INTRODUCTION

I. PREVIOUS WORK ON THE HYMN-CYCLES

There are in Parthian three long texts which are divided into sections known as handāms or ‘limbs’. One of these, Wazargān Āfriwan, is written in prose. The other two, which take their titles from their opening words, are the hymn-cycles Huwidagmān and Angad Rōšnān. These hymn-cycles are the subject of the present work, in which the term ‘handām text’ is restricted to them alone.

The first scholar to publish any part of the hymn-cycles was F. W. K. Müller, who illustrated a point of orthography Spelling or writing conventions. with a verse from the sixth canto of Angad Rōšnān, which exists in three manuscripts.1 Later, he used a verse from the seventh canto of the same cycle to explain a phrase.2 Both verses were reprinted by C. Salemann.3 Müller did not publish any account of the handām texts, but in 1918 he sent his notes on them to R. Reitzenstein, with permission to use them for his book Das iranische Erlösungsmysterium (original: "The Iranian Salvation-Mystery").4 He also sent Reitzenstein photographs of several of the handām fragments, which he studied with some help from F. C. Andreas.

Reitzenstein was then seeking to prove that there had existed among the Zoroastrians of Iran a salvation-mystery that was inherited by the Manichaeans and transmitted to religious communities in the West.5 The Manichaean material he examined for this purpose consisted of fragments M 7 and M 4 and the following handām fragments: M 88 I, M 89, M 91, M 93, M 96, M 175, M 439, M 774, and T II D 178 I–IV. His interpretation of M 7—namely, that it contained a Zoroastrian hymn adapted by Mani for his own community—has not been accepted.6 His theories about M 4 and the handām fragments remain to be considered here.

1 F. W. K. Müller, Handschriften-Reste in Estrangelo-Schrift aus Turfan, Chinesisch-Turkistan (original: "Manuscript Remains in Estrangelo Script from Turfan, Chinese Turkestan"), ii (Abh. P.A.W., 1904, Anh.), p. 6.
2 Eine Hermas-Stelle in manichäischer Version (original: "A passage from Hermas in Manichaean version") (Sb. P.A.W., 1905), p. 1083.
3 C. Salemann, Manichaeische Studien (original: "Manichaean Studies") (Zap. Imp. Ak. Nauk, 1908), pp. 21, 35.
4 Bonn, 1921.
5 Reitzenstein had mentioned this theory briefly in a previous work. See Das mandäische Buch des Herrn der Grösse (original: "The Mandaean Book of the Lord of Greatness") (Sb. Heidelberger A.W., 1919), p. 88.
6 See O. G. von Wesendonk, Urmensch und Seele in der iranischen Ueberlieferung (original: "Primal Man and Soul in the Iranian Tradition"), p. 122; H. H. Schaeder, Urform und Fortbildungen des manichäischen Systems (original: "Original Form and Developments of the Manichaean System"), p. 105 n. 3; W. B. Henning in Andreas-Henning, Mitteliranische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-Turkestan (original: "Middle Iranian Manichaeica from Chinese Turkestan"), iii, p. 872 n. 1.