are just not able to practice. Their practice doesn’t have any effect or benefit. Guru Rinpoche has also taught quite a lot on the subject of these different ingredients and the negative karma of cigarettes.
 
The main negative spirit called Lhahjen made different prayers and his prayers came true to such an extent that many dons appeared in the world. They took different forms, some became kings etc. with lots of powers. They could perform miracles and had clairvoyance. The main aim of döns is always to lead beings to the lower realms, whereas the Buddha’s aim is to help and liberate beings. Many of the döns that have appeared in the world in different forms caused lots of obstacles for Guru Rinpoche (Guru Padmasambhava) when he gave teachings. Out of the many döns that appeared there were four very powerful ones called the Great Döns. (They have long names.) They did a lot to destroy Dharma.
 
There was a kingdom in India near present-day Manali. The king had a princess and the king found a bridegroom for the princess who had nine heads and was a dön. When he came to marry the princess he had a great wish to destroy all of the Dharma, not to leave even a single letter remaining and never to see any being wearing red clothes or with their hair shaved. He had this great wish which he had been taught by his father.
 
He married the princess and they had three sons. They were called Michung, Tsachung and Achung. Achung was the youngest son. The father became ill and he called his three sons together and said, “I have always had a great wish to destroy the Dharma completely, but I haven’t managed to do it. So whoever among the three of you can manage that job, I will give my kingdom to that son.”
 
Michung was the oldest son and he said to his father: “I might not manage to destroy the whole Dharma in the whole world, but I could maybe manage to destroy some Dharma texts, so if that is enough, I can do that.” The second son said the same thing, that he didn’t think he would manage to destroy all Dharma, but he could destroy the Sangha. He said if he promised to manage to destroy all of Dharma he would break the promise so he didn’t want to make that promise. The youngest son called Achung said, “Oh yes, I can destroy the whole Dharma.” So he promised to do that; he promised that there would not be even the sound of a single Dharma word left and having made that promise the father enthroned him.
 
He was given a new name, Lütsen Gyalpo. Lü are the nagas and tsen are beings who live in the hills, not human beings but spirits. He was given a name as king of nagas and spirits. When he was born he had three heads: one in the middle and one on each of the shoulders. His body was the colour of ash and the body hair was like iron, metal hair. He really looked frightening and he had two horns and a very long tail. Even his parents who were dons thought he looked fearsome.
 
Lütsen Gyalpo decided that if he went out like that it would not be very good, so he took the form of a very handsome young man, so people would just see him as an ordinary handsome man. He had great powers as well, like if he shook his head a little bit his horns would shake the gods’ realms and if he moved his tail that would cause diseases and famines in the naga realms. He had that kind of power.
 
For the enthronement ceremony of Lütsen Gyalpo he did not like offerings of gold and silver but he liked offerings of dead horses. His parents were on top of a mountain of bodies of horses. Also he liked lots of blood, so the ministers took armies and went in all directions, killed many people and brought back these dead bodies and blood. So he had mountains of flesh and a sea of blood and all around the dead bodies of humans and horses. That was to please him for the enthronement ceremony.
 
Because the döns did that and had a sea of blood, this caused famine and many diseases in the naga realms. So the nagas who live in the oceans were dying by the thousands each day from diseases caused by Lütsen Gyalpo. The nagas had a Dharma king who got very worried. He went into a meditation state to see what was going on, why this was happening. In his meditation he saw that it was because of the enthronement ceremony of Lütsen Gyalpo and how he had killed all these beings and made a sea of blood. He looked further to see what could stop this and he realised that there was only one being – he was a god – who could stop Lütsen Gyalpo’s activities. It was the god called Lhadrung Thepaga, the young god, the same god [mentioned previously], he saw that only he could stop Lütsen Gyalpo.
 
The naga Dharma king went further in a meditation state to see what he could do and he saw that he should send someone to invite the young god. He saw that one of his ministers was the ideal person to be sent, because this minister happened to be the reincarnation of the Buddha’s disciple, who had prayed: “May I help the young god.” Only he could go and invite the young god. The naga Dharma king called his minister and said, “You have good karma and therefore I would like you to go and invite this young god, but you will have obstacles on your way.” He said, “You will have to go to the eastern part of India where there is a sandalwood tree with a special name. There is a bird which stays on that tree and the name of the bird is Bird Hashi.” This bird had teachings from Buddha and had the full realisation of emptiness. So the king urged his minister that he would need help from this bird.
 
The Bird Hashi was a reincarnation of the goddess, who also had made a prayer that she would help. The naga minister found the Bird Hashi. This bird had been staying in a meditation state on this tree since the Buddha passed away. The minister told the bird the story and the bird said: “Yes I understand it and I understand that this is because of our prayers that we made at the time of Buddha passing away. So I think we have to go and request the young god to stop the activities of this dön, because even just by killing all the beings just for his food, he is going the cause the world to have no people. Not only that, he is destroying the Dharma. “We have to go and ask Lhadrung Thepaga,” the bird said. So the minister rode on the bird and they flew to see the young god.
 
They started flying, but due to the negative karma of all beings the Hashi Bird found it very hard to carry the naga minister, even though it tried to fly it kept sort of coming down. Then the naga minister said, “I’m heavy, so that you are not able to carry me. But one of us has to go to the gods’ realm and find the young god, and request him to come and help. So, I suggest that you leave me and you should fly by yourself to the gods’ realm.” But the Hashi Bird disagreed and said, “No, I’m not leaving you, we should try.” So the minister sat on the bird and they kept trying but really they were not managing to fly very high. So the naga minister jumped off Hashi Bird.
 
When the minister fell on the ground all the eight auspicious signs appeared and the hills became shaped into beautiful shapes, things like that happened. The Hashi Bird carried on flying to the gods’ realm.
 
The Hashi Bird arrived at the gods’ realm and found a tree, a very special tree called Hasang tree. The bird sat on one of the branches of the tree and looked at the gods’ realm. And it saw that all the beings there were very beautiful, healthy and happy. It could see everything was in abundance; all the food etc. came off the trees and there was great prosperity and happiness. Nobody seemed to work, they were all dancing and singing and playing. The bird saw that everybody seemed very happy and he thought, “Gosh, I come from this world where people eat each other and there are stacks of corpses and blood and everything.” He thought “Maybe I shouldn’t open my mouth, because the way I speak would be too impure and cause bad things for these pure beings.”
 
At that time when the Bird Hashi was thinking these things there were a few young gods, boys and girls, who happened to come by the tree and see the Hashi Bird. They were very surprised to see it, because it was something they had never seen in the gods’ realm. They took a good look and went back and reported to their boss that they saw this incredible bird. They said they did not know whether it was a sign of good things or bad things.
 
The young gods reported this to the chief god and he said, “We should go and have a look.” So he took an entourage of his people and they all went to the tree and looked at the bird. Then the chief said, “Maybe this bird is not a good sign, because a few years ago we had a few bad omens.” For example the colour of the golden mountain had gone off a bit and the Sea of All Goodness had gone down. The chief said it might have had something to do with this bird, so he ordered the bird to be caught and put into a big metal container. The bird was put into the metal bowl which was sealed and thrown in a fire.
 
In fact the reason why they had these few bad omens was because the dön Lütsen shook his horns, but unfortunately the Hashi Bird got the blame. So the Hashi Bird was left in this fire for seven days. After seven days they said they should open this container and they thought: “There might not even be bones left.” But when they opened the container they were very surprised to see the Hashi Bird looked exactly the same, in fact it even had a few dewdrops on the feathers of its wings, and it really looked beautiful.
 
The god chief, whose name was Lha Tsampa Karpo, was very surprised to see nothing had happened, in fact the Hashi Bird had the dewdrops and there was a rainbow coming out of the tip of the wings. He immediately thought this bird must be a bodhisattva because nothing had happened to it after being in fire for seven days. So he asked “What are you? Are you a bodhisattva?” The Hashi Bird said, “I have come here for the benefit of all sentient beings.” The bird started to explain about dön Lütsen Gyalpo and how he was causing all this destruction and negativity in Tibet and in the world. Then he explained the prayers made by the prince of Lha Tsampa Karpo and said that “Only your chief, the prince, can destroy this dön because of his positive prayers at the time of Buddha, that’s why I have come to request for help from your son.”
 
The god chief completely believed in the story and realised the bad omens were from the dön. So he took the bird with him to see his son, who was in robes and doing meditation. The Hashi Bird and the father explained the story to the young prince. He just covered his head with his zen [robes] and said, “I’m not going to this place where people eat each other and there are seas of blood. I just want to stay here and meditate, but I will pray for these beings in my meditation.”
 
So the young god was not going. At that time Guru Rinpoche was on the Copper Coloured Mountain and he saw this happening. Immediately he appeared in the gods’ realm, in the presence of the young god, the Hashi Bird and the father. Guru Rinpoche actually physically appeared in the gods’ realm with all his magnificence and his entourage of dakinis. He said to the young god,”You have made this promise in the presence of Buddha Shakyamuni himself, so you must go this time.  You have no choice.”
 
When Guru Rinpoche said that to him the young god thought, well, this is Guru Rinpoche telling him. He went into a meditation state to see what his work was. Then he saw his field of activity which was in the world, and how he would help the beings and destroy the dön. He could see all that in his meditative state.
 
The young god said, “All right, this is an order from Guru Padmasambhava, so I must go, but I have some requirements.” He said he needed a set of armaments and clothes. He had arrows and bows and armaments. There were nine items in this set and he asked for that. Also he said that when he was reborn in the world he would like his mother to be a naga and his father to be nyen-person. Nyen is not an ordinary human being but a nyen-being. They have great physical power. And he said that he would like a brother who is very powerful and a minister who is a reincarnation of a god. And he said he would like a wife who would cause many legal suits, who is quite controversial. And he would like to be born in a country where his ancestors have great regard, so that everybody believes in his ancestors. And also he would like a relative who is again very controversial, a person who puts his nose in everybody’s business. In Tibetan there is an expression: when we roast barley we use a stick which has a small head, and you just stir it and stir it. So it’s like a person like that.
 
The young god said, “If you can meet all these requirements, then I will go.” Also it was decided that the eighty siddhas in India would become his eighty ministers. White Tara said that she would become the queen, later to become his wife Drumo. Another god called Drogyal Tamdrin said he would become an uncle who would mind everybody’s business. He would have a very special horse who can fly and understand human language and who can swim in ocean like a fish plus many other abilities. Buddha Amitabha would be reincarnated as this horse for him.
 
Chenrezig volunteered to become his brother, because he wanted a very special brother. Later this brother was called Gyaltsa Shalkar. And he had asked for a very wise uncle who would be regarded very highly by the people, so one of the siddhas volunteered to become the uncle. A high brahmin volunteered to become the young god’s father.
 
A group of protectors promised to become the set of nine armaments. All the armaments of Gesar are not made by human welding; they are also incarnations of these protectors. Because the protectors had incarnated as these armaments they spontaneously appeared from the sea.
 
Then the gods took these things and hid them in a huge rocky mountain. The young god promised that he would go to the world and destroy all the döns and even make all the döns offer khatas (scarves) to him. To enable the young god to go to this world many Buddhas blessed the world and its eight directions. Guru Rinpoche in particular blessed the young god by sending out rays of light from his body to the young god. When the rays entered his body his physical body disappeared and he became like a body of light.
 
That way all the preparation happened so the young god could take the form of Gesar of Ling, and he had all the support and blessing of the Buddhas. This afternoon we talk about Gesar’s birth. 
 
This morning we stopped at the place where all the gods decided the young prince was going to the world and destroy the döns. For the prince we also said that his father would be a nyen-person and his mother would be a naga-lady. Now they needed to get the naga mother for Gesar. For the naga mother they decided it would be the youngest princess of the naga king’s three daughters. She would only go through Guru Rinpoche, because the naga king wouldn’t give her to anybody else. We also said that the naga kingdom was having lot of deaths from the döns' influence. That continued and the naga king was getting very worried that if it didn’t stop his kingdom would be empty. So he got astrologers and people who do divinations together and asked them to see what they could do. They all did their divinations and came to the conclusion that to stop all this death of the nagas they would have to get the help of Guru Rinpoche, Guru Padmasambhava. And so they decided that they would invite Guru Rinpoche. The naga king sent a particular naga, Nele Tökar, to invite Guru Rinpoche.
 
Meanwhile Guru Rinpoche knew all this was going to happen. He has many Pure Lands and normally he stays in them. At this time, so that the naga Nele could come and see him he decided he would take form in a cave in India, so he was staying there. The naga Nele came to Guru Rinpoche riding an animal called a dzö, which has a long horn. Naga Nele told Guru Rinpoche that they had lots of problems in the naga world: that they had had famine, diseases and thousands of nagas had died and this was still going on. Their astrologers and teachers who did divinations decided that only Guru Rinpoche could help, so he asked if Guru Rinpoche would go to the naga world and help them to stop this death, famine and disease.
 
Guru Rinpoche said that was fine and he would visit the naga world, and that naga Nele should go ahead, and he would come on the tenth day. Naga Nele returned to his naga kingdom and saw the king. The king asked “What happened,” and the naga said Guru Rinpoche had given his word to him that he would come to the naga world. The king asked “What did Guru Rinpoche look like?” and the naga said: “He looks like a sort of older man”.  He wasn’t hundred percent sure whether that was Guru Rinpoche, but he certainly gave his word and he said that he could help.
 
The king said “Well, Guru Rinpoche is a very high being with lots of power. So, if he has given his word, then he will come.” So the king gave the order to make preparations for the 10th day. He said that Guru Rinpoche had miraculous powers, so he could just appear very quickly out of nowhere, so all the nagas should make many preparations.
 
On the 10th day the nagas made huge offerings and prayers. When they were doing this Guru Rinpoche appeared through a rainbow. They had prepared a big throne for him and a slightly lower throne for their king. Guru Rinpoche was invited to sit on this throne and the king made prostrations to Guru Rinpoche and requested that he help his kingdom, because the kingdom was suffering from so much death and disease.
 
Guru Rinpoche gave empowerments and did pujas there and the nagas who were too ill or disabled to come to the empowerments, Guru Rinpoche appeared in front of those nagas. So every naga who was not able to come to the place had one Guru Rinpoche in front of them giving empowerment with his bumpa (vase) and melong (small mirror). There were thousands of Guru Rinpoches all over the naga world giving empowerments.
 
The next day after the empowerment all the nagas were completely cured and healed. Not only were they cured but after the empowerment all the nagas felt extremely healthy and well and they looked radiant and beautiful and felt very good. So the naga king and all the public were very pleased and happy with Guru Rinpoche’s blessing, and they were amazed that he had given them the empowerment only the day before and already everybody felt so wonderful. They came together and agreed that they had great devotion to Guru Rinpoche and they should make an offering to him – a very special offering.
 
They gathered together a huge pile of precious jewels and offered it to Guru Rinpoche. The naga king explained some of the jewels – they all had special qualities, like one jewel could be used to make the rain come if there was no rain. If there were excess rain, if you prayed to this jewel the rain would stop. If you wanted wind there was another jewel.  So there were all these different jewels with many qualities. The king explained these qualities and made the offering.
 
The nagas were very pleased thinking “Now we have made a great offering to him and Guru Rinpoche is going to be very pleased with it.” But when they made the offering they could see that Guru Rinpoche’s face turned black, he was frowning and obviously was not happy with the offering. Guru Rinpoche made the appearance of not being happy at all. He looked at the offering and said: “Well, I have no use for these different coloured stones, and I have helped you, but this is all you can offer to me. He said, “I’m going now and I don’t know whether the disease will come back to you.”
 
When he did that, the nagas got very worried and thought: “Oh no, what is happening now?” The king said “We thought this is the best we could offer to you.  What else can we offer?  Please don’t leave.” Then Guru Rinpoche sat down again and started to think. They could see that he smiled a little bit. Then Guru Rinpoche said: “I hear you have three daughters. I would like to have one of them.”
 
When he said that all the nagas were quietly laughing inside thinking “He is a funny Lama, we have offered all these precious jewels and he doesn’t want them, he just wants a girl!” They were nudging each other and laughing at Guru Rinpoche.
 
So the naga king asked Guru Rinpoche which daughter he would like. Now the naga king was getting very worried because he had promised to give the first daughter to one kingdom and the second daughter was going to another kingdom. They were both prettier than the third daughter and he thought “Oh, now he is going to choose one of the two older ones, and I’m going to get into a trouble about this.” But anyway, he had no choice and he asked which daughter Guru Rinpoche would like. And Guru Rinpoche said, “Well I’ll take the third one even though she is not the prettiest!”
 
Again the nagas were laughing, “He doesn’t even know how to choose a girl! He has lots of choice but he has made the wrong choice here.” They were thinking that. So the king promised to give this daughter, and then Guru Rinpoche quietly spoke to this daughter and said, “Now you are going to the realm of human beings. There is no use taking precious jewels there, but you must ask your father to give you a special tent.” (Tibetans call it ba.) “Then the second thing you should ask for is a set of Prajnaparamita texts and the third thing you must ask for is a dri, which is a female yak. You need those three things to go to the human realm, but there is no need for precious jewels. And you must say that unless he gives you these you are not going to go.”
 
The king said to his daughter, “This is your karma, now you have to go to human world. I’m sorry that I have to give you away. Because we are all very grateful to Guru Rinpoche for all his help, I dare not fail to fulfil this promise, because he is quite fierce. So I have to give you away but I will give you anything you want from me, so that you can take it with you.
 
The daughter asked for the three things that Guru Rinpoche had advised her and the king was very surprised, because they were very precious to him. But then he decided that he really did not have much choice, his daughter would have to go to the human world and she could not live in the naga world. That was considered very unfortunate by the family. So he said yes, he would give these things to her.
 
Guru Rinpoche’s blessing for the daughter was a sword.  Her name was Tsedenma, the youngest daughter, and the father gave the three things to her. The ba or the tent is normally very big, but they made a miracle, so it became quite small and also the texts all were made small, so that it would be just enough load for one dri, a female yak. Guru Rinpoche made this miracle happen and the naga, Tsedenma, appeared on the surface of the ocean with her yak and the load of the tent and the texts.
 
When she came on the surface of the water the princess Tsedenma thought Guru Rinpoche must have asked her to go to this world to be his wife. So she thought maybe she would be following him or going with him to different places. When she arrived in to the human world Guru Rinpoche paused for a moment and thought about where would be the best place for her to go. He threw his hat in the air, and it fell on the tent of the chief of the Ngo-people whose name was Ralo Tenpa Gyaltsen. He was a nomad.
 
When the hat landed on the tent of Tenpa Gyaltsen, suddenly rainbows and huge sparks appeared. Incredible natural things happened and the chief Tenpa Gyaltsen immediately knew this was something very special. He came out of his tent (ba) and through the miracle of Guru Rinpoche, within moments Guru Rinpoche himself and the princess Tsedenma with the dri had arrived in the Ngo-country and they were walking towards the ba as Tenpa Gyaltsen watched.
 
Tenpa Gyaltsen had had premonitions and special dreams about a special being so as soon as he saw Guru Rinpoche and Tsedenma coming towards his tent, he knew this must be the being he had all these dreams about. He quickly prostrated to this Lama, offered a khata and said to the Lama: “Where have you come from, where are you going? Please do stay in my tent and I hope you can stay with me for a long time.” Guru Rinpoche said to Tenpa Gyaltsen, the chief, “My origin is the land of millions of Pure Lands, it’s all over the world and you can’t imagine it. But this morning I have come from the naga land. I can’t stay with you, but I can bless you, and I have come to ask something from you, which is to look after this girl and the dri. I am giving her to you for safe keeping but I am not giving her to you. I want you to look after her and keep her for me. And some day someone will come for her.”
 
The Ngo Tenpa Gyaltsen promised to Guru Rinpoche that he would look after the girl and he would wait for any further instructions and do exactly what Guru Rinpoche wished. He said that he would look after the princess very well.
 
Having said that, Guru Rinpoche disappeared in a moment and the princess was left behind. Even though she was a naga princess her name became Ngomo; Ngo is the name of the country and mo means female. There are many stories about Ngomo’s stay in the Ngo country, but Uncle Sherab will not go into that.
 
So now we are going to the Ling side of the story, in the country of Ling. There was a man called Ling Trotung, who was a powerful man, who belonged to a powerful tribe in the Ling country. He was the ruler of the place but he wasn’t a king as such. There was another man called Shipön, who was a small man, but highly regarded by all people of Ling, because he was a very honest man.
 
The third character was Shinglen. He was quite a relaxed man, he didn’t do very much and he was happy sitting back watching other people. These three men were all related and all lived in the kingdom of Ling.
 
Shinglen was the reincarnation of a brahmin, who had a complexion of gold. He had a wife, who was the daughter of the Chinese king, whose name was Lhakar Döne.  She was also called Gyasa, because gya means China and she had come from China. A son was born to this Chinese princess and he had a face like the moon and a very kind heart though he could also be very fierce. This beautiful son was called Gyatsa Shalkar. Gya again is Chinese and tsa is nephew or grandson and Shalkar just means “white face”, so the boy was given that name.
 
The Chinese king had three daughters and one of them became the wife of Shinglen. That was Gyasa Shalkar’s mother. Another daughter married a Jong king and she also gave birth to a son. The third daughter married another king called Hor and she also gave birth to a son there. So there were three sisters who married ruler of three different kingdoms.
 
These three sons born to the three different princesses, when they came to the age of 13 or 14, were invited back to China by their grandfather. The young boys stayed with the Chinese king, their grandfather, for few months, and at the end of their stay the grandfather gave them presents - one horse and one sword for each boy. The three swords that the grandfather gave to his grandsons were very special; they were ancient swords that the kingdom had kept in an auspicious box (jongam). The swords were very special and they had names. There are lots of descriptions about the qualities of the swords and their names but we are not going into the details, just that they were very special swords and the three grandsons each got one.
 
The three horses also were special. The horse which was given to Gyasa Shalkar had the name Gyasa Shokar. This horse could talk with human beings. Another horse called Mahya was given to the son of the Hor-king. The son of the Jong-king got a horse called Chögya. On top of that the king made many other offerings, just ordinary things, like silks and brocades. 
 
While Gyasa Shalkar was visiting his grandfather in China, the Ling kingdom had some dispute with its neighbour. Its neighbour was the Ngo-kingdom, where Ngomo was staying. So they had a dispute and then a fight broke out between the two kingdoms. In that fight the son of Shipön (remember he was revered by the people and they considered him a very honest man), was killed and so the fight became quite bad. In the end Ling conquered Ngo and took it over.
 
When Gyasa Shalkar returned, the Ling leaders decided that they wouldn’t tell him about this fight. Knowing Gyasa Shalkar, who could be very fierce to his enemies even though he had a very kind heart to his own people, they thought if they told the story, then Gyasa Shalkar might want to take revenge and fight again. That’s why they kept it a secret from him.
 
One day Gyasa Shalkar was hunting deer. While he was doing that he saw an old woman. She was very pleased to see him and said: “Oh, it’s so lovely to have you back, because when you weren’t here we had this major fight with the Ngo people and it was not good. The son of Shipön was killed in this fight,” and she told him all about it.
 
As soon as Gyasa Shalkar heard the story about the killing of son of Shipön, who was his cousin, it was like an arrow hitting his heart, and he felt very hurt about it. He gave his deer to this old lady and quickly marched to the fort of Shipön, his uncle. It was some distance away, but he marched there and said: “What is this I hear about my cousin having been killed and you having a fight with the Ngo-kingdom?” Shipön said “Okay, I will tell you all about it.” So he told him that they had this fight and that there was nothing that he needed to do because they had taken revenge and the Ngo kingdom had been completely subdued by Ling. “It’s unfortunate my son got killed but his life had come to an end and we have taken revenge for him. There is nothing you need to do about it.”
 
He said that the only thing remaining was that there was the small group with Tenpa Gyaltsen, who had about 500 families with him. “He is the only one we haven’t destroyed because when the fight happened somehow his group was hidden and we think it might have something to do with nagas and other spiritual powers that he was hidden and we couldn’t find him. So he is the only small group left and we should just forget about them. The revenge is taken care of and I don’t want you to do anything about it.” That is what Shipön said to Gyasa Shalkar.
 
But even though Shipön did his best to explain all this to Gyasa Shalkar, he could see that his anger was not going down at all and Gyasa Shalkar said: “No, that’s not enough, if there is one group left we have to destroy that as well.” He said “I don’t want to hear anything about Ngo in this world at all. The name Ngo should be destroyed.” He said “I want the army to be called immediately, and I’m going with them personally.”
 
So Uncle Shipön did his best but he was not successful. Gyasa Shalkar decided that he was going to take the army and go to Ngo. Then Uncle Shipön thought for a long time.  He knew Tenpa Gyaltsen’s Ngo-group had a naga princess. He knew that they had some special things from the naga world with the princess. He thought, “We didn’t succeed the last time because the nagas were protecting this group and they were hidden away so that we couldn’t find them at all.” So he knew that Tenpa Gyaltsen had the protection of the nagas and god realms. But at the same time he also thought that Gyasa Shalkar was very powerful, he had never lost any battle and Shipön thought, “Maybe he could win but this is going to be a difficult case.”
 
Anyway, the other uncle called Trotung, also knew about the war that was going to happen and he also knew about the princess that the Ngo had. So he thought, he would really like the princess and her naga things for himself. So he thought “It would be a good thing to tell the Ngo people that Ling is going to wage a war on them, so maybe they would give me the princess and her special naga things.” So he decided to send a message to Tenpa Gyaltsen.
 
Uncle Trotung (one of the main characters we began with: Shipön, Trotung and Shinglen) liked to do these things, he had a cunning character. He wrote the letter to Tenpa Gyaltsen and put it on an arrow. He fired the arrow, which landed on Tenpa Gyaltsen’s ba because Trotung had miraculous powers. In the letter he said, “Gyasa Shalkar has returned from China and everybody in Ling tried to persuade him not to wage war on you, but we have not managed. So, on this particular date he is coming with his army to destroy your group.” He said, “I’m helping you by telling you all this now, and for this I expect that you will give me whatever I want, which I will ask from you at the end of this war. I urge that you hide or do whatever you can to protect yourself.”
 
As soon as Tenpa Gyaltsen saw the letter he said, “We have to run.” Then they all packed their tents and the 500 families left that same night. But when they were packing, the things that the naga princess got from her farther had somehow become heavy, and whichever horse or mule they put them on, they just could not carry them; there was no animal that could carry all these things. In the end they used the dri which she had brought herself, and when they put the things on the dri, then she was quite happily able to carry them.
 
The princess rode a horse and all the group set off that night. They headed north and they travelled for about two days, but they were having great difficulty with the dri, because it refused to go northwards with the group, it kept wanting to turn back to their old Ngo-place. The dri turned back and went towards their old areas. Only the princess Ngomo saw that. Everybody kept going except for the dri which refused. When Ngomo saw that she called people to help and said “This dri is not going with us, please help me, he has to to go with us.” But everybody was in such hurry that nobody was able to help her.  She felt she could not go without the dri, because it was carrying all the gifts from her parents. She felt she was not willing to go without her parents’ things with her and so she ran and followed the dri.
 
She thought, “I have to catch the dri because it’s the only way it is going to turn and go with the group.” So she got off her horse and tried to catch the dri, but when she ran after it the dri would run. Then she got tired and slowed down, and the dri slowed down. This went on and on. Ngomo was getting nowhere and in the meantime Gyasa Shalkar’s army had arrived in the Ngo’s old place. When the army arrived they saw that there was nobody there, all they could see were old stoves and some birds hovering over the place.
 
So the Ling army found the place was deserted. Some of the people suggested they should go after them and find them by following their footprints. Others said, “No they have gone north to some place and we will never find them.” There was lot of commotion about what to do next. In the end they decided that Shinglen, the father of Gyasa Shalkar (you remember the relaxed man, who quite enjoyed looking on while other people did things, who would always sit back) he was very good in doing divinations (mo). They said, “Let’s do a mo with Shinglen and see what he says.” They decided to celebrate the victory and make a sang offering, a smoke puja, and they collected many kinds of auspicious herbs for that. They did a song and asked Shinglen to do a mo about what they should do next.
 
Shinglen did the mo and said, “The mo is extremely good. It says that we only have to take three steps and everything will be ours. There would be no need for bloodshed or arrows; just with the authentic presence of the Ling everything will be subdued.” 
 
Because Uncle Trotung knew that Tenpa Gyaltsen had run away, he said “What a rubbish mo, I can’t see how, just by taking few steps and without any horse race, arrows etc., we are going to subdue the Ngo and get all these things without doing anything. Anyway, whatever we get by just taking a few steps that should be given to you, Shinglen!”
 
So they did smoke offerings and said: “It was not long ago the Ngo set off,” and they saw a dri and a girl on foot walking after it. As soon as uncle Trotung saw the girl he said: “Oh, she is really pretty.” So he went ahead of everybody and sang a song to her saying “Oh, girl, where are you from, where are you going? Have you heard of Ngo Tenpa Gyaltsen?” He sang this wonderful song with all the questions.
 
Ngomo, having heard the song from Trotung thought: “There is no point in lying now, I am in front of a huge army.” Then she sang back saying, “I do know Ngo Tenpa Gyaltsen”, and then she explained that she was going to run away with Tenpa Gyaltsen and the group, but she had to return following this dri. She explained all about the dri carrying all the special gifts from her parents, and she was too attached and was not able to let go of this gift of her parents. Now this is her karma that she is landed in front of this army, and she explained she hoped that they would help her catch the dri.
 
Of course the Ling leadership knew about the princess and how she had the special gifts from her naga-father, and they were extremely pleased, they thought “Really the mo is true!” They hadn’t done anything and here was the precious thing walking towards them. It was happening right in front of their eyes.
 
Then Uncle Trotung said: “I saw the girl first and I sang to her first and this girl should belong to me now.” A great debate went on because Trotung was saying the girl belonged to him. They got together and decided that everybody saw the girl, so it wasn’t Trotung only. They all saw her coming and walking towards the army. Also, because Trotung had said in the beginning, that whatever came from doing nothing should be given to Shinglen, who had done the divination, the girl with her things should go to him. Then they decided that the precious Prajnaparamita text and the ba, the tent that Ngomo’s father had given to her, those two things would go to the Ling society in general and the girl would go to Shinglen.
 
So Ngomo was given to Shinglen. The dri would give milk to Ngomo only. If anybody else tried to milk it, they wouldn’t get anything, so because the dri was no use to anybody else, they said it could go with Ngomo and then the dri and Ngomo would be for Shinglen. So then they decided to return to Ling, and they had got Ngomo and they thought the main thing was the texts and the tent from the nagas.
 
If you remember, Shinglen was father of Gyasa Shalkar and Gyasa Shalkar’s mother was a Chinese princess. So he had a wife already and when Ngomo came, the Chinese princess was not happy about it. Gyaltsa Shalkar, Shinglen’s son also had a regard for Ngomo, because he thought that this was his first major battle, and he had won Ngomo in this battle. He had great regard for her. Anyway the mother was getting quite jealous of all this; her husband and son both having special feelings for Ngomo and she said “Ngomo will not stay in the household but she will stay in another tent.”
 
So Ngomo was placed in this other tent. Gyasa Shalkar quietly gave her lot of things: food and everything she needed, because he had this special feeling for her. So he would give all these things without telling his mother. Shinglen, the father, kept on looking after both his wives.
 
Ngomo had just one dri, but this dri was so special that it would give her milk anytime she needed, so there was always a sea of milk in the tent. According to the story this dri had eight udders.
 
In the gods’ realm the young god, who took the promise in front of the Buddha, saw that the auspicious time for him to go to the human realm had come. So he came to the human realm in the form of a golden dorje (vajra), which went into the naga princess Ngomo’s head.
 
When the golden vajra went into Ngomo’s head, at that time Shinglen and Ngomo were together. When Ngomo awakened from sleep she thought she had had a dream of sleeping with an incredible being, who had lots of armour and looked very magnificent. She thought she had dreamed that she was sleeping with this person. Ngomo told this dream to Shinglen. Then Shinglen said that he also had special dreams, so he deduced that they were going to have a very special son born to them. He said to Ngomo that he would like to have that kept secret at present.
 
When Ngomo became pregnant it wasn’t like an ordinary pregnancy. She didn’t have a huge belly. You could just see that she was pregnant but she wasn’t in any discomfort from it at all. The dream Ngomo had about sleeping with this other man was the second father of Gesar. He is also a reincarnation of another god and not a human being.
 
So, Ngomo was pregnant, and one day she felt very happy and really light, like a small piece of wool in the air, very buoyant. She was looking very beautiful as well and she didn’t look like human flesh at all, she just looked like glass, everything was so pure and radiant. At that time a huge white light came out of Ngomo’s head, and out of that light a being appeard with the head of Bird Tshung that was holding a flag. It said very poetically: “Mother, I am your first son. I am going to subdue the world.” It said many special things and then disappeared in the air.
 
When the child was in Ngomo’s stomach it sang a song asking what the situation was like. “Which world am I coming into and what do I have? Do I have any family?” It asked all these things and said: “If I don’t have all the right things I’m not going to come out.” It also asked how the baby should come out, thus the baby sang to the mother.
 
The song had said: “If the conditions are not right I will not come but will go somewhere else.” So, Ngomo sang back saying: “You having been in my body for nine months, it’s too late for you to look for another place now, it’s time for you to come. This is the name of the family and Ling is the country”, and she described all the different tribes in Ling.
 
She explained everything and said, “My son, if you are capable, in this world you can do everything, there are treasures and everything is there. If you are capable, then all the conditions are there for you.” As for coming out, she said she didn’t mind which door the baby came out from. It could come out from her crown or her belly-button or the normal route; she had no objection, whichever way it came. The baby came out the normal route and as soon as it came out, it was stood upright on its feet.
 
This very special son was born to Ngomo. He was able to talk even while he was still in his mother’s body. Also at that time the döns, the negative spirits, had all got together and taken the form of three black birds. These birds had powers to change themselves into a huge size; so big that their wings could cover the sun like a cloud, or they could become so small that they could hide in the footprint of a horse. You know, if there was some water collected in the footprint of a horse, the bird could become so small that it could hide in that water.
 
These three birds caused a lot of havoc. When Gesar was born, he knew that the birds had to be subdued; otherwise they would go on doing more harm. So through the power and blessing of all the Buddhas he called the three birds to this place. Young Gesar had just been born, he was not even a day old and still had no clothes, yet he called the birds and miraculously produced a bow and arrow. He shot once and killed all the three birds together. From then on the Tibetans told the story of how Gesar, not even a day old, subdued these three demon-birds. Having killed the birds the young Gesar decided to take a short rest. He sat on a rock mountain and left a print there. Even today one can see a print of a small child’s bottom on this rock. This rock is in his homeland in Tibet - the area Ringu Tulku comes from, called Zako.
 
Guru Rinpoche appeared in the sky and gave purification and empowerment to young Gesar, and also gave him long life pills. At that time many miraculous things happened; there was a rain of flowers and a lovely scent in the whole area. And so the second father of Gesar, the one that Ngomo had a dream about, who was not a human being, appeared and made an offering of clothes to young Gesar.
 
The naga people also made an offering. They made an offering of special food, that when Gesar ate it he would not be harmed by any poison. All the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the ten directions also appeared in the sky, in the place where the young Gesar was, and they gave their blessing to him in the form of a beautiful rain.
 
Gyasa Shalkar’s mother (the other wife of Shinglen), saw all these strange happenings in Ngomo’s tent and also she could hear lots of singing and dancing. She thought “I wonder what is going on,” and she decided to come down to have a look.
 
Ngomo saw that the other wife of Shinglen was coming and she also saw that her baby had thee eyes. It had one eye in the middle of the forehead. She thought “Ling people really like to talk, and they might say something about my baby having three eyes, they might think it’s a bad omen.” She got worried about that and very quickly wiped out this third eye, because she thought that nobody had three eyes in this world, and this might not be a good thing. So she wiped out the third eye, which was unfortunate, because that was the wisdom eye. One can see in pictures that Gesar had a mark in the middle of the forehead, which was the wisdom eye.
 
When Gyasa, the Chinese wife of Shinglen saw the baby, she saw it was a very beautiful baby, and even though it was just born it could talk, sit and stand, and so on. Gyasa thought “Oh dear, my son is the oldest son of Shinglen, and now this little boy is also the son of Shinglen.” She got worried that the smaller son would outshine his brother, and so she grabbed the baby and walked away from the tent. Ngomo tried to stop her but she just could not. The Chinese wife went straight to Gyasa Shalkar, her son and said, “This boy has been born to Ngomo, and it is a strange boy. I’m not sure whether this is a good omen or a bad omen, but it is certainly not an ordinary boy.” She said, “I have brought the baby to you to see.” 
 
She gave the boy to Gyasa Shalkar, and as soon as he saw it he said, “This is my brother, I know this is a special brother! He is from gods; he is not human like us. This is a very special brother!” And he cuddled him and stood him in front of him on the table and the little boy was able to stand just like that. He stood there beautifully. Gyasa Shalkar looked at him and gave him the name Gyuru, which means someone who is standing there staring. That’s what the baby was doing standing in front of him, so he said “I’m going to call my brother Gyuru,” and he was very happy with him. Until the age of thirteen he was not called Gesar, just Gyuru, and Gyasa Shalkar was very proud of his brother.
 
The young Gyuru’s real body was seen only by his mother, to everyone else he was an ordinary baby. Only when he was first born did his mother see that he was very special, that he had lights and special characteristics. But after that he just looked like an ordinary baby. That was because of his future activities, that it was necessary he didn’t look special. So, all the people in Ling saw him as just an ordinary baby.
 
It soon became known in the Ling country that Ngomo had given birth to a son and that he didn’t look special but he was able to stand and talk and was meant to be very clever and did some special things on his first few days after being born. That was the sort of talk going around in the Ling country.
 
Of course Uncle Trotung, heard this as well. Uncle Trotung belonged to a particular tribe in Ling. At that time Ling had three main tribes. They were called the large, middling and small tribes. Trotung belonged to the large tribe and they wielded a lot of power in Ling. Even though Trotung wasn’t a king as such he had a lot of power because of being the head of this largest tribe. When Gyasa Shalkar was born to the Chinese princess and Shinglen, his power was reduced a bit, because Gyasa Shalkar became very popular and he was a very special person being fierce, whenever it was needed to be fierce, and being very kind where kindness was deserved. So, Trotung was feeling a bit threatened already by Gyasa Shalkar, and now he was thinking about the birth of the second boy, Gyuru.
 
Trotung thought like this: “I lost half of my power with the birth of Gyasa Shalkar and now this young Gyuru is born. He is only about a day or two old and he is doing these things already.” He could see that with two brothers all his power would be taken away and he would just be an ordinary Ling man, and he really didn’t like that very much. So he thought “Well, the boy is small right now, so it’s best to tackle when the spark is small.”
 
Trotung, who was actually an uncle of Gyuru, decided: “I think I will poison him.” The next day he prepared a variety of foods with honey and lovely things, and added a particular poison, which would kill the person in two days. He took all these things and went to Ngomo, Gyuru’s mother, and said: “I have heard that you have given birth to a son. From what I hear he sounds very special, he is able to talk and walk already. This must be the good karma of Ling that this special boy was born to you. I am ashamed that there are no celebrations or parties for the birth of your son. Uncle Shipön (the other uncle) must be going senile that he is not doing anything for the birth of your son. But I have brought all these offerings for your son.” So he offered the food to Gyuru, who was very pleased with it and ate everything up.
 
Trotung was happy and thought “That’s it. With this poison even a grown up person would die in two days and he was just born yesterday. There is no chance for him.” He was quietly smiling there. After having eaten all the food Gyuru sort of paused for a minute and it looked like he was thinking and then he put his hands out and all this black liquid came dripping out from his nails. That was the poison coming out.
 
Immediately it came to Trotung’s mind that Gyuru’s mother was a naga lady, so he thought “That explains it, nagas are not affected by poison. Oh dear.”
 
“It doesn’t matter,” Trotung thought. He knew a great bön meditator, who lived in a high valley in another place. This bön meditator had great skills for cursing people and Trotung had used him in the past and it always worked. He was very powerful in cursing and he thought, “Right, I’ll go to Angye Gomparatsa (that was his name) and have Gyuru cursed.”
 
Then he said to Ngomo: “Definitely Uncle Shipön has gone senile that he hasn’t organised any pujas for the birth of your son, who is also my nephew. He needs long life blessings and pujas done for him. I know this great lama and I’m going to invite him to come and bless my nephew.”
 
So Trotung left Ngomo’s tent and went straight to the valley where Gomparatsa lived. Gomparatsa in the meanwhile had been having lots of bad omens; bad signs and bad dreams and everything. So he was very worried and he was busy doing pujas to counteract these bad signs that he had been experiencing.
 
Trotung arrived at Gomparatsa’s place, which was quite far away, and he prostrated three times to him. Then he said “The devil-woman Ngomo has given birth to a small devil child. He is meant to be quite powerful, and he can already walk and talk, though he was only born a few days ago. And he has said abras, (which is a small animal in Tibet, maybe a marmot?) thieves and monks are the three useless things that we can do without. Apparently he is very angry with monks, and he has also said there is someone called Gomparatsa, who is also a monk, and I’m going to kill him. Trotung claimed that the baby had said this, and he said that Gyasa Shalkar and himself and few of them had tried to stop him and explain that it wasn’t a good thing to do. “But I think Gyuru is not going to listen to our advice. I have just come to let you know that and I think it’s best that maybe you should curse him straight away, otherwise he definitely wants to kill you.”
 
Angye Gomparatsa thought, “That makes sense, because I have had all these bad omens and signs in the last few days.” But then he also thought, “Well, I know Trotung, he is a cunning man, and if I agree with him straight away, he is not likely to make any big offerings to me. I’ll just play a bit hard to get, so he said, “Gyuru is the son of Ngomo, and she is a naga lady. His father is Shinglen, who also belongs to a big family in Ling, and his brother is Gyasa Shalkar. Gyuru being a descendent of this clan, I don’t think I can curse him.”
 
So Trotung immediately prostrated again to Angye Gomparatsa and said, “Please don’t say that! You are the most powerful person, you can vanquish anyone in this world, and your powers for cursing are very effective. Gyuru was only born two days ago and he has nothing. If you do this then I will make an offering of a pouch which has been in our household in a jongam (a special box, where you only put most special things and every family has one in their shrine). He said, “I will take that pouch out of our jongam and make this offering to you”. Their household name was Tarong, so he said “I will bring the Tarong pouch for you.”
 
He said, “It’s really very important that we do this job properly, because if we don’t do this, then there will not be any harmony for yourself as a lama and myself as your sponsor”. So, Trotung said that he would invite Gomparatsa to Gyuru’s house, and then he could pretend to give a long life empowerment, but actually be giving curses and mantras, so that he only lives for a day.
 
Trotung said, “I will go ahead to Ngomo and ask her to make the preparations, and you can follow me later”. So Trotung came back to Ngomo and said, “I went to invite this Lama. He is a very good Lama and revered by all Ling people. His name is Ga Rabten Chöjong. On my way I met Gomparatsa (the curse-lama) and he asked me where I was going, so I explained. He said he had heard about the birth of Gyuru and he said that he was a friend of Gyasa Shalkar and his Chinese mother. Gyuru being Gyasa Shalkar’s brother he would really like to see him and make an offering and give empowerments to him. Even though he does not know Ngomo it will not matter because he knows Gyuru’s brother and family well”. Then Trotung said that he had agreed that Gomparatsa could come and do that and Trotung thought there was no need for him to go any further to get the other Lama. So he told Ngomo that Gomparatsa was coming.
 
He told Ngomo that she should make very good preparations for Gomparatsa and get him to bless Gyuru. Then he said, “I’m going home now.” Gyuru asked his mother to bring some pebbles of different colours and he said, “I need those pebbles for a purpose today.” So Gyuru put the pebbles in different pockets in his outfit and he sat and meditated and made a visualisation and prayers to all the gods, his ancestor gods and the nagas and all their powers. He was making prayers that all their powers could help him in fighting.
 
Gomparatsa set off from his cave carrying his cursed ingredients. On the way he stopped and made a sound: “Peh!” He did one “peh” and through that saw that Gyuru was doing meditation and visualisation and seeking the help of all the gods’ armies. With his one “peh” all the gods’ armies were vanquished.
 
When Ngomo was about to give birth to Gyuru, something came out from her crown: a white light, and a bird called Tshung appeared – this was one of his non-human brothers. In this army there was this non-human brother called Tshung, who had five hundred soldiers under him. Only he remained and the rest of the gods were vanquished. In fact, when Gyuru was born one brother and one sister were born at the same time, and they were both non-human. The sister was born from a different orifice and the brother was born from another one. He had a naga body. Gyuru’s brother and sister were born at the same time as he was born, and they were all non-humans, so they did not stay in this world but went away to their different worlds. This time he was getting help from his bird-brother.
 
The naga-brother had a snake head and his non-human sister was very pretty. She was wearing vulture feathers and she was extremely beautiful.
 
So, Gomparatsa set off again after his first “peh” and after some distance he did a second “peh.” When he did his second “peh” Gyuru’s second non-human army, a very big army of about a hundred thousand nyens, all of them except for few chief ones disappeared with the second “peh.”  Then he did a third “peh” after another short distance. In his third “peh” all the naga armies, tens of thousands, were mostly killed except for the few hundred, who were headed by Gyuru’s naga brother.
 
All these armies disappeared, but after a short time, through Gyuru continuing to do prayers, they were restored. Gomparatsa was getting quite close to Gyuru’s tent. As soon as Gyuru saw Gomparatsa, he took all his pebbles together and threw them at Gomparatsa. When Gyuru threw the pebbles, Gomparatsa had the impression that all the gods, nyens and naga-armies with their armoury and weapons were charging at him. That was his impression, and then he turned and ran away as fast as he could. He ran for a long distance and then he stopped and looked back. He put his hand to his forehead to get a better view to see where this army was. Even today there is this place in Zako called The Place Where you put your Hand up and Look Back. That’s where Gomparatsa stopped to see where the armies were. All these places are quite close to Ringu Tulku’s monastery in Tibet.
 
Then he ran straight to his cave and felt great grief. He thought “Whatever this Gyuru is, a negative spirit or devil, he is not going to be easy to vanquish.”
 
He had many tormas (offering cakes). Some tormas he had prayed over for one whole year and others for one month. There were other tormas which he had prayed over for a day. He thought, “I must get all these different tormas together and use them against Gyuru.” Then he started to do his prayers.
 
So he sat there and visualised, and called Gyuru in front of him in his visualisation. Gyuru appeared in front of Gomparatsa and said “Grandfather, you have been calling me day and night, and here I have come, what have you called me for?” Gomparatsa said: “Oh, yes, Gyuru, you with the negative karma. I have lots to give you.” Then he threw a one-day torma at Gyuru. Gyuru caught it in is two hands and said “Oh, thank you very much grandfather, mother and I could use this to make tukba (Tibetan soup) tonight!”
 
Gomparatsa thought, “This inauspicious being, I’m not managing with a one-day torma. I must use my one-month torma.” So he threw his one-month torma at Gyuru. Again Gyuru caught the torma in his two hands and said, “Oh, grandfather, thank you very much. This is even bigger than the first one. This can last us for few days for making tukba.” Then Gyuru said, “Grandfather, you are wonderful. You do well, you sit in a cave and do meditation and prayers, but I don’t see a door for your cave. I think I should make a door for you.” So Gyuru got hold of a big boulder and closed the cave door. When he did that it was like putting a cap over a jar; the cave was completely sealed.
 
Gomparatsa thought, “This devil has closed my cave door, but it doesn’t matter, I still have the one-year torma.” So he made fresh prayers to his bön-gods and other gods and then he threw his one-year torma. When he threw this one-year torma, because the cave door was closed, the torma just exploded in his cave and made an incredible thunder sound, a dragon-sound and there was lightning and fire. He was completely blown up with no remains left at all. When that happened Gyuru sat down and meditated and transferred Gomparatsa’s consciousness to the Pure Lands.
 
When Gomparatsa was defeated, Gyuru transformed himself into Gomparatsa and carried the skin of baby-Gyuru on his shoulder and appeared in front of Trotung. He appeared at Trotung’s door and Trotung was very pleased to see him and asked: “Have you managed?” “Yes I have managed,” he said. “It was very hard work, because Gyuru is only half-human. The other half seems to be some spirit, he is not fully human. Anyway I have listened for you, Trotung and skinned Gyuru alive and brought the skin for you to see.”
 
Trotung took a very good look at the skin and he was convinced that was Gyuru’s skin, so he invited Gomparatsa into his house and made offerings of food, tea and other drinks. (Of course we know that this is not Gomparatsa but Gyuru in disguise.) While receiving the offerings Gomparatsa pretended to look sad and Trotung asked what had happened. Gomparatsa said, “Well, I have said to you that Gyuru is not really fully human, he is the grandson of the naga king and Gyasa Shalkar’s brother. When I killed him I got the feeling that he might actually be a positive being, because when I cut his throat there was no blood but only milk came out. I’m just not really happy having killed this being who might have been a god being.”
 
But Trotung said, “Oh, you have killed him, that’s good! It’s better you did that, because now we can both live in harmony and as I promised to you, I’m going to make the offering of the Tarong pouch to you.” Gyuru-Gomparatsa said, “Really, the pouch is not enough, I have killed Gyuru and I need something more. I heard that you have a very special stick, (the name of the stick is jongkar pega, pega means a stick). I would like that stick,” he said. The jongkar pega was a special stick belonging to the Tarong family and was used as a basis for doing pujas to the Tamdrin Deity. It was a sandalwood stick and was known to move by itself. It normally sat on the Tarong shrine. Gyuru needed that stick for himself, because with that stick he could pretend to be a mad person.
 
Trotung thought, “This stick has been in our household for generations and normally nobody even dares to touch it, because it was a kind of temperamental stick.” He thought, “How can I take it and give it to him? This is the basis for Tamdrin Deity’s prayers.” So he said to Gomparatsa, “This stick is really nothing much, it’s just an ordinary stick. I would take the pouch. With this pouch you can get food when there is no food and whatever you need. Just put your hand in the pouch and it will be there. When you need money there is money, when you need food, there is food,” and he said, “The stick is quite temperamental. We don’t even touch it, and if I took it down, this might cause problems for both of us.”
 
Gomparatsa pretended to be really angry and said, “Oh well, okay. You can’t even let go of a stick and I have killed Gyuru for you.” He said, “I don’t want your stick, I don’t want your pouch, I’m going now, I will talk to Gyasa Shalkar, Gyuru’s brother and to Shipön, his uncle and everybody and tell them what you asked me to do and what I have done!”
 
So, Gomparatsa got ready to go and stood up. Trotung said, “Please don’t do that.” He quickly did nine prostrations and said, “You know, between student and teacher one must not get angry about small things like that. Of course I will make the offering; I will offer both these things to you.” Trotung offered the stick and the pouch and the pretend-Gomparatsa took them and then Trotung walked Gomparatsa to the door to see him off. When they got to the door and Gomparatsa started walking, Trotung took another look at Gyuru’s skin and thought, “Oh yes, he is dead!”  Then when he took a closer look he saw the eyes and the mouth seemed to move a bit. He thought, “I must have been imagining it.” But then he thought, “Well, Gyuru is known to be slightly non-human and funny, so maybe it was just a small thing, and maybe he is not completely dead. But ah, there is no chance!” He thought that to himself and stood at the door. After a few minutes he looked again and he saw that Gomparatsa had disappeared.
 
He went back to his room and thought, “Hmm, Gomparatsa seemed a bit funny today. He seemed more confident and unlike his normal self. Then he thought, “I did lie about Gyuru to Gomparatsa, maybe he got an inkling of that and was slightly angry with me.” All these thoughts were going through his mind.
 
But nothing happened that day and Trotung settled quite happily.
 
Gyuru returned to his mother, Ngomo.  She asked “Where have you been today?” He replied, “Well, I went to visit Gomparatsa and I destroyed him!” Ngomo immediately got very worried and said, “Gyuru, you know, Gomparatsa is not someone to play around with. He has many cursing powers and we should just stay away from people like him. I don’t really like you having anything to do with him.” Gyuru said, “But I have destroyed him and I have transferred his soul to the Pure Land!”
 
Then Guru Rinpoche appeared in the sky and gave a warning to Gyuru. He said: “You have done well by killing Gomparatsa today, but a dön, a negative spirit has entered into Trotung, your uncle. He is making a very bad, cunning plan so that the white Ling will be split and many lives will be lost. Something must be done about it.” He said, “Gyuru, I want you to go to Gomparatsa’s cave, which you have closed, and make a small hole in the cave, so that you can go inside.”
 
The next day Gyuru set off for the valley where Gomparatsa’s cave was, and he made a small hole in it. Then he transformed himself into a hawk and perched on the hill opposite the cave.
 
Meanwhile Trotung was thinking hard and not sleeping very well pondering about this. “Gyuru should be dead by now, but I haven’t heard anything about his death. I wonder what happened.” He thought that Gomparatsa was very powerful and he couldn’t see how Gyuru could have escaped him, but at the same time it was worrying him that he hadn’t heard about Gyuru’s death. Again he couldn’t get rid of the idea that Gomparatsa had seemed different and he thought, “I wonder what… maybe Gyuru was meant to be powerful,” and he had an uneasy feeling about it. He thought “Maybe I will just go and check.” All this time the main worry was that he would lose his power in Ling. So the next day he set off to the valley where Gomparatsa’s cave was.
 
When he came fairly close to the bottom of the valley he could see Gomparatsa’s cave. He saw smoke coming out of the cave. When he saw the smoke he sighed with relief and thought, “Yes, Gomparatsa is busy making his tea. He is fine.” When he came close to the cave, he saw the cave was closed with the boulder. He was surprised and couldn’t understand what that was. And he also saw that there was a small hole, so he decided to peep in this hole and when he peeped he saw Gomparatsa was dead upside down in the cave and his Tarong family pouch and stick that he had offered were hanging on the wall of the cave behind Gomparatsa.
 
The hole was quite small, so only your hand could go in it, and he couldn’t reach his pouch and stick. But Trotung also had powers; he knew mantras and could do miraculous things. So he did all his mantras and transformed his body into a very small child’s body. As a small baby he entered the cave. As soon as he got into the cave there was no dead body or a stick or the pouch and in fact he all could see was destruction, smoke and fire.
 
He thought, “All right, I have changed my body into a very small child’s body” and he thought, “Maybe the small child’s senses are a bit funny and not seeing the things right, I will just do another mantra and change my head into my own head.” So he did his mantras and put his own head on the baby’s body. He looked with the big head and saw the same thing. Then suddenly he got very frightened and thought, “This is really bad. A negative spirit or dön has played a trick on me. I must quickly change back.” And he did his other mantras to transform back into himself. It didn’t work and he saw Gyuru in the form of the bird. Gyuru had transformed himself into a bird, so he saw this bird.
 
Trotung couldn’t transform himself back so when he tried to get out of the hole his head got stuck. He was trying this way and that and then he heard some footsteps. He listened. That was Gyuru himself, not a bird anymore and he was talking loudly: “Oh, I have destroyed Gomparatsa and I have destroyed everything here, everything has been destroyed, but I am surprised, I get this feeling that someone has been doing something around here.” Gyuru entered the cave and said: “This must be a negative spirit, a big dön, a big head and funny body and I must destroy and subdue this dön.” Trotung very quickly shouted, “Don’t do that, this is your Uncle Trotung. It’s not a negative spirit, you mustn’t do that.” He was shouting and pleading. Gyuru said, “Uncle Trotung, what are you doing here? I destroyed Gomparatsa and the negative spirits round here, what’s happened to you? Your head is big and body is small, what are you doing here?”
 
Trotung said, “Oh dear, Jowo (loving-kindness) Rinpoche, I transformed myself into the small body and now I can’t go back and I’m stuck and I really need your help.” Then Gyuru said, “Uncle, you’ve got your own head, where is your body? You just have a baby’s body. The best thing to do is to cut off your head and find your body, and then we will put your body and head together. The body you’ve got just now is a funny body.” Trotung got very scared and said, “Don’t do that, don’t do that. This body is my body! It has just been transformed, you must not cut this!”
 
Then Gyuru said, “Oh, really, I don’t know Uncle, you are funny. You must like this big head and small body. Okay, anyway, I’m going.” So Gyuru started to go away from the cave and Trotung got very worried. He knew Gyuru was really powerful, there was no doubt now. He thought only Gyuru could help him this time. Then he started crying out calling him with all these loving names. “My dear Gyuru, Jowo Rinpoche, you must help me, there is nobody else who can help me now.” He started crying, “Don’t go away, please.” Gyuru came back and said, “Well, you have this plan to split Ling and a negative spirit has entered you. If you promise me not to do that and not to cause a split in Ling, then I can help you.”
 
Trotung promised to do anything, as long as Gyuru turned him back into his old self. Gyuru said, “You must make vows to these three different Deities, one of them being Tamdrin, and promise them you will not harbour these negative plans and thoughts about Ling. Promise never to do anything to harm Ling.” Trotung said, “Yes, yes, I promise all that you say, and I will promise more, whatever you need,” and so he took vows from Tamdrin and these two other Deities. Then Gyuru put the stick, the jongkar pega on his head, and also Trotung said, “Normally I have had this tendency to have bad thoughts, but I will do my best not to have any bad thoughts or do anything bad.” All that sort of thing he promised, he made all these wonderful promises. Then Gyuru struck his body a few times.
 
So Gyuru turned Trotung into his old self and then he said, “Well, Uncle, you really do funny things, you don’t stay where you belong and you come to caves and transform yourself into strange beings and have all these bad thoughts in your head. But anyway, I have done you a great favour today and you must remember all your promises. I’m going now.” Gyuru rode his jongkar pega, the stick - it worked like a horse - and he went off.
 
Now Gyuru was seven days old and he had done these two jobs already. When he subdued Angye Gomparatsa, the bön-meditator, he was only three days old. From there two expressions arose: “Gyuru subdued the birds before he was one day old and he subdued Gomparatsa before he was three days old.”
 
His fame spread and Trotung thought, “Really Gyuru is very powerful and special.” He thought, “I have done all these bad things and he hasn’t told anyone about my activities.”  Trotung was quite relieved about that, because Gyuru hadn’t told his brothers or the rest of the family about any of his misdeeds. He thought “Maybe Gyuru doesn’t have a bad heart.” Trotung decided that there was no way he could defeat Gyuru and he thought “I might as well not try,” and for five years Trotung did nothing harmful to Gyuru.
 
Gyuru lived with his mother, Ngomo. One day Gyuru said to her, “Mother, there is this expression that boys should go outdoors and find things.” He said, “I’m going today to find some clothes for myself. I have no nice clothes.” He went into the forest hills and killed a deer, a goa, a special deer. This deer was an incarnation of a dön, of course, and it had a wonderful coat. He skinned the deer and made a hat out of its skin. He kept the deer’s horns on the hat, so it was a very funny hat with the deer’s horns, and he came home with this hat.
 
He put the hat on – again this was all Gyuru’s image of being slightly mad and an unattractive personality. He wore his hat, and it really wasn’t nice-looking at all with the horns in the middle. Then Gyuru heard that one of his uncles, Shipön, had a calf that had been born with two heads. Gyuru went to Shipön’s cow barn and killed this calf, skinned it and made a chuba (coat) out of it. The calf’s legs were still dangling from the hem of the chuba but he wore it like that.
 
One of Uncle Trotung’s horses had given birth to a baby horse that was said to have nine heads. It had one big head and eight smaller ones. Everybody thought it was a bad omen, but Trotung somehow didn’t think that and he quite liked the funny baby horse. But one night Gyuru stole the baby horse and killed it. He took the skin and made boots out of it. He used leopard skin for making the soles and the rest of the boots were made out of the horse skin. Through making this outfit he subdued three döns and made a hat, chuba and boots for himself.
 
All this was being aimed at making Gyuru look unattractive and slightly crazy. He had this funny stick and strange clothes. His bootlaces were made of horse tail and he wasn’t at all nice to look at. This outfit made Gyuru look as if he wasn’t anybody special, so nobody would pay very much attention, because he looked so unattractive. This was all to help him be able to subdue different human and non-human beings.
 
Gyuru had his complete outfit: his boots, hat, chuba, stick and pouch. He said to his mother, “We really don’t have much in this place. My father, your husband, does not do much for us, he doesn’t care.  Whatever people say, positive or negative, he just sits back and does nothing. Our Chinese mother doesn’t like us and normally she doesn’t have any good word for us. Brother Gyasa Shalkar seems to like us, but then nothing much happens. This place is really not very good. We should move to another nicer place, and then we could dig tromas [edible roots] in this new place.”
 
Ngomo thought, “My son is special and there is no point in arguing with him. He knows best.” She said, “My dear son, we will do what you want, I really don’t know much about anything and I think I should agree with you so we can do what you want.”
 
So the next day Gyuru went to see his brother Gyasa Shalkar and said, “Dear brother, mother and I really like living in Ling. It’s nice being close to you and the rest of the family, but Ngomo, my mother being a naga lady, has an affinity to water. And I feel it would be nice for her if we moved somewhere where there were some ponds, lakes and springs. So I think we will move to a place called Drungo, a Spring with a Snake Head.”
 
Gyasa Shalkar said, “I don’t think that’s a good idea. I think it’s better that you stay close to me so I can look after you and your mother, and I can provide everything for you.” But Gyuru insisted, “My mother does have this great affinity to water and I feel I should take her there. I feel this is my duty. Brother, you have been very kind to us all this time but I think now I can look after my mother and myself. I can provide for the two of us and I have heard this place with a Snake-Head Spring is very nice. I think we will go there.”
 
Gyasa Shalkar spoke to his own Chinese mother and said, “Gyuru and Ngomo are leaving us and I would like you to give as much as you can for the two of them. I hope that you can give as much as possible, because they are leaving.” So she gave Gyuru and Ngomo one grey old horse, one old goat, one old and sick-looking dri and one very old sheep, as parting gifts and their share of the household. But that was seen as a very good and auspicious sign by Gyuru, because it meant four yongs, four auspicious and blessed things.
 
Gyuru and Ngomo set off, taking the four animals that had been given to them as well as the dri that Ngomo had always had, which was given to her by her father. This dri kept on producing milk, so they had no shortage of milk at any time. They packed their belongings and Gyuru said to his mother that he would go ahead and she could come following him. “I will go and make preparations,” he said. So Gyuru rode ahead on his jongkar pega, the stick.
 
The Snake-Head Spring was about six or seven days’ journey from Ling. It was a lovely place with a beautiful spring, green meadows, flowers, hills and trees. It was really nice and Gyuru put up the tent with a stove inside and made all the preparations. When Ngomo arrived it was ready for her just to walk in and he had even prepared food as well.
 
They made this new place their home and they settled there quite happily. One day Guru Padmasambhava appeared again to Gyuru and said, “This is a very nice place, but I would like you to go to another place, which is much bigger, Macho. You have many future activities there. You will be appearing as a mad and funny character there as well. 
 
Macho was a very big country. It bordered on one side with India and on another side with China. On one side was Tibet and on the fourth side was Hor. So it bordered on all these four countries, and Macho itself was a very big place. The local Deity of Macho was an incarnation of Dorje Sempa [Vajrasattva].  He was a very powerful looking Deity, and also a king among the local Deities. His name was Magyal Pomra.
 
Macho was a huge empty country and nobody was able to subdue it. It had this local Deity called Pomra and the whole country was known to be totally empty. No grass would grow because there were many small animals called abra [marmot?], which eat away all the grass. They bore holes and some of the Macho abras were known to be as big as a goat. Normally they are just about the size of mice, very small and they just bore holes. But in Macho, if even a small amount of grass grew, the abras attacked it so it was a very dusty country.
 
Macho was larger than the country of Ling. Ling was a normal country, whereas Macho was a huge, empty land. Guru Rinpoche had asked the young Gesar, Gyuru, to subdue this country. Guru Rinpoche also said to Gyuru that normally people wouldn’t go and live in Macho but Gyuru had to do some things so that he would be banished to Macho. So Gyuru had to pretend and present this image of himself as being crazy. So he did mad things and broke all the Ling rules so that he would be banished to Macho.
 
Gyuru started killing all the animals around the Snake-Head Spring.  He would chase the animals barefoot and kill them. If there were any people passing the place, he caught them and killed them as well. He started collecting human skins and made a seat out of the human skins. He was doing it all miraculously; the people just looked like real. Soon it became known that Gyuru was killing anyone he could lay his hands on, whether it was an animal or a human being it didn’t matter. He was breaking all the rules of hunting animals and not killing humans. He became known for breaking all the rules of Ling.
 
Even though there were no people living in Macho, there were traders who would go to India, Ladakh and elsewhere. They would pass the Snake-Head Spring where Gyuru was living. This was the traders’ route and Gyuru started attacking them and killing them off. Soon nobody was going up and down those routes any more. Also all the people and spirits of Ling started having inauspicious dreams and they all pointed to the way Gyuru was behaving.
 
The Ling people were thinking hard, especially Gyuru’s uncle Shipön. He was a wise man, but he just couldn’t understand. He knew Gyuru was very special person; he was the grandson of the naga king Tsuna Gyalpo and also a brother of Gyasa Shalkar; he belonged to this prestigious family. And he had special signs at birth. Shipön had such high hopes for Gyuru, he hoped that Gyuru would not only benefit Ling but would benefit the whole world. He thought this had all turned out really badly, but Gyuru was someone he couldn’t advise, he just wouldn’t listen to advice. Shipön thought, “Maybe we should just leave him alone and somehow he will grow out of this behaviour.”
 
The Hashi Bird we talked about previously was reborn as the mother Neli, and she became the Deity of Ling. She had the responsibility of looking after the Ling country and she would often give predictions and advice to Ling. At this point she appeared in front of Uncle Shipön and explained that Gyuru was truly a special being, and that he was doing all this because his field of activities was in Macho. He was doing so to make the Ling people feel revulsion for him and expel him to Macho. He really needed to go there and the Deity hoped Shipön would help with this. She asked Shipön not to tell anyone what she had said.
 
When mother Neli said that, Shipön was hugely relieved. Neli looks like Tseringma riding a lion, except that Tseringma is holding a dorje, and Neli holds an arrow with multicoloured ribbons, a dadar. That’s what mother Neli Namchen Karpo looks like and that is her full name.
 
Uncle Trotung was always quite cunning. He once sent seven horsemen who were hunters, on a mission. These horsemen were going past a hill where there was a particular local Deity. This local Deity usually wore black things and Gyuru talked to this Deity and asked him to hide these seven hunters. He said he would give them blessing so that they wouldn’t die but he said the local Deity should hide these seven men, until he gave him further instructions.
 
Gorsung, the local Deity hid the seven men for three months. When they did not return, the Tarong family, which was Trotung’s family, started investigating. Soon they heard that seven horses and the heads of the seven men had been seen in the Snake-Head Spring near Gyuru’s tent.
 
Afterwards there was another story that Drumo, a girl was in the hills with her servant and she saw the seven hunters with their hands tied behind their backs while Gyuru was beating them with a thorny stick. With the two stories together the Ling people decided that Gyuru had eaten the seven hunters.
 
Trotung sent one particular servant to Uncle Shipön with the message that Gyuru had become impossible. “He has been eating all these traders and now he has eaten my seven hunters. There is no doubt about it. Drumo has seen them being taken away and now their horses and their heads have been seen.” He sent this long message and said that something had to be done about Gyuru, that everybody was frightened of him, which was true. Everybody was really very frightened of Gyuru by then and nobody dared to go anywhere near the Snake-Head Spring. But Uncle Shipön, because he had had the premonition, wasn’t worried at all.
 
Then they had a meeting and everybody decided that Gyuru had to be banished. In the meeting, Gyasa Shalkar was very upset when the people decided that Gyuru had to be banished, because he definitely didn’t agree with it, and he made a long speech about how Gyuru was his brother and how Gyuru’s mother Ngomo was his first reward in his first major battle. He didn’t want to accept the Ling decision about banishing his brother.
 
Then Uncle Shipön quietly took Gyasa Shalkar aside and told him about the premonition. Only after that would Gyasa Shalkar give in. In the meeting they decided that Gyuru should be summoned to a particular place in Ling and then he would be banished from Ling there. But nobody would volunteer to go and give the message to Gyuru. People were just too frightened to go, but somehow he had to be told that he was being banished from Ling.
 
After a long discussion, Dema, one of the ministers of Ling, a fine and brave young man, said he would go for the good of the Ling country. He was willing to go and risk his life. Dema set off to the Snake-Head Spring and when he got to the bottom of the valley, he was horrified to see all the dead bodies; dead animals and blood everywhere. He couldn’t believe that a descendant of Tenpe Chöden Norbu, who was the first person of Ling, could do this. It was believed that everyone in the Ling country were descendants of this Dharma king, and the Ling people thought they were all related because of their single origin. Dema was totally shocked that a descendant of their great Dharma king could do such a thing.
 
He stood and thought again and it did not make sense to him. Seven hunters were lost from Ling and he had heard many stories of people being killed, but still it didn’t account for so many dead bodies. He thought “Even if half of the Ling people were killed it would only make so many bodies.” But the only people he could think about being missing were the seven hunters and the traders they were told about. So he thought there must be another explanation.
 
Dema went towards the tent and he saw that it was made of human skin. He looked around and there was nobody to be seen. Then he whistled and Gyuru came out of the tent holding a human hand and biting it. He came out of the tent slowly. Dema was on his horse. He wanted to make a gesture to Gyuru, asking him to come towards him.
 
So he thought, “Maybe I should use my whip to make this gesture.” Then he thought, “Maybe I mustn’t use the whip because it is for horses and servants and whatever bad things Gyuru is doing he is meant to be a special being.” Then he thought of his sword and again he thought, “Well, you would use a sword for your enemies, but Gyuru is a descendant of the founder of Ling.” So he thought, and they used to wear a flag in their headgear of the armour. He took down his head flag and used that to gesture Gyuru to come towards him.
 
So Gyuru walked towards Dema biting the human hand and Dema got off his horse. Gyuru said, “Oh, it’s you Dema,” and Gyuru took Dema’s horse’s reins in his hand and said, “Come in please.”  Dema paid his respects to Gyuru and then the two of them went inside the tent. Dema was again very surprised that inside the tent there was no sign of any dead bodies but it was like a heavenly house. And he saw Ngomo, who looked as pretty as ever, very beautiful. He looked again around the house and everything was clean and there was a wonderful scent. He saw lots of puja texts and he just could not believe that the inside of the house could be so different to what was outside.
 
When he saw all this, Dema became a hundred percent sure that Gyuru definitely was a reincarnation of a god and all the bad things he was seeing were just miracles. He quickly prostrated to Gyuru and said, “You are indeed a special being, may I serve you in all your activities.”
 
Also, when Dema went inside the tent he saw Gyuru in his true form, which was a very handsome person, not dressed in anything like the sort of tatty skin-clothes that he normally wore. Dema was very pleased with everything and gave his message. Gyuru said that he would come to the chosen place in Ling the next day and Dema should go back now. He asked Dema not to say anything about what he had seen, especially what he had seen inside the tent, and to keep the encounter a secret.
 
Back in Ling people were beginning to get worried; they thought perhaps Dema had been eaten by Gyuru. So when Dema came back everybody was very happy and they said, “Thank goodness, you have come back safely. We were worried about you.” They asked what Gyuru was doing and had lots of questions for him. So Dema said that he just went fairly close to Gyuru’s place but he didn’t go inside. From a distance he gave the message about Gyuru having to come to the place and he said Gyuru had promised to come tomorrow, but Dema said, “I’m not sure whether he will come or not.”
 
The next day people gathered at the meeting place. Normally a place like this is very big so everyone can sit scattered around quite happily. But everybody was very unsure what to do that day, because they thought, “I might get eaten by Gyuru.” So they all huddled in one group and sat close together. Trotung in particular was very worried and he thought, “We have had a grudge against Gyuru from the very beginning, since he was first born. And then the previous problem was about his hunting and this summons now is also to do with his hunting.” He thought, “Oh dear, I will probably be the first one to be eaten by Gyuru.” So he sat right in the middle of the crowd and he stayed very quiet trying to seem very small.
 
So, all the people were gathered on the meeting ground and they saw that Ngomo was riding the horse that Gyasa Shalkar’s mother had given to her, the grey old horse. It had given birth to a small pony, so she was riding the old horse and the pony was following her. Behind her Gyuru was riding his stick and they were all coming towards the place. Ngomo was also holding a dadar, which is like a pennant.
 
As they approached, everybody forgot their fright and they all felt such loving-kindness towards Ngomo and her son. She looked so beautiful and they couldn’t believe all these bad stories about the mother and her son. Shipön, Gyuru’s uncle, who was the wise man and also head of Ling at the time, had the job of telling the Ling verdict to Gyuru. So he started his discourse about how he knew that Gyuru was the brother of Gyasa Shalkar and how his father and family were all very wonderful, but, he said, “You have done all these misdeeds and broken many of Ling’s rules and you have to be banished.” He gave this long discourse to Gyuru.
 
Usually there was a banishment ceremony, in which a hundred people had to blow kangling (horn), a hundred people had to throw ash and all the bad things had to be done to banish Gyuru. When they started to do this, Gyasa Shalkar objected and said, “I know he has done many bad things but he is my brother, please don’t use ash.” He urged people to use tsampa (roasted barley flour) instead and all the Ling people agreed with him and said, “Yes, we should use tsampa, not ash.”
 
Gyuru put his jongkar pega, the special stick in the ground, leaned on the stick and sang a reply; “I’m not sure what my misdeeds are, even though you say that I have done all these bad things. But this is the verdict of my great fathers and I should listen to that. I will leave Ling, and I’m not sure what will Ling face after I have left.” He sang a long song.
 
Then they started the ceremony where tsampa was thrown and the kangling was blown and arrows were shot. When tsampa was thrown it just looked like the smoke puja (sang) which people would normally do when somebody was going or coming. It looked like praying, the tsampa had that effect. The arrows didn’t really hit Gyuru, and the kangling, which should sound like it came from behind Gyuru, was instead sounding as if there was a group of musicians in front of Gyuru. It all seemed opposite to what it should be.
 
Gyuru was banished to Macho and Macho was nearly a month’s journey from Ling. He rode his stick and whatever belongings he had were put in a sack and tied at the end of the stick. He had also put a small saddle on the pony and the pony was carrying a small load as well. Ngomo, his mother, was riding the old grey horse. They all went like that. After a short distance Gyuru hit the pony with a stick, and the pony ran fast. Gyuru followed the pony with the stick and they both disappeared in the dust. His mother tried to catch them but her horse was too slow. So she just went slowly after them though she couldn’t see Gyuru and the pony at all. By night fall she thought there was no way she was going to catch up with Gyuru, so she decided to stay the night where she was. She got off her horse and then she saw there was fresh tsampa, we call it alo, made for her and in fact it was warm. She thought, “Thank goodness, it must be my son who made it for me,” and she ate the alo and stayed there for the night and slept.
 
Mother Ngomo was awakened by Gyuru the next morning. “Mother, mother wake up!” She couldn’t understand where she was and she looked around. Then she saw that she was in her own tent and everything was in place, there was a fire going.  She was really confused. It looked like the tent had been there for years and she just couldn’t understand it. What had happened was that Gyuru had miraculously taken his mother one month’s journey in one night and there she was, waking up in Macho.
 
Ngomo became very happy and thought, “Thanks to my son I have made this long journey without any hardship and here I am!” She got up and took her pickaxe and decided to go dig for troma [edible roots]. The first time she dug she found a huge troma the size of a horse’s head. Then she put her pickaxe in another place and another huge troma the size of a sheep’s head appeared. She dug in four places and found four huge tromas. This was a gift from the local spirits. They were also not like ordinary tromas but much more nutritious and delicious.
 
(Some words lost while turning the tape) …boring holes everywhere and not letting any grass or greenery grow. The abras were very organised, some of them were big and some were small, and they had their own king. They wouldn’t allow any human being to come there and nobody could survive in this abra country.
 
Gyuru took his sling. He took three pebbles, a naga pebble and ordinary pebbles and he threw one pebble and killed the abra king. When that happened an incredible noise erupted and all the small abras’ ear drums exploded and they all died instantly!
 
Gyuru transferred the souls of all these abras to four different Pure Lands and it was as if a flock of birds had flown away from a slingshot. Just like that, the souls of these millions of abras were instantly transferred to the four Pure Lands. In general anyone who was killed in connection with Gyuru, was always transferred to the upper realms and Pure Lands. No one ever went to the lower realms. It didn’t matter how they were killed, they would instantly be transferred to the Pure Lands.
 
This is because Gyuru had the blessing of a thousand Buddhas and he himself was a special being, so he just needed to do a very small dedication, and that was enough to send all the beings that he killed to the Pure Lands.
 
Once the abras were gone, all the flowers and trees and everything grew in Macho and it looked like a Pure Land. Having killed all the abras Gyuru dragged the bigger abras’ dead bodies and tied them to his stick, and brought them home, and made tukba-soup with them for his mother and himself. Ngomo and Gyuru both enjoyed this soup very much, even though it was abra meat, because for Ngomo and Gyuru, both being beings of very positive karma, it didn’t really matter what they ate, everything always seemed like nectar. So they could eat the most horrible thing and it just seemed like lovely food. It’s said that if a being has positive karma, this will happen, whereas if a being has a very strong negative karma, then even if one tried to make the best food, it just wouldn’t taste right somehow. Because Gyuru ate abra meat all the döns, the negative spirits thought, “This is terrible.” They called Gyuru “The Person Who Eats Abra Meat”.
 
Sherab Palden says he is going to skip many details here. Now we come to the story about a big businessman from Ladakh. He had five hundred sub-traders with him and thousands of mules and horses. His name was Businessman Panjor Rindu.
 
Macho and Hor shared borders and traders often went along this border route. Hor was known to have a group of bandits made of seven very vicious bandits. These bandits often roamed in the border area and this time they attacked the Ladakhi businessman Panjor Rindu. They killed some of the traders and tied some up and others were beaten. They took all their possessions away with them.
 
The traders had all been robbed and tied up and they all cried hard and thought that now there was no chance for them, they were going to starve and die in this forgotten place. Gyuru heard the wailings. He came there on his stick and asked, “What is this crying aloud, what is all this noise? This is my country. The local Deity of this place is Pomra and the human being of this place is Gyuru and there is no other sound, there shouldn’t be crying, let alone any singing and dancing. What’s happened here?” Then the people explained that they had been robbed by the seven bandits of Hor. They said “Please, do help us, maybe you can give us some food so that we can return to our fatherland.”
 
So, Gyuru said, “Oh, don’t worry, I will bring back your things and then you can set off again.” Everybody said “Thank you very much!” and quietly they were thinking “Well, this child has a mouth!  These bandits are big people and there is no way he is going to get anything back from them.” But they thought, “But there is no harm in just sweet talking to him. He is our only hope.” Gyuru went off on his stick again. He went after the bandits who had gone back to Hor. They were camped on some grassland, which was the picnic place of the Hor-king. They were happily camped there and had all their stolen goods gathered in the middle and they were in the process of dividing them up.
 
Gyuru came there and took his sling out. He threw a pebble with the sling and it hit one of the bandits, who was called Shenpa. As soon as Shenpa saw Gyuru he understood immediately, because he had heard about this person called Gyuru or Gesar, who often rode a stick. He quickly told everybody, “This is Gyuru and we don’t stand a chance, we must run.” And they all ran off as fast as they could.
 
Gyuru threw with his sling again, this time at a huge rocky mountain, which was the rocky mountain of the Hor king; this was the favourite place of the king and he had his armies there. When Gyuru threw with the sling, immediately all the armies were captured and Gyuru got them to take back all the businessmen’s belongings.  There were not only the armies, but nagas, gods and other spirits helped. Instantly all the things were packed up and came back to the business people’s group.
 
Gyuru had all the traders’ things with him and he gave them to the traders. They were very surprised and thought he couldn’t be a human being. “He must be the local Deity Pomra,” they thought.  Then Gyuru said to the traders,”In the things there are not only your business things but there are also other things.” Those were the armouries and weapons of the Hor armies that he had captured. He said to the traders that they must bring the armoury to another mountain called Mamö Lütse. He said that and then went.
 
At that time there was another group of traders. They were Chinese and their names were Nyima Gyaltsen, Dawa Gyaltsen and Gawa Gyaltsen. They were Gyaltsen traders and they had about 2,000 animals, and they were carrying brocades and silks. They were travelling on this route as well and they had heard about the bandits. They were really very frightened. The three traders had more than one thousand people to help them with the loads.
 
Gyuru took his pony, whose name was Jongu, and which eventually becomes Gesar’s famous horse, he took Jongu with him and came to the group of Chinese traders. He miraculously transformed his little pony into a magnificent looking horse. It had a chakra on its forehead and feathers of the Tshung-bird on its ears and it was very elaborately decorated.
 
Gyuru came to the group of Chinese traders. He was not riding the pony but leading it and he said to the traders, “I live in this country and I have this magnificent horse. I am frightened to keep it because there are these Hor bandits. That’s why I want to sell this horse. But there aren’t many people in this country, so I don’t get a chance to sell it. This seems like an good opportunity, real traders are here, and it’s also a good opportunity for you, I don’t think you will get another chance to buy a horse like this.”
 
Also Gyuru said that if he kept his horse, not only will it be stolen by the Hor bandits but it might end up being the cause of his death, because the bandits would kill him to get it. So he said he really wanted to sell it. The Chinese merchants had never seen a horse like this, they thought it was an incredible horse. So they called their magicians and said, “Maybe this is some sort of magic horse and not a real horse.” The magicians looked at the horse and said “This is definitely a real horse; it’s not just an illusionary horse.”
 
So the merchants said, “Okay, what is the price for this horse?” They really wanted to buy it because they thought even the emperor didn’t have a horse like this one. Gyuru said “Well, for this horse I need a hundred boxes of gold for its head and a hundred boxes of brocades for its ears, and a hundred boxes of other things for all the parts of the horse. And also,” he said, “I need presents for my mother, and I need presents for myself on top.”
 
They said they needed to discuss it. They said amongst themselves, “This is a very ignorant person. He doesn’t seem to know the value of things at all”. Even all their merchandise put together would not be a hundred boxes of gold and then he was asking for a hundred boxes of silver and everything for all the other parts of the horse. “He is just an ignorant man who doesn’t know anything,” they said.  They decided this horse definitely belonged to this man and said the best thing to do would be just to kill him and rob him of the horse. “We can take the horse back to China and sell it there.” So they decided to do that.
 
The merchant Nyima Gyaltsen said to Gyuru, “This is a ridiculous price. I have sold a horse similar to this in the past to Ling and that time we were talking only about small bags of gold, forget about boxes of gold and silver. That horse wasn’t very far off this horse you have here. You don’t seem to know the value of things at all. We don’t do business in terms of boxes of gold. I think you are just humiliating us here and I don’t want to have anything to do with you, please go away.”
 
Gyuru said to the merchants, “You are outrageous people, because you have come to my place, this place belongs to me. And now you say these bad things to me. I know that you are scheming to rob me of my horse and I will not allow you to do that. This is definitely my own horse.” The Chinese merchants became very angry and said, “How dare you, one person, talk like that to us.  We are thousands and we are Chinese merchants.” The big merchants immediately gave order to kill him and they started beating Gyuru up.
 
When they killed one Gyuru, two Gyurus would appear. When they killed two Gyurus, four would appear. The Chinese merchants carried on killing and beating these Gyurus who would multiply, and very soon there were more Gyurus than merchants. Then the Gyurus were beating the merchants back and they got tied up. The land was full of Gyurus.
 
So the Gyurus beat all the Chinese merchants up and then took all their merchandise. The merchants were all left there with their hands tied behind their backs. The merchants said, “That person can’t be a human being but a dön, a big negative spirit. We have made some mistakes here and it looks like we are going to end up starving.” They were saying this among themselves, and then they noticed there was a small Gyuru left behind.
 
So they started prostrating to this small Gyuru and said “Please help us! At least do something so that we don’t starve to death. We take refuge in you”, and they started to talk that way. The small Gyuru said, “If you are kind to the Gyurus, then the Gyurus will be kind to you, but if you are aggressive to the Gyurus, then the same returns. So I will untie your hands and we should all go to Mamo.” Gyuru led them all by foot.
 
The small Gyuru explained to the Chinese merchants that they were going to the place called Mamö Lütse, where the Lhadakhi traders had been sent as well, and he told them about the Lhadakhi traders and how he saved them from the Hor bandits. He said, “I want everybody to go there, because I want a fort built on this mountain.” So when the Chinese merchants and the small Gyuru arrived at the mountain, there were already the other Gyurus and the Chinese merchandise. The Ladakhi merchants had arrived there too and they were carrying their own things as well as the weapons Gyuru had stolen from the king of Hor.
 
So everybody was there; some Gyurus were busy cooking while other Gyurus were tending to the horses and other Gyurus were putting the tents up. It was buzzing with activity at the foot of the mountain.
 
The Chinese and Ladakhi merchants exchanged stories about Gyuru and they were all convinced that Gyuru was very powerful and not someone to play around with. Then Gyuru gave them instructions to build a fort. He gave them the plan and said, “I want this fort built. You can take a few years if need be,” and he left provisions for each group of a hundred persons. He left tsampa and butter and said, “When you run out of these provisions you can send me a message, but I want you all to carry on building this fort.”
 
The merchants started to build. The building had many sections and each section had its own name. The Eastern section had a long name and so did the Western section, and so on. They built eighteen storeys and it took them a few years.  Then Gyuru returned. He said, “All right, this is not completely finished but you can stop.” The provisions that were left before never seemed to run out, the tsampa just kept on… they ate it all the time and it never ran out and it was the same with other food, too, like butter and cheese and everything. They never had to send a message to Gyuru to send more provisions.
 
The merchants became very happy that now they were be going to be released and they said, “Oh, Gyuru, we are really grateful to you, you saved us from the bandits.” They said that Gyuru could have half of their merchandise, if he wanted. Gyuru said, “No I don’t want any of your merchandise, but remember this is the land of King Gyuru. So in the future, when you do business and go up and down this route then you will have to give me some share of your business. I hope you have a good year of business and you can go your own way now.”
 
Gyuru held a great party for the merchants and again said that if they did future business, they would have to give a share to him and he would protect them from the Hor bandits, that if they had any trouble with the bandits they should just let him know and he would help. Having said that and having had the great party, everybody went their own way.
 
The Hor bandits also having had that bad experience with Gyuru never really came to Macho again. Some of the merchants went north and others went south and the year was very profitable for them.
 
The human input for the fort was finished. Now Gyuru made the spirits to do the rest of the work. He called upon the nagas, gods and nyen-spirits. They started doing the work and also the lions and tigers would help by carrying the wood and stones. Eventually it became a palace. It was called Tatse Podrang, something like “Tiger Palace” and it was a very glorious palace.
 
This palace was the work of humans and non-humans, and for the time being it was hidden from anyone’s vision. Uncle Sherab will skip many stories from here and conclude at an auspicious place, which is the following.
 
At the age of thirteen, Gyuru received a message from Ling saying that there was going to be a horse race there. Whoever won the race would become the King of Ling. Gyuru took part in the race and won. When he won he showed his true form. Before he always wore tatty clothes, and now he showed his true form, which was very handsome and glorious. Also he showed his palace and opened the treasury of the armoury that he had buried. From then on he became the magnificent King Gesar of Ling. This is a good place to stop.
 
Gesar was enthroned and Uncle Sherab says, if we told the story in full, just the horse race would be told for two days. The horse race itself is a volume by itself. Thank you very much for listening.