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ARAM, 22 (2010) 97-132. doi: 10.2143/ARAM.22.0.2131034 SOUL FOOD: THE MANDAEAN LAUFANI Dr. EDWARD F. CRANGLE & Prof. BRIKHA H.S. NASORAIA (University of Sydney) INTRODUCTION Regarding ritual including the sacramental meal, essential purity and the stringency of ritual enactment, E.S. Drower states: … to [the Mandaean] the immutable and sacrosanct elements of his religion are the ancient rituals, baptism and the various forms of the sacramental meal. It does not worry him that there are a number of creation-stories, contradictory to one another or that there is confusion in the heterogeneous pantheon of spirits of light and darkeness. What does matter is that no rule of ritual purity be broken, and that every gesture and action prescribed for ritual shall be rigidly observed.1 Jorunn Buckley points out that Mandaean speculative mythologies co-exist with complex rituals, and that students of Mandaesim tend to regard the myths and the rituals as essentially unrelated. She states that “Attempts to render the rituals of Mandaeism meaningful within the frameworks of the religion’s mytho- logical thought are still scarse.”2 This paper aims to make a minor contribution in this regard. Buckley states: If rituals aim to concentrate the attention and imagination in order to create other realities and other worlds, interpreters need to grasp the Mandaean understanding of the difference between its “here,” the earthly world, and its “there,” the Light- world, without leaping to automatic conclusions based on other Gnostic examples.3 Buckley’s emphasis on ‘other realities,’ ’other worlds,’ and ‘differences’ reveals a scholarly preference for the analytical mode of cognition, whereby the research material is organized according to a basis for contrast that is perhaps largely unconscious. The abstract separation of a whole into its constituent parts, in order to study the parts and their relations, is largely the preferred mode of academia. That is to say, analysis, with its appreciation and recognition of differences in material, tends to limit or even preclude the opportunity for the 1 E.S. Drower, The Haran Gawaita and the Baptism of Hibil Ziwa, E.S. Drower, Studi e Testi 176, Vatican City, 1953, XI in Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, “The Mandaean Tabahata Masiqta,” Numen, XXVIII, 2 (1981), 138-163, 138. 2 Buckley, Jorunn Jacobsen. Ibid. 3 Buckley, The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and Modern People, (Oxford UP, Oxford, 2002), p. 18. 93793_Aram_22_06_Crangle.indd 97 18/10/11 15:13 98 SOUL FOOD: THE MANDAEAN LAUFANI recognition of identity in examples of religion such as ritual behaviour and its associated world-view/cosmology.4 For example, both scholars and Mandaeans recognise the counterpart (Dmuta),5 which could be understood/interpreted also as an encounter with an internal reality leading to Adam Kasia, the hidden or mystical Adam, who dwells in Msunia KusÁa, the Exalted World of Truth.6 Adam Kasia, the cosmic/ universal Perfect Being/Adam,7 represents the ideal or archetypical double, and eventual reunion with Aina d-Razia, the ‘Source/Wellspring of Mysteries,’ from which all Beings emanate.8 Such stands in dualistic opposition to actual, 4 See Crangle, Edward F. “Cognitive Styles and Studies in Religion,” Australian Religion Studies Review, 8/1, Autumn, 1995, 22-26. 5 Dmuta is very important theological, cosmological term in Mandaeism. It has complex meanings which shift depending on the use and place used in the Mandaic sentence. Its meanings range between the literal and the deep mystical forms of typical Mandaean terminology. For example, dmuta can mean: “archetype, appearance, counterpart, likeness, shape, picture, Divine counterpart, Divine image, the Ideal counterpart, spiritual ideal, the ideal of life, the idealized image or well-ordered Ideal (or World), counterpart of the Chosen Elect or the righteousness.” Drower describes this last meaning further, as follows: “The dmuta is the over-soul, the counter- part of the earthly being in the ideal world of Msunia KusÁa. It often acts as conscience or guardian angel, according to commentaries." E. S. Drower, The Canonical Prayerbook of the Mandaeans, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1959 (hereafter CP), p. 236, n. 5. In Mandaean religious thought, the idea of the Counterpart (Prototype or the double) in the Good World (the ‘hidden-Good City’) is applied to all existence and sooner or later the two parts will purify, rise and join together in the Ideal World (well ordered) of Msunia KusÁa.” Nasoraia, Brikha (aka Hathem Saed), A Critical Edition, with Translation and Analytical Study of Diwan Qadaha Rba D-Dmut Kusta (The Scroll of Great Creation of the Image/Likeness of Truth) Ph.D., University of Sydney, 2005, (hereafter DQRDK), pp. 48-49. Cf. E.S. Drower and R. Macuch, A Mandaic Dictionary, Oxford, Oxford UP, 1963 (hereafter MD), pp. 111b-112a; Alf Trisar Suialia, tr. E. S. Drower, The Thousand and Twelve Questions: A Mandaean Text, Akademie Verlag, Berlin, 1960 (hereafter ATS), pp. 11, 168 (I: 229); Saed, Hathem (a.k.a. Nasoraia, Brikha), Christian and Mandaean Perspectives on Baptism, Journal of Eastern Christian Studies, 5b, 1-4 (2004): 31-347, 332. See also many places in E.S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran: Their Cults, Customs, Magic, Legends and Folklore, (Gorgias Reprint Series, vol. 35, Press LLC by arrangement with Oxford University Press; first published by Oxford University Press in 1937; second Edition, New Jersey: Gorgias Press LLC, 2002) (hereafter MII), such as, pp. 41, 54-6 n. i, 78, 95, 330, 92-3, etc.; Rudolph, K., Mandaeism, E. J. Brill, Leiden, 1978, p. 15; M. Lidzbarski, Das Johannesbuch der Mandäer, Giessen, 1915 (hereafter JB), p. 127. Cf. the ‘well ordered city/state of Plato.’ 6 Msunia KusÁa is the world of Ideals/Perfect cosmic humanity. It is “a world of ideas in which the prototypes of all earthly things and beings exist.” MD, p. 280a. Cf. W. Brandt, Die mandäische Religion, Leipzig, 1889 (hereafter MR), p. 38 n.1, 53 n. 1; CP, 268 n. 5; Mandaeans understand Msunia KusÁa as ‘the World of Truth’ in which Adam Kasia (the secret Adam) and his perfect cosmic generations dwell. See Saed, Nasoraia Hathem (a.k.a. Nasoraia, Brikha H.S.) ‘Na≥iruta: Deep Knowl- edge and Extraordinary Priestcraft in Mandaean Religion.’ in Esotericism and the Control of Knowl- edge, ed. Edward F. Crangle, Sydney Studies in Religion, vol. 5, (General Editor Professor Garry W. Trompf), Sydney: Department of Studies in Religion, University of Sydney, pp. 306-360. (here- after Nasiruta);. Also, consult MII, pp. 54 ff, 283; The Secret Adam: Drower E.S., A Study of Na≥oraean Gnosis, Oxford 1960 (hereafter SA) (many places esp. pp. 39-46). See also n. 5 (Dmuta), above. 7 See Nasiruta, (many places esp. pp. 340, 343, 346, 347ff., 356) Also Consult SA; MII (esp. pp. 54 ff, 73f., 86, 253, 283). 8 See DQRDK, 34-42 (pp. 199-200). Also consult Nasiruta, (many places, eg. pp. 322, 323, 328, 336). 93793_Aram_22_06_Crangle.indd 98 18/10/11 15:13 E.F. CRANGLE & B.H.S. NASORAIA 99 earthly individual of the so-called external world.9 In brief, peculiar meditative experiences lead to meditative encounters with what might be best referred to as extraordinary ‘energy’ or the Adam Kasia – Primordial Man of Mandae- ism. Textual research suggests that this may be identified in Buddhism as the Dharmakaya10 (Pali: Dhammakaya, Body of Truth or Great Monk). In other religious traditions the Blue Person of Kashmiri Saivism, the Adam Kadmon or Primordial Man of Jewish Mysticism etc. As such, these encounters sug- gest the access to a meditative gateway leading to the transcendent source of wisdom.11 The analytical mode of cognition generates ontological categories under- stood as internal and external. As such, they are neither real nor unreal, but merely represent one means to articulate reality as it is found. However, prob- lems arise when a scholarly view of differences in material precludes any opportunity for revealing identity in data. For example, the Mandaean contemplative realisation of the ideal counter- part is experienced similarly in peculiar Buddhist ritual contemplative practice, whereby oneself as meditator meets progressive purified refinements recog- nised as a continuum of Dharmakaya or Body of Truth. In esoteric Theravada Buddhism, the Pali Dhammakaya is regarded as the supra-mundane body com- prising the purest element,12 the most perfected being the Dhammakaya Ara- hatta Perfect One,13 concluding in the Plenum/Void (Sunyata) that produces all that exists. According to esoteric Theravada Buddhism, it abides at the centre of the body, and can be realised through profound contemplative praxis.14 That is to say, Mandaean religious ritual has its esoteric correlations and counterpart in Buddhism. While differences can be found easily in the many 9 MII, n. 1, p. 54. 10 Unless otherwise indicated, Indo-Aryan languages employed in the paper are in Sanskrit. 11 See Crangle, Edward F. “The Bodhisattva Intent: Guanyin and the Dynamics of Healing in Buddhist Meditation,” in Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara (Guanyin) and Modern Society: Proceedings of the Fifth Chung-Hwa International Conference on Buddhism, William Magee & Yi-hsun Huang (eds), Taipei: Dharma Drum Publishing Corporation, 2007, pp. 65-110; Crangle, Edward F. “Heal- ing in Buddhist Meditation,” paper presented to the International Conference on Healing of Mind, Body & Spirit: Religion and Science in Dialogue, Fu Jen Catholic University, Taiwan, 2006, Crangle, Edward F. “Stopping of the Asavas Cankers in Buddhist Meditation,” in Crangle, Edward F. (ed.) The Pathway to the Centre: Purity and the Mind – Proceedings of the International Samadhi Forum 2006; Sydney: 60th Dhammachai Education Foundation, 2010, pp. 243-271, and Nasoraia, Brikha H.S. & Crangle, Edward F. The Asuta Wish: Adam Kasia and the Dynamics of Healing in Mandaean Contemplative Praxis, in Proceedings of the Aram Twenty Seventh Inter- national Conference on Mandaeism, Aram Periodical, (volume 22, 2010), 349-390.
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