Trait
Ts'an Ching
Manichaean Text from Dun-Huang

"The Traite‚ is, despite its title (Moni jiao cao jing, lit. “fragmentary [Mathews, no. 6689] Manichean scripture”), a long text in an excellent state of preservation, with only a few lines missing at the beginning. It was first fully published with a facsimile by Edouard Chavannes (q.v.) and Paul Pelliot in 1911 and is frequently known as Traite‚ Pelliot. Their transcription (including typographical er­rors) was reproduced in the Chinese translation of the Buddhist Tripitáaka  (Taisho@, no. 2141 B, LIV, pp. 1281a16-­1286a29); that text was in turn reproduced with critical notes by Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer (1987b, pp. T. 81-86). A more accurate transcription was published by Chen Yuan in 1923 (pp. 531-44), and a new collation based on a reexamination of the original photographs of the manu­script has now been published by Lin Wu-shu (1987, pp. 217-29), with the photographs.

The Traite‚ contains a number of discourses attributed to Mani. They consist of answers to questions on cosmogony, ethics, and other matters posed by his disciple A-to (perhaps Adda@, who is known to have been sent as a missionary to the western part of the Persian empire; Mir. Man. II, p. 69 [360]). The first complete discourse is focused on the aftermath of the rescue of primal man by the powers of light and the subsequent attack by the demon of greed (i.e., the prince of darkness), which led to creation of the universe and the eventual victory of the light (see cosmogony and cosmology iii. manichean). A number of parallels with the Traite‚ have been found in Manichean texts in other languages. For example, themes like the enumeration of nights and days and the symbol of trees are found in western, especially Coptic, Manichean texts (Lieu, 1985a, p. 206). Exact parallels can also be found in Turkish Manichean fragments (Le Coq, pp. 16-21; Taisho, pp. 1282a-1285c). Werner Sundermann (1983) has discussed fragments from approximately twenty-two Parthian manuscripts that contain parallels to almost every part of the Traite‚. One group of these fragments includes the running head “finished is the sermon of the light-nous.” He concluded that the work was originally composed in Parthian, translated into both Sogdian and Turkish, then from one of those languages into Chinese.

Linguistically the Chinese version is important for the interpretation of a number of Parthian terms of ethical and anthropological significance, which first became intelli­gible through comparison with their Chinese equivalents. For example, Parthian wdyÞn÷sgyft, literally “bad know­ing,” is shown by its Chinese equivalent (yu-chi; Mathews, nos. 7624, 1025) to mean “folly,” rather than “sinful knowledge” or “evil intention,” as had previously been thought (Salemann, text 34 p. 11, glossary p. 72; Henning, 1943, pp. 58, 63, text h 1.156)."

The Ts'an Ching is a Chinese transaltion of the Sermon of the Light Nous (Mind). The virtues enumerated on this page are from the Traite: Twelve Manichaean Virtues
 

[. . . first few lines missing . . . ] (508) "If one does not encounter an additional cause, he will not have what is needed to liberate himself or continue his deliberation. The basic nature of the carnal body - is it simple or double? All the Righteous Ones without exception who have (509) appeared in the world, have taught and instigated these methods, by which they were able to walk in the nature of Light, and by which they were able to make themselves free from sufferings, and to abide in serenity and contentment. After asking this question, he bowed in a sign of respect, and went back and stood off to the side. And the Envoy of Light spoke to Adda with these words: "Very good! Very good! For the benefit (510) of all living beings have you ask this question, and its meaning is extremely profound and mystical. Surely you are a great "excellent friend" to all groups of living creatures, who are all blind and loose their way in these worlds, and I will explain such to you from point to point, so that nothing will remain of the threads of your doubts and they will be broken for ever. So all of you should understand that before this world was established, two Envoys of Light who were Tsing-fong (Pure Spirit) and Chan-mu (Good Mother) entered in the domain of the abysses of darkness which is without light: they returned from there (512), as beings ever brave and victorious… covered by the armor of the great Gnosis, to save the five scattered luminous bodies (513) they took it in their possession skillfully (514) for they have ascended and advanced and they have come out the five abysses. The five kinds of demons have adhered to the five luminous bodies, even as the fly is attached to the honey, even as the bird taken by the resin, even as the fish who swallowed the hook. For this reason, the Envoy of Light named Tsing-fong (Pure Spirit), by means of the five kinds of demons and the five luminous bodies and by combination of their two forces, constituted the ten heavens and the eight (515) earths of the Universe. So the universe is the pharmacy for luminous bodies which are being healed, but at the same time it is the prison for the demons in chains. These Tsing-fong and Chan-mu established by sophisticated methods the ten heavens, then, they instituted the wheel of revolutions (516) also the palaces of the Sun and the Moon, and also the eight earths below, and the three ways, (517) the three disasters, the four yards walled by iron, (518) the mountain Wei-lao-kiu-fou, and all the small mountains, (519) the oceans and the rivers. When they have made all this things and have constituted the Universe, they imprisoned the five kinds of demons and enchained them by means of the thirteen great luminous forces. These 13 kinds of the brave great forces are the five luminous sons of Sien-yi (Primal Reason) and the five luminous sons of Tsing-fong (520) and then Hu-lu-cho-to (Khroshtag), (521) Pu-liu-huo-to (Padvakhtag) and also…(521) Pu-liu-huo-to (Padvakhtag) and also Su-lu-cha-lo-yi (522) (Sroshharay). The five luminous bodies became the prison for (523) the five kinds of demons who were closed together in this prison. The five sons of Tsing-fong (pure Wind) became like officers governing this prison. Shuo-ting (he who hears when one speaks = Khroshtag) and Huan-ying (she who answers when one appeals = Padvakhtag) were similar to those who cry the watches of night. When for the thirteen, for knowing of Su-lu-cha-lo-yi (Srosh-haray), she became like a king who judges the deeds. When the demon of envy has seen this things, (524) he conceived in his poisoned heart a new malicious project; (525) he ordered Lu-yi and to Ye-lo-yang to imitate Tsing-fong and Chan-mu. In this microcosm they constituted by transformation the human body, and imprisoned there the luminous natures for imitate the big world; so the carnal body with its envy and with its desire, became, though a little, the exact image, from point to point, of the Universe of heavens and earths. The wheel of revolutions, the constellations, the three calamities, and the four fences, the big seas and the rivers, the two earths, dry and wet, plants and animals, (527) the mountains and the streams of water, and also the hills of earth and the small hills, the spring, the summer, the autumn and the winter, the years, the months, the hours and the days, and even the limited and the unlimited, there was no formation in the Universe that was not imitated. This is like a jeweler, copying the form of a white elephant, engraves it in the interior part of a ring: it is exactly similar to the body of the elephant himself: in the same manner the human is similar to the Universe. (528) Tsing-fong took the five kinds of demons, and they were imprisoned and enchained in 13 kinds of pure luminous bodies and did not permit them to be independent. Seeing this, the demon conceived envious and empoisoned feelings; he concluded the five luminous natures in the carnal body what was made as a small Universe; in its turn, it serve to the 13 obscures non-luminous forces for imprison them and enchain them, and for them it does not permit to be independent. And so this demon of the envy closes the pure ether for the city of bones: he establishes the obscure thought in which he plants a tree of death. (529)  continued ....