Uyghur Khaganate. The Bhutan versions The versions of the Gesar epic collected in Bhutan, in publication since 1979, are projected to run into some 31 volumes. His Majesty King Jigme Wangchuck, second Druk Gyalpo (Dragon King) of Bhutan, had individuals read the Epic of Gesar to him nightly. Oral transmission and performance According to Li Lianrong (), Jiangbian pointed out that the foundation for the origin of epic is ethnic folk culture. He conjectured that before epics came into being, the Tibetan people "already had a corpus of stories that described the formation of the heavens and the earth, their ethnic origin, and ethnic heroes; these stories provided a foundation for creating the character Gesar, also known as Sgrung in early history. After further polishing by the oral poets, especially the ballad singers, Gesar became a great epic" (1986:51). Many performers recite episodes from memory or books, while others chant the legendary tales in a state of trance. This last mode bears strong similarities with shamanic practitioners like the pawo mediums and mig mthong diviners. As an heroic song composed or recited by oral bards, the epic of Gesar has been, for centuries, improvised on, and there is therefore no canonical or monumental version, as one finds in, for example, Greek epic. A given Gesar singer would know only his local version, which nonetheless would take weeks to recite. It has been responsive to regional culture and folklore, local conflicts, religious trends, and even political changes on the world stage. For example, in modern times, when news of World War II trickled into Tibet, additional episodes on how Gesar Conquers the Kingdom of Phyigling 'Jar were composed by 8th Khamthrül Rinpoche (1929–1980), in which Gesar appears, according to some interpretations, to travel to Germany to vanquish the demon-king, perhaps alluding to Adolf Hitler. Religious dimension Tibetan history has often swung between centralized and stateless poles, and the epic of Gesar reflects the tensions between central authority, as embodied in religious orthodoxy, and the wild, nomadic forces of the autarkic periphery. There are versions that adopt Gesar as a lama showing him as a tamer of the wild, but, in so far as his epic retains his old lineaments as a maverick master of shamanic powers, he represents the stateless, anarchic dimension of Tibet's margins, and is rather a tamer of corrupt monastic clerics and, thus, it is not coincidental that