Epic of Manas

The Epic of Manas is a lengthy and traditional epic poem of the Kyrgyz people of Central Asia. Versions of the poem which date to the 19th century contain historical events of the 8th century; however, Kyrgyz tradition holds it to be much older. The plot of Manas revolves around a series of events that coincide with the history of the region—primarily the interaction of the Kyrgyz people with other neighbouring peoples.

The government of Kyrgyzstan celebrated the 1,000th anniversary from the moment it was documented in 1995. The mythic poem has evolved over many centuries, being kept alive by bards called manaschy or manaschi. The first written reference to the eponymous hero of Manas and his Oirat enemy Joloy is to be found in a Persian manuscript dated to 1792.

The Epic of Manas is the longest historical epic poem known and has been described as "the longest poem ever published". Holding the Guinness World Record for the longest epic, it is a monumental feat of oral tradition. It consists, in one of its dozens of iterations, of approximately 500,000 lines (~2 to 2.5 million words), making it roughly 20 times longer than Homer's Odyssey and Iliad combined, 2.5 to 3 times longer than the Mahabharata. The most famous version of Manas (by the bard Sayakbay Karalaev) is estimated to have over 2 million words, which still edges out the Mahabharata's 1.8 million.