5988 Aram 16 07 Durkin
ARAM, 16 (2004) 95-107 D. DURKIN-MEISTERERNST 95
THE PARTHIAN mwqrˆnyg bˆsˆÌ (Turfan Collection, Berlin, M4a I V 3-16).1
DESMOND DURKIN-MEISTERERNST (Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften)
The Turfan fragment M4a I V 3-16 contains a hymn in Parthian. Though short it is preceded and followed by captions, which would suggest that it is complete. MÜLLER published it in 1904 and LIDZBARSKI 1918 conjectured on the basis of the metrics, the structure of the text and a particular play of words that it must have had an Aramaic original, which he reconstructed. The text poses a number of interesting problems and puzzles, which now, more than 80 years after Lidzbarski’s perspicacious article, we can view in the light of more material than was available then.2 But does this bring us nearer to solutions? We will here look at 1: the text, structure and meaning of the hymn, 2: the title, and 3: the speaker, the language and the possible origin of the text.
1. THE TEXT, STRUCTURE AND MEANING OF THE HYMN
Transliteration of the text3: 3/ nysˆrˆd mwqrˆnyg bˆsˆ 4/ ˆbjyrwˆng {snwhrg hym 5/ cy ˆc bˆbyl zmyg 6/ wyspryxt hym °° wyspryxt 7/ hym ˆc zmyg bˆbyl ˆwd 8/ pd rˆstyft br ˆwystˆˆd 9/ hym °° °° srˆwg hym ˆbjyrwˆng 10/ cy ˆc bˆbyl zmyg frnft 11/ hym °° frnft hym ˆc zmyg 12/ bˆbyl kw xrwsˆn xrws pd 13/ zmbwdyg °° °° ˆw {smˆ yzdˆn 14/ pdwhˆm hrwyn bgˆn hyrzydw 15/ ˆw mn ˆstˆr pd ˆmwjdyf† °° 16/ hnjft mwqrˆnyg bˆsˆÌ
1 W.Sundermann kindly read a draft of this article and discussed many points with me. I wish to thank the participants at the conference, in particular J. Buckley, E. Hunter, S. Brock, B. Burtea and W.Witakowski, for the many points raised in the discussion. 2 KLIMA 1962, 476-9 reviews LIDZBARSKI 1918 in depth. 3 A facsimile of the manuscript is in SUNDERMANN 1996, Plate 8. 96 THE PARTHIAN MWQR}NYG B}S}Î
The captions in lines 3 and 16 in red ink and preceded (l.3) and followed (l.16) by blank lines, mark the beginning and end of the text. The punctuation marks clearly indicate larger units in the text and show (together with the des- ignation basah ‘hymn’ in the captions) that we are dealing with a strophic text written continuously (‘as prose’)4. On this basis we can recognize the follow- ing strophes:
Transcription: capt. nisarad mukranig/mawqranig(?) basa. 1a “abzirwanag isnohrag hem ce az babel zamig wisprixt hem. °° 1b wisprixt hem az zamig babel, ud pad rastift bar awestad hem.”°° °°
2a “sarawag(?) hem abzirwanag ce az babel zamig franaft hem. °° 2b franaft hem az zamig babel ku xrosan xros pad zambudig.”°° °°
3“o isma yazdan padwaham: ‘harwin bagan, hirzed5 o man astar pad amuzdift!'” °° capt. hanjaft mukranig/mawqranig(?) basah
The text consists of three strophes, the first two of which are closely struc- tured in parallel fashion. Each of these two strophes contains a statement fol- lowed by a ce-clause. The ce- clause is repeated as a statement in the follow- ing. The first strophe is completed by a statement. The second strophe is com- pleted by a final clause, which seems to form the high point of the text. We have a scheme: strophe1: statement1 (identity), ce statement2 (movement/rest) statement2, statement3 (rest) strophe2: statement1 (identity), ce statement2 (movement) statement2, ku statement3 (activity)
The first statement in each strophe is very similar: abzirwanag isnohrag hem and sarawag(?) hem abzirwanag since abzirwanag is the central word in each. Interestingly, the position of hem in the first statement of strophe 2 is noteworthy but it is probably caused by the need to have a unit of four
4 Quite a few verse texts are written in couplets (e.g. the Hymn Cycles [BOYCE 1954]), where the end of the written line is equivalent to the end of a half verse and the end of the stanza is marked by a blank line. Verse texts written as continuous text normally contain extensive punc- tuation to indicate the units of the text, since these do not regularly correspond to the end of the line in the manuscript. 5 The final w of hyrzydw is probably an attempt by the scribe to write hirzed together with the following o as hirzedo at the end of the line, but he then wrote ˆw at the beginning of the follow- ing line (BOYCE 1975, 162 note). D. DURKIN-MEISTERERNST 97 syllables (sarawag(?) hem) to match the four-syllable word, abzirwanag, in strophe 1 statement 1 with which it has exchanged positions. Looking at the content there is a clear drift in the two strophes from rest to movement. The choice of the word wisprixt hem ‘I sprouted’ to indicate grow- ing up combines elements of vigorous activity with the fact of staying in one place (rest). The construction with a prepositional phrase in two variants az babel zamig6 ‘from the land of Babel’ paves the way for the sentence az babel zamig franaft hem in two variants in strophe 2: ‘from the land of Babel I went forth’. Every statement except the last one in strophe 2 contains hem ‘I am’ either in identifying sentences or in constructions to denote the past tense. The last statement in strophe 2 changes to xrosan ‘that I may call’ in a final clause that stands out all the more. The third strophe does not follow the same structure: It contains an address to the gods and the text of that address. This strophe also diverges in length: It contains 12 words whereas strophes 1 and 2 have 20 and 19 words respec- tively. In terms of syllables the difference is 22 to twice 17 in strophe 1 and 17 followed by 167 syllables in strophe 2. In terms of metrical units (‘stresses’, of which each half-verse has two, marked above in bold) strophe 3 has nothing to match the pairs of two units in each half-verse in strophes 1 and 2. Whilst the distribution of stresses at the beginning of strophe 3 seems clear enough hirzed may be a unit on its own or may have to be taken together with o man astar. Either way no pattern conforming to that emerges in strophes 1 and 2.
Translations: In Lidzbarski’s article Müller supplied a new translation in German (with- out the captions)8: Ein dankbarer Schüler bin ich, der aus Babel dem Land entsprossen ich bin. Entsprossen bin ich aus dem Lande Babel, und an der Wahrheit Pforte hab ich gestanden. Ein verkündender Schüler bin ich, der aus Babel dem Lande fortgezogen ich bin.
6 az babel zamig after ce at the beginning of a (second) half-verse, az zamig babel at the end of a (first) half-verse. This indicates that the position of long vowels within a half-verse is impor- tant. 7 Alternatively in 1a isnohrag might count as 2 instead of 3, thus giving 16 followed by 17 in strophe 1. BENVENISTE 1930, 219-20 counts half-verses of 8 giving twice 16 followed by twice 11. He reads ce (a)z with elision twice and also av(i)stad. In strophe 3 he reads (i)sma but retains the -u in hirzedu. 8 This supercedes his previous interlinear translation in MÜLLER 1904, 51 where he translates the first ce as ‘weil’, the second one as a relative ‘der’. The translation in KLIMKEIT 1989, 188 is substantially the same as MÜLLER apud LIDZBARSKI (except for ‘*junger’ instead of ‘verkün- dender’). 98 THE PARTHIAN MWQR}NYG B}S}Î
Fortgezogen bin ich aus dem Lande Babel, auf daß ich einen Schrei schreie in der auf Erden gewordenen (Welt) [Oder: ‘zuschreie dem auf Erden gewordenen’]. Euch, (ihr) Götter, will ich anflehen, ihr Götter all, erlasset (mir) meine Sünde durch (eure)Verzeihung.
Lidzbarski’s Aramaic version in Mandaean spelling (here transliterated) (LIDZBARSKI 1918, 502) is: tˆrmydˆ ˆnˆ mˆwdyˆnˆ ∂mn bˆbyl ˆrqˆ nyb†yt nyb†yt mn ˆrqˆ bˆbyl w}l bˆbˆ ∂kws†ˆ qˆmyt qˆrwyt ˆnˆ tˆrmydˆ ∂mn bˆbyl ˆrqˆ nypqyt nypqyt mn ˆrqˆ bˆbyl ∂{Òrwk qˆlˆ bˆlmˆ mynˆykwn ˆlˆhyˆ bˆyynˆ (mynˆykwn) ˆlˆhyˆ kwlˆykwn sbwqwlyˆ hˆ†ˆyˆy btyˆrwtˆ
Lidzbarski recognizes the different character of the third strophe and by supplying the second mynˆykwn ‘from you’ reconstructs a parallel structure of three units with three words each: “From you gods I request From all you gods (lit.: (from you) gods, all of you): ‘Forgive my sins in compassion.’” However this is not quite what the Parthian text says: Here the preposition o indicates the object (indirect ‘to’ or direct) of the verb padwaham as opposed to myn ‘from’. In Parthian we also have the variance yazdan ‘gods’ and bagan ‘gods, lords’ for which Lidzbarski has uniformly ˆlˆhyˆ.
English translation9: The hymn about Mukran/ of the mawqran(?) has started. “I am a grateful student, who sprouted from the land of Babel (= Babylonia). I sprouted from the land of Babel and have stood at the gate of truth.” “I am a young student, who went forth from the land of Babel. I went forth from the land of Babel, that I might call a call in the world.” “I beseech you gods (yazdan): ‘All (you) gods (bagan), forgive my sin(s) with compassion!’” The hymn about Mukran/ of the mawqran(?) has finished.
9 English translations of this text are contained in ASMUSSEN 1975, 8-9 and KLIMKEIT 1993, 148. Both ignore ce entirely, e.g. Klimkeit translates: ‘A thankful pupil am I (Mani). I am come from the land of Babylon….' D. DURKIN-MEISTERERNST 99
This translation differs from Müller’s in the interpretation of some words. The use of cy is noteworthy. Normally this is causal ‘because’. Such a transla- tion might work in the first strophe (‘I am a grateful student, because I sprouted from the land of Babel’) but it certainly does not give good sense in the second strophe (‘I am a young student, because I went forth from the land of Babel’)10. Lidzbarski found in Müller’s translation of cy as a relative pro- noun a feature also present in Mandaean hymns where the half verses are joined by ∂, a relative pronoun or final conjunction. In Parthian cy is a relative primarily with reference to things, only rarely to persons, where ky is used. BOYCE 1964, 34-5 quotes the use of Parth. ce to join nouns in apposition such as to ce pidar wxebeh ‘thee, your Father’11 and some instances of ce referrring to persons in the Parthian inscriptions. W. Sundermann provided me with an instance in Licht-Nous §49 … ˆmwstˆn ˆw† hynzˆwrˆn cy (p)d dyn…. /amwastan ud henzawran ce pad den/ ‘… the believers and the powerful ones, who (are) in the church,…’ Therefore, despite the availability of ke ‘who’, the translator has chosen ce ‘which’ to refer to a person, a usage otherwise, though rarely, attested in Parthian. This may be an archaism. I do not think that the theoreti- cal ambiguity of the Aramaic particle d can have influenced the translator. {snwhrg has a range of meaning not captured just by the translation ‘grate- ful’. It is an adjective formed from {snwhr which goes back to Avestan xsnao‡ra- ‘propitiation’. Lidzbarski’s arguments for an Aramaic original concentrate on the metre, the intricate form of the first two strophes and on a play of words which he no doubt rightly saw in rastift bar ‘gate of truth’ against babel ‘Babel’: Only in Aramaic does this make sense, since only there does bab-el mean, in popular etymology, ‘gate of the gods’ to which baba ∂-kus†a ‘gate of truth’ can be op- posed. On srˆwg see SUNDERMANN 1981, 170 sub srˆwg and srˆwgyft. Müller’s translation of zambudig as an adjective is based on the assumption that the final part of the word contains the adjectival suffix -ig. This is not the case. The loanword from Indian (cf. Skt. jambudvipa-)12 contains -i- which is enlarged by a final -g similar to kanig ‘girl’ from Old Iranian kani- (Avestan kaini- besides kainiia-).
10 In the German translation in Turfanforschung, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften 2002, 23, I incautiously used the causal translation. 11 This would allow ce to be understood as an explicative ‘that is’ and give the following translations: “I am a grateful student, that is, I sprouted from the land Babel. … “I am a young student, that is, I went forth from the land Babel. … But this is still very close to causal function. 12 SIMS-WILLIAMS 1983, 134 suggests it must have been borrowed from Prakrit jambudiva- with -d- instead of -dv- in Skt. The loss of the v following -i- is strange but may have happened before the word was borrowed into Parthian. 100 THE PARTHIAN MWQR}NYG B}S}Î
The repetition in the text is remarkable. Lidzbarksi was right to identify this feature not only in the sense that this particular poetic form is a feature to be found in some Mandaean texts (as also in some Old Testament texts and Syriac hymns) but also because of its extreme rarity in Manichaean hymns. None of the many texts published since contains such a feature.
What is the significance of the two ce statements, each of which refer to Babylonia? What is the precise significance of ‘the land of Babel’? It is sig- nificant that the ‘land/country of Babel’, ie. Babylonia is mentioned and not the city Babylon or is the word zamig included for metrical reasons? Is Babel just a geographical term, used neutrally as in Mani’s statement bizesk hem az babel zamig (Parth. bzysk hym ˆc bˆb[y](l) z(m)[yg MKG(110-1) = M48+/I/R/ 18-19/ [SUNDERMANN 1981, 23]) ‘I am a doctor from Babylonia’? In the first strophe the gratitude of the student who grew up or came to flourish in Babylonia would seem to suggest that Babylonia is being mentioned as a good environment for a student, i.e. as a centre of learning, which might also fit Mani’s pedigree ‘a doctor from Babylonia’. In the second line of the first stro- phe the word-play on the ‘gate of righteousness’ which, in the Aramaic origi- nal, was set in opposition to Babel as ‘gate of the god(s)’ might seem to char- acterise Babel as the opposite to this ‘gate of righteousness’. But the person speaking has not yet left Babylonia, in fact he may be standing at one of the gates of the city of Babylon, presumably preparing for departure. The second strophe seems to mean that the speaker left Babylonia at an early age.
Is Babylonia a symbol of decadence possibly in the sense of a sophisticated city population not prepared to hear what a missionary has to say, not prepared to listen to the call? Alternatively, Babylonia could be regarded as the area al- ready converted to gnostic beliefs and therefore the place to depart from to take these beliefs to the rest of the world.
The carefully constructed two strophes culminate in the purposeful state- ment: ku xrosan xros pad zambudig ‘so that I might call a call in the world’, clearly indicating something out of the ordinary. It would seem to be the voice of a prophet, perhaps recalling ‘a voice of one calling in the wilderness’ of the Bible. But the private nature of the third strophe (‘I beseech’, and particularly the reference to ‘my sin(s)’) in no way fulfills the expectations raised. Since the third strophe has a different form to the first two and, in particular, does not have their close structure, the conclusion can only be that the third strophe does not in fact belong to this hymn. Considering it a refrain13 seems also not to solve the problem of its general incompatibility with the other strophes.
13 LIDZBARSKI, 504: ‘Andreas hält die Strophe für eine Responsion zum vorhergehenden Gedichte.’ D. DURKIN-MEISTERERNST 101
Another possibility is a prayer added by the scribe, which though standing be- fore the closing caption has nothing specifically to do with the hymn. There remains the possibility that this prayer is the response to the call, the text of which we do not have, but which may have been of the nature of ‘Repent of your sins, for the end is near, etc.’ Thus, we have a two-strophe hymn.14 Is it complete or is it just part of a longer hymn?
‘Call’ plays a central role in the Manichaean myth and in the awakening of an individual to Manichaeism, though the word for the divine call xrwstg has a slightly different formation.The Parthian noun xros ‘call’ seems to be attested only here (though the Parthian verb xros- is quite common). Middle Persian xrwhxwˆn /xrohxwan/ ‘preacher’ contains the Middle Persian equivalent of Parthian xros and the Middle Persian verb xwan- ‘to call’. The closeness of the Parthian phrase xrosan xros to the Middle Persian noun-verb unit with the meaning ‘preacher’ surely allows us to suggest that the Parthian phrase is also intended to indicate preaching and so the missionary work of the Manichaean.
2. THE TITLE AND ITS POSSIBLE CONNECTION WITH THE CON- TENT
In both captions the word mwqrˆnyg occurs. This is clearly an adjective, but there is some uncertainty about the precise analysis since we can find Parthian adjectives in -yg and in -ˆnyg. Adjectives in -yg are quite frequent, e.g. shrdˆryg /sahrdarig/ ‘of the ruler’ from shrdˆr /sahrdar/ ‘ruler’. Parthian adjec- tives in -ˆnyg seem to be restricted to words the plural of which is also attested, e.g. sbˆnyg /sabanig/ ‘of the night (sb /sab/, pl. sbˆn /saban/)’ so I am therefore inclined to think that mwqrˆnyg must be analysed as an adjective from mwqrˆn. This could in turn be a complete word or the plural of mwqr. Both forms are otherwise unattested. Various suggestions have been made on the meaning of the word. BARTHO- LOMAE 1906, 164 n.2 suggests mog which he takes to mean Old Indian mokÒa- ‘(final) release’ followed by the agential suffix -kar- (in the plural). SALEMANN 1908, 95, conjectures that it is from the name of the country mwkrˆn in what is now the south east of Iran. HENNING 1940, 7 refers Sogdian mwkrˆnch to Parth. mwqrˆnyg and Bartholomae. He also suggest two further possibilities for the Sogdian word: a derivation from mok-kar- ‘teaching’ or a derivation from the name of Korea, Sanskrit mukuri- etc. but the Sogdian word is not necessarily connected with the Parthian one. KLíMA 1962, 338 reads moqaranig but (356-
14 LIDZBARSKI, however, did not leave the third strophe out of his reconstructed hymn (does he have a basis in Mandean hymnology for this?) but he does doubt (p.503 and 504) that it be- longs to the text. 102 THE PARTHIAN MWQR}NYG B}S}Î
7) prefers makuranig which he connects with Mani’s visit in Makuran (= Mukran) and with the fragment M566 that gives details of that visit including the statement by Mani ‘I am a doctor from the land Babylonia.’ quoted above. This incident occurs in the story about the King of Turan in the south east of Iran which is roughly the area of Makran. This identification rests in particular on the assumption that Mani is also the speaker in our text, though the text does not say that explicitly. SUNDERMANN 1971, 89 (and n.56) accepts Mukran and suggests a connection with Mani’s journey to and from India, and with missionary activity by Mani in Mukran.
If the place-name Mukran is intended (and, as the conventions allow, spelt with for
I have looked for an alternative interpretation that rests on a connection be- tween the title and the text of the hymn. Since ‘call’ plays such a central role in this hymn it seemed promising to ask if mwqrˆn is a derivative of the Se- mitic root qrˆ ‘to call’.18 Unfortunately this runs into difficulies. None of the various words and formations listed by BROCKELMANN, Lexicon syriacum 19282, 689ff for the root qrˆ, suit:
15 Verses 18-20, POIRIER 1981, 330 and 344. 16 Verses 69-71, POIRIER 1981, 333-4 and 346. 17 Though captions indicating the melody to which a hymn is to be sung are quite common I think it unlikely that this heading has such a function, i.e. ‘Hymns (with) Mukran (melody)’. 18 LIDZARSKI uses the noun q’l’ but not the verb qr’ in his rendering of ku xrosan xros pad zambudig with ∂{Òrwk qˆlˆ bˆlmˆ. D. DURKIN-MEISTERERNST 103
mqrˆ in mqrˆ trnglˆ /maqre †arnagla/ p. 690 ‘gallicinium, cantus galli’ has no -w-; qrynˆ /qeryana/ p.690 ‘vocatio, lectio,…, cantus (galli)’ has no mw- and shows that a verb like qlˆ has y before the suffix -an (missing in our mwqrˆn); mqrynˆ /maqryana/ p.691 ‘magister lectionis’ has no -w- and has y before the suffix -an. So however attractive the idea of mwqrˆn as a derivation from qrˆ is, there is no formal justification for it. Formally the nearest form to be found in BROCKELMANN is the word mwqrˆ /muqra/ p.400 ‘luteum (ovi)’, i.e. ‘yolk of an egg’ which has no connection with the root qrˆ. A more obvious Aramaic interpretaion of a form mwqrˆ is as a causative of the root yqr: awqar ‘to honour’: mawqara ‘honouring’.19 Rather than see mwqrˆn as a plural I would prefer to regard it as a nomen agentis in -an (NÖLDEKE, Kurzgefasste syrische Grammatik, p. 77 §130): mawqran ‘honour- ing, he who honours’. In the discussion following the presentation of this pa- per E. Hunter kindly suggested in the discussion that a play of words linking both roots qr’ and yqr might be intended. Nevertheless, a Parthian equivalent of ‘honouring’ or a similar word does not occur in the hymn. To be correct, we would have to make the same as- sumption as for the geographical term Mukran, that it may refer to a word oc- curring in a further part of the hymn not written down on the manuscript page before us. Without the text itself neither possibility can be proven.
3. THE SPEAKER, THE LANGUAGE AND THE POSSIBLE ORIGIN OF THE TEXT
LIDZBARSKI hesitated to attribute the text to Mani because of the insistence in the text on the youth of the speaker and his status as a student.20 I think his reluctance is justified. The main reason for my own reluctance to attribute the text to Mani is the language of the text. The text contains a speaking first person, though the speaker of strophe 3 may not be the same as the speaker in strophes 1 and 2 on whom we will con- centrate in the following. The speaker is a student from Babylonia who leaves there to ‘call a call in the world’. An obvious connection with Mani is the mention of Babylonia, since Mani says on more than one occasion that he is a ‘a doctor from Babylonia’ (see above). LIDZBARSKI, 504 refers to Al-Beruni’s
19 Also attesed in Mandaic. Under the root YQR DROWER/MACUCH, A Mandaic Dictionary, 193 list a ‘Part.pres…. with suffix mauqirun I honour them MG 292:1.’ 20 LIDZBARSKI, 504: ‘Daher vermute ich, daß das Gedicht, oder wenigstens die beiden ersten Strophen von Mani selber herrühren. Ich stieß mich anfangs am Ausdruck “Schüler”. Mani, der Religionsstifter, war der Meister, kein Jünger. Aber Hr. Andreas sagte mir, daß ˆbjyrwˆng nur den Schüler als Lernenden, nicht den Jünger in seinem Verhältnis zum Meister bezeichne.’ 104 THE PARTHIAN MWQR}NYG B}S}Î
Chronology, 207, 17: ‘prophesy came through him, the apostle of the god of truth into the country of Babylonia’ to confirm Mani’s connection with Babylonia. MÜLLER 1904, 51 n.2 refers to a text from the right Ginza (2nd book, 3rd text) translated by A.J.H.W. BRANDT, Mandäische Schriften, 1893, 113 under the caption ‘Eine Offenbarung des Lichtgesandten über sich selbst’: ‘Und ich erleuchtete die finsteren Herzen mit meinem Ruf und meiner Stimme: “Einen Ruf habe ich erhoben in der Welt, Einen Ruf habe in der Welt ich erhoben, An allen Enden der Welt hab einen Ruf in der Welt ich erhoben”.’
In LIZDBARSKI’s edition of this text, 1925, 58 we find: Mit meiner Stimme und meiner Verkündigung sandte ich einen Ruf in die Welt hinaus. Einen Ruf in die Welt sandte ich hinaus von den Enden bis zu den Enden der Welt. Ich sandte einen Ruf in die Welt hinaus: Jedermann gebe auf sich selber acht. Ein jeder, der auf sich selber achtgibt, wird aus dem verzehrenden Feuer befreit werden. Heil den Dienern der Kus†a, den Vollkommenen und Gläubigen. Heil den Vollkommenen, die sich von allem Bösen fernhalten.21
This text contains the figure of repetition we have in the Parthian text. More importantly, in the part not quoted by Müller we find the text of the call into the world, a warning to everyone to be careful, promise of reward (escape from the fire) for everyone who does this and greetings to the servants of truth (see ‘gate of tuth’ above), the Perfect Ones and the believers in the religious community. The text continues with various warnings. Our Parthian text fits in well with this and would therefore seem to be just part of a text like the Mandaean one, confirming that the Parthian text is not complete. The warning contained in this text would be substantially the same as the message missing in the Parthian text.
21 With my voice and my announcement I sent a call out into the world. I sent a call out into the world from the ends to the ends of the world. I sent a call out into the world: Everyone should take care of himself. Everyone who takes care of himself will be freed from the consuming fire. Greetings to the servants of Kus†a the Perfect Ones and the believers. Greetings to the Perfect Ones that stay away from all evil. D. DURKIN-MEISTERERNST 105
Interestingly, this Mandaean text contains at the end (after many intervening strophes) a prayer for the forgiveness of sins: ‘Wir, die wir preisen – Herr! Unsere Sünden und Verschuldungen wollest du uns erlassen! …’22 This is for- mulated in the 1st person plural but is otherwise of similar content to strophe 3 in our text. The difference in person may indicate a difference in function. In the Mandaean text this part may be a refrain, in the Parthian text it may be a refrain or the personal prayer of the scribe.
The speaker in the Mandean text is the light-apostle. Does this fit the Parthian text? The language of the text seems to be important to this question. The hymn is written in Parthian, the language of the northern23 part of the Sasanian state whose ruling dynasty spoke the closely related language Middle Persian. In the Manichaean texts found in Turfan, an area far beyond the fron- tiers of the Sasanian state, Parthian and Middle Persian are well represented besides the languages actually spoken by the Manichaeans of the area: Sogdian and Uighur. The texts in Parthian and Middle Persian were used in the original. This was partly due to the fact that some of these texts, the Middle Persian book Sabuhragan in particular, were original works by Mani whereas others, Parthian texts in particular, hailed from the earliest stages of the Manichaean mission to Parthian speaking areas of the Sasanian state. These texts were held in high regard. The more or less canonical nature of the Middle Persian texts meant that they do not seem to have been translated into the local languages whereas many Parthian texts were. Hymns were generally not trans- lated.24 Hymns in both languages are preserved but none of those in Parthian seem to have been attributed to Mani and, generally speaking, no Parthian text has ever been attributed to Mani in the sense in which the Middle Persian Sabuhragan is. On the other hand, Mani is said by An-Nadim to have been of Parthian stock, so there is a possibility that he was able to speak Parthian. His missionary activities in areas of the Sasanian empire that were Parthian speak- ing would presumably have benefited from this ability or encouraged him to acquire it25. Despite this, Mani is not usually associated with a Parthian mis- sion. On the basis of the fragment M2, where Mani sends a pupil of his, Mar Ammo, to the northern provinces (Abarsahr), the Parthian mission has been regarded as the work of Mar Ammo starting during Mani’s lifetime but con- tinuing after his death. The highpoint of the Parthian mission seems to have
22 We who praise — Lord! Will you forgive us our sins and trespasses! 23 But not, incidentally, of the south eastern part, where Mukran is situated. 24 Instead of being translated some were transposed from Manichaean to Sogdian script to make them more accessible. 25 Whether his knowledge of Parthian was superior to his knowledge of Middle Persian (in the latter case he seems to have employed the services of an intrepreter) cannot be determined. In any case, Mani was definitely a speaker of Aramaic: this language dominated in his works and can be traced as the language from which many Manichaean texts in other languages, including Parthian, were translated. 106 THE PARTHIAN MWQR}NYG B}S}Î been in the fourth century. Its literary achievements include the impressive hymn cycles in Parthian and the Parthian homilies. One of the reasons for the later dating of the Parthian mission may lie in the character of the Parthian texts as, in a sense, the second row of Iranian Manichaean religious texts after the mythological and escatogical texts in Middle Persian in the Sabuhragan of Mani himself. Though the Parthian texts clearly belong to the community life of the Manichaeans this does not really date them relative to the Middle Per- sian texts: The different character of the texts gives the Middle Persian texts a certain type of priority but this is not, of necessity, the order in which such texts were translated from Aramaic or a real indication of their relative impor- tance within the communities that used them side by side. The only thing that is really clear is that the mythological and escatological Sabuhragan texts were held in high regard as original texts by Mani and were therefore not translated into Parthian. Other hymns that were strongly associated with Mani were also left untranslated in Manichaean communities that otherwise used Parthian, thus producing the bilingual26 form of Manichaean literature in northern Iran. With the removal of members of these communities to Sogdian and Uighur-speaking areas, this led to the linguistically very complex Mani- chaean texts of Central Asia. All this does not exclude the possibility that Par- thian texts as old as the Sabuhragan and closely associated with Mani existed, but it seems more likely that this Parthian text belongs to Mar Ammo or another missionary in Parthian speaking areas. However, this cannot mean that Mar Ammo could have regarded himself as the speaker of our text and therefore as the light-apostle. Rather he was trans- lating a text that placed his activity and that of every missionary on a par with the universal Manichaean mission, the departure from Babylonia and the call in the world. This Parthian text seems therefore to go back to an original that is also re- flected in the Mandaean text Ginza, right part, 2, 3. The Mandaean text con- tains the same characteristic structural feature of the repeated phrase, but since it does not, for example, explicitly mention Babylonia, it cannot be regarded as the original of the Parthian text. This leaves us with the option of regarding both texts as reflecting one or more finely and characteristically constructed Ara- maic texts that contained themes (esp. departure and call (= missionary work)) common to Manichaeism and Mandeaism in the 3rd or 4th century CE27.
26 And even trilingual in the case of the few traces of Aramaic texts employed by these com- munities and which survived even in Chinese garb. 27 Cf. the similar but far more extensive parallels between the Coptic Manichaean Psalms of Thomas and Mandaic texts demonstrated by SÄVE-SÖDERBERGH, Studies in the Coptic Manichaen Psalm-Book: prosody and Mandaen parallels, Uppsala 1949, and the closeness of the Syriac Ode of Solomon nr. 38 to Manichaeism as shown by DRIJVERS, Odes of Solomon and psalms of Mani; Christians and Manichaeans in third-century Syria’ in: R. Van den Broek & M.J. Vermaseren (ed.), Studies in Gnosticism and Hellenistic Religions presented to G. Quispel, Leiden: Brill 1981, 117-130. D. DURKIN-MEISTERERNST 107
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