Distinctive features of these versions of the Gesar epic have led some scholars to the view that the Buryat and Mongolian versions are not directly dependent on a Tibetan original. Setsenmunkh has argued, and the idea was shared by C. Damdinsuren and B. Vladimirtsev, that the written Mongolian versions stem from one source which has not survived. Balti and Ladakhi version This version contains the following seven episodes: In Balti version of Kesar epic he is considered to be son of god(Lha Yokpoon) who was sent to Miyul(Earth) to restore peace and stability. According to Balti oral transmission he was born in village Roung yul, Baltistan The ancestor Dong-gsum Mi-la sngon-mo, born miraculously, kills a nine-headed ogre, from whose body the land of Ling is born. He fathers eighteen heroes who arrive in gLing. dBang-po rgya-bzhin chooses his youngest son, Don-grub, to rule gLing. Dying, he is reborn as a bird, and then as Gog-bzang lha-mo, and is called Kesar/Kyesar. Kesar marries Lhamo Brugmo and becomes king of gLing. Kesar journeys to China, where he marries the emperor's daughter, g.Yu'i dKon-mchog-ma. Kesar defeats the giants of the north, assisted by the giant's wife, Dze-mo. While he is away, the King of Hor kidnaps his wife 'Brug-gu-ma. On his return, Kesar vanquishes the King of Hor and brings his wife back to gLing. Similarities with motifs in Turkic heroic poetry Chadwick and Zhirmunsky consider that the main outlines of the cycle as we have it in Mongolia, Tibet and Ladakh show an outline that conforms to the pattern of heroic poetry among the Turkic peoples. (a) Like the Kirghiz hero Bolot, Gesar, as part of an initiation descends as a boy into the underworld. (b) The gateway to the underworld is through a rocky hole or cave on a mountain summit. (c) He is guided through the otherworld by a female tutelary spirit (Manene/grandmother) who rides an animal, like the Turkic shamaness kara Chach. (d) Like kara Chach, Gesar's tutelary spirit helps him against a host of monstrous foes in the underworld. (e) Like Bolot, Gesar returns in triumph to the world, bearing the food of immortality and the water of life. (f) Like the Altai shamans, Gesar is borne heavenward on the back of a bird to obtain herbs to heal his people. They conclude that the stories of the Gesar cycle were well known in the territory of the