My hometown is by the Jinsha River. Tibet can be seen on the other bank. In front of my house, there is a bumpy road leading to Tibet. Everybody who is going to Tibet has to pass along this road no matter whether they are government officials, businessmen, or Buddhist pilgrims. My home is on the hillside. In front of it there is a big stone by the side of the road, bearing a pair of deep footprints. The Tibetan people believe that the footprints were left by the ancient hero Gesar.
   I heard stories about Gesar from old people in my hometown. They told me how he led the army of the Kingdom of Ling to attack Vjav and recover Dayan Lake. When he reached the Jinsha river he stood on that mysterious stone, and hurled a huge boulder at his enemies.
   In Tibet there is a proverb, which says that “everybody in the Kingdom of Ling Country can tell a story about Gesar.” The Kingdom of Ling Country is an old name for Tibet. So the proverb means that every Tibetan is very familiar with the Gesar epics.
    I learned much more about Gesar during my school years. The more I heard the more fascinated I became with the epic. In January 1981, I gave up my work of translation and editing, and started doing research into Gesar at the Ethnic Literary Research Institute of the Chinese Social Sciences Institute. In May of the same year, Mr. Jiazhi, the principle of the institute, sent me to Tibet to further my research. That was the start of the massive work of compilation of the Gesar stories.
    In fact, since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, much importance has been attached to compilation work and research as regards the Gesar epic. In 1959, efforts were devoted to its collection in Tibet, Qinghai, Gansu, Sichuan, Yunnan, Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, and noticeable progress have been recorded.
    But this work was disrupted during the “cultural revolution” (1966-1976). When this work resumed, I was among the first to join it, in 1983. During the 6th , 7th and 8th national Five-year Plans, the compilation  and sorting out work was listed as a national key project three times in succession, and I was the project leader. During the 9th Five-year Plan, the publishing of selections from Gesar in Tibetan was listed as a key project by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. I am the organizer. It is a significant cultural project divided into 40 volumes with 400,000 words for each volume.
    Since 1950s, hundreds of experts have spent scores of years conducting academic investigations and scientific research in many parts of China, and this work will be carried on.  Their work has been an unprecedented undertaking in Tibetan cultural history, and the scale of efforts is rare among the developmental programs in Chinese  literature and art. It is a big honor for me to participate in this important cultural project. In the past 20 years, I have been to every part of Tibet to interview folk artists and visit the pastoral areas for sorting out Gesar.
    The outstanding achievement of that period is the collection of narrations by folk artists (Zhigun Bards). To date, we have collected almost 300 narrations contributed by over 20 artists, and filling more than 5,000 recording tapes. In addition, almost 300 manuscripts and woodblock prints have been collected. More than 100 Tibetan editions have been published, with a total of four million copies. This means that the number of copies published roughly equals the adult population of Tibet. In addition, some 20 Chinese-language editions have been published. This is viewed as an unprecedented achievement in the history of Tibetan publishing.
    The term “different edition” is used to denote a variant version of the same episode, both on manuscripts and woodblock prints. For example, the episodes Birth of a Hero and King of the Racecourse were recounted differently by Drakpa and Yumei, but the basic scenarios and key contents are the same. Each version has different features and its own audiences and readers, and cannot be replaced by another. If the Zhigun Bards hadn’t respected the authentic tradition and the content had been totally different, then the episode would not have gathered so much praise and probably would not have survived. Altogether, the sub-editions and different-editions contain more than one billion  words, millions of lines and several hundred of volumes. Obviously, Gesar is the longest epic in the world.
    The magnificent achievements in the compilation and publishing of the Gesar have spurred academic activities around this subject; since 1989, five international academic seminars on Gesar have been held.
    In addition, parts of the Gesar have been translated into English, Russian, French, German, Japanese, Hindi and Finnish. Research into Gesar has become an international academic discipline.
    As a Tibetan myself, it is pleasant for me to see that the Zhigun Bards and other folk artists who have devoted themselves to spreading the Gesar stories are now highly praised and respected. Their social status has been changed enormously, from a homeless bards of yesterday to the much-acclaimed artists of today.
    I have lectured at Harvard, Colombia, Oxford and Cambridge universities. I tell anyone who asks me that despite more than 20 years of researching the Gesar, I still feel that I have only just started my work. I have only glimpsed a few of the gems in the Gesar treasury, and have only scratched the surface of the rich body of precious ore in the Gesar mine.
    Now, in China a scientific research contingent made up of senior, middle-aged and young experts from several ethnic groups, including the Han, Mongolian, Tu and Hui, has been formed, specializing in performance, collection, translation, publication and academic research in the field of Gesar studies. A number of academic works and investigative reports have been published.
    Many foreign scholars believe that the work on the Gesar epic has made rapid progress, making this discipline a dynamic academic section of Chinese Tibetology and folk literature.