or a certain secular irony is voiced against the national religion. According to Samten Karmay, Gesar arose as the hero of a society still thinly permeated by Buddhism and the earlier myths associate him with pre-Buddhist beliefs like the mountain cult. In most episodes, Gesar fights against the enemies of dharma, an old warrior ethos, where physical power, courage, a combative spirit, and things like cunning and deceit prevail. Cosmic prelude and Tibet's early history: One motif explains how the world collapsed into anarchy; numerous demon kings () had avoided subjection. As a result, hordes of cannibalistic demons and goblins, led by malignant and greedy rulers of many kingdoms, wreak havoc. Tibet's conversion from barbarity to Buddhism under the three great Dharma Kings often features. Episodes relate how Padmasambhāva/Guru Rinpoche subdued Tibet's violent native spirits. His miraculous or mundane birth: In one account, he was fatherless, like Padmasambhava, who assists his celestial creation by creating a nāginī who then serves the king of Ling, and is impregnated by drinking a magic potion, and is born from his mother's head, like Athena in Greek mythology. In another version he is conceived by his mother after she drinks water impressed with his image. Alternatively, he is born from the union of a father, who is simultaneously skygod and holy mountain, and of a mother who is a goddess of the watery underworld, or he is born, Chori, in the lineage of Ling in the Dza Valley, to the king Singlen Gyalpo and his spouse Lhakar Drönma of Gog. Relatives: He has a half-brother, and two uncles: one is the "old hawk" (), the wise elder of Ling, who supports the child; the other, the cowardly and greedy Khrothung, sees the child as a threat and tries to do him ill. Khrothung fulfils a comic role in the epic, but his role as provocateur is absolutely central. His early years: Gesar's mission as a divine emissary is to vanquish powerful demons on earth. Until his adolescence he is depicted as black, ugly, nasty, snotty,and troublesome. His paternal uncle, or the king's brother Todong, banishes both son and mother to the rMa plateau, where he grows up living a feral life, with the child clothed in animal skins and wearing a hat with antelope horns. He comes first in a horserace whose trophy consists of the kingship of Ling. His victory marks his coming