Abstract
In this article one Manichaean Sogdian fragment is edited. Two old dry plates of the fragment, which was further broken into two pieces, are preserved at the Department of Oriental History, Kyoto University. Although the present whereabouts of the original is not known, circumstances suggest that it once existed in Japan, and that the photographs were made for the late Professor Toru Haneda of Kyoto University, who had a reputation of being a good decipherer of old manuscripts unearthed from Central Asia.
From its contents and handwriting it can be proved that the fragment immediately precedes the so-called “Job Story” published by W. B. Henning (BSOAS 11, 1945, 485-87). The combined text spends all 50 lines (11. 28-50 being a ‘Job Story’) expounding vanity and impermanence of earthly life and bears strong similarity to the “lament for impermanence” found in the Chinese Manichaean hyannscroll 11. 83-119. One excerpt will illustrate this. Compare the following Sogdian passage with line 102 of the hyninscroll.
(26) … rty cnn ZKw pryw ZY cnn šyrxwz-'k ZY ZK (27) xwtm wxsty c'nkw ZY ZK r'δch ZY ZKw (xw'kkr'k?) ky ZY kβnh (28) (')z-mnw ''wx'n'yt 'skw'nt ZY ZKw 'nw'štk rty pts'r yxw'y'nt (29) (x)w 'yw cnn δβtyk w'nkw 'PZY xwy'r ZK 'yw δn δβtyk L' wyn'nt “He will be separated from his loved ones, friends and relatives like travellers and merchants who stay together for a little while under the same roof, but later separate from each other so that they do not meet each other easily.”
_??__??__??__??__??__??__??_/_??__??__??__??__??__??__??_/_??__??__??__??__??__??__??_/_??__??__??__??__??__??__??_“The temporal relations of a family, which are mundane truth, How far do they differ from that of staying at a traveller's inn? Masses of persons stop and rest together for a night; In the morning, they separate and return to their own lands”, cf. Tsui Chi, BSOAS 11, 1943, 185.
Such hapax legomena and rare words as δxšt'k “ripe”, prkwxs “swaying”, and 'pw ptspnyh “vanity?” found in the text make the fragment intriguing also from the philological point of view.
