——中国民族报编写组
——Written and Edited by China Ethnic News

在四川省甘孜藏族自治州石渠县，藏族群众表演格萨尔藏戏。 江宏景摄

我国是统一的多民族国家，中华民族是多民族不断交流交往交融而形成的。中华文明植根于和而不同的多民族文化沃土，历史悠久，是世界上唯一没有中断、发展至今的文明。要重视少数民族文化保护和传承，支持和扶持《格萨（斯）尔》等非物质文化遗产，培养好传承人，一代一代接下来、传下去。

——习近平总书记2019年7月15日在内蒙古自治区赤峰博物馆考察时强调

China is a unified multi-ethnic country. The Chinese nation is formed by multiple ethnic groups interacting and integrating with each other. The Chinese civilization is deeply rooted in a multi-ethnic culture featured with harmony in diversity; it has a long history and is the sole civilization in the world that enjoys uninterrupted development so far. We should protect and carry on the ethnic minority cultures, preserve intangible cultural heritage like The Epic of King Gesar, and train heritage inheritors to pass it down generation after generation.

——An excerpt from President Xi Jinping’s speech made on a visit to the Chifeng Museum, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, July 15, 2019

受到习近平总书记高度关注和评价的《格萨（斯）尔》，与《江格尔》《玛纳斯》并称“我国少数民族三大英雄史诗”，是中华优秀传统文化的瑰宝。

The Epic of King Gesar, which President Xi Jinping spoke highly of, and The Epic of Jangar and The Epic of Manas, are acclaimed as “the three great heroic epics of ethnic minorities in China”. They are treasures of the fine traditional Chinese culture.

我们党历来重视保护和传承各民族优秀传统文化。党的十八大以来，习近平总书记在文艺工作座谈会、十三届全国人大一次会议、全国民族团结进步表彰大会等场合的重要讲话中，多次提及我国少数民族三大英雄史诗，称其为“震撼人心的伟大史诗”。

The Communist Party of China (CPC) always puts a premium on the protection and inheritance of fine traditional ethnic culture. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, in his important speeches on such occasions as the Forum on Literature and Art Work, the First Session of the 13th National People's Congress, and the National Conference Commending Model Units and Individuals for Contributing to Ethnic Unity and Progress, President Xi Jinping mentioned the three great epics for multiple times, which he called the “impressive great epics”.

《格萨尔》是我国藏族著名的说唱体长篇英雄史诗，是世界上最长的活态史诗，后传入蒙古族聚居地区，称为《格斯尔》。它以韵散文兼行的叙事方式，讲述了英雄格萨（斯）尔王降妖伏魔、抑强扶弱，带领各民族和谐相处、建设美好家园的故事。除了蒙古族外，《格萨（斯）尔》在土、裕固、纳西、普米等民族中也以说唱的方式广为流传。

The Epic of King Gesar is a famous oral epic of the Tibetan ethnic group and the longest heroic epic in the world, also known as The Epic of King Geser in the Mogolian settlements. It tells, in poetry and prose, tales of the hero King Gesar vanquishing demons, suppressing the violent, protecting the weak, and leading all ethnic groups to live harmoniously and build their hometowns together. Apart from the Mongolians, The Epic of King Gesar is also widely spread, in the form of oral performance, in the Tu, Yugur, Naxi and Pumi groups.

中国被誉为“诗的国度”，先秦以来的两千多年里，中国诗歌可谓浩如烟海。但长期以来，一些西方学者一直认为中国人没有自己的民族史诗。以《格萨（斯）尔》为代表的少数民族史诗不仅弥补了我国汉族没有长篇史诗的遗憾，丰富了我国诗词的种类，而且以其庞大的体量、活态的传承成为世界诗学的一大奇迹。

China is acclaimed as “a nation of poetry”. And in the span of more than 2,000 years since the pre-Qin period, there emerged a tremendous number of Chinese poems. But for a long time, western scholars didn’t think that the Chinese people have their own national epics. Not only do the epics of ethnic minorities, represented by The Epic of King Gesar, fill in the gap of the Han ethnic group’s lack of an epic of extended length, and enrich the varieties of Chinese poetry, but also qualify a miracle in the world poetry for its formidable size and continuing transmission.

与古希腊荷马史诗和古印度史诗相比较，《格萨（斯）尔》有两个显著特点：其一，它世代相传，是一部活态的英雄史诗；其二，它是世界上最长的一部英雄史诗，共有120多部、100多万诗行。作为迄今为止人类所拥有的篇幅最长、内容浩瀚的活态史诗，《格萨（斯）尔》是世界文化宝库中的一颗璀璨明珠，是中华民族对人类文明的一大贡献。

Compared with Homer’s epics of ancient Greece and those of ancient India, The Epic of King Gesar has two prominent features. First, it is a live heroic epic passed on from generation to generation; Second, it is the world’s longest heroic epic, comprising more than one million verses in more than 120 volumes. As an voluminous living epic, the longest piece that humankind ever has, The Epic of King Gesar is a bright pearl in the world’s cultural treasures, a great contribution of the Chinese nation to the human civilization.

党和国家历来十分重视《格萨（斯）尔》的保护与传承。上世纪五六十年代，我国成立专门机构，对史诗文本、说唱艺人等传承情况进行全面调查。上世纪80年代，全国《格萨（斯）尔》工作领导小组成立。2006年，《格萨（斯）尔》《玛纳斯》《江格尔》同时被列入第一批国家级非物质文化遗产名录。

The Party and the government always pay great attention to the protection and inheritance of The Epic of King Gesar. Specialized agencies were set up in the 1950s-60s to conduct a comprehensive survey of the epic, including its texts, singers, etc. In the 1980s, a national leading group for the work on The Epic of King Gesar was assembled. The Epic of King Gesar, The Epic of Manas and The Epic of Jangar were among the first batch to be listed as national-level intangible cultural heritage in 2006.

2019年，四川出版集团出版的《格萨尔王全集》（藏文），囊括了各种手抄本、木刻本、说唱本等，共300册、8000余万字，卷轶浩繁，展现了“世界最长英雄史诗”的恢弘气势。

The Epic of King Gesar: Complete Works (in Tibetan), published by Sichuan Publishing Group in 2019, is a compilation of handwritten copies, woodblock versions, and singing versions. Totaling 80 million Tibetan characters in 300 books, the work shows its majesty as “the world’s longest heroic epic”.

《格萨（斯）尔》说唱艺人为这一文化的传承作出了巨大贡献。2019年7月15日，习近平总书记在内蒙古自治区赤峰博物馆观看了《格萨（斯）尔》说唱展示。参与表演的说唱队成员中，就有86岁高龄的《格萨（斯）尔》国家级代表性传承人金巴扎木苏老人。

The trustee singers of the Epic have made tremendous contributions to its inheritance. On July 15, 2019, President Xi Jinping watched its singing performance at the Chifeng Museum in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Among the performers was the 86-year-old Jinbazhamusu, a national-level representative trustee of The Epic of King Gesar.

金巴扎木苏是内蒙古巴林右旗人，自8岁开始学习说唱史诗，是《格萨（斯）尔》说唱艺人的杰出代表。上世纪90年代起，老人毫无保留地将《格萨（斯）尔》说唱技艺传授给徒弟们，如今，400多名徒弟中已有30多人能够独立演唱10余个小时的《格萨（斯）尔》。

A native of Bairin Youqi (Balinyou Banner/County), Inner Mongolia, Jinbazhamusu began learning to sing the epic at 8 years old and has become an outstanding representative of epic singers. Since the 1990s, he imparted all his epic singing skills to his disciples. Today, over 30 out of his more than 400 disciples are able to sing the epic independently for more than 10 hours.

随着时代的发展，《格萨（斯）尔》不断绽放出新的光彩。在中华优秀传统文化实现创造性转化、创新性发展的今天，《格萨（斯）尔》中的故事，有的被改编成动画片、影视剧、连环画、小说，有的被绘在唐卡上，以更为多样的形式广泛流传。

With the development of times, The Epic of King Gesar keeps giving off new splendor. Today, with creative transformation and development of fine traditional Chinese culture, tales in the epic have been spread in more diversified forms, with some adapted for animations, films and TV series, comic strips, and novels, and others painted on thangkas.

习近平总书记在2019年全国民族团结进步表彰大会上指出，我们灿烂的文化是各民族共同创造的。各族文化交相辉映，中华文化历久弥新，这是今天我们强大文化自信的根源。

In 2019, President Xi Jinping noted, at the National Conference Commending Model Units and Individuals for Contributing to Ethnic Unity and Progress, that our splendid culture has been jointly created by all ethnic groups in China. Interaction and mutual learning between ethnic cultures has kept the Chinese culture alive and thriving, which is the root of our cultural confidence today.

保护和传承好包括《格萨（斯）尔》在内的中华优秀传统文化，让它们一代一代接下来、传下去，就是保护好我们中华民族的根和魂，就是守护好我们共有的精神家园，这是实现中华民族伟大复兴中国梦的强大动力所在。

We should protect and inherit the fine traditional Chinese culture works including The Epic of King Gesar so that it will be passed on through generations.This is about safeguarding the root and soul of our Chinese nation, and preserving our shared cultural home, which is a strong drive to achieve the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

（执笔：周芳）

(By Zhou Fang)