A Study On "Bya Ra" And "Mel Tshe" In Gesar

Gesar epic is an encyclopedia of ancient Tibetan social life.It mainly tells the antient story of the wars between King Gesar and some Tibetan tribes scattered on the Tibetan Plateau or with the surrounding nations.Although the stories present different plots of the wars whether it is to attack or to defend,or expand the battle,the final result was always that King Gesar fought bloody battles against the invading tribes or nations until the other side surrendered to him,thus the country gradually became a prosperous and powerful unified country.Therefore,the end of "King Gesar" is that the state wins battles and unifies other tribes or nations.In this process,the heroes of the nearly countries led by King Gesar subdued the four demons and conquered the eighteen major cities through numerous great battles.Therefore,war has become the main theme and content of the epic of Gesar.I think one thing that is significant for both sides of a war is information.The information mentioned here not only refers to the intelligence obtained through reconnaissance,but also refers to the countless details in different situations encountered by the army in daily service.On the basis of these rich intelligence,tribal soldiers gradually have a rational understanding of the intelligence,thus constitute the means of information transmission.Transmission is the most useful ways to obtain targeted information,which has significant value for the users.Militarily,the transmission of "Bya ra,Mel tshe(Tibetan:(?))" intelligence to a certain extent decide the outcome of the war.For example,in the "Battle of hor gling",the King of White Tent immediately decided to rob vbrug mo area and subjugate the state of ling after receiving the information from ravens.Throughout the wars among demons,and the battle of hor gling,vjang gling and Me gling,we can find that "Bya ra" and "Mel tshe" are the secret weapons of war.In this thesis,I use linguistic theritical method to analyze the concept of "Bya ra,Mel tshe "as words.First of all,on the basis of Tibetan historical file,Dunhuang ancient literature,Tibetan soldier law as well as "Gesar epic text" I try to analyze the origin of the two words,what they represent and their meaning at the time.I found that the etymology of "Bya ra "can be traced back to poultry,and originated from the folk tales " bya shor ma shor(Tibetan:(?))".The word is used on the basis of getting more information about one's opponent without leaking the critical intelligence of oneself.According to some Tibetan scholars,another two words,"ri zug pa(Tibetan:(?))" and "rtse rje(Tibetan:(?))" written in ancient literature respectively refer to the word "Bya ra" and have the same meaning.Athough the word "Bya ra" itself is included in the agent whistle,but it broadly refers to transferring information.In a narrow sense it can be understood as a patrol,namely the reconnaissance and exploration of information during the day."Mel tshe" in a broad sense also refers to information transmission,but in a narrow sense it can be understood as night patrol,that is the reconnaissance and exploration of information during the night.Although we can see the two words only few times in Gesar epic,but in sde dge zhabs drung(Tibetan:(?))version of the traditional hor gling wars,the two words appeared total of 13 times.Regarding the role and function of the two words,it is known that epic has break down the two words into other four intelligence transmission words,which are:to spy,the sentry,poultry sentries,and the prophecies of the gods.Section three introduces the information transmission system of "Bya ra" in Gesar.namely,simmer transmission(there are three arguments to prove that simmer is a main way of transmitting military information in ancient Tibetan society),archery transmission,prophetic transmission and flag-inserting transmission.The section four introduces the intelligence transmission system of Mel tshe in Gesar,namely beacon fire type transmission,code language type transmission," dgar cha grogs chi sgar skad(Tibetan:(?))",a language system specially made for military secrets),prophetic transmission,and percussion and conch type transmission.Section five mainly talks about the strategical function of the two words according to the five basic military tactics of Tibetan.This section discusses the four strategic functions of Bya ra and Mel tshe" in Gesar,which are the function of effective defense in strategic aspect;The function of preserving power;The function of knowing oneself and the enemy;and the ability to be flexible.In the end,I summarized that apart from the different information transmission time and means,the final purpose of both Bya ra and Mel tshe is the same.