Turkic messiah Geser Khan, Burkhan Bator, or God’s Warrior

    In this article we suggest to supplement the integrated and versatile outline of the Essence of the image of Messiah, Rigden Djappo, Archangel Gabriel, Imam Mahdi, Kalki Avatar, Maitreya, etc. who is mentioned in nearly all religions, traditions, and legends. We still persist in our daring opinion that all the aforesaid names belong to the Single One – the Holy Spirit. Who is he? What is his role in humanity’s destiny? And at which times does he come? Here we will speak about epos and legends of Turkic peoples: Buryats, Mongols, Kazakhs, Altaians, and Tibetans, and about the grains of knowledge those peoples managed to preserve over ages. We will speak of Geser Khan, Abai Geser, or Burkhan Bator. And the major source of information about this mysterious personality is the heroic Epic of King Geser (Gesar).

    The Epic of King Geseris a unique memorial of Buryat spiritual culture. Not only Buryats, but many other peoples in Central Asia consider this epos their own (it is also called Central Asian Iliad). It is spread among Tibetans, Mongols, Tuvas, Altaians, Kalmyks, North Tibetan Uigurs, etc. The Geser Epic has become a symbol of Central Asian community of different cultures and traditions. The legend about Geser has been preserved in living people’s memory until nowadays, though in different plot versions: some peoples have it in prose, while others have verses; there are diverse literary techniques and characteristics, but the image of the Son of Heaven, God Geser is quite the same everywhere. There are three major versions of the Epic: Buryat, Mongolian, and Tibetan. First records of the legend appeared in Tibet, and in 10-12^th centuries various verbal version of the legend were combined. The boldest version suggested by historians is that the Geser Epic is about 1,200 years old, being older than all other eposes in the former USSR territory.

    Geser is the eldest son of Supreme God Tengri (his other names are Qormusta Tengri or Ohrmuzd), or the Boundless Eternal Sky as he’s otherwise called. Geser (whom Buryats gave the second heavenly name of Burkhan Bator, meaning the Heavenly Warrior) is sent to this world, when humanity reaches a deadlock and follows a wrong development path, when it’s necessary to put things in order in this world. He is also referred to as the heavenly being, who descended to the Earth, having turned into a human, in order to perform a feat of good. By the way, according to the Epic, Tengri has three sons who are named Uch Kurbustan (“the Triune Deity”) in Altai; all three represent a single whole and reside in the highest heavenly realm. 

Geser Monument in Ulan-Ude

    Let’s digress from the subject for a while. There is a very interesting detail in the above image: a sign with a circle and a crescent, particularly placed on the monument top. It turns out this sign is very honoured by Altaians, Buryats, Mongols, Kazakhs, and Tibetans. We’ve found numerous selections of images with such sign on the web, which surely deserve an individual analytical article.

    Most importantly, this very mysterious ancient sign having multi-thousand-year history and called the AllatRa sign marks and is associated with the Primordial Knowledge brought by Rigden Djappo. A book with the same name was released in 2013, mentioned and present in all three interviews with Igor Danilov (see image below). We will certainly prepare a separate material on the book.

    Let's go on. Mongols and Tibetans call Geser (or Abai Geser, Geser Khan) the Son of Heaven, the heavenly Messenger, the Chosen King (akin to Messiah), who was born on the earth and is purifying it of monstrous demons. He is also associated with the first human who descended from heavens or hatched out of the heavenly “cosmic egg”. According to another Tibetan legend of Geser, one of the heavenly sovereign’s sons was sent to the Kingdom of Ling where there was no ruler (king). He was born in Ling in the family of one of princes, and he was an ugly, “snivelling child” (under a Buryat legend version, he’s born as a nuhatai nurgatai hubuun (nuhatai means “snivelling”, while nurgatai means spinal, signifying “the ancient Aryan Nirun Warriors” who started to be called “spinal Mongols” in the times of Genghis Khan; Sakha Yakuts pronounce the word nirun as nurgun, which is translated as “a warrior spearing a huge, thick block of ice”, whereas one of main characters of a Yakut heroic epos is named Nurgun Bootur the Impetuous).

    In such case, we believe it’s once again appropriate to mention works by scientist, Orientalist, mystic, and traveller Nicholas Roerich who heard about Geser Khan during his Central Asian expeditions many times and was well aware of unflagging interest of Mongols and Tibetans to such personality. By the way, it’s been always considered Geser Khan is an actually existing person, and the Orient waits for his advent and for liberation of nations from evil and injustice. Those who understood the meaning of all this saw signs of his emergence in their times as well. It was believed his new incarnation would take place in Northern Shambala. “And Geser will come with an invincible army to establish justice.”

    In addition to the aforesaid, we’d like to give comparative characteristics of extracts from the Bible (canonical text) and the Geser Epic, which characteristics we have found on the internet. Characteristics were collected by people who searched for common features in these two sources, although the purpose of our research is to maintain not separation, but unity (i.e. identify most ancient and meaningful sources of all available). 

    These are some of characteristics worth mentioning, in our opinion:

    Extract from the Bible: 

Forces of evil rose against God. Forces of good oppose forces of evil. War in heavens. Devil and his army are defeated and thrown down to the earth (Revelation 12: 7-13). Devil is called (Corinthians 4:4) “the god of this age”, i.e. temporary.

The Geser Epic:

Good God fought with evil deity. Good opposes evil. War in heavens. The evil deity is defeated. (Part One. Altai Ulan’s defeat)

It is torn to pieces and thrown down from heaven to the earth.

    The Bible:

Trouble on the earth (Revelation 12:9, 12). Evil committed by creatures looking like monstrous beasts (Revelation 13: 1-18; 19: 19-20).

The Geser Epic:

Trouble on the earth. Pieces of an evil deity turned into monsters. They hate humanity. The guileful cruel monsters send pestilence to the earth, killing people.

    The Bible:
God’s Son Jesus voluntarily decided to save humanity (Philippians 2:5-11).

The Geser Epic:
God’s Son Geser voluntarily decided to held mankind and everyone suffering from evil.

    The Bible:

God’s Son Jesus was a dweller of heavens and descended from heavens (John 3:13; 6:38). He has a heavenly name (Hebrews 1: 3-13; Philippians 2: 9-11) and heavenly glory, endowed to Him by God’s Love before the world emerged (John 17: 24; 2:11).

The Geser Epic:

God’s Son Geser was a dweller of heavens and descended from heavens. (Part One regarding Bukhe Beligte descent from heavens to the earth). He has a heavenly name (the Name is understood as either a heavenly name, or Burkhan Bator, or God’s Warrior).

       The Bible:

God’s Son Jesus got incarnated, was born as a human being (Romans 9:5; John 1:14; 1 John 4:2; 1 Timothy 2:5; Philippians 2:7-8). He knew people’s sorrows and aspirations (Isaiah 53:3; Hebrews 4: 15).

The Geser Epic:
God’s Son Geser decided to get born on the earth as a human. (Part Two of the Epic. The second birth).

       The Bible:
Idolatry originates from devil. Demons are behind idols (Revelation 9: 20-21; 1 Corinthians 10: 19-22).

The Geser Epic:
Idolatry originates from evil. Demons and evil spirits stand behind idols.

    The Bible:

God’s Son Jesus is accompanied by a numerous armed force of God’s warriors (Revelation 19: 11-14; Mark 13: 26-27).

The Geser Epic:

Geser gathers a numerous army to fight evil.

    The Bible:

Jesus is the King of Kings, Great Prince, God’s Horseman and Warrior (Revelation 17: 14; 19: 11-16; Isaiah 9:6).

The Geser Epic:

Geser can mean Caesar, King, Prince, or Warrior.

    The Bible:

The Saviour will give the water of life to His people. In the eternity bliss, joy, happiness, and peace will be there on humanity, birds, animals, and all living creatures. The land of God’s people, where the Saviour resided in the flesh, will be blessed as well (Isaiah 11:6-10; Revelation 7: 16-17; 21: 3-7; 22: 1- 4; Luke 2: 25-52; Isaiah 62: 7-12)

The Geser Epic:

The following is said about the happy time.

“Where the eternal see of Manzan is,

Where noise of the ocean of immortality is heard,

Where in the blossoming valley of Moren

Every stone is blessed,

Where a country of early larks

Majestically spreads,

In the land where he was born and grew,

Near the river from which he drank water,

Geser, the Warrior who’s protected freedom,

The One who brought happiness to people,

Peace and good to humanity,

Stands, defending all good,

To enjoy merriment of bright life…” (Extract from Alexei Ulanov’s foreword to the Geser Epic)

    And, finally, as information to ponder over, we would like to mention another interesting point. Owing to the web, we’ve discovered following words in Surah 108 of the Muslim Koran:

We have given you Al Kausar, therefore pray to your God…

    This is how the Surah begins, and its meaning is so deep. It’s quite notable that the meaning of the word Kausar has always provoked disputes among Koran translators. It is assumed not just the name itself war pronounced in different ways (Keser, Kausar), but also was interpreted as “abundance”, “prosperity”. Yet, there is still another opinion, which does not seem unrealistic in such case: Al Kausar might be an Arabic pronunciation of the name Geser, who’s no one other than Messiah Geser, the “World’s Teacher of Monotheism”, i.e. Rigden Djappo who brings the Primordial Knowledge to the world. 

    What if everything is simple: the Truth is single, and we all, people, talk about same things, though in different languages?

Prepared by Eva Kim (Russia) and Roman Voskresensky (Ukraine)