Sangzhub once said: "I am old, and I have had 41 volumes of King Gesar recorded. However, none of my singing has been published in written form."

In March 1992, Sangzhub learned that he and 12 other balladeers would get the chance to have their songs published in written form with financial aid from the central government.

Recalling the news, the old man said he was very "relieved.''

 In King Gesar's footsteps

Described as the home of the renowned historical hero King Gesar, where exactly is the State of Ling located?

Some say the area covered Dengke, Dege and even the bulk of the Kamba area; others say it lay in what is today's Sichuan area, drained by the Yellow River and comprising Norgyi, Hongyuan and Aba; others still favor Qubu as part of today's Gansu Province, where the Tibetan ethnic group lived as a compact community.

Other possibilities include today's Golog-Yushu area of Qinghai Province and the cross-border areas of Qinghai, Sichuan and Gansu provinces.

Books grappling with this issue include Questions and Answers by Somba Yexei Benjor, a historian from Qinghai Province of the 1760s; Natural Area of Dorkam by Ren Naiqiang, 1940; and A Study of King Gesar and Balladeers in Tibet and the Ling Edition of Tibetan King Gesar by R. A. Stein from France.

All three publications agree that the Ling State could have stretched from Aba in the east to Garze's Dengke in the west in today's Sichuan Province, and that its influence was even felt in Qinghai.

Concerning the recent studies about Gesar's birthplace, four experts from Qinghai went to Golog and Yushu in Qinghai in 1999, and Aba and Garze in Sichuan, where King Gesar is most popular.

Folklore and other materials collected by the experts convinced them that the hero's birthplace was Jisuya in Xiongbaji, Axu town, Dege County of Garze in Western Sichuan Province.

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