Jangar

Honored as one of the three epics of Chinese ethnic minority,Jangar (Jiang Ge Er in Chinese),which is told among the people throughout China from generation to generation,is a heroic epic of Mongol ethnic group,one of China’s officially recognized ethnic groups.

By now,more than 60 volumes of Jangar have been collected at home and abroad,totaling about 100,000 lines.When it comes to the origin of the word“Jangar”,there are different versions of explanations,including“conqueror of the world”in Farsi,“conqueror ”and“orphan”in Turkic,variant of“Jianggelai”in Tibetan and“competent person”in Mongolian.All of the plots and figures in Jangar are imaginary.(https://www.daowen.com)

Jangar tells the growth and struggle history of a hero named Jangar,who has extraordinary wisdom,noble morality and strong strength from childhood.He is also skilled in fighting.Since his age of 7,Jangar had begun to fight for his tribe and was elected as khan by his tribemen.Warriors led by Jangar defeated invasions from neighboring tribes over and over again with their extraordinary wisdom and competence.They defeated the attacks from evil force with Mangguses as its leader,gradually expanded their strength,wealth and territory,and built up a beautiful homeland as Bomba as its core.However,all of these achievements incurred hatred from Jangar’s enemies,who plundered skilled craftsmen,good horses and virtuous wives in Jangar’s tribe.With marriage by capture,robbery,and forceful seizure of meadowland as its themes,the epic presents a panoramic view of wars,economy and culture,life style and customs,political system and other aspects of ancient Mongolian society.

Jangar depicts a picture of life in grassland and reflects the character traits and aesthetic taste of Mogol ethnic group through the rich ideological contents and vivid artistic images in this epic.Jangar boasts simple and unadorned linguistic style and various techniques of expression by incorporating into ancient folk songs,congratulations,eulogies,mottos and proverbs of Mongol ethnic group and adopting many figures of speech such as exaggeration,metaphor,personification,alliteration,rhyme and internal rhyme.