Realms of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern 2503511570, 9782503511573

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SILK ROAD STUDIES IV REALMS OF THE SILK ROADS: ANCIENT AND MODERN

SILK ROAD STUDIES IV

Edited by an international committee R.E. EMMERICK (Hamburg [D]) G. GNOLI (Roma [I]) S. KLJASHTORNYJ (Sankt Petersburg [CIS]) S.N.C. LIEU (Sydney [AUS]) B.A. LITVINSKY (Moskva [CIS]) R. MESERVE (Bloomington (IN) [USA]) G. PINAULT (Paris [F]) A. SARKÖZI (Budapest [H]) A. VAN TONGERLOO (Leuven [B]) Editor-in-chief S. WHITFIELD (London [GB]), Director ofthe Dunhuang Monograph Series P. ZIEME (Berlin [D])

SILK ROAD STUDIES

IV Realms of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern Proceedings from the Third Conference of the Australasian Society for Inner Asian Studies (A.S.I.A.S.) Macquarie University September 18-20 1998

Edited by

David Christian & Craig Benjamin

~ BREPOLS ANCIENT HISTORY DOCUMENTARY RESEARCH CENTRE MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY NSW AUSTRALIA

© 2000, Brepols Publishers, Turnhout, Belgium. ISBN 2-503-51157-0 D/2000/00951114 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, elcctronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. Printed in the E.U. on acid-free paper.

INTRODUCTION

PART 1: NEW SOURCES ON INNER ASIAN HISTORY § 1 NICHOLAS SIMS-WILLIAMS

1

Some Reflections on Zoroastrianism in Sogdiana and Bactria §2 GUNNER MIKKELSEN

13

Traite/Sermon on the Light-Nous in Chinese and its Parallels in Parthian, Sogdian and Old Turkish §3 A.V.G. BETTS & V.N. YAGODIN Hunting Traps on the Ustiurt Plateau, Uzbekistan

29

PART 2: LONG DISTANCE CONTACTS §4 SAMUELLIEU

47

Byzantium, Persia and China: Interstate Relations on the Eve ofthe Islamic Conquest §5 DAVID CHRISTIAN

67

Silk Roads or Steppe Roads? The Silk Roads in World History §6 MICHAEL UNDERDOWN

95

The Northem Silk Road: Ties between Tuifan and Korea

PART 3: POLITICAL LIFE §7 CRAIG BENJAMIN

105

The Yuezhi and their Neighbours: Evidence for the Yuezhi in the Chinese Sources c. 220 - c. 25 BCE §8 KlRILL NOURZHANOV

161

Politics of National Reconciliation in Tajikistan: From Peace Talks to (Partial) Political Settlement §9 SHAHRAMAKBARZADEH

181

Islam and Regional Stability in Central Asia § 10 COLIN MACKERRAS

Relations Between the Uygur State and China's Tang Dynasty, 744-840

195

PART 4: PERSPECT IVES § 11 GEOFF W ATSON Prestigious Peregrinations: British Travellers in Central Asia c. 1830-1914

209

§12 FELIX P ATRIKEEFF The Geopolitics of Myth: Interwar Northeast Asia and Images of an Inner Asian Empire

239

§13 DILBER THWAITES The Road to Urumqui: Zunun Kadir's Lost World

261

§14 FELIX PATRIKEEFF & JOHN PERKINS National and Imperial Identity: A Triptych of Baltic Germans in Inner Asia

291

PART 5: TEACHING INNER ASIAN HISTORY § 15 ROLAND FLETCHER & EMMA HETHERINGTON The China TimeMap Project: China and the Silk Roads

307

§16 MARGARETW HITE Creating Responsible Educational Images of Judaic / Christian/ Islamic Relations

321

APPENDIX THIRD A.S.l.A.S. CONFERENCE PROGRAM (1998)

343

REALMS OF THE SILK ROADS: ANCIENT AND MODERN INTRODUCTION

All but three of the papers in this volume were first presented at the Third Conference of the 'Australasian Society for Inner Asian Studies' (A.S.l.A.S.), held at Macquarie University in Sydney, from September 18-20 1998. (The exceptions are Chs. 1, 3 and 15.) Papers presented at the Second ASIAS conference (held from September 21-22 1996) have been published in David Christian & Craig Benjamin, (eds), Worlds of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern, Turnhout: Brepols, 1998. In both volumes, essays have been published with minimal editorial interference. This means, for example, that we have not tried to achieve uniformity in transliteration or spelling. As far as we know, these are the first volumes to bring together such a substantial body of work mainly by Australian scholars working on Inner Asia. And they show that Inner Asian studies are flourishing down under! In the first volume, we offered a deliberately vague definition of 'Inner Asia' as the 'heartland' of Eurasia, 'those lands that have linked the major agrarian civilisations of Eurasia, from China to India to the Mediterranean and Europe, since the late Neolithic period'. The breadth of this definition suited a conference designed to bring together research of different kinds on many different eras, in the hope of generating a sort of intellectual synergy. Inner Asian studies have much to gain from such an approach. The technical difficulties faced by primary researchers in the field are formidable. Many Inner Asian societies were not literate until recently; and when literate, they often used languages known today by only a handful of specialists. So researchers often have to rely on the hostile or ignorant accounts of literate societies which despised or feared their Inner Asian neighbours. Inner Asian archaeology is equally demanding. Because so many Inner Asian societies lived from pastoralism, they left behind few remains, and these are difficult to interpret. (The first three essays in this volume illustrate weil the nature and extent of these difficulties.) The daunting technical problems of research in Inner Asia have encouraged a tradition of specialised, high precision scholarship. Its primary aim is to tease precious information from recalcitrant source

II

Realms of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern

material. Large, synoptic studies of the region are much rarer. Yet a region as varied and extensive as Inner Asia offers exceptional opportunities for grand comparative studies. Are there not striking similarities between the regional politics of Tajikistan in the 1990s, and the Kushan empire 2,000 years earlier, with its five 'yabghus'? (See Chs. 7 and 8) Is there not something to be learned about the military methods of the Mongols when we find (Ch. 3) that largescale 'battue' hunts were common throughout much of Eurasia, and date to the Neolithic era? Is it not striking that the Uyghur writer, Zunun Kadir, describes desert journeys reminiscent of those described by Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who travelled through Sinkiang 1500 years before? Or what of the comparisons to be made between the accounts of travel writers-cum-spies such as the Han explorer, Chiang Ch'ien, and the British and Baltic German travellers described in Chs. 11 and 14? All were servants of agrarian empires seeking a foothold in the alien realms of Inner Asia. Contrasts can be as striking as similarities. The Yuezhi ruled in Central Asia (Ch. 7) early in the Ist millennium, and the Uygurs ruled the lands north of Tang China several centuries later (Ch. 10). Yet both were, originally, pastoralist peoples who made successful military careers. How similar and how different were the conditions they faced? Finally, realising the extent and historical depth of exchanges along the Silk Roads (Chs. 4-6) reminds us that there is a deeper unity to the history of Inner Asia, and that Inner Asia played a critical role in linking all the great civilisations of Eurasia into a single, and very ancient 'world system'. Inner Asian history abounds in surprising and illuminating comparisons of this kind. So we hope readers will not just go to those sections of the book that are closest to their own interests, but will read more widely in order to maximise the chances that patterns evident in one area or period may cast light on unsolved problems in other areas of study. To maximise this sort of synergy, we have deliberately not organised the essays according to chronology or geography. Instead, we have chosen a number of loose themes that allow us to group papers according to approach and subject matter. There is nothing rigid about this organisation, and some papers could easily have appeared in different sections. But this arrangement may help the reader pick up common themes across large areas of time and space, even if it does so serendipitously.

Introduction

iii

Each of the first three essays concentrates on a particular type or body of sources. Taken together, they illustrate well the intricacy and complexity of primary research in Inner Asian history, whether based on archaeology, inscriptions or texts. Betts and Yagodin are archaeologists, and their work reminds us of the fundamental role of Soviet and post-Soviet archaeology in the modern understanding of early Inner Asian history. They take us back to the first millennium BCE, when urbanisation first took off in the area around the Aral Sea known as Khorezmia. Here, pastoralists built huge animal traps, each adapted to the habits of particular prey species, from gazelle to wild sheep. The paper gives a vivid insight into methods of hunting that could be found throughout Eurasia, from Lappland to the Sinai desert. Sims-Williams has worked for several years on the translation of recently discovered Bactrian documents and inscriptions from Afghanistan. In his paper, he shows that these materials, together with other modern evidence from Central Asia, confirm the impression that Zoroastrianism, though known mainly from Western lranian sources, had even deeper roots further East, in Sogdia and Bactria. As the Soviet archaeologist, Viktor Sarianidi has argued, in Margiana on the borders of modern Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, elements of Zoroastrianism ritual may date from as early as the second millennium BCE. I Gunner Mikkelsen describes the complex task of editing a Chinese manuscript based on a wellknown Chinese Manichaean sermon. His paper illustrates the extreme difficulties overcome in preparing the texts used with such insouciance by generalists (such as myself). The fact that Coptic texts can help us decipher a much later Chinese manuscript is a striking reminder of the contribution that comparative research can make to Inner Asian studies. Essays in the second section describe the extent and scale of exchanges and contacts through Inner Asia's 'Silk Roads'. Michael Underdown describes the often neglected branches of the Silk Roads that passed from Sinkiang through what is today Mongolia and towards Korea and Japan. These north eastern routes were particularly important in the early history of the Korean state. Lieu concentrates on the 6th to the 8th centuries, when Islam first 1 See, for example, V. Sarianidi, 'Temples of Bronze Age Margiana', Antiquity 68 (1994) pp. 388-97

IV

Realms of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern

established itself in Inner Asia. He shows that in this particularly turbulent period, trade and travel along the Silk Roads was as vigorous as at any time before the 13th century. Christian argues that traditional accounts of the Silk Roads have neglected the crucial role played by pastoralists. A clearer understanding of that role suggests that in some form the Silk Roads have unified Eurasia from perhaps as early as the second millennium BCE. In this group of papers, Inner Asia emerges as the key to Eurasia's common history. The third group of papers focusses on politics. The dominant themes of Inner Asian political history reflect the interaction of pastoralists and agriculturalists, and the fragility of the state systems that emerged along the ecological divide between these two realms. The exceptional mobility of pastoralist societies also helps explain the complex intertwining of languages, religions, and ethnicities that characterises Inner Asian political history. The essays by Mackerras and Benjamin concentrate, respectively, on the Uygur and Kushan empires. Both were created by dynasties whose roots lay in the pastoralist world; but like all pastoralist states, they grew strong by mobilising the wealth of agrarian regions. Benjamin's essay is an exhaustive survey of the literary evidence on the early history of the Kushan state, which emerged in the south of modern Central Asia. Mackerras summarises the complex economic, political, military and religious relationship between the Uygur empire and the Tang dynasty. Both essays suggest some of the difficulties we face in trying to interpret pastoralist states through documentary sources that are often uncomprehending and sometimes hostile. Nourzhanov and Akbarzadeh discuss the Kushan homeland at the end of the twentieth century. Akbarzadeh shows how religion has been used as a threat and a bluff in the complex games played by states emerging from the debris of the Soviet Union. The 'Islamic threat', he concludes, is not what it is often made out to be; but most players in Central Asian politics have an interest in making use of it in one way or another; and the games they play with Islam may eventually turn religion into a much more significant political force than it is at present. Nourzhanov discusses the peace process in modern Tajikistan after the Civil War of the early 1990s. Here, the dominant factor is the role of regional power brokers who share an interest in avoiding civil war, but have little interest in giving up power in their regional fiefdoms to a central government. How different is the political

Introduction

V

world described in these two papers, from that of the Kushan and Uygur empires over 1,000 years before? The fourth group of essays focusses on different experiences of Inner Asia, or particular regions of Inner Asia. Dilber Thwaites describes the view of an insider, the Uyghur Maxim Gorky, Zunun Kadir. Zunun Kadir had a harsh childhood, and wove from his childhood experiences striking realist accounts of his homeland in modern Sinkiang. Though he wrote within the constraints of censorship, his stories of Uyghur life convey a powerful and vivid sense of the 'imagined community' of modern Uyghur nationalism. The other essays in this section offer perspectives from the outside. Geoff Watson explores the role played by a semi-imaginary 'Central Asia' in the writings of British travellers to the region during the era of the 'Great Game', in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Though the British never ruled Central Asia, this did not prevent them from using their experiences in the region to demonstrate the superiority of British civilisation. The way to a British traveller's heart, as one canny Central Asian 'dervish' found, was to say that 'the English people are now Timur, for they are descendants of Genghis Khan, the Inglees will be conquerors of the world'. If the British mission in the region led to little more than the filling of English trophy rooms, or the occasional attempt to impose strict rules on the indigenous sport of polo, the more the pity for Inner Asia it seems ! Here, Inner Asia's role is that of an exotic mirror. In their joint essay, Patrikeeff and Perkins describe the not dissimilar experiences of Baltic Germans whose careers took them to the far Eastern regions of the Russian Empire. Patrikeeff s first essay concentrates on the strange imperialist myths generated by the East Asian 'Great Game' that was played out early in the twentieth century between Russia/USSR, China, and Japan. Here, as traditional imperial structures broke down, the scale of Inner Asian landscapes and the mobility and reach of its many different communities generated new and sometimes terrifying fantasies about the recreation of great Inner Asian empires. The ghost of Chinggis Khan hovers over this essay as it does over so much of the history of Inner Asia in the last 800 years. The last two essays are somewhat different in that they are concerned, mainly, with aspects of teaching. Fletcher and Hetherington have been involved in a project designed to help

VI

Realms of the Silk Roads: Ancient and Modern

students appreciate more effectively the long-term movements of state borders in East Asia. The project illustrates the long-term fluctuations of the borders between China and the 'barbarian' lands to the north and north west. Margaret White's essay is not concerned specifically with Inner Asia, but raises an issue that occurs repeatedly in the study of Inner Asia: the difficulty faced by students brought up within any one religious tradition in understanding cultures shaped by other religious traditions. For those teaching and researching Inner Asian history, but living in 'Outer Eurasia', it sometimes seems that the most difficult task of all is to get beyond the sense oflnner Asia as 'other'. Margaret White's essay explores some ways of tackling the problem of religious parochialism in teaching environments. The Appendix lists the papers presented at the third ASIAS conference. The editors of this volume have accumulated many debts in the course of its preparation, and it is a pleasure to take this opportunity to say thanks to the many people who have helped us. Di Yerbury, the Vice-Chancellor of Macquarie University, gave the conference her formal blessing, and held a reception for those who attended it. She has been a consistent supporter of Macquarie University's Inner Asian studies programme throughout the 1990s. Macquarie University Research Grants to Sam Lieu and David Christian helped pay for some of the editing and typing of this volume. Beth Lewis has once again done a superb job of turning our sometimes scruffy papers into printable manuscripts, working within the Macquarie University Ancient History Documentary Research Centre. In this, she has been helped greatly by Jonathan Markley. Gordon Benjamin proof-read the complete manuscript and did much detailed tidying up. Invaluable technical assistance was provided by Malcolm Choat, Lance Eccles, Trevor Evans, Stephen Llewelyn and Gunner Mikkelsen. Finally, we would like once again to thank our publisher, Brepols, for their continuing support of ASIAS. David Christian, August 2000

SOME REFLECTIONS ON ZOROASTRIANISM IN SOGDIANA AND BACTRIA l NICHOLAS SIMS-WILLIAMS

Our picture of Zoroastrianism in ancient and mediaeval times is strongly biased towards the west of Iran, where the Zoroastrian religion was well-established already in Achaemenid times. We know this from the cuneiform inscriptions of Darius the Great and his successors, who call upon Ahura Mazda, and later on also Mithra and Anahita, for help and protection. For the Sasanian period, too, and the early centuries of Islam, we have abundant evidence for the practice of Zoroastrianism in Western Iran. Even the A vesta has come down to us in a South-western Iranian recension, as it was collected and written down in Sasanian times. But of course it is well known that A vestan is not a Southwestern Iranian language and that the cradle of the Zoroastrian religion must be looked for much further to the east, in regions such as Choresmia, Sogdiana, Bactria, Sistan, or the lands beyond. Traditionally, these lands to the east and north-east of Iran were regarded as the heartland of Zoroastrianism. The first chapter of the Vendidad lists the lands created by Ahura Mazda, beginning of course with Airyana Vaejah, the mythical homeland of the Iranians, as the first and best, but continuing with Sogdian, Margiana and Bactria as the second, third and fourth. According to a legend preserved in the Pahlavi text known as the Shahristänfhä f Erän 'The cities of Iran', the A vesta itself was preserved in the citadel of Samarkand, the capital of Sogdiana. A hundred years ago, not much was known of the ancient religion of the Eastern Iranian lands. At that time the Avesta and the Pahlavi books, despite the obscurities of their language, were almost the only authentic sources of knowledge concerning ancient and mediaeval Zoroastrianism. A little information could be 1 This paper is based in part on a lecture delivered to the Royal Asiatic Society, London, in memory of Sir Harold Bailey. The version published here does not include the parts of that lecture which dealt specifically with Sir Harold's life and career, but in view of his Australian background - he emigrated with his parents from England to Australia when he was ten years old, and took his first degree at the University of Western Australia - I thought it appropriate to retain the emphasis on his immense contribution to scholarship.

2

Same Reflections on 7.oroastrianism in Sogdiana and Bactria

gleaned from the Old Persian inscriptions, the Sasanian rock reliefs, or the Kushan coins, with their partially deciphered legends in Greek script. External sources, such as the Greek and Latin texts, or the works of Muslim authors, were often biased or contradictory and had tobe regarded with scepticism. During the present century, materials relevant to the study of early Zoroastrianism have increased greatly. In particular, a wealth of new material has been discovered in Eastern Iran and Central Asia. Excavations at Sogdian towns such as Samarkand and Penjikent have revealed frescoes depicting gods and scenes of worship. New studies in numismatics and iconography, together with the gradual decipherment of the Bactrian language, have led to a better understanding of the pantheon of the Kushan coinage. Manuscripts from Turfan, Dunhuang and elsewhere have revealed the existence of previously unknown Eastern Iranian languages such as Sogdian and Khotanese, as well as Middle Persian and Parthian texts written in a clear phonetic orthography. Although much of the literature written in these languages is Buddhist, Manichaean or Christian rather than Zoroastrian in inspiration, their religious terminology, calendars and onomastics preserve many traces of older religious views. Moreover, the languages themselves fill the huge gap between the Avestan of the Ist millennium B.C. and the Eastern Iranian languages of the present day, helping us towards a better understanding of the language of the Avesta itself. One of the first to realize the potential of these new linguistic materials for Zoroastrian studies was the late Sir Harold Bailey, who began to devote his energies to Khotanese in the 1930s. Bailey felt that A vestan and Pahlavi studies had got stuck in a rut as a result of the linguistic obscurities of the Avestan and Pahlavi texts. As he later explained, his motive in turning to Khotanese was a desire 'to draw out "Middle Iranian" from those unexplored MSS with a view to advancing Zoroastrian studies'. 2 An excellent example of the kind of material Bailey hoped to find in the Eastern Iranian texts was his discovery that the Khotanese words sfondaä- 'earth' and ysamassandaa- 'world' derive from an unattested Old Iranian expression *zam- *syantii2 H. W. Bailey, Indo-Scythian Studies being Khotanese Texts, Volume VII, (Cambridge 1985) p. vii.

Nicholas Sims-Williams

3

'the beneficent earth' partially corresponding to A vestan Spenta Armaiti, the name of a divine being who is especially associated with the earth in the A vesta and the Pahlavi books. The exact equivalent of A vestan Spenta Armaiti is also attested in Khotanese in the form sfondrämatä-, which is used in a Buddhist text to translate the name of the Indian Sri, the goddess of abundance. 3 Such correspondences raise the question whether the Khotanese terms result from Zoroastrian influence, as is most natural to suppose, or whether, as Bailey believed, they go back to an ancient, pre-Zoroastrian stratum of Iranian belief. In the course of a single lecture I can only discuss a few of the interesting features of the Eastern Iranian religion. In particular, I would like to mention certain points which receive new light from the Bactrian documents which have recently emerged from Afghanistan, on whose decipherment I have been engaged during the past few years. About a hundred documents have so far come to light, most of which are now in London in the collection of Dr D. N. Khalili. From the places referred to in the texts, they seem likely to come from the region of Rui and Samangan in the Northern Hindukush. Many of them bear dates in an unspecified era. If this era began in 233 A.D., as I have argued elsewhere,4 the dated documents will cover a period from the middle of the fourth century to the end of the eighth, that is, from the period of Sasanian domination, through the Hephthalite and Turkish periods, and well into Islamic times. In addition to dating by years, many of the Bactrian documents indicate the month and sometimes even the day on which they were written.5 The day-names all belong to the well-known Zoroastrian 3 See H. W. Bailey, BSOS 7/2 (1934) p. 294; 8/1 ( 1935) pp. 136, 142; 'Saka s§andrämata', in G. Wiessner (ed.), Festschrift für Wilhelm Eifers (Wiesbaden 1967) pp. 136-43. 4 N. Sims-Williams, 'From the Kushan-shahs to the Arabs. New Bactrian documents dated in the era of the Tochi inscriptions', in M. Alram and D. E. Klimburg-Salter (eds), Coins, Art and Chronology. Essays on the pre-lslamic history of the lndo-Iranian borderlands (Denkschriften der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse 280) (Vienna 1999) pp. 245-58. 5 See N. Sims-Williams and F. de Blois, 'The Bactrian calendar', Bulletin of the Asia Institute 10, Studies in honor of Vladimir A. Livshits (1996 [1998]) pp. 149-65.

4

Same Reflections on Zoroastrianism in Sogdiana and Bactria

calendar and bear dedications to the usual divine beings: Ahura Mazda, the Creator, Wahman, Mithra, Justice (Ashtad), the Religion, the Waters, and so on. The phonological and morphological peculiarities of these names show that they, like those used in other variants of the Zoroastrian calendar, were borrowed (rather than inherited) from an Old Iranian language, most likely A vestan. Except for a couple of texts containing Buddhist invocations, none of the Bactrian documents is primarily religious in content. But although there is nothing which could be described as a Zoroastrian text, the secular documents contain many scattered indications of the Zoroastrian traditions of the region. 1 have already mentioned the Zoroastrian calendar terms. Another example is the use of the word lakhmig, the Bactrian equivalent of Avestan daxma, to refer to a place for the disposal of the dead (though the context does not make it clear whether the lakhmig was a place for exposing the corpse, in traditional Zoroastrian fashion, or for burial). Another Bactrian word with Zoroastrian overtones is ked, which in Pahlavi means 'astrologer' or 'magician'; in Bactrian, however, it is used of the priest or devotee of a god who is referred to as 'Kamird, the king of the gods'. The literal meaning of Kamird is 'head' or 'chief (cf. Avestan kam~14-:ilf% ('An Inspection of the Original Document of the Dunhuang Scripture "Xiabu zan" in the London Collection'), in Li Zheng et al. (eds.), Ji Xianlin jiaoshou bashi hua dan jinian lunwen ji *&.:ff.#HftA+*iJ1UC.$t~>c.~ (Papers in Honour of Professor Ji Xianlin on the occasion of his 80th Birthday) (Nanchang 1991) pp. 892-93; trans. Tsui Chi, 'Mo Ni Chiao Hsia Pu Tsan, The Lower (Second?) Section of the Manichaean Hymns', Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies XI (1943) pp. 196-97; H. Schmidt-Glintzer, op.cit„ 1987, pp. 41-42. The First Canto of Tan wuming wen bears resemblance to the third fragment, i.e. §§ 10-69, in Parthian and §§ 108-129 in Sogdian in Sundermann's edition of the Sermon on the Soul. 30 Several of the doctrinal enumerations are identical. For comparative obser28

*#'-

24

Work in Progress on the Manichaean Traite /Sermon on the Light-Nous

The fragments of the Sermon on the Light-Nous in Sogdian Sundermann's edition of the Sermon on the Light-Nous includes a small number of fragments in Sogdian, some belonging to the Berlin Turfansammlung and some to the Otani Collection at Ryukoku University in Kyoto. As the passages in Sogdian, parallel to the Traite (SLN §§40b, 41b, 42b, 43b, 50b, 51b, 52b, 53b), in general appear farther removed from the Traite than the Parthian in general, it is unlikely that they belang to a translation original of the Traite in Sogdian. Several Sermon fragments outside the parallel text are extant, and some of these are edited in Sundermann's work: SLN §§9lb, 92b, 93b, 94b, 95b, 117b. To these are added fragmentary parts of 'verwandten Inhalts': M133, MIK III 4981b, and MIK III 4981e. 31 Fragmentary lists of nomenclature related to various parts and characteristics of trees are found in the mss. T ii T( oyoq) and T i, both published by Walter Bruno Henning in 1940. 32 These lists may have aided the translator in his (or her) 33 work. Furthermore, some relation in content to the Sermon is found in a Sogdian passage of the Book of Prayer and Confession (also edited by Henning). 34

vations on the lranian and Chinese versions of the Sermon on the Soul; see W. Sundermann , 'Iranian Manichaean Texts in Chinese Remake: Translation and Transformation', in A. Cadonna & L. Lanciotti (eds), Cina e Iran. Da Alessandro Magno alla Dinastia Tang (Firenze 1996) pp. 103-19; idem, op.cit., 1997, pp. 25-28. 31 W. Sundermann, op.cit., 1992, pp. 128ff. 32 W. B. Henning, Sogdica (London 1940) pp. 2-4 (Fr. 1 & II). 33 That Manichaean electae took part in the translation work is not unlikely; women were from early on active missionaries as preachers and debaters. According to the Vita of Porphyry, the bishop of Gaza, by Marc the Deacon, a Manichaean from Antioch by the name Julia propagated her Manichaean faith in the city of Gaza until a public debate with Porphyry brought her mission and, in fact, her life to a dramatic end; see M. Scopello, 'Julie, manicheenne d'Antioche (d'apres Ja Vie de Porphyre de Marc Je Diacre, eh. 85-91)', Antiquite tardive V (1997) pp. 187-209; S. N. C. Lieu, 'The Self-ldentity of the Manichaeans in the Roman East', Mediterranean Archaeology XI (1998) pp. 221-23; idem, 'From Mesopotamia to the Roman East - The Diffusion of Manichaeism in the Eastern Roman Empire', in S. N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in Mesopotamia and the Roman East (Leiden-New York-Köln 1994) pp. 56-59. 34 W. B. Henning, Ein manichäisches Bet- und Beichtbuch (APAW.PH, 1936, no. 10) (Berlin 1937) p. 37.

Gunner Mikkelsen

25

An additional Sermon fragment in Sogdian belonging to the Otani Collection has recently been identified and edited by Yoshida Yutaka. 35 lts text does however not parallel any part of the Traite directly.

The fragments of Sermon on the Light-Nous in Old Turkish Halfa dozen fragments of the Sermon in Old Turkish were discovered at Turfan and first published by Albert von Le Coq in 1922. 36 These were, as reported by von Le Coq, 'von verschiedenen unserer Expeditionen an verschiedenen Fundstellen ausgegraben', and they belonged to four different books. 37 To one of these books belongs also a fragment, TM 423d, which may come from a Turkish version of the canonical Book ofthe Giants. 38 An edition of several Turkish Sermon fragments - including all of the von Le Coq fragments - and their Chinese counterparts in German translation by Hans-Joachim Klimkeit and Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer was published in 1984. 39 Most of these Turkish passages have been translated into English by H.-J. Klimkeit to appear in his recent anthology Gnosis on the Silk Road. 40 In 1995, more fragments belonging to Turkish versions of the Sermon were editedby PeterZieme. 41 For the CFM edition, the full corpus of Turkish Sermon passages identified as parallel to the Chinese Traite has been re-edited and translated into English by A. van Tongerloo, and extensive word-lists have been compiled by van Tongerloo and S. Lieu. Otani 2075 versa; Yoshida Yutaka ii 1I1 t, 'W. Sundermann, Der Sermon vom Licht-Nous (Berlin 1992)' (rev.), Studies on the Inner Asian languages IX (1994) pp. 106-8. On p. 106, Yoshida confuses recto and versa, but the identification of this fragment as a Sogdian counterpart to SLN §§86-90 is precise. 36 A. von Le Coq, Türkische Manichaica aus Chotscho. III. Nebst einem christlichen Bruchstück aus Bulayi'q (APAW 1922, no. 2) (Berlin, 1922) pp. 15-22. 37 A. von Le Coq, op.cit„ 1922, p. 15. 38 TM 423d; A. von Le Coq, op.cit„ 1922, pp. 23-24. 39 H.-J. Klimkeit & H. Schmidt-Glintzer, 'Die türkischen Parallelen zum chinesisch-manichäischen Traktat', Zentralasiatische Studien XVII (1984) pp. 82-117. 40 H.-J. Klimkeit, Gnosis on the Silk Raad. Gnostic Texts from Central Asia (San Francisco 1993) pp. 331-35. 41 P. Zieme, 'Neue Fragmente des alttürkischen Sermons vom Licht-Nous', in C. Reck & P. Zieme (eds), Iran und Turfan. Beiträge Berliner Wissenschaftler, Werner Sundermann zum 60. Geburtstag gewidmet (Wiesbaden 1995) pp. 251-76. 35

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Work in Progress an the Manichaean Traite /Sermon an the Light-Nous

Several of the Turkish texts are very close to the Traite in both content and wording, and this could lead to the assumption that a direct relationship between the Turkish and Chinese exists, i.e. that a Turkish version of the treatise was translated from the Chinese or vice versa. This may or may not have been the case, but it seems certain that at least one version was translated from Parthian. A comparison of the Parthian SLN §70, the Turkish U41 V 1-5, and the Traite, cols 267-68, suggests a closer relationship between the Turkish passage and the Parthian than between the Turkish and the Chinese. The existence of a Sogdian Vorlage to at least one Turkish version of the Sermon seems also possible.

Fragments of texts in Middle Iranian related to the Sermon A double-fragm ent (S I 0/120 II (= L II) R-V) in Middle Persian, deposited in the Institute Vostokovedenija in St. Petersburg, has been found by Werner Sundermann 42 to contain on its first page apart of the Book of the Giants, and on the other, passages relatively similar to passages in the Sermon. Since the Book of the Giants (as mentioned) appears in connection with one version of the Sermon in Old Turkish, there is reason to believe that the two works are, in some way, related. The text of this fragment is of some importance to the study of the Traite and its parallels, and as such it forms part of the CFM edition of the Traite. The remainder of the fragments edited by Prof. Sundermann in Der Sermon vom Liclzt-Nous (§§80-117b), 43 and the aforementioned texts of related contents edited in the same work, are likewise included in the study of the Traite.

The Coptic Keph. XXXVIII and other Traite related kephalaia As demonstrated by Sundermann, the lengthy XXXVIIIth Coptic kephalaion entitled 'Concerning the Light-Mind and the Apostles and the Saints' 44 is very similar in content to the Parthian Sermon on the 42

W. Sundermann, 'Ein weiteres Fragment aus Manis Gigantenbuch', in Orientalia J. Duclzesne-Guill emin Emerito Oblata (Leiden 1984) pp. 491-505, esp. 498ff.; cf. idem, op.cit., 1992, pp. 15-17, and 'Eme 01vm cpparneHT 113 11 KH11rn rnraHToB" MaH11 1 [Esce odin fragment iz "Knigi gigantov" Mani] ('Another Fragment of the "Book of Giants" by Mani'), BecmHUK ope8HeU ucmopuu (1989) 3, pp. 76-78. 43 W. Sundermann, op.cit., 1992, pp. 72-77.

Gunner Mikkelsen

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Light-Nous. 45 The Sermon and the Traite both share a number of themes and passages with this kephalaion, but the eastem texts are very differently organised and contain additional material. Some of this accumulated text is relatively parallel to passages in Keph. IV ('Conceming the Four great Days that have come forth from one another; together with the Four Nights'), Keph. XXXIX ('Conceming the Three Days and the Two Deaths'), and Keph. XCVI ('The Three Earths that exist, they bear fruit'). 46 One indication of a shared textual basis or an interrelationship at some level between this Coptic third/fourth-century collection of kephalaia from Medinet Madi (in the Fayoum, Egypt) and the Chinese Traite from Dunhuang is found in the passage conceming 'four days' in Keph. IV, p. 25.30-33 and its corresponding passage in the Traite, cols 210-12. 'Four days' are not described in any extant Central Asian version of the Sermon. Although this particular instance of a relation between the Coptic and Chinese texts is of some value to the comparative study of the versions and deserving of attention, the similarity remains relatively superficial there is, for example, no mention of the corresponding 'four nights' of Keph. IV. The disi ri ~ ~ EI 'fourth day' of the Traite may simply be considered as a scribal error. More substantial proximity is attested in the frame-sections of Keph. XXXVIII and the Traite. The scenario is largely the same: a disciple questions Mani and the apostle gives his reply as a sermon to the congregated disciples (compare Keph. XXXVIII, pp. 89.21-90.19 and Traite, cols. 1-8), after which the disciples thank Mani and pledge to 'make ourselves strong in your faith', 'persevere in your commandments', and be 'persuaded by your proclaimed words' (stated in that 44

Keph. XXXVIII, pp. 89.18-102.12; H. J. Polotsky & A. Böhlig (eds, trans.) mit einem Beitrag von H. Ibscher, Kephalaia, /, 1. Hälfte (Lieferung 1-10) (Stuttgart 1940) pp. 89-102; revised translation in A. Böhlig & J. P. Asmussen (eds), op.cit„ 1980, pp. 180-86; recent English translation: I. Gardner (ed„ trans„ comm.), The Kephalaia of the Teacher. The edited Coptic Manichaean texts in translation with commentary (Leiden 1995) pp. 93-105. 45 W. Sundermann, op.cit„ 1992, pp. 13-15. 46 Keph. IV, pp. 25. 7-27.31 & Keph. XXXIX, pp. 102.13-104.20; ed. H. J. Polotsky & A. Böhlig, op.cit„ 1940, pp. 25-27; 102-4; revised translations in A. Böhlig & J. P. Asmussen, op.cit„ 1980, pp. 159-61; 165-67; I. Gardner, op. cit„ 1995, pp. 28-31; 106-8; Keph. XCVI, pp. 244.21-246.6; ed. Böhlig, Kephalaia, /, Zweite Hälfte, Lfg. 11112 (Stuttgart-Berlin-Köln-Mainz 1940) pp. 244-46; I. Gardner, op.cit„ 1995, pp. 250-51.

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Work in Progress on the Manichaean Traite /Sermon on the Light-Nous

order, cf. Keph. XXXVIII, p. 102.4-12; the Chinese version, cols. 316-45, is far more elaborate and far less moderate in its expression). A careful comparison of sections, passages and terms in the Chinese Traite with sections, passages and terms in the Coptic Kephalaia, forms part of the forthcoming edition of the Traite and its parallels. As part of the !arger comparative study of this important sermon by Mani, it will help to demonstrate how the Manichaean message was translated into fundamentall y different languages and established religious terminologies and phraseologies of the fields of Manichaean missionary activity without losing or distorting its essential doctrinal contents.

Abbreviations APAW.PH-A bhandlungen der (Königlich-) Preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-historische Klasse (Berlin)

BEFEO - Bulletin de l'Ecole fran