Bäzäklik, Berlin, and Kyoto

Manichaean Parthian Hymn Transcribed in Sogdian Script

Abstract

When he visited Turfan in October 1990, Y. Yoshida, one of the authors of the present article, examined the Iranian manuscripts unearthed at Bäzäklik during the excavation undertaken in 1980-81. Among them he found and transliterated a fragment (80. T. B. I. 644) of a Parthian hymn written in Sogdian script. He showed his transliteration to the other author, W. Sundermann, in April 1991 when the latter was invited to Ryukoku University. On the spot Sundermann noticed that the same hymn is found in two manuscripts, one in Sogdian script (X) and the other Manichaean (M 779), of the German Turfan collection deposited at Turfan Forschung in Berlin. The two then decided to publish this hymn dedicated to the Manichaean Third Messenger as a joint contribution to the project organized by Professor K. Kudara of Ryukoku University and supported by the grant of the Monbusho International Scientific Research Program.
In the meantime Yoshida discovered two small fragments containing the same hymn among the Otani collection (Otani 6229 and 7375) now housed at the Ryukoku University library. They are also edited in the present article.
Perhaps the most interesting feature of this hymn is the occurrence of 'yl (M 'yl), the Aramaic word for god so far unknown in the Manichaean literature. This word appears in combination with 'st'y (M 'st 'yy) “(you) are” and employed in an ecstatic exclamation: 'yl 'yl 'yl 'yl 'st'y 'st'y 'st'y “El, el, el, el. You are, you are, you are!”. It is also to be noticed that 'st'y (M 'st 'yy) is the combination of the inflected forms of a verb 'h- “to be”, i. e. 'st “is” and 'yy “you are”.