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Mani's Šābuhragā—II

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

D. N. MacKenzie
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Extract

The nearly complete 432 lines of the Šābuhragān presented in the first part of article come from a series, almost certainly unbroken, of 9 folios = 18 pages, each with 24 lines. It is possible that a whole folio, i.e. two pages, is missing between D v and E r, or between F v and G r, but the content of those pages makes it seem most unlikely. A question not yet considered is how the folios A-J were folded into a quire. A, B, C and E are double sheets, i.e. have at least partially preserved counter-folios (which we may call A2, B2, C2 and E2) still attached to them, on the left side of the fold and of the binder's stitch-holes. This, however, does not tell us from how many double sheets the quire was made. To establish this we must know which of our folios, if any, were the first and last of the quire. The main parts of H and J, M 505 a and b, are separate folios, though of very similar shape, and described as ‘fragments from a double sheet, whose pages were consecutive’ (Henning, apud Boyce, Catalogue, M 505). Confirmation and proof of this statement, presumably based on the content of the folios, comes from one of the fragments which complement them, viz. M 542 b, identified as ‘das verbindende Stück’ by Dr. Sundermann. This is still hinged (Boyce, Catalogue, ‘from the centre of a double sheet’), its side I clearly belonging to H and II to J (see pl. VI). There can be no doubt, therefore, that H-J was the centre double sheet of the quire.

Type
Articles Notes and Communications
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 43 , Issue 2 , June 1980 , pp. 288 - 310
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies 1980

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References

1 See BSOAS, XLII, 3, 1979, 500–34Google Scholar. As noted there, when it was already in print and this part made ready for the press, on the basis of correspondence with Dr. Sundermann, I was at last able shortly to examine the original fragments in Berlin. Subsequently Dr. Sundermann made new photographs of the manuscripts, some of them now rearranged, for my use. These photographs are reproduced here with the permission of the Zentralinstitut für Alte Geschichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften der DDR. Considerations of space and scale have made it necessary to trim most of them drastically, but one typical example is given in full. All the plates are approximately 9/10 X full size. Unfortunately most headings, etc., written in red ink (B-J; D r 10, 15) have not lent themselves to clear reproduction by photography.

[Part I, corrigendum et addendum:

p. 514, 1. 242, for ps read pd.

p. 528, 1. 7, for cybyc read qybyc.

pp. 531 f., my argument in the note to lines 298 f., that čiyhr means ‘form’ rather than ‘nature’, seems to be clinched by the Parthian text M 285, 88 ff., quoted by Boyce, , Man. Hymn-cycles, 16Google Scholar, n. 9, where all the souls (of the righteous dead) are said to ‘put on the body(ḥnb'r) of the Father (Ohrmezdbay)’ in the New Paradise.]

2 It is perhaps of interest to mention that, with quires of eight double sheets, the Šābuhragān MS comes closer to the form of the Coptic Kephalaia codex, with quires of six (I, ed. H. J. Polotsky and A. Böhlig, Stuttgart, 1940, Einleitung, xiv), than to that of the Middle Iranian Bet- und Beichtbuch, whose quires Henning reckoned to have consisted originally of probably rather more than 14 double sheets (ed. Berlin, 1937, Einleitung. 5).

3 Nyberg's interpretation (Manual, II, 100) ‘hešmēh … an outburst of fury … Probably only tēšm + the indef. art. -ē: ˜ mā kun’ is untenable in view of the surrounding commandments: spazgīh … āz-kāmagīh … waranīgīh ma kun‘ commit no slander … greediness … lust’, all abstracts.

4 In the glossary, p. 195 a (and implicitly in Word-list, 83, s.v. sy-, s'y- ‘lie, lie down; be, exist’) Boyce quotes Henning ‘who abandons the connexion with Av. saδaya- ’,i.e. his opinion, quoted by Ghilain, , Essai, 91Google Scholar, that Pth. sy- = Man.MP sh- ‘seem’ < *snd-. This seems to throw out the baby with the bath-water: sy-, s'y is ‘lie’ in cz 7,‘be’ only with hw'r'm, hw'rmyn, i.e. ‘rest content’, in ax I, cz 6, and M 92 (unpubl.), but surely ‘seem’ in M 35 V 5 f., 8 f. (Henning, , ‘Book of the giants’, 71Google Scholar, N 23, 26 = Reader, ab 1) ‘wš wxš s'yd ‘and it seems pleasant to it = it enjoys it’. Sogdian has both B 'sy- ‘lie’ (SCEA, 175 = Chin chï su ‘stop for the night’) and M sy-, B 'sy- ‘show’ and ‘appear’: the latter cannot be connected with ✓sand, however, despite Khot.sad- ‘appear, seem’ (Emmerick, , SGS, 130Google Scholar), without explaining away the loss of -d- (otherwise preserved in Sogd., e.g. nyδ- ‘sit‘, rwδ- ‘grow’).

5 See Henning, , apud Schwartz, JBAS, 1966, 121Google Scholar. Nyberg, , Manual, II, 95Google Scholar, naturally maintains his old reading *handrūtak.

6 The numbering in Boyce, , Catalogue, M 537Google Scholar must be amended accordingly: her 537 a becomes 537 a and b, her scrap 537 b then 537 c. Moreover her I V 8 is now a II v 22 and her II R I now a II r 12.