Youngest storyteller chants heroic tales received during dreams

Sithar Dorje was on act while suited with King Gesar dresses ready for his performance in Lhasa. [Photo by Kalzang Gyatso/China Daily]

"The self-talking lasted for two hours, and all my classmates were scared and peeping at me from outside of the window. My Tibetan teacher enjoyed my chanting," he said.

The teacher was pleased, because what came out of Sithar's mouth was the great Tibetan epic of King Gesar.

Since then, Sithar's name has spread on the grassland. He has been invited to countless weddings and parties to tell the stories, gaining ever more praise for the way he delivers the tales of heroism, magic and adventure.

"In my hometown, Tibetan people treated me like a Living Buddha (in Tibetan Buddhism)," he said.

When accounts of his storytelling prowess reached Lhasa, the capital of the Tibet autonomous region, he was recruited by Tibet University in 2010. He studied Tibetan history and language. Upon graduation in 2014, he was offered a job at the university's China Tibetology Institute.

At the institute, he is tasked with telling and recording the Gesar stories so they can be preserved and made available as audio recordings, videos, and in books, including electronic versions. Seven books based on his stories have being published so far.

With advanced literacy in both Tibetan and Mandarin, and as the first King Gesar storyteller in Tibet with a university degree, Sithar can reach a variety of audiences, said Namgyal, one of his colleagues at Tibet University.