Some publicity for a not so well known epic. Some excerpts from a good artcile :
The monumental epic Manas is the most treasured expression of the national heritage of the Kyrgyz people. Composed and sung entirely in oral form by various singers throughout the centuries, Manas is regarded as the epitome of oral creativity. Although as yet not widely known, for want of adequate translations, Manas is considered to be one of the greatest examples of epic poetry, whose importance is not inferior to that of the Homeric epic.
As nomads, the Kyrgyz had no written language. However, they excelled in oral composition, which they artistically employed in their traditional poetry and epic songs. As the internationally renowned Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov notes: "If other peoples/nations displayed their past culture and history in written literature, sculpture, architecture, theatre and art, the Kyrgyz people expressed their worldview, pride and dignity, battles and their hope for the future in epic genre." [2]
Today there are about sixty versions of the epic Manas recorded from various epic singers and oral poets. Its longest version, consisting of half a million (500553) poetic lines, was written down from one of the last master-manaschļ (singers of Manas) Saiakbai Karalaev (1894-1971). The epic is indeed unique in its size. It is twenty times longer than the Homeric epics Iliad (15693) and Odyssey (12110) taken together and two and a half times the length of the Indian epic Mahabharata. [4]
The epic Manas is a trilogy, "a biographical cycle of three generations of heroes, i.e., Manas, his son Semetei and grandson Seitek." [9].
The Hero Manas
Thus Manas is one of those legendary or ideal heroes who fights against external enemies and reunites all his scattered people. Hence one of the fixed epithets in the epic describing him as "Chachļlgandļ jļinagan, chabļlgandļ kuragan (He united those who went astray and put together those who were divided).
Manas is not considered a historical personality. However, some scholars claim Manas as a prototype of Chingiz Khan. The great thirteenth-century Mongolian epic, The Secret History of the Mongols, tells about the origin and history of the Mongols and builds the stories around the life of Chingiz Khan and his empire. One of the episodes in The Secret History contains a traditional theme of a heroic epic song, the birth of Chingiz Khan: "At the moment when he was born, he was born holding in his right hand a clot of blood the size of a knuckle bone.
Manas is not an ordinary man, but a hero of tremendous power and wrath.
When filled with rage, his eyes turn red like fire and he desires to drink human blood. He is destined to conquer the world even before he is born. In addition, Manas is always accompanied and protected by the spirits of powerful animals such as a black-striped tiger. A lion is by his side, a giant black bird flies above him, and a dragon in front of him.
Traditionally, Turkic epic heroes, like the Mongolian heroes, were lonely. They fought with ogres or giants alone. When a hero was alone, he had to have some supernatural powers to defeat the enemy. In Manas we still see the traits of that ancient theme. Physical descriptions of Manas reflect the supernatural image of the ancient hero.
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