XINING, Nov. 13 (Xinhua) -- The first phase of a multimedia database project on the "Epic of King Gesar" has been completely in northwest China’s Qinghai Province, adding a new digital layer to efforts to preserve the 1,000-year-old Tibetan epic.
The "Epic of King Gesar" features about 200 episodes and is believed to be one of the world’s longest epics. It tells the story of how a Tibetan demigod king conquered his enemies and helped ordinary people in the 11th century.
Initiated in 2023, the project aimed to record the recitation of the epic within three years. For the first phase of the project, 106 artists from three major Tibetan dialect regions were selected, with ages ranging from 6 to 86 years old.
The first-phase project has created a cross-dialect database incorporating 23 books, more than 3.1 million characters of text and over 1,020 sung segments, according to Wangchen Tsering, a researcher with the Qinghai provincial protection and research center of the "Epic of King Gesar."
Ngawang Geleg, an advisor to the multimedia database project, said the new digital records not only capture the distinctive vocal styles of five elderly artists, but also establish the first batch of standardized "audio text" resources.
"By moving from scattered rescue to systematic protection, from local inheritance to cross-regional collaboration, and from simple recording to education-oriented use, this achievement marks three major leaps in the protection and study of the epic," Ngawang Geleg said.
The first phase of the project passed expert review in early November, local authorities said.
In recent years, Qinghai has actively promoted the excavation, collection and research of folk artists’ oral and written documents related to the "Epic of King Gesar". In 2023, two books on the epic -- one in Chinese and the other in English -- were published as part of the preservation and research efforts.
The "Epic of King Gesar" has been passed down orally by singers, often illiterate herders or peasants from southwest China’s Xizang Autonomous Region, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in north China, and Qinghai in the northwest.
The epic was listed as a World Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2009.
原文地址：http://en.people.cn/n3/2025/1114/c90000-20390302.html