| Author's Preface |
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| Foreword |
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| Introduction |
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| Historical personality of Gesar |
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| Bards and manuscripts |
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| Supposed miraculous effects of the songs of the Gesar Epic |
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| Tibetan legenda concerning the Buddha |
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| Concentration of thought viewed as determinant cause of rebirth: Japanese and Tibetan opinions |
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| Personages figuring in the poem, their antecedents |
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| The paradise of the coppercoloured mountain |
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| The monster Tamdrin; his origin, his exploits, his extraordinary end |
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| The fantastic character of the Epic justified by the Tibetan belief in the subjectivity of the world |
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| How I became acquainted with Gesar and his Epic |
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| Interview with a descendant of the hero at the Castle of Ling |
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| A bard held to be a reincarnated relation of Gesar and a little monk thought to be the reincarnation of his enemy, the King of Hor |
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| I receive a flower, not in season, supposed to be sent by Gesar |
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| A strange prediction, which comes true |
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| The Warrior Messiah of the Tibetans |
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| Traditions and prophecies concerning the return of Gesar |
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| Chang Shambala, the mysterious country of the North |
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| Origin of the demons, the destruction of whom forms the theme of the Gesar Epic |
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| The Bodhisattva, the pious mother, and the impious daughter |
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| Padma Sambhava tries to prevent the demons from incarnating |
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| His plans miscarry |
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| The gods take counsel |
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| One of them consents to incarnate as Gesar and to destroy the demons |
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| He lays down conditions |
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| Padma Sambhava goes under the ocean to the country of the Nagas to look for the future mother of Gesar |
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| Her arrival on earth |
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| She becomes a servant in the tent of the King of Ling |
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| He falls in love with her |
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| Jealousy of the Queen |
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| She seeks to kill the nagi |
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| The gods descend to the nagi and make her drink a magic potion |
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| Miraculous birth of many deities and of Gesar |
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| Todong and the Queen try to kill the Hero from his birth |
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| The sorcery of a great magician |
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| How Gesar, as child, victoriously protects himself against it |
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| The sorcerer is immured in his retreat |
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| Gesar and his mother are exiled in the desert |
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| Padma Sambhava rouses Gesar's memory and commands him to get himself elected King of Ling |
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| Ruse employed by the Hero to attain this end |
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| Todong is duped by him |
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| Gesar's marriage |
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| He takes possession of the treasures hidden at Magyalpumra |
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| Extraordinary adventures in the land of the Mutegspa magicians |
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| Gesar exterminates them and secures the precious medicines that they were withholding |
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| He miraculously saves their Chief's daughter and gives her in marriage to an Indian king |
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| Gesar goes to the 'North Country' to kill King Lutzen |
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| Lutzen's wife betrays her husband in order to help Gesar |
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| Murder of Lutzen |
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| His wife falls in love with Gesar |
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| Gesar is bewitched |
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| Chenrezigs dissipates the effect of the spells that were keeping Gesar in the 'North Country' |
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| He starts for Ling |
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| Meeting with the ghost of his friend Gyatza, who had been killed by the Horpas |
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| The Hero learns of the invasion of Ling by the Horpas, of Todong's treachery and the carrying away of Sechang Dugmo |
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| He finds Singlen and his mother, the Nagi, reduced to slavery by the traitor Todong |
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| Gesar leaves for Hor in order to destroy the three demon-kings and avenge the defeat of Ling |
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| Gesar and his horsemen reach Hor territory |
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| With the help of several gods, the Hero kills a demon-bull that bars his way |
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| Infidelity of Gesar's wife |
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| Todong gives way to his greediness and is captured by a demon |
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| Gesar drowns a hundred and twenty-eight boatmen |
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| The phantom caravan |
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| The phantom caravan disappears |
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| Discovery of a little boy in a heap of tea leaves |
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| He is adopted by a master-smith |
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| The child's extraordinary behaviour |
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| The magic dolls |
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| Gesar destroys the patron gods of Hor |
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| Tragic ending to a sports fete |
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| The smith's daughter detects Gesar in the person of her father's apprentice |
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| The Hero shows himself to her for a second under his natural form |
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| By Kurkar's order, the young smith brings him a live tiger, which he has captured in the forest |
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| Commotion in the royal household caused by the animal |
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| It devours the prime minister |
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| Kurkar commands the apprentice to take the beast back into the forest |
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| Kurkar appeals to a Lama diviner |
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| Gesar, disguised, tests the Lama's powers |
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| Being recognized by him, the Hero kills him |
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| Taking on the appearance of the diviner, Gesar goes to Kurkar and misleads him by false prophecies |
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| He directs the King to have Gyatza's head, which hangs on the palace wall as a trophy, taken away |
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| Believing to ensure himself a long life, Kurkar sacrifices a talisman that protected him |
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| Gesar's celestial friends become smiths in order to help him |
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| The master-smith, Chuta, falling a victim to his own curiosity, loses an eye |
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| The Horpas who are given the task of entombing Gyatza's head are buried under a landslip |
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| Tobchen is nailed to a rock by demons. Some Indian jugglers tell Dugmo that Gesar is dead, she rejoices |
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| Supposed apparition of the Hor gods |
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| The marvellous dance of the gods on the mountains |
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| Gesar kills Kurkar |
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| Dugmo, the unfaithful wife, and Dikchen go to Ling to appeal for Gesar's clemency |
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| The Hero sends them back to Hor there to serve his designs |
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| Festival of the Hor gods on the mountain; priests and faithful are struck by lightning |
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| Gesar spares Kurnag and his companions |
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| They live to this day |
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| Gesar kills Dugmo's son whom she had by her lover Kurkar |
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| Dikchen and Todong quarrel and fight |
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| Dikchen does penance |
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| Gesar establishes him King of Hor |
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| King Satham's dream |
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| He wishes to conquer a dependency of Ling |
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| Misfortunes attributed to a conch statute |
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| The favourite Queen is hurled from the roof terrace during a hurricane |
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| Satham shuts himself up with the corpse, hoping for its resuscitation |
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| Dikchen carries off Satham's eldest son |
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| The magic sticks that give invisibility |
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| Satham's brother is lifted into the air and killed by flying horses |
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| Gesar, in the form of a bee with iron wings, enters into Satham's body and kills him |
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| The Hero meets an adversary of his own strength and fights with him on the bank of a poison-lake |
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| The taking of Satham's citadel, massacre of all those in it |
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| Gesar establishes Satham's eldest son as King of Jang |
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| Gesar goes into retreat for a period of thirteen years |
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| Gesar enters upon a campaign against King Shingti |
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| Minister Kula is flayed alive |
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| Gesar's soldiers set fire to Shingti's citadel |
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| Shingti tries to scale the heavens by means of a magic ladder |
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| Gesar breaks it with an arrow |
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| Shingti falls into the flames |
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| His daughter miraculously escapes by flying over the burning fortress |
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| Gesar takes possession of Shingti's treasures |
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| He gives the young princess in marriage to Todong's son |
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| Notwithstanding his ninety-three years Todong desires a young wife |
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| In order to obtain her, he gets King Tazig's blue horses stolen for him |
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| This King's spies come to Todong's house during the nuptial banquet |
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| Todong, who is drunk, boasts of the theft |
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| Tazig sends soldiers to punish him |
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| The coward hides himself under an overturned cauldron |
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| He is discovered, beaten, and sentenced to be cut in pieces |
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| He obtains his pardon by offering to betray Gesar for Tazig's benefit |
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| The Ling warriors refuse to fight for an unjust cause |
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| The support promised by the gods and the lust of gain make them change their minds |
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| A hermit is transformed into an incandescent mass |
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| The fire escapes from his cave and surrounds Tazig's fortress with a lake of flames |
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| Gesar extinguishes it by the magic skin of Kula, whom he had had flayed alive |
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| Gesar's victory and massacre of Tazig's troops |
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| Gesar goes to the mountain palace where Tazig's treasures are kept |
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| On the way there, Todong pursues some maidens who are female demons |
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| Seized by their parents, he is imprisoned in a salt-box preparatory to being devoured |
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| Gesar rescues him |
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| The Hero establishes Tazig's widow as Queen |
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| He brings Tazig's treasures to Ling and divides them among all those who have participated in the campaign |
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| The End of Gesar |
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| A Conversation in the Tibetan Desert |
