Mani's Šābuhragān (1979) - Page 5

World, for him the Renovation (Frašegird),13 and its part in his cosmology is admirably summarized in Boyce's Introduction (Reader, 8):

The end of the world will be presaged by the Great War, a time of conflict and bitterness and waning faith, since by then most of the Light will have been drawn out of the world. There will follow the Second Coming of Jesus, who will establish his judgment-seat and separate the righteous from the sinners. Thereafter the gods supporting the cosmos will abandon their tasks, the heavens and earths will collapse, and the Great Fire will break out, in which the last particles of Light will be freed and will ascend to the New Paradise as the Last God.
Matter will be imprisoned, and the prison will be sealed with a great stone; and finally the New Paradise will be joined again to the Paradise of Light, and its inhabitants, gods and the redeemed, will behold once more the face of the Father of Greatness, hidden from them since the struggle began.

The following translation follows the text as closely as possible. The notes are mainly concerned with the establishment of the text and linguistic matters.

TEXT


A r : H[eading], 1–3	A v : H, 25– 27	M 519 I
+ 4– 24	+ 28– 48	M 473 I
B r : H, 49– 72	B v : H, 73– 96	M 475 a I
C r : H, 97–120	C v : H, 121–144	M 477 I
D r : H, 145–161	D v : H, 169–184	M 482 I
+ 161–168	+ 185–192	M 477 b
E r : H, 193–213	E v : H, 217–238	M 472 I
+ 208–216	+ 232–239	M 487 b (1)
F r : H, 241–244	F v : H, 264–268	M 535
+ 245–264	+ 269–288	M 536
+ 256–263	+ 280–284	M 487 b (2)
G r : H, 289–312	G v : H, 313–336	M 470 a
+ 303–310	+ 328–333	M 497 b
H r : H, 337–357	H v : H, 361–379	M 505 a
+ 340–347	+ 364–371	M 542 b I
+ 351–355	+ 375–379	M 1745
+ 352–360	+ 376–384	M 470 c
J r : H, 385–404	J v : H, 409–424	M 505 b
+ 386–395	+ 409–419	M 542 b II
+ 400–408	+ 424–426	M 475 c

13: Middle Persian prš(y)g/k/qyrd, 'the renewal of the original state of the world through the dissolution of the cosmos consisting of the heavens and earths' (W. B. Henning, Mitteliranische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-Turkestan, I, Berlin, 1932, 222), is a term taken directly from Zoroastrianism, Pahlavi plškrt', Avestan frašō.kərəti-, literally 'making excellent'; see W. Brandenstein and M. Mayrhofer, Handbuch des Altpersischen, Wiesbaden, 1964, 119, fraša- 'excellent', etc., and M. Molé, Culte, mythe, et cosmologie dans l'Iran ancien, Paris, 1963, 34f. (on fraša-) and passim (fraškart 'Renovation'). That 'in the Manichaean interpretation [frašegird] means that everything becomes "healthy, whole" (= fraša-) in that the world perishes totally, and not as in Zoroastrianism where the world will only be renewed' (as J. P. Asmussen will have it, 'Manichaeism', 605, in Historia religionum, Handbook for the history of religions, I, ed. C. J. Bleeker and G. Widengren, Leiden, 1969) seems to be in conformity with S. Insler's recent reinterpretation of G. Avestan fəraša- < *frarta-, √ar, 'healed, repaired' (The Gāthās of Zarathustra (Acta Iranica, 8.), Teheran and Liège, 1975, 172). But there is no record of such a meaning in Zoroastrian tradition, where the only Pahlavi 'translations' of fraša-, besides the transcription in plškrt, are Vd. 1, 20 pwrsšnyk (as if from √fras!) and otherwise pl'c, and New Persian farāx: that Mani could have reinterpreted etymologically is, of course, quite impossible.