Móníjiào xiàbù zàn 摩尼教下部讚
Manichaean Hymns of the Lower Section (the Chinese Manichaean Hymnscroll) anonymous (Tang-period Chinese Manichaean text, recovered from Dunhuang)
About the work
A single-juan Tang-period Chinese Manichaean liturgical hymn-collection, preserved in the Dunhuang Library Cave and incorporated into the Taishō canon at T54 no. 2140. The text is one of the three principal Chinese Manichaean texts preserved in the Dunhuang manuscript-cache (the others being KR6s0079 Móní guāngfó jiàofǎ yí luè and KR6s0080 Bōsījiào cánjīng) — together constituting the single most important corpus of Chinese-language Manichaean documents in any collection. Substantially fragmentary — the text opens with extensive lacunae (manuscript damage indicated by □) — and contains hymns for liturgical recitation, with extensive Sanskrit / Middle-Persian / Sogdian transliterations preserved alongside Chinese paraphrase-translations.
Prefaces
The text has no preserved auto-preface. The body of the work opens immediately with hymn-content, with extensive Sanskrit / Middle-Persian transliteration: ”□□□□□□□□□ sīyīnàlǐsīduō wūlúshēn yīwūlúshēn □□□□□□□□□□ bùsī (3) nàlǐsīduōlì (yǐn suǒjià fǎn) yīsuǒhéěr □ bù □□□□□□ □ yīwūlúshēn yúxìsuǒdào (5) núlǔāwùdào (6) núlǔ □□□ (jíbā) ménjuélìhūǎnhōng (9) móusūhōngēérníhuǎn (10) núlúhūqūyù □□ (□□fǎn yǐnshēng) nièsàdǐ (11) fúluócísuǒdǐ (12) yùzhāyílánshā □ □ (yǐn) □ (13) □ lǎn zàn□”
[The text continues through extensive transliterated mantra-hymns interspersed with Chinese verse paraphrases.]
Abstract
Authorship and date are unrecoverable for the specific Chinese composition. The work is the Chinese-translated version of an underlying Middle-Persian / Sogdian Manichaean liturgical hymnal, produced in Tang China during the period of Manichaean missionary activity (the Manichaean church having been formally established at the Tang court in 694 under the Wǔ Zétiān 武則天 reign, with subsequent imperial protection through the 8th century). notBefore = 700, notAfter = 1000 (the standard Dunhuang manuscript bracket; Manichaean missions to China continued through the late Tang).
The work is one of the single most important Tang-period non-Buddhist religious texts in Chinese — a primary witness to the Manichaean missionary religious tradition in Tang China. Manichaeanism — founded by Mānī 摩尼 (216–276) in 3rd-century Sasanid Iran — was one of the principal pre-modern world religions and the principal Chinese-active non-Buddhist non-Christian non-Islamic world religion in the Tang period. Its texts were systematically destroyed in the Huìchāng 會昌 persecution of 845 (which targeted “foreign religions” — Buddhism, Manichaeanism, Nestorian Christianity, Zoroastrianism — together) and the Manichaean church largely disappeared from Chinese institutional history thereafter (though it continued underground as the Míngjiào 明教 secret-society tradition into the YuánMíng period).
The Dunhuang preservation is therefore one of the single most important documentary windows into Tang-period Manichaeanism. The Chinese-language texts (this hymnal, KR6s0079, and KR6s0080) are complemented by Middle-Persian and Sogdian Manichaean texts in the German Turfan collection and the Bezeklik / Khocho cave-temples of the Western Regions.
The translation-style — preserving extensive direct transliteration of Manichaean Persian / Sogdian liturgical mantras alongside Chinese paraphrase — is parallel to the Tang-period Buddhist dhāraṇī translation convention. The Manichaean liturgical mantras would have been recited in the original Persian / Sogdian during ceremony, with the Chinese paraphrases providing comprehension for Chinese-speaking adherents.
Translations and research
A substantial scholarly literature; selected major works:
- Lín Wù-shū 林悟殊, Mó-ní-jiào jí qí dōng-jiàn 摩尼教及其東漸 (Zhōng-huá Shū-jú, 1987; expanded 1997) — the standard Sinophone treatment.
- Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Gnosis on the Silk Road (HarperSanFrancisco, 1993) — comprehensive Western-language treatment of Manichaeanism in the Western Regions.
- Werner Sundermann and the German Turfan-philological tradition for the underlying Persian / Sogdian texts.
- Samuel N. C. Lieu, Manichaeism in the Later Roman Empire and Medieval China (Mohr Siebeck, 1992) — the standard English treatment.
- Édouard Chavannes and Paul Pelliot, “Un traité manichéen retrouvé en Chine” (Journal Asiatique 1911, 1913) — the foundational Western-language study of the Chinese Manichaean Dunhuang materials.
Other points of interest
The Chinese Manichaean Dunhuang materials together constitute one of the principal comparative-religious documentary corpora in the Chinese pre-modern canonical tradition. Their preservation in the Buddhist canon (rather than as separate canonical-religious documents) reflects the Tang-period Chinese practice of treating “foreign religions” together as a single category — a practice that sometimes worked to the religions’ protection (institutional Buddhist-canonical preservation) and sometimes to their detriment (the Huìchāng persecution of 845).
Links
- DILA authority: (no preserved authority entry)
- CBETA: T54n2140
- Religious context: Tang-period Chinese Manichaeanism
- Foundational figure: Mānī 摩尼 (216–276), 3rd-century Sasanid Iranian founder
- Companion Chinese Manichaean texts: KR6s0079 Móní guāngfó jiàofǎ yí luè, KR6s0080 Bōsījiào cánjīng
- Historical persecution: Huìchāng 會昌 persecution of 845
- Underground continuation: Míngjiào 明教 (YuánMíng secret-society tradition)