A Brief Account Of Bensen ülger And ülgeren Bense

Oral Tradition, 16/2 (2001): 264-279 A Brief Account of Bensen Ülger and Ülgeren Bense Zhalgaa I The Mongols have a long tradition of oral literature. About the first half of the nineteenth century, a new member came into the family of Mongolian oral tradition, namely bensen ülger. Bensen ülger first appeared in the southeastern Mongolian areas, where the influence from the Han culture has been stronger, and then spread to other areas of Inner Mongolia and Outer Mongolia.1 Bensen ülger are a variety of huurchi. Huur is synonymous with huqin, and a hurchi is a huqin player. Hurchin ülger means all kinds of stories narrated by the artist, who tells a story while playing the four-sting huur with changeable melodic sounds, an instrument popular among the Mongols. Hurchi ülger mainly comprises epic (also known as Manggus stories), bensen ülger, and narrative stories that are based on real life in Inner Mongolia. Bensen ülger have enjoyed a prominent position among hurchi ülger in modern times. Bensen ülger stories are usally long. Compared with traditional Mongolian oral epics, they have two distinctive points. First with respect to subject and content, bensen ülger stories describe events that took place in the heartland of China, for example the suppression of turmoil by successive dynasties and wars, struggles between devoted and deceitful ministers, magic competitions between gods and monsters, complicated legal cases, and love affairs and civil life. Exemplary war stories include The Story of the Three Kingdoms, Shuotang Qianzhuan, Shuotang Houzhuan, and Shuotang Sanzhuan. Exemplary magic competitions between gods and monsters are Canonization of the Gods, Journey to the West, and others, while heroic legends include the Water Margin. Complex legal cases are related in stories such as Jigong Zhuan and Shigong An; all have been very 1 Also known as Khalkha Mongol, that is, the present Mongolian Republic. TWO TYPES OF MONGOLIAN STORIES 265 well received. Just as the word bense is at root a loan word, so the bensen ülger derive from other, non-Mongolian regions. The bensen ülger also differ from Mongolian epic because they rely on benzi. The word bensen is a transcription of a Chinese word, benzi, that has two meanings. One refers to stacks of paper made into a book, the other to editions of books, including handwritten and printed copies. In Mongolian, the equivalent of the Chinese word benzi is debter, denoting both stacks of paper made into a book and handwritten copies and printed books. This term does not, however, include Buddhist scriptures and other important classics. For its special term bensen ülger, ülger can also mean the original written copy of a story, similar to the way the Chinese storytelling tradition claims that written texts by literary artists are the original versions. Therefore, the exact meaning of bensen ülger refers to stories originating from storybooks that were told by artists. Though bensen ülger are alive orally among artists, their contents are based on benzi. These benzi may consist of long stories (like the aforementioned The Story of Three Kingdoms and romances that have all been created in the heartland), or they may simply outline a story. Artists became familiar with the stories in benzi and developed them into orally performed an