Artifact, Text, Context Studies on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia

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LIT

Li Tang and Dietmar W. Winkler (Eds.)

Artifact, Text, Context

orientalia – patristica – oecumenica herausgegeben von/edited by

Dietmar W. Winkler (Universität Salzburg)

Vol. 17

LIT

Artifact, Text, Context Studies on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia edited by

Li Tang and Dietmar W. Winkler (Eds.)

LIT

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Editorial Introduction: “Artifact, Text, Context” LITANG

7

Tarsā: Persian and Central Asian Christians in Extant Literature MARK DICKENS

9

Da Qin, Tajiks, and Their Doctors – East Syrian Scientists across the Courts of Early Medieval Persia, China and Tibet R. TODD GODWIN

43

Persons, Titles and Places in the Xi’an Monument SAMUEL N. C. LIEU

61

Concepts In-Between: The Meaning of “Seng ” and “Shoujie 4t” in the Early Jingjiao Documents ZHU LI-LAYEC

83

The Term ‘Three-One’ (Trinity) in Jingjiao in Comparison with That in Taoist Religion SHINICHI MUTO

95

The Sogdian ‘Book of Life’ Reconsidered NICHOLAS SIMS-WILLIAMS

113

The Liturgical Language of the Church of the East LITANG

121

The Latin Translation of the Xi’an Stele by the Franciscan Carlo da Castorano (1741) MATTEO NICOLINI-ZANI

137

The Structure of the Xi’an Stele GLEN THOMPSON

161

6

Contents

“Nestorian” Christianity among the Hephthalites or the White Huns MEHMET TEZCAN

195

Two Letters of Yahballaha III to the Popes of Rome: Historical Context and English Translation DIETMAR W. WINKLER

213

A Christian Tombstone with Syriac Inscription from Kyrgyzstan (AD1288/9) Now Kept in the British Museum LITANG

229

Christian or Buddhist? An Exposition of a Silk Painting from Dunhuang, China Now Kept in the British Museum LITANG

233

More Light on Dunhuang Christianity RONALD KYDD

245

Investigating the Different Lotus Motifs: The “Nestorian” Crosses and the Art of Yelikewen ANDREA JIAN CHEN

259

Index

273

EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION: “ARTIFACT, TEXT, CONTEXT” Li Tang

This volume is a collection of papers highlighting recent researches on Syriac Christianity in Chinaat and Central Asia. The majority of the papers were originally presented the 5th Salzburg International Conference on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia, which took place in Salzburg from the 18th to the 23rd of June 2016. The triennial Salzburg International Conference Series, has, since its first episode in 2003, brought together leading scholars from Asia-Pacific, Europe and North America, especially in the fields of history, philology, epigraphy, archaeology, liturgy and theology, to discuss all topics relating to Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia. The conferences have thus far yielded five edited volumes of essays, including the current one. The topics in this volume range from artifacts to texts and their historical contexts, covering the period from the 7th to the 18th century. As the studies on Syriac Christianity in China and Central advance, focus has shifted from a general historical survey and textual translation to a more micro and meticulous study of specific concepts and terms and particular names of persons and places. This tendency is best demonstrated in the current volume, especially, in the essays on the origin and use of the name Tarsā (M. Dickens), the names of persons and places mentioned in the Xi’an Stele (S. Lieu), the term “Seng” (monk) used in Dunhuang Chinese Jingjiao documents (Z. Li-Layec), the possible connection between the term “Da Qin” and “Tajik” (R.T. Godwin), and the concept of Trinity in Jingjiao and Taoism (S. Muto). Textual studies as well as their interpretation and translation form an important part in the research on Syriac Christianity in China and Central Asia. The volume includes such contributions from Nicholas Sims-Wiliams on the reinterpretation and translation of a Christian-Sogdian text from Turfan, which he believes to be a prayer amulet; and from Li Tang on the liturgical language of the Church of the East in China through her investigating various Christian manuscripts from Dunhuang and funeral inscriptions from the Yuan-period. Both studies shed light on the religious life and liturgical practice of East Syrian Christians from individual as well as collective perspectives. Matteo Nicolini Zani, meanwhile, demonstrates another approach to text and reception by giving a historical investigation on the 18th century Latin transmission and translation

8

Li Tang

of the Xi’an inscription, whereas Glen Thompson conducted a detailed study on how the content of the Xi’an inscription was structured. Unearthed artifacts can enhance our understanding of the material culture of Syriac Christians. Several new studies in this volume deal with the artifacts unearthed in China and Central Asia. They include a 13th century Syriac funeral inscription from Kyrgyzstan (L. Tang), a painting on silk from discovered in Dunhuang (L. Tang) and bronze crosses from Dunhuang (R. Kydd). Chen Jian conducted a study, from an art historian’s point of view, on the lotus motifs engraved on Christian tombstones in Yuan-China. The volume also contains two essays on history topics, one by M. Tezcan on Hephthalite Christians in Central Asia during the 5th and the 6th centuries; and the other by D.W. Winkler on the communications between Yahballaha III, Patriarch of the Church of the East (1281-1317) and the Popes in Rome during the Mongol period. Our knowledge about East Syriac Christian communities in Central Asia and China and the diffusion of Syriac Christianity from Mesopotamia to China is still incomplete and fragmentary, like a mosaic which has many missing pieces. All these studies on various topics, specific and fragmentary as they may seem to be, demonstrate a diversity of materials available for research. The current studies can add more pieces to this historical mosaic. The Salzburg International Conference series seeks to provide a platform for world leading scholars to discuss their new researches on this subject from different perspectives. The studies published in this volume can broaden our understanding of Syriac Christianity in Central Asia and China and pave the way for future research.

TARSĀ: PERSIAN AND CENTRAL ASIAN CHRISTIANS IN EXTANT LITERATURE Mark Dickens University of Alberta, Canada

Introduction The names used of and by religious groups can provide insight into how those groups are (or were) viewed by others and themselves. Christians have been known by various names over the past 2000 years. We first hear of the term “Christian” in the New Testament, in Acts 11:26, which notes that “The disciples were called Christians (Gk. Χριστιανούς) first at Antioch” (NIV). There has been some debate around how to understand the term Χριστιανούς in this verse. It is obviously formed from the root Χριστ, itself from the name Χριστός, “Christ,” with the adjectival ending –ιανός, used to denote that a person or thing is associated with or belongs to the person bearing the name it is attached to, in this case Christ. Thus, “Christian” would originally have been understood as someone “associated with Christ” or “belonging to Christ,” but it is unclear from this verse who coined the term and exactly how it was intended. Acts 11:26 plainly states that others were using this term to refer to the followers of Christ, rather than it being originally used self-referentially. Those who used this term were presumably Greek-speakers in Antioch, but whether they were Jews or Gentiles is unclear; the latter is more likely, given the overall Gentile context of the church in Antioch, as presented in both Acts 11:19-29 and Galatians 2:11-21. Also unclear is whether the term was originally intended in a derisive manner; this would obviously depend on the attitude of those who coined it or initially used it. If Christ were admired by those who first used this term, then to be associated with or to belong to him would be viewed positively; if he were despised by those coining the term, then the opposite would be true. At any rate, the designation (or rather nickname) “Christian” stuck; whether it was meant positively or negatively, Christians “owned” the name as their own, and the rest, as they say, is history. Previous iterations of the Salzburg conference on Christianity in China and Central Asia have discussed the nomenclature that has been associated with the

10

Mark Dickens

Christians of China and Central Asia, whether the problematic term Nestorian, the ever-popular jingjiao (ƒz) or the enigmatic yelikewen (ô6—), reflecting Turko-Mongolian ärkägün. These three terms were either used of Christians in China and Central Asia by others but not by themselves (this certainly seems to be the case with the designation Nestorian)1 or they were limited to a specific time period or geographical territory – thus Jingjiao was used during the Tang dynasty and yelikewen/ärkägün during the Mongol Yuan dynasty. In contrast, in contexts where Syriac was used – evident in both liturgical and other Syriac texts found at Turfan, as well as the gravestone corpus from Semirechye – Central Asian Christians would simply refer to themselves as
,


 “Christian” or

,



, “believer” (masc. and fem. forms, respectively). One name used by both Christians themselves and others, which is evident over a large geographical area and over a span of many centuries is the Iranian term tarsā, the subject of this paper. It is a term that is mentioned frequently in academic writing, but it usually seems to be the subject of an explanatory footnote; rarely are more than a half dozen well-known examples quoted. This paper will explore the term tarsā and its use in more detail, in the hope that it will provide some interesting insights into how Central Asian Christians living not only in Central Asia but also in China proper viewed themselves and were viewed by others during the many centuries that they lived in the region. The Iranian Context of Tarsā As is well known, tarsā (or the variants of it that are found in certain Iranian languages) comes from a root meaning of “fear” (whether used as a noun, adjective, verb or other part of speech). The root goes back to Old Iranian and instances can be found in such texts as the Behistun Inscriptions, particularly in the sayings of Darius, usually in the context of fearing a ruler (Darius included) or an enemy.2 References to Christians in Iranian languages are first found in Middle Persian in Pahlavi script, where we encounter tarsāg, “Christian” (spelled tls’k or trs’g, pl. tarsāgān).3 An important instance of the word in Middle Persian, albeit without the specific meaning of “Christian,” is found in 1

2 3

Even when the prolific East Syriac theologian, canon law scholar and writer ‘Abdisho bar Berikha uses the term in his Book of the Pearl (Kthābhā d-Marganithā), he makes it clear that “Easterners” () are unjustly referred to as “Nestorians” (
), since “Nestorius was not their Patriarch” (
    ), but rather they had received their faith “as from the apostles” (  ). ‘Abdisho concludes his argument by stating that because his church agreed with Nestorius (or rather, Nestorius agreed with “the Easterners”) regarding the use of the term “Bearer of Christ” (
) to describe the Virgin Mary, “they accuse us and Nestorius” (
 
). The Syriac text of the argument can be found in Mai 1838: 329, an English translation in BADGER 1852: 400. TOLMAN 1908: 6-7, 36-38, 92. MACKENZIE 1971: 82.

Persian and Central Asian Christians

11

the Pahlavi Psalter from Turfan, specifically the translation from Syriac into Middle Persian of Psa. 135:20 (= Psa. 134:20 in the Peshitta numbering). As Shlomo Pines (1908-1990) demonstrated in a seminal essay from 1968, words

related to the Syriac root \ex (dhl), “to fear,” are rendered in Persian translations from Syriac by words related to the root trs. Thus, in the Pahlavi Psalter, Syriac rº,i-a" asia -, -ox analºa, meaning “(those) who fear the Lord, praise the Lord”

becomes tarsåkyada-imaryā-i āfarin-i kun o-maryā." We also find the term in Sogdian – in both Syriac and Sogdian scripts – including the following variants: 1) tarsák, as an adjective and masc. noun,

meaning “fearing, one who fears” or “Christian” (preoty, precoià in Syriac Script), pl. tarsäkt (\ºorºo’iy, Ayorºco+3); 2) tarsākāné, as an adjective and noun, “Christian, of the Christians” (, rºorºovy, alrear-coià); 3) tarsākānd, as a fem.

noun “Christian” (sº-or-coià); 4) tarsākyā, “Christianity” (~, erecov, rºorºooº.); 5) nãtarsák, as a noun, “non-Christian” (prºcotyrºs) and 6) tarsākānāk, as an adjective, “Christian” (found only in Sogdian script).”

The term is furthermore extant in Khwarezmian, where we find trs'k and trs’knk

— glossed in Arabic as gly a nasrānī, “Christian” — in the Muqaddimat al-adab of al-Zamakhsharī (d.

1144)." Finally, it is found in Modern Persian, with

reference to the following forms: U_i tars, “fear, dread”; Junji tarsān, “afraid”; Jºji tarsidan, “to fear, be afraid” and Lu Xī tarsā = Č), whose name just happens to includes the Qin character of Da Qin, is a surgical technique also used by East Roman “Byzantine” doctor Cassiodorus (c. 485 - c. 585); see HUANG 61. LEGGE 1966, 16-17. It must be acknowledged that the Da Qin stele refers to Jin-fang gui, õ~ß, “aristocrats of the Metal Regions,” in Legge’s rendering, and not Jin-cheng gong-zhu õB# , the “Princess of the Metal/Gold City,” or Jin-cheng gui õ B ß , “Gold/Metal City élites/aristocrats;” it must also be pointed out that the only reference in either of the Tang records to jin-fang is to an “ambassador for the economic streamlining of the Jinfang road”: õ ~î´¥F and within a discussion of Turkic relations in year five of the Kaiyuan era (718), i.e. at roughly the time with which the texts seen above deal; however, it appears reasonable to associate the language used of Ji-lie in the Da Qin stele with the Tang sources’ numerous references to Jincheng gong-zhu õB# . COMPARETI 2009; Compareti indicates this came through a personal conversation with Nikitin; this information was gleaned from the online version of Compareti’s paper, which does not having page numbers: http://www.transoxiana.org/14/compareti_iranian_elements_kashmir.html; retrieved 3-1-2017.

Da Qin, Tajiks and Their Doctors

53

one of the main technological resources of the Tibetans at this time was the production of chain mail for armor. A Chinese source describes Tibetan warriors and horses as both completely covered in armor, leaving visible only their eyes.48 Compareti points to the late Sasanian stone relief of an equestrian knight completely clad in armor in the grotto at Ṭāq-e Bostān. Textiles and metalwork embellished with motifs common in Sogdian art have been found in a cemetery in modern Qinghai Province, then controlled by Tibet, which can be dated to eighth and ninth centuries, indicating that Sogdians and Persians were operating within, and possibly being pulled into, Tibet’s sphere of influence, and due to its recent rise as a regional power.49 This metallurgical and technological expertise, which could easily have included medicine, rests on a natural link between metallurgy and its ties to weaponry. As Persians, Tibetans and Chinese leaders and technologists were pulled into the same orbit because of the natural connections between imperial power and technology, East Syrian technicians and elites came along as well, thus creating a local identity for the word Da Qin and increasing the likelihood that Da Qin and Tājīk referred to the same thing. Late Roman sources as well as sources in Syriac from the Sasanian Empire show Christian doctors participating in Greco-Persian diplomacy in similar ways.50 If Fu-lin was a real place, a local polity existing within and part of Chinese Tang hegemony, and had ties to Bactria and its Greco-Roman heritage, and was near where Sasanians in exile resided and where the Tibetan word Ta-zhig seems to have indicated Persia, this supports the notion that Da Qin and Tājīk either referred to the same thing, or referred to very closely related cultures, the likes of which the Persian longue durée of the Church of the East and its elites’ place as Persian technicians and scientists constituted a connected net of signification. Concluding Remarks and Suggestions for Further Research Joseph Needham, Antonino Forte, Tim Barret, Sam Lieu, Ma Xiaohe and Frantze Grenet have suggested that words in Chinese sources normally thought to refer to the Roman Empire such as Da Qin and Fu-lin, may well refer to a culture or a place either located in Central Asia, or at least one having greater rhetorical relevance and weight within and on the edges of the Tang empire than normally thought.51 Tibetan sources from and reflective of the seventh and 48 49 50 51

COMPARETI 2009. HELLER 1998a; HELLER 2003a; DE LA VAISSIERE 2005, 152-3. BLOCKLEY 1980; also see GODWIN 2018 for further discussion and primary sources. GRENET (forthcoming) has gone much further than this, has surveyed the scholarship, and asserts that a Bactrian king who ruled between 737 and 745 used the royal nomenclature “From Kēsar” (Fulin Caesar) of himself; he notes as well that in a Tibetan text known as the Liyül Lungtenpa it is said that the Tibetans were “to have vanquished the Ta-zhig, whom they understood as Persians;” we may do well therefore to follow MARTIN’s assertion that Ta-zhig and Phrom (Da Qin/Fulin?) cannot be disentangled from one another in early imperial period Tibetan texts (see MARTIN 2011,127ff) but now rest assured that we understand better why this is the case.

54

R. Todd Godwin

eighth centuries, along with Middle Chinese sources reflecting the same context, seem to indicate a close connection between doctors, scientists and the words Da Qin and Tāǧīk. Werner Sundermann suggested that it may have been Sogdians who widened what the term Tāǧīk could signify, and that this occurred after the Abbasid revolution. Tibetan sources don’t simply indicate a strong correlation between Western doctors and Tibetan imperial medicine—they show that Western doctors were part of the early Tibetan and Chinese courtly alliance. Middle Chinese sources indicate as well a strong correlation between court doctors and the Tang’s imperial projects in the seventh-century, and the term Da Qin. This evidence, taken together, suggests that Sundermann’s thesis needs to be pushed back a century and include Persian speakers and Christians, and not be limited to Sogdians or Sogdian Manicheans. When we do this in the way suggested here it increases the likelihood that the term Da Qin was the equivalent of the Iranian word Tāǧīk ultimately unassailable.52 It is impossible that doctors with Western training, who could read multiple languages (Greek, Syriac, Middle Iranian languages, and Chinese) and who worked across the courts of the Tang Chinese, Sogdians, Hindukush, and Iran, did not come to hear a significant level of resemblance between two roughly similar sounding designators. As research continues and which collates information in the languages of Tibetan, Middle Iranian, Chinese (and other) texts and the thesis is refined, it is nonetheless the case that The New Tang Record and the Prince Aluohan Gravestone capture and relay a vignette illustrating what the Sitz im Leben of a Da Qin royal physician and courtly functionary might well have been like. Here a knife wielded by a Da Qin doctor was allowed to penetrate a Tang emperor’s skull. Whether it was previous successes by Da Qin physicians performing medical procedures on Chinese emperors that led to this is difficult to say. But the Church of the East’s elites’ positions as court doctors for the Persian and Arab empires, where they served as part of family lineages/clans of court doctors and where medical knowledge was shared and cultivated like the secrets of peak-performing automobiles among Japanese and German car companies, is well documented in the East Syrian case.53 The Arabic Chronicle of Se’ert has a lengthy section on Christian physicians that worked for the Sasanian court, and which may be turned to in order to expand and refine this line of reasoning and investigation. In seventh-century Tibet and before the Tibetan empire was as dominated by Buddhism, as it would become in the eighth-century, it seems likely that Persian Christian (or Zoroastrian) scientists and technicians could

52

53

And the fact that the Middle Chinese term for Arab was Dashi ('ü lit. “big eater), may also have been part of the phonetic and pragmatic interplay between Middle Chinese, Tibetan and Iranian languages occurring; NEEDHAM asserted in 1951 that Da Qin meant “Arab,” was the same as Dashi ('ü), and is an assertion not far from what has been argued here; see NEEDHAM 1951, 174. LIPPERT 1903, 133 ff.

Da Qin, Tajiks and Their Doctors

55

easily have held the high status both within the Tibetan court, and think that the status afforded in our available primary sources has something to do with their simultaneous connections to China and the West (the Iranian and Greco-Roman world), though continuing research seems to be suggesting that Da Qin was an actual place in the Hindukush and where Sasanian royals remained in exile hoping to restore the Sasanian Dynasty.54 Turning to the official names for the Church of the East in the Tang and the question of whether the Church of the East remained Persian somehow after the name change in 745 is useful in this light. An attempt has thus been in the discussion above to triangulate primary sources in various languages and assert that the terms Da Qin and Tāǧīk share a connection. In uncovering the Iranian continuity probed here, a layer of the lived identity of the elites of the Church of the East existing in connection to its position as producer of inter-imperial physicians has also been broadened and made part of a conversation about what the term Da Qin might have meant for those who lived in the seventh and eighth century and as part of an Iranian trajectory. Tim Barret and Sam Lieu’s notion that Tang imperial ideology stands behind the name Da Qin is also not contradicted: the Church of the East’s post Sasanian Persian trajectory may have been something of a “two-way street,” a phenomenon which may have been bolstered in the seventh-century, and in the way pointed to here, and which continued into the eighty century. Recent research by NIE Zhijun has shown that the Da Qin stele contains vocabulary connected to imperial Taoist medicine, and which seems to indicate Yazdbozid/Yi Si, was making the case to its Chinese readers that Yi Si could act as something of a mystical extension of the Chinese emperor’s power and influence. Patriarch Timothy I’s letters indicate the doctors associated with the Church of the East were part of the church’s politics and missionary strategies.55 The Da Qin/Fulin problem has long been something of a “royal headache.” But as we continue to learn more about how Da Qin physicians were able to solve both physical as well as political headaches for the courts they were employed by it becoming less of a headache for scholars. While on the one hand it should not be surprising that their ability to do this resembled what had occurred in Mesopotamia and Iran, and as was occurring among their Greek and Syriac co religions working in the courts of Arab controlled Syria the early mid-seventh century, and Mesopotamia and Iran by the mid-eighth century, there is still much we do not know. The corpus of early imperial Tibet needs deeper investigation with an eye to Iranian-Tibetan continuities, and how these might surface in the Tang sources in their reference to metal working and gold working, as well as other aspects of medicine and technology—a linguistic 54 55

AGOSTINI & STARK 2016. BRAUN 1915 (Timothy Letter XIII), 70 (trans.)/107 (Syriac); see GODWIN 2018, 128 ff., and BERTI 2011 for further discussion.

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R. Todd Godwin

challenge that is formidable, but not impossible for those willing to learn Old Tibetan and work with the growing corpora of online and digital materials.56 Central Asian Christian technicians’ connection to the Eastern Roman Empire, where gold and metal working was a part of the symbolics of courtly power, takes on local relevance in light of a Bactrian king’s having designated himself a Roman Caesar as the Church of the East began using the name Da Qin Jingjiao, as names such as Constantine appeared in the Da Qin stele, and Sogdians’ increasingly close ties to the East Roman court after the re-opening of the Silk Road in the late sixth century—all of which serve as areas of possible fruitful future investigation to determine the lived-identity of Da Qin scientists and the interplay between religion, science and politics for the Church of the East after the fall of the Sasanian Empire and their place in Central Asia had to be renegotiated amidst a shifting network of regional empires and their courts between the fall of the Sasanians and the rise of the Abbasids.57 Bibliography Primary Sources BRAUN, Oskar, ed. and tr. 1915. Timothei Patriarchae I Epistolae I [Text] Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 74/Syr. 30. Paris: J. Garbalda. ________. 1915. Timothei Patriarchae I Epistolae I [Trans] Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 74/Syr. 31. Paris: J. Garbalda. DU, You ŔV (735-812), ed.. 1988. Tongdian Ɇl. Beijing: Zhongua shuju. FORTE, Antonino. 1996. Paul Pelliot’s L’INSCRIPTION NESTORIENNE DE SI_NGAN-FOU (Kyoto: Scuola di Studi Sull’Asia Orientale, Paris: Collège de France, Institute des Haute Études Chinoises). LIPPERT, Julius, ed. 1903. Al-Qifti, ‘Ali ibn Yusuf, Tarikh Al-Ḥukama. Leipzig: Die terichsche Verlagsbuchhandlung. LIU, Xu {Ĺ (887-946), ed. 1975. Jiu Tangshu ȁžŇ Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. LUO, Bingfen, et al, eds. 2002. Tun hong nas thon pa’i bod kyi gso rig yig cha gces bsdus Pe cin: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang. (contains Pelliot Tibetaine 127), 222-225. OUYANG, Xiu Ŧɣ` & SONG Qi ÈLJ (11th century), eds.. 1975. Xin Tangshu ī žŇ Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. SAEKI, P.Y. 1951 (2nd edition). The Nestorian Documents and Relics in China. Tokyo: Academy of Oriental Culture. SCHER, Addai, ed. and tr. 1919. Histoire nestorienne inédite: Chronique de Séert. 2 Parts. Patrologia Orientalis Part 2, 13.4. WANG, Pu ƞƇ (922-982), ed. 1991. Tang Huiyao 0W

Chuan hua Shili hai Baolu fawang Shan he lü

ɄƬǣ 4ɧǣ11

Shu lie Sanji

ąȩǣ ÕDz dun13

Zhengji Ning ye dun

ůɇǣ

Piye qi

Burākhā?

4¾Ⱥǣ

San wei san

Teshbohtā15

ƙ9ŷƞǣ QvDzǣ

Mou shi fawang Yili ye

Abukhaahcma?

Book of matrimony / blessings Gloria in Excelsis Deo Law of Moses Compiled by

Bācūtha

Elias III Patriarch 1175-99? Prayer of Ninevits

ɇĞŗ

E fu lin

SYRIAC qeryānā Dawidha Ewangeliyon

shlihe

Shurāyā?10 1. Qeryāne (OT, Acts) 2. Ewangeliyon 3. Shlihe (Pauline Epistles) Ganathā?12

ENGLISH Psalter The Gospels Acts? the Apostles Pauline epistles Book of Zacharia?9 Beginning

cAnidha14

d’Ninwāye16

6

7

8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15 16

The Chinese title implies: heavenly treasure. It may correspond to the Syriac “geza” which also means “treasure or a treasury”. The Geza contains all the festivals except Sundays throughout the year. It contains Extracts from the OT, Acts read by a qāruyā (reader). Parallel text is found in the Dunhuang MS Dasheng tong zhen guifa zan (AD720). Following the hymn, there is a sentence stating the sequence of reading: qeryānā, dawidha and evangeliyon The Chinese title means “propagate or spread a religion”. It seems to be translated according to the content of the book. The Chinese title is a phonetic translation of the Syriac word “shlihe”. Saeki rendered it as “Zacharia”, but it is questionable. The short Psalms before the reading of qeryānā. Readings or Lessons. The 3 rituals that form a part of the Eucharist office. Cf. Badger (1852), 19. lit. Inclining. Some long prayers in liturgy, said in a lower voice and bowed head The Chinese character cannot be produced. It is a combination of æ and p For departed Christians; Funeral service for the deceased laymen, women & children. Greater Doxology. A collection of hymns in verse ascribed to St. Ephrem; used during the rogation of Ninevites

Li Tang

124

ùĮȣǻ¨´ ©ǣ ¬_ŷƞǣ đvŸǣ19 ƐŵDzǣ

Mishi he zizai tiandi Baoxin fawang

Abund bashmayā17? d’amadha18 Takhsa

Cili bo/Dz’i lji pha

slibā Takhsa d khusāye

Wu sha ye

The Lord’s Prayer The office of baptism [Sign of] the cross Office of pardon

1.2. The Dunhuang Greater Doxology The Dunhuang MS San Wei Meng du Zan ],c is a Chinese translation of the hymn Gloria in Excelsis Deo (Greater Doxology) with strophic matching as to the most extend as possible to the Chinese Tang-Poem Style. The hymn forms part of the morning Liturgy on Sundays and festive days.20 The Chinese Gloria is not a direct translation from the Syriac Angel’s Praise 
 but rather a “metrical paraphrase” (as Nicholas Sims-Williams called it21) being fit to form of the seven-character Tang-Poetry.22 It has a more expanded form, containing extra verses that do not exit in the extant East Syriac versions. The Gloria in Chinese was written in rhyme, which was obviously used for reciting and chanting purposes. The hymn was also translated into Sogdian. The Sogdian MS of the Gloria is now housed in the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin and was already studied by various scholars including Nicholas Sims-Williams.23 The MS was found near Bulayïq in Turfan. The last two-thirds of the hymn survived. The surviving Sogdian text was written on a piece of old paper, which had been used to write a Chinese Buddhist text on the reverse side. The Chinese text can be dated to the 8th century approximately according to its morphology and handwriting style.24 This in turn helps “providing a terminus post quem for the copying of the Sogdian text”, as proposed by Sims-Williams.25 The part of the Sogdian Gloria was less expanded than the Chinese version. Obviously, the Sogdian Gloria

17

18 19

20

21 22 23 24 25

The Chinese title means “Mishihe himself is in heaven and on earth”. The Lord’s Prayer is recited at the beginning of every liturgical service. Sometimes in a separate volume but more frequently bound up with the liturgies The three books Elija, Sliwa and Moses (Elia-Sliwa-Mushe) are for the period of “the time of the Apostles” during the liturgical year. The feast of the Cross is dedicated to Elija and Moses. See, WAINWRIGTH et al 2006, 165. The Greater Doxology is for the East Syrian a Morning hymn “Matutin on Sundays and Festive days; and for the West Syrians a hymn sung during the night canonical hour. See MOLITOR 1961, 122; 166, note 72. See SIMS-WILLIAMS 1995, 258. Cf. Li Tang’s translation in TANG 2004, 181-183 ibid. 257-262. ibid. 257. ibid.

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from Turfan was used by the Sogdian Christian community during the Uighur Kingdom of Qocho which flourished from the 9th to the 12th century. In this case, it is more likely that the Sogdian text as mentioned above was written after the 8th century and the scriber used the old Chinese paper to write it. This could mean that the Syriac liturgy was translated into Sogdian for the Sogdians in the Turfan area during this period. 1.3. Other Liturgical Texts from Medieval China Places in the western part of China, such as Turfan, Dunhuang and Karakhoto also yielded many Christian liturgical fragments written in Syriac,26 Sogdian, Syro-Turkic, New Persian and other languages. Some have bilingual texts wri tten in Syriac and another vernacular language from the period between the 9th and the 13th centuries. Albert von le Coq, during his second expedition in Turfan in 1905, obtained three leaves with Syriac text and one leaf with New Persian text but written in the Syriac script. As Sachau reported, the Syriac texts were torn off from a Nestorian liturgical book for all the festive and memorial days of the whole liturgical year. And these are identical to the section under the thesaurus
 of the “Codex Mss orient., folio, 620 der königlichen Bibilothek zu Berlin.”27 Some parts also correspond to the East Syrian cycle of services Ḥudrā
 which is a collection of important anthems. 28 The Syriac Estrangelā script in the folios gives hint that the writing is from the period between the 9th and the 13th centuries. 1.4. The Lesser Doxology (Gloria Patri) This Minor Doxology is found also in the second part of Pelliot 3847 in the beginning sentence of Zunjing: 8QhJEoX`t4hJ.a`tbhK% =
 h