^{page 603 note 1} Kā;shghari, , i, 48, however, gives the meaning of the word as “the twitching limb” though the modern Turkish word for twitching is sagirmak and in the Turfan texts täbräs.Google Scholar

^{page 603 note 2} By Muhammad Ridā Imāmī Khātūn-ābādī ibn Muhammad Mu'min composed in 1618, edited in Teheran. The tables are to be found on pages 47, 56, and 57.

^{page 603 note 3} Türkische Turfan-Texte VII. Abh. d. preius. Akad. d. Wiss., 1936, phil-hist. Kl. No. 12, Berlin, pp. 32 and 44.Google Scholar

^{page 604 note 1} I have information of the actual use of this calendar in Nāyīn in 1910 but I am not sure of its survival at the present time and rather think that most probably it has disappeared.

^{page 604 note 2} Revue Archéologique, 1889, July-December, p. 239.Google Scholar

^{page 605 note 1} Muhammad ibn 'Umar ibn abī Tālib MS. Leyden, 1056.

^{page 605 note 2} Teheran edition, p. 603.

^{page 605 note 3} I possess four of these calendars composed by three different authors, one for the year corresponding to 1925–6, two for 1935–6, and one for 1936–7. The beginning of the Persian year (fursī) is given in 1925 as corresponding to the 10th August, in 1935 to the 8th and in 1936 to the 7th August.

^{page 605 note 4} It is curious that even Modi who wrote an article on the similarity of the Mandsean and Parsi customs (Journal of the K.R. Cama Oriental Institute, 1932, pp. 17–91) did not notice the correspondence of the M. calendar with that of Parsis.Google Scholar

^{page 606 note 1} The first name is connected with their rite of baptism and the second with their temple or Cult-Hut. The first which is a more select name is apparently the religious and the second a national name.

^{page 606 note 2} Strictly speaking as far as the Persian is concerned from the end of the fourth to the end of the tenth century.

^{page 606 note 3} The moving of the epagomense from the end of the eighth to the end of the twelfth month by one party and the conserving of them in their place by the other does not cause any divergence in the beginning of the year between the two parties, but it causes a difference of five days in their dates only during the last four months of the year.

^{page 606 note 4} The difference between the vague year and the Julian is exactly a quarter of a day.

^{page 606 note 5} The Mandæans of Iraq and Iran, Oxford, 1938, p. 84.Google Scholar

^{page 607 note 1} As-ṡābi'at^u qadīm^an wa hadith^an published in Baghdad in 1931, p. 57.Google Scholar

^{page 607 note 2} He attended also the celebration of the M.great feast of Panja which must have been on the 24th–8th April of the same year. This feast is between the eighth M. month called by the MM. Virgo, EIul (August) or mid-summer month and the ninth month called Libra, Tishrīn (September) or the last month of the summer. Brandt (Die Mandäische Religion, p. 91 n.) having misunderstood the real meaning of the Syrian month names used by the MM. and not distinguishing between the Syrian and the Mandæan Elul and Tishrīn has expressed doubt in the truth of Petermann's statement regarding his attending the Panja feast “because Petermann was there only from the end of January till the first days of May, 1854”.Google Scholar

^{page 608 note 1} Similar to the Persian custom in Naurüz i bozorg. Naurüz was in fact originally immediately after the epagomenaæ.

^{page 608 note 2} There is reason to think that these five days were originally the real epagomense corresponding to the Egyptian supplementary days, which also were inauspicious,

^{page 608 note 3} e.g., Abd. ar-Rahmān al-Khāzin in his az-Zīj al-mu'tabar as-sanjarī (Vatican MS.). The other sources put the greater Tīrakān on the 14th Tīr immediately after the Lesser Tīrakān which is on the 13th of the same month.

^{page 608 note 4} The names Siwān, Mashrwan, and Tabith, however, point to Jewish (or Babylonian) rather than Turkish origin.

^{page 608 note 5} A Semitic word meaning winter and corresponding to Arabic shitā.

^{page 608 note 6} Apparently from the Persian word bahār meaning spring.

^{page 608 note 7} Possibly corresponding to the Arabic

^{page 609 note 1} No doubt from the Persian Pāyiz.

^{page 609 note 2} Die Mandäische Religion, p. 90.Google Scholar

^{page 609 note 3} Beigabe iii. to chapters iv and v of Reitzenstein's book, Die Vorgeschichte der christlichen Taufe.

^{page 609 note 4} See Drawer, , pp. 80–99Google Scholar, from whom most of the details about the M. year and feasts given above are derived. This author consecrates a chapter (pp. 225–239) to the question of “Parsi ritual meals” and their many similarities to the Mandæan customs. Pallis, S. A. devotes a considerable part of his book (Mandæan Studies, London, 1919, chap, iii, pp. 50–114)Google Scholar to the Persian religion and Mandæsm. Brandt also in his book Die Mandäische Religion, speaks of the Parsi influence (pp. 194–7Google Scholar) as well as in his article in ERE. W. Bousset also describes the influence of the Persian religion on Mandæism and the Gnostic sects in general (Hauptprobleme der Gnosis, Göttingen, 1907, pp. 39–46)Google Scholar. Modi in his above-mentioned article of 74 pages has compared the customs of the MM. and Parsis. Reitzenstein in his Das Mandaische Bitch des Herm der Grösse, Heidelberg, 1919Google Scholar, as well as especially in his Die Vorgeschichte der christlichen Taufe, Leipzig, 1929, discusses fully the Persian origin of a good many of the M. beliefs and customs. These two last-named authors go in this respect much further than the other students of this question and perhaps too far. We may note also that the planets are in the M. religion harmful beings, just as in the Zoroastrian religion; the polar star which is the most blessed point according to the M. teaching is the commander-in-chief (sipahbādan-sipahbad) of the fixed stars, which are considered good and the helpers of Ahura-Mazda. Another interesting point is the name of Sagittarius which the MM. call Haita (mare) similar to the Pahlavi nīmasp.Google Scholar

^{page 610 note 1} The rule of the Parthian dynasty began in 247 B.C.

^{page 610 note 2} Petermann, though he was the only observer who has noticed the “complete correspondence” between the M. epagomenæ and the Persian Panja has apparently not realized the identity of the two calendars. He made, however, the deduction from the positions of the M. seasons in his time (the beginning of the M. winter in August, that of the spring in November, and so forth) that the M. calendar must have been instituted at a time when their seasons were coinciding with the astronomical seasons of the tropic year. Through his calculation, which was based also on the retrogression of the vague year one day each four years, he arrived at the early years of the fourteenth century for the date of the institution, but he rightly found this date too late for the era of M. calendar.

^{page 610 note 3} The Mughtasilat were undoubtedly Mandæans. The objection of Pedersen (in A Volume of Oriental Studies presented to E. 0. Browne on his 60th Birthday, Cambridge, 1922, pp. 383–391) to this identification is not convincing, but this is not the place for discussing this question. According to Ibn an Nadīm their numbers were large in his days.Google Scholar

^{page 611 note 1} Also Muqaddasī who wrote towards the end of the tenth century refers apparently to the same people when he speaks of the population of Bata'ib. He states that their language is Aramaic and then says they have no language and no intelligence (Ahsan at-taqāsīm, p. 128).Google Scholar

^{page 611 note 2} Pognon, , Inscriptions Mandaïtes des coupes de Khouabir, p. 14.Google Scholar

^{page 611 note 3} ii, 59; v, 73, and xxii, 17. This identification is accepted according to the best interpretation, though much controversy exists on this matter.

^{page 611 note 4} According to Yāqūt (Mu'jam iii, 566) Tib was built by Sheth and the inhabitants were ṣabeans later converted to Islam. He states that the people of Tib were in his time still Aræamans and speaking the Aramaic language.

^{page 611 note 5} According to this author the community were called in Mesene Mandæans and Mashkneans and in the rest of Babylonia, to the north of Mesene Nazaræans (no doubt NaṣŌræans) and Dostæans.

^{page 611 note 6} Reitzenstein, , Die Vorgeschichte der christlichen Taufe, p. 256. Has this King showed special favour to this sect and has this any relation with the name given in Ginza to that monarch, namely, Bihdād?Google Scholar

^{page 611 note 7} Futaq, according to al-Fihrist and Fābiq the son of Māmān, according to Sam'ānī (al-ansāb, Gibb memorial facsimile edition, fol. 280b).

^{page 611 note 8} These coins with the M. writing are believed to belong to a period between A.D. 138 and 228 (see Drouin, , Revue Numismatique, series iii, tome 7, Paris, 1889, pp. 210–254Google Scholar and 361–384). According to Babelon, (Journal international d'Archéologie numismatique, Athènes, tomei, 1898, p. 381–404Google Scholar) and Lidzbarsky, (Zeitschrift für Numismatik, 1922, vol. xxxiii, p. 85) the Mesenean coins with Greek legend cease after A.D. 118 and therefore those with M. writings can be attributed to any time áfter that date and before 228.Google Scholar

^{page 612 note 1} Encyclopaedia Judaica-Charax Spasina.

^{page 612 note 2} Ibid.

^{page 612 note 3} According to Encyclopaedia Judaica, the daughter of the King married the crownprince of Adiaben named Izat, who was staying for a time in Charax. A Jewish merchant, Ananias by name, who had succeeded in converting the wives of the King to the Jewish religion, learned from them that Izat was there and approached him, converted him, went with him to Adiaben and became influential in the court after the accession of Izat. This story if it proves to be authentic may throw some light on the relations between the MM. and Jews. According to Yāqūt (Mu'jam iv, 714) the tomb of Ezra is found in a village of Maisān and the Jews were in his time there serving for the up-keeping of the shrine. One of the M. festivals, 'Ashuriya, which is on the first day of the sixth month of the M. year, may be of Jewish origin. The Jewish 'āshūrā (the 10th of Tishrīn) have corresponded with the M. 'Ashūriya in the ninth century (precisely in A.D. 825). Graetzy's, H. article Das Königreich Mesene und seine jüdsiche Bevölkerung (Breslau, 1879) was unfortunately not accessible to me.Google Scholar

^{page 612 note 4} The dissimulation permitted in the M. religious books apparently to escape the persecution by the Christians on the one hand, and the acquaintance of the early moslems with the MM. (Sābi'ūn) and their religion on the other, may however indicate that some MM. were still in the later centuries (third to seventh) living in the West (perhaps in Syria and Palestine) under the rule of the Christian Romans and near to the borders of Hijīz.

^{page 612 note 5} Muqaddasī in the tenth century speaks of the great number of the Zoroastrians in Baṭa'ih.

^{page 613 note 1} According to Gutschmid (Iran und seine Nachbarländer, p. 42) and Weissbach in Pauly- Wissowa's Realencyclopädie.Google Scholar

^{page 613 note 2} According to Drouin in his above-mentioned article.

^{page 613 note 3} The later Astrābad-Ardashīr and Arab. (see Marquart, , Eranšahr, p. 40).Google Scholar

^{page 613 note 4} According to Marquart' communication to Schaeder, , Hasan al-Basri, der Islam, xiv, 1925, p. 13, n. 6.Google Scholar

^{page 613 note 5} His coins exist with the date of 124 B.C. or 436 Seleucidian. He lived 85 years and died before 109 B.C. For more details about Mesene see Schaeder op. cit., and Streck in E I. Maisān.

^{page 613 note 6} Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie der Klass. Altertumswiss.—Mesene.

^{page 613 note 7} Reynaud, , Mémoire sur le commencement et la fin du royaume de Mésène et de la Characène, Paris, 1861, p. 39.Google Scholar

^{page 613 note 8} This is important as it may account for the influence of the Nabatsean culture and particularly their writing on the Mandæans.

^{page 613 note 9} Drouin has examined forty pieces of them.

^{page 613 note 10} Drouin, Babelon and Lidzbarsky, op. cit. The M. rule may have begun immediately after the temporary occupation of Mesene by Romans under the command of Trajan in 116 and have continued at least down to 168 which is, according to Schaeder (op. cit.), the date of the last of the known M. coins.

^{page 614 note 1} Lidzbarsky has translated Shabāt with February and Sīwān with June, taking the Babylonian month-names used by the MM., as Brandt also did, in their Syro Turkish meaning and as corresponding to the Julian months. This is, however, not in accordance with the system of the M. calendar, as we have seen.

^{page 614 note 2} Though there may be still later parts if some verses really allude to the end of Omayyad period (see Ginza, , p. 300, Lidzbarsky's note).Google Scholar

^{page 614 note 3} The material and moral damage suffered by the city at the hand of Antiochus may not be worthy of being called “destruction” but it was very important from the Jewish point of view. Antiochus razed the walls of the city, pillaged the temple, devoted it to Zeus, and committed so many outrageous deeds against the city that Daniel (xi. 31) calls it the “Abomination of desolation”.

^{page 615 note 1} Lidzbarsky's, translation, p. 413.Google Scholar

^{page 615 note 2} I am indebted to Dr. A. S. Tritton for reading the M. text.

^{page 615 note 3} In Arabic, zaif means the falseness of coins.

^{page 615 note 4} See Oppolzer, Canon der Finsternisse. The next eclipse of the sun in Farvardīn was in 661 (2nd July).

^{page 615 note 5} Two kinds of year were used in Persia, one a fixed year for religious purposes and the other a vague year which was the civil year and in general use.

^{page 616 note 1} They must have been more numerous in the times of the Caliphs and their numbers have declined owing to the persecutions. The story of a general massacre of this people is told in a M. book (Tārikh) which happened during the reign of Muhsin ibn Mahdī (apparently the Musha‘sha’ ruler) towards the end of the fifteenth century (see Drower, op. cit., p. 14, who, however, puts the date of the event in the fourteenth century).Google Scholar

^{page 616 note 2} Small groups of them are to be found in the other Mesopotamian and Syrian towns. Welsted (Travels to the City of the Caliphs, London, 1840, vol. i, p. 316) speaks of a group of them in Hit (70 miles north-west of Baghdad) where a friend of this author met theni in 1833.Google Scholar

^{page 616 note 3} Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus, St. Petersburg, 1856.

^{page 616 note 4} The best bibliography on the subject is to be found in the article “The Origin and Antiquity of the Mandæans”, by raeling, C. H. K, JAOS., 49, p. 195 (1929), as well as in the more comprehensive work of Palliз entitled Essay on, Mandæan Bibliography.Google Scholar

^{page 616 note 5} Elchasai began his preaching about A.D. 100.

^{page 616 note 6} Mandäische Liturgien, pp. xix–xxiGoogle Scholar, and Das Johannesbuch der Mandäer, pp. xvi–xxi.Google Scholar

^{page 617 note 1} Drower, (op. cit., p. 10) thinks it is even possible that the Mandæans are the rest of the Jews of the Captivity later converted to Mazdaism, a conjecture which agrees with the statement of Bīrūnī, but does not seem to be very probable.Google Scholar

^{page 617 note 2} Though there are many scholars who are holding a different view, such as Schaeder (Gnomon, , vol. v, 1929, pp. 353–370)Google Scholar, Litzmann (SB. pr.Alc. W. Jahrg., 1930, p. 596) who speaks also of the articles by Peterson (1926), Lagrange (1927) and Burkitt (1928), agreeing with his opinion as to a more or less Christian origin for the M. rites and Customs.Google Scholar

^{page 617 note 3} Encyclopædia Judaica and George Herbert Box in the Encyclopædia Britannica, 14th edition.

^{page 618 note 1} According to a Mandæan manuscript in the possession of MrsDrower, (op. cit., p. 7) this great persecution happened sixty years after the death of John. The M. John's book speaks of the immigration to the mouth of Euphrates.Google Scholar

^{page 618 note 2} Mead, , The Gnostic John the Baptizer, London, 1924, p. 33Google Scholar. The Babylonian origin of Gnosticism is emphasized by Anz, W. (Zur Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnostizismus, Leipzig, 1897). We may note that the names of the planets with the MM. are Babylonian.Google Scholar

^{page 618 note 3} The Persian influence whether deep and fundamental as Reitzenstein and some others emphasize, or superficial and late as Pallis and others believe, was undoubtedly preponderant.

^{page 618 note 4} In the M. inscriptions of Khouabir we meet with a good many Persian names borne apparently by MM., such as Zādbeh, Roslam, Adur-Yazdān, Farrokh-rū, Khosri-dukht, Mehin-dukht, Bahman-dukht, Din-dukht, etc.

^{page 618 note 5} Ardabān, possibly one of the Parthian kings (Artabanus) is a popular king with the MM.

^{page 618 note 6} Similar to that of Sistanians and unlike all other nations who used the young Avestan calendar.

^{page 618 note 7} The spoken language or colloquial Mandæan is called ratna which, according to Drower, is falling into disuse and Arabic is now in general use with the MM.

^{page 619 note 1} Bar Konāi says (Pognon, p. 222) that Firūz banned all religions other than the Magian and therefore Battai was obliged to approach the Magis, flatter them and even accept the worship of fire.

^{page 619 note 8} The name is found also in the M. literature (book of John) for another person.

^{page 619 note 3} The same is confirmed by bar Konāi (ibid.).