Tag: Manichaeism

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Journal

The second issue of Studia Iranica 45

The second issue of Studia Iranica 45 (2016) has been published. Three papers of this issue are related to our interest:

The presence in the Wizīdagīhā ī Zādspram 28,6 of an explicit reference to the figure 6666 in connection with the manifestation of Ahreman’s arrival into the world immediately suggests a direct comparison with the ‘Number of the Beast’, 666, appearing in the Apocalypse of John, 13, 17-18. The author analyses many symbolic interpretations of this number and its importance in the Early Christian tradition, in particular in the framework of Irenaeus’s Adversus Haereses and the related chiliadic milieu. While the presence of this number in the Mazdean context seems to be another evidence supporting the thesis of a Western influence on Iranian apocalypticism (in spite of the apparent absence of Syriac versions of the Apocalypse of John in earlier times), the circulation of millenaristic doctrines presents a more complex situation, in which also the Iranian component should have played its remarkable impact in earlier times.

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.

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Books

Āzandnāmē: A Manichaean-Sogdian Parable-Book

Benkato, Adam. Āzandnāmē. An Edition and Literary-Critical Study of the Manichaean-Sogdian Parable-Book. Beiträge Zur Iranistik 42. Wiesbaden: Reichert Verlag, 2017.

The Manichaean communities in Turfan (in modern-day Xinjiang, China) produced numerous texts in many languages, including Sogdian, an eastern Middle Iranian language. The present work is an edition and literary-critical study of the longest continuous Manichaean text in Sogdian, known as the Āzandnāmē, or Parable-Book. The Parable-Book preserves parts of three parables which illuminate various aspects of Manichaean teaching by means of a narrative followed by an explanation. A new and expanded edition of the Sogdian text, with English translation and philological commentary, forms the first part of this study.

Along with sermons, hymns, and confessionals, parables were one of the major genres of non-canonical texts produced by Manichaeans in Central Asian communities, surviving in Middle Persian, Parthian, and Old Turkic, as well as Sogdian. In the second part of this study, a new approach to the study of Manichaean parables is presented, taking into account their intertextuality as part of a genre that can only exist in interdependence on all other genres of Manichaean literature. This approach allows new light to be shed on the text of the Āzandnāmē while also investigating how and for which purposes the parables were produced and used.

This work is intended for specialists of Manichaeism and/or Sogdian philology, as well as those with interests in Iranian philology or religions in Central Asia more generally.

Follow the links for the Table of Contents and the Introduction to the volume.

Adam Benkato, Ph.D. (2015) is an scholar of Middle Iranian and specificly Manichaean and Sogdian Studies. From 2015-16 he was a Researcher at the Turfan Studies Project, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, and is presently a Humboldt Research Fellow at the Freie Universität Berlin.

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Events

Mani in Cambridge

Mani in Cambridge: A Day-Symposium on Manichaean Studies | Ancient India & Iran Trust

On Saturday 25 March, as part of an ongoing research project, we are holding a one day Symposium on Manichaean Studies sponsored jointly by the Ancient India and Iran Trust, the International Association of Manichaean Studies and the Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum Project.

Source: Mani in Cambridge: A Day-Symposium on Manichaean Studies | Ancient India & Iran Trust

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Books

Manichaeism East and West

Lieu, Samuel, Nils Arne Pedersen, Enrico Morano & Erica Hunter (eds.). 2017. Manichaeism East and West (Corpus Fontium Manichaeorum – Analecta Manichaica 1). Brepols Publishers.

The volume contains the proceedings of the eigth international symposium of the International Assocation of Manichaean Studies covering all major aspects of Manichaean studies.
This new volume brings the research on many aspects of the texts published in the Corpus up to date and signals new texts to appear in the Corpus. It includes important studies on the scientific dating of the Medinet Madi, codices as well as the newly discovered Manichaean texts in Chinese and Parthian from Xiapu in South China.

Source: Manichaeism East and West

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Books

Iranian Linguistic Studies in memoriam Xavier Tremblay

Acta Iranica 57Pirart, Eric (ed.). 2016. Études de linguistique iranienne: in memoriam Xavier Tremblay. (Acta Iranica 57). Leuven: Peeters.
The 57th volume of the Acta Iranica is dedicated to the memory of late Xavier Tremblay (* 26. 6. 1971, Lille—15. 11. 2011), in order to celebrate his contribution to Iranian and Indo-European Studies. Even unfinished, the work of Xavier Tremblay plays a fundamental role to our understanding of the origins of the Zoroastrian liturgy.
Table of Contents (PDF):
  • Philippe Swennen: “Xavier Tremblay et la liturgie longue proto indo-iranienne. Présentation
  • Alberto Cantera: “On Avestan text criticism (2): the accusative singular of the ū̆- and ṷa- stems in the long liturgy”
  • Juan Jose Ferrer Losilla: “Preconsonantal nasals in the Avestan alphabet”
  • Jost Gippert: “Albano-Jranica II: Avestan +āfše”
  • Jean Kellens: “Deux apologues sur le feu rituel“
  • Jaime Martinez-Porro: “The orthography of the Avestan diphthongs aē and aō in the munuscripts of the long liturgy”
  • Antonio Panaino: “The World’s Conflagration and the Manichaean “Great Fire” of 1468 years”
  • Éric Pirart: Les cvi de l’Avesta”
  • Nicholas Sims-Wiliams: “Bactria—Balkh: variations on a place-name”
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Books

Cultural Transfer along the Silk Road

Espagne, Michel, Svetlana Gorshenina, Frantz Grenet, Sahin Mustafayev & Claude Rapin (eds.). 2016. Asie centrale: transferts culturels le long de la route de la soie. Paris: Vendémiaire.
This collection of essays is the result of the International Symposium “Cultural Transfers in Central Asia: before, during and after the Silk Road” (Conference Program), held in Samarkand on 12–14 September 2013. Expanding the original Eurocentric orientation in a broad chronological and interdisciplinary perspective and involving new materials, the participants have attempted to test the methodological approach of the “cultural transfers” and the effectiveness of their basic concepts (ways of travel, guides, translators, innovation, assimilation of “new” assignments, semantic shifts, etc.) in the Central Asian context. In these studies Central Asia includes mainly the post-Soviet space and its Central Asian neighbors like Siberia, Xinjiang, Afghanistan, Iran and Azerbaijan. The purpose of the collection is to determine the significance of the theory of the “cultural transfers” and, if possible, the range of its applications.
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Books

Ancient tales of giants

Goff, Matthew, Loren Stuckenbruck & Enrico Morano (eds.). 2016. Ancient tales of giants from Qumran and Turfan: Contexts, traditions, and influences (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 360). Mohr Siebeck.

While there has been much scholarly attention devoted to the Enochic Book of the Watchers , much less has been paid to the Book of Giants from Qumran. This volume is the proceedings of a conference that convened in Munich, Germany, in June 2014, which was devoted to the giants of Enochic tradition and in particular the Qumran Book of Giants . It engages the topic of the giants in relation to various ancient contexts, including the Hebrew Bible, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and ancient Mesopotamia. The authors of this volume give particular attention to Manichaeism, especially the Manichaean Book of Giants , fragments of which were found in Turfan (western China). They contribute to our understanding of the range of stories Jews told in antiquity about the sons of the watchers who descended to earth and their vibrant Nachleben in Manichaeism.

Continue reading “Ancient tales of giants”
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Articles

Mani’s Book of Giants in Sogdian

Fig. 4: So20220/I/R/ and So20220/II/V/ [K20]. Depositum der Berlin-Brandenburgischen Akademie der Wissenschaften in der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin-Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Orientabteilung. Photos: Fotostelle der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin.
Detail of K20 © Berlin-Brandenburgischen
Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin.

Morano, Enrico. 2016. Some New Sogdian Fragments Related to Mani’s Book of Giants and the Problem of the Influence of Jewish Enochic Literature. In Matthew Goff, Loren T. Stuckenbruck & Enrico Morano (eds.), Ancient Tales of Giants from Qumran and Turfan. Contexts, Traditions, and Influences [Antike Geschichten von Riesen aus Qumran und Turfan. Kontexte, Traditionen und Einflüsse], 187–198. (Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 360). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck.
Enochic influence on Manichaean tradition has long been recognized. Much has been written ever since, both on the Book of Giants and on Enochic literature, but many details still remain obscure, owing to the scantiness of the primary literature and to the poor state of the manuscripts. The present paper aims to give further evidence of the important role that Jewish tradition played in the development of Mani’s religion. In the first part, two still unpublished Sogdian texts from, or related to, Mani’s Book of Giants will be presented and edited for the first time. In the second section, a Sogdian text written on a fragmentary page of a bifolio and clearly linked to Jewish Enochic literature, is edited here for the first time. All these texts are part of the Berlin Turfan collection.
About the Author:
Enrico Morano is retired teacher of Classics in High Schools and the current President of the International Association of Manichaean Studies (IAMS), is a scholar of Ancient Iranian Religions, Manichaeanism and Middle Iranian languages.
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Events

SOAS: Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion 2016

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mani.jpg

The 2016 Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion will be delivered by Iain Gardner, University of Sydney.  The lectures are:

  1. Mani’s Background and Early Life: Who was He and What did He Think He was Doing?
  2. Mani’s Career as the ‘Apostle of Jesus Christ’: His Missions and the Community he Founded
  3. Mani’s Death: Inter-Religious Conflict in Early Sasanian Iran and the Memory of the Apostle

For more information, see  Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion: SOAS.

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Events

Summer school in the Turfanforschung: Sogdians and Turks on the Silk Road

Manichaean priests writing Sogdian manuscripts, in Khocho, Tarim Basin, ca. 8th/9th century AD
Manichaean priests writing Sogdian manuscripts, in Khocho, Tarim Basin, ca. 8th/9th century AD

Summer school in the Turfanforschung:

“Sogdians and Turks on the Silk Road”

August 22 – September 2, 2016

Duration: two weeks, daily four seminars each 90 min.
Location: Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities

 

 

A detailed programme is available here: “Sogdians and Turks on the Silk Road” Summer School”

Participation is free.

The Turfanforschung (Turfan Studies) at the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities offers in 2016 a summer school providing an introduction to the field of Turfan Studies, which deals with the many languages and scripts used along the Silk Road as well as the histories and cultures of those who used them. The summer school will center around the two main languages of Turfan research. Sogdian, a middle Iranian language, was widely used as a lingua franca in Central Asia since the 1st c. A.C. Old Turkic was the language of Turkic nomads which had a strong influence on the Silk Road since the middle of the 6th c. After the migration of the Uyghurs it was also used as the main language in the Turfan area under Uyghur rule until 14th c.

The courses in this summer school will be given by the staff of the Turfanforschung and the Katalogisierung der Orientalischen Handschriften in Deutschland (Arbeitsstelle Berlin): A. Benkato, D. Durkin-Meisterernst, Y. Kasai, S.- Ch. Raschmann, C. Reck, A. Yakup. There will also be guest lectures by I. Colditz, M. Peyrot and L. Sander.

Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Jägerstraße 22-23,
10117 Berlin

Topics:
1. Scripts

  • Sogdian script
  • Uyghur script
  • Turkic Runic
  • Nestorian script
  • Manichaean script
  • Brāhmī script

2. Language: Old Turkic

  • language course with reading
  • lecture for linguistics

3. Language: Sogdian

  • language course with reading
  • lecture for linguistics

4. Language: Tocharian

5. Turfan studies

  • history of the Turfan expeditions
  • Central Asian book culture
  • history
  • religions
  • research history

Because a minimum number of participants are required for the summer school to take place, we ask for a binding registration by 20th May 2016 at rabuske@bbaw.de or in writing at: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften AV Turfanforschung, Jägerstraße 22-23, D-10117, Berlin.