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Sogdian Letter Fragments in Manichaean Script

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Sogdian Letter Fragments in Manichaean Script ADAM BENKATO TURFANFORSCHUNG, BERLIN-BRANDENBURGISCHE AKADEMIE DER WISSENSCHAFTEN SOGDIAN LETTER FRAGMENTS IN MANICHAEAN SCRIPT SUMMARY A number of Sogdian letter fragments are preserved from the Manichaean communities in Turfan. Although the majority are written in the Sogdian script, a small number are written in a cursive variety of the Manichaean script found only in these texts. Their edition and study provides a brief glimpse into the dynamics of the community. Furthermore, the first paleographic analysis of Manichaean cursive is undertaken. Keywords: Manichaeism; Sogdian; epistolary texts; palaeography. RÉSUMÉ Un certain nombre de fragments de lettres en sogdien émanant des communautés mani- chéennes de Turfan ont été conservées jusqu’à nous. Bien que la plupart d’entre eux soient en graphie sogdienne, quelques fragments sont dans une variété cursive de l’écri- ture manichéenne que l’on ne trouve que dans ces textes. L’édition et l’étude de ces frag- ments donne un aperçu des dynamiques de la communauté manichéenne. Au-delà, cet article propose également la première analyse paléographique de l’écriture cursive manichéenne. Mots clés : manichéisme ; sogdien ; textes épistolaires ; paléographie. * * * In addition to the different genres of Manichaean literature in Middle Iranian languages, such as canonical and ritual texts, sermons, and parables, to name but a few, a number of letters in Sogdian are also known to exist. These texts, for the most part fragmentary, seem to have been sent between various locales in the Manichaean communities of Turfan and contain information about contemporary events. There are both official letters, written on scrolls containing illuminations (such as the Bezeklik letters), and “private” letters, seemingly written for more informal business between members of the community. Both groups are to be distinguished from the letters of Mani in Middle Persian which were para-canonical texts employed in ritual but not used in everyday life. The private letters also 197 STUDIA IRANICA 45, 2016, pp. 197-220 198 A. B E N K A T O StIr 45, 2016 fall into two groups by script: those written in the Manichaean script, predominantly a unique variety thereof, and those written in the Sogdian script. In view of the fact that the formal characteristics of these two groups are quite different, that the specific variety of Manichaean script used has not yet received satisfactory paleographic analysis, and finally that the fragments in Sogdian script are far more numerous, it seems convenient to treat each group separately. The present study will therefore concentrate only on the fragments of private letters in Manichaean script.1 I. IDENTIFICATION OF TEXTS A number of fragments written in a particular variety of the Mani- chaean script and Sogdian language have been identified, primarily in the Berlin Turfan collection. Closer inspection of these fragments reveals that nearly all of them are “private letters” sent between members of the Manichaean communities of Turfan. Though the two best examples (Nos. 1 and 2 below) have been studied in depth, these texts have never been studied together as a group and the script has yet to be analyzed. At the outset it will be simplest to present the fragments to be discussed here and offer some rough criteria for their identification and grouping. An edition of the fragments with relevant commentary follows, and a paleographic analysis and discussion of the script will be postponed to the final section. The first to identify some of these fragments was W. B. Henning (1936), who noted Nos. 1, 2, and 3 below in one of his early articles on the Manichaean texts. Mary Boyce then gathered further fragments and grouped them together in her catalogue as “private letters” (1960, p. 48), presumably on the basis of both content and script, although she gave no explicit criteria for her grouping. Among the fragments she identified, all except two can be upheld as most likely private letters.2 In terms of content, such letters often contain frequent 2nd-person pronouns (tγw/šmʾx ‘you sg/pl’), honorific forms of address such as βγ ‘Sir’ or šmʾx frny ‘Your Honor’, or titles such as mwjʾk ‘teacher’ and ʾftʾδʾn ‘bishop’. Epistolary formula such as those known from non-Manichaean Sogdian letters or Manichaean letters in Sogdian script are rarely encountered in the frag- ments discussed here, perhaps due simply to their poor state of preserva- 1 It is my pleasure to thank Enrico Morano, Christiane Reck, and Nicholas Sims- Williams for advice, suggestions, and helpful discussion. I am, of course, respon- sible for any shortcomings in the readings and translations presented here. The photographs are published courtesy of the Fotostelle, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin with the permission of the Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften. 2 M 891a is a fragment of a codex page in careful, non-cursive script. For both these reasons it is unlikely to be a letter. M 1204 is not a codex page, but also does not use any cursive letter-forms. In view of its limited content, I find it difficult to argue that it is a letter either. S O G D I A N L E T T E R F R A G M E N T S 199 tion. The fragments which appear to have been actual letters, as opposed to letter exercises or practice, are written on very thin paper. Finally, most of the fragments are written in a distinctive variety of the Manichaean script which will be referred to as “cursive” for the reason that the characters frequently connect to each other and often have simplified forms. It should be noted, though, that the fragments differ in the extent to which their script is cursive. Boyce did not use the term “cursive” and instead de- scribed most of these fragments as written in a “late hand” (1960, passim); this designation is however not paleographically precise, and is not necessarily historically accurate either. Further discussion of Manichaean “cursive” will be found in part 3. The letter fragments in Manichaean cursive are therefore the following, of which Nos. 3-9 will be edited here: Signature Measurements Verso side No. 1 M112+ 26 cm wide Re-used for Old Turkic No. 2 M119+ 29.5 cm wide Blank No. 3 M4435 & M4436 11 x 22 cm, 5 x 5.5 cm Blank No. 4 M483 & M513 11 x 6.5 cm, 5.5 x 5 cm Re-used for Middle Persian No. 5 M8000 & M8001 12 x 11 cm, 9 x 3.5 cm Blank No. 6 M858a+L75 9.8+12 x 7+5.5 cm Re-used for Old Turkic No. 7 M7391+M7392 25 x 9.5 cm Sogdian; Chinese recto No. 8 M1910 3.5 x 7.5 cm Blank No. 9 M7440 28 x 1.5 cm Sogdian; Chinese recto II. EDITION AND COMMENTARY3 Nos. 1-2 “Manichaean Letter 1” (M 112+) & “Manichaean Letter 2” (M 119+) These two well-known texts were published by Sundermann,4 whose work should be consulted for further description, philological commentary, and historical information. It is thus unnecessary to include an edition here. The paleography of both ML1 and ML2 was described as a “late hand” by Boyce. As will be seen in Part 3, however, each document is written in a different hand as well as style of script; ML2 is far more cursive than ML1. 3 Editorial conventions are as follows: [xyz] = letters completely restored, (xyz) = letters only partially or ambiguously legible, (.) = number of illegible letters. When citing Sogdian forms in the commentary, the letters B, C, M, or S indicate the Buddhist, Christian, Manichaean or Sogdian (script) textual traditions, respectively. 4 Sundermann 1984, first edition; Id. 2007, re-edition with relatively extensive changes. 200 A. B E N K A T O StIr 45, 2016 The fragments constituting ML1 are M 112, M 146a, M 336c, M 162a, M 336a, M 336b (Sundermann 1984, p. 92). The paper is approximately 26 cm in width, with margins in pale black ink set in about 1 cm from each edge; there are red dots every 2 or 3 lines in the right-hand margin, none visible in the left. The paper is thin, though thicker than that of both ML2 and No. 3. The lines are spaced at about 1.6 cm. The fragments belonging to ML2 are M 119, M 119ab, M 1225, M 1867ab (Sundermann 1984, p. 296). The page is about 29.5 cm wide, with margins in pale black ink about 1 cm from each edge. The paper is quite thin, to the point that the pen seems to have pierced through at points during writing, but the paper is less thin than that of No. 3 below. The line spacing is about 1.4cm. No. 3 (M 4435, M 4436) Two fragments from the right-hand side of a sheet of paper, glassed together, containing parts of 33 lines in total and constituting the third- largest amount of text in Manichaean cursive script. Henning referred to these fragments as “Manichaean Letter iii” in a few publications,5 while Sundermann clearly read but never edited them.6 Thus outside of these few references, the complete text has remained unpublished. A first edition is offered here, though it is unfortunately meagre since not even a single complete line survives undamaged. The larger fragment M 4435 has now broken into two pieces. Morano (2007, p. 259) assigns a new number M 4437 to the broken-off piece of M 4435, but since the fragment is legible in its found condition as a single piece, via an old microfilm copy in the Turfanforschung, we will only use the original catalogue numbers here.7 The paper is extremely thin, thinner than that of Nos.
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