college 4 Flashcards
Wat weet je van de Mogao caves in Dun Huang?
Buddhist caves (366 ce – 14th century?) Underlayer comes through Abbot Wang discovered library cave around 1900 ce Paintings, scrolls Langdon Warner Bodhisattva (verlicht wezen)
Wat weet je van de manuscripts in de Mogao caves?
• Languages: Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese, Old Turkic, Hebrew, Khotanese, Sogdian, Tangut, Tocharian, Syrian etc.
• Ended up in:
• British Museum
• British Library
• Bibliothèque de Paris
• Musée Guimet
• St Petersburg
• Delhi
Language guide (Chinese-Khotanese en Medicinal text)
Oldest printed book in the world, Diamondsutra (Vajrachedika 868 ce)
Wat weet je van Zoroaster (Zarathustra)?
Zoroastrism
• Nomadic context
• Nowadays: Iran, India (Tata), USA, Britain, Australia
• Zoroaster, Zarathustra 13th bce? 6th bce?
• Azerbaijan? Mongolia? Iran?
• At age 30 he got visions
• Against Bull sacrifice and Hoama drinking
• Teachings: Avesta (hymns)
• Mostly named Parsis
• DUALISM
• God: Ahuramazda, sun, good
• Demon: Ahriman/Angra Mainyu
• Daevas, demons
• Created world is perfect: created by god, cannot be evil
• Polluted by Ahriman as fire is polluted with smoke
Zoroastrism: main ideas
- Universe is place of eternal battle between good and evil
- Universe and humans exist to assist Ahuramazda
- Universe was perfect, Ahriman shook it, everything out of order
- Hills, rivers, sun out of ideal position on midday
- Primordial man dropped seed: plants out of which man and woman arose
- Primordial bull dropped seed: cattle
- Evil is locked up in the world, does not desire this, wants to break out
- Prosperity is important, working, family life
- No asceticism, is evil
- Body and soul are perfect because created by god
- Ritual: FIRE TEMPLE
- Elements water, air, fire are pure, may not be polluted by dirt or corpses
- Sky burial/ sun burial, towers of Silence
Wat weet je van Manichaeism?
Mani (216-276?)
• Is seen, or sees himself as following in the footsteps
Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus etc.
• Mani is the culmination
Wat weet je van Mani?
• Raised as a Christian • Revelations at 12 and 24 • Mission to Indus valley • Influence of Buddhism: reincarnation/ transmigration • Community: Male/female ELECTI Male/female AUDITORES • Christianity: multiple figures of Jesus • Converted Iranian Sasanian rulers: a.o. Shapur • Rival: Kartir • In 273 Shapur succeeded by Bahram I • Mani arrested • Mani died in prison age ca. 60
Wat weet je van The universe binnen het Manichaeism?
• Two reigns: light and dark
• First human is Ahuramazda. Must beat darkness, but fails. Is caught in darkness. Saved by ‘lightbeings’. His body can return to the light; his soul cannot
• Therefore the lord of the light has the lord of darkness create the universe. Thus the soul of the beings, the light can be liberated
• For creation the ‘lightbeings’ created the demiurg Mithra
• Mithra created the universe. Mithra cried out from the deepest darkness. Light came down into it. The universe came into being.
• Sun and moon are pure light. Stars are liberated light (therefore ‘polluted light’)
• Humans: Adam and Eve are produced by the evil carnal inclinations of male and female archonts (evil officials). Demiurges created thus a world of dark and light
• Human as such is a microcosm of light and dark
• Body is evil
• Third: Jesus the Splendor. Told Adam about the light within, the ‘gnosis’. Thus Adam was the first to know of this ‘gnosis’ and he can thus be liberated
• Messengers come to the world: Set, Henoch, Abraham, Buddha, Jesus, Zarathustra, Noah and Mani. Light then returns out of darkness, goes to the moon.
• Moon grows when light is liberated, light moves on to paradise; moon gets small
• In the end big verdict. Selected few go to heaven
• Then material world is purified in big fire that will burn for 1468 years
• Evil forces in a pit sealed with a large stone
• Jesus sometimes takes the shape of the snake that
teaches humanity secret gnosis
Mani got ideas from other religions
• Jesus
• Jesus the Man (historical Jesus, buit did not die on the cross)
• Jesus the Living Soul (suffering Jesus, light caught in darkness)
• Jesus the Splendor (embodiment
of light, visited the first man, will come back in the end)
• Buddhism /Gnosticism
• Buddhist Sangha: electi (male, female) auditores (male/female)
• ‘gnosticism’ world is not what it seems, hidden meanings only seen by selected few
Manichaeism Influence on other religions
Buddhism: Amitabha’s western paradise? Unknown?
Manichaean Buddhism?
Electi en Auditores lifestyle
- Asceticism, anti carnal, body is evil, passions dangerous
- Vegetarianism
- Problems: electi/auditores
- Reincarnation for auditores
- Eating and Singing of the electi liberates the light
- Auditores cut the fruits and vegetables for the electi
- Electi even state about their food: ‘Neither have I cast it into the oven, another hath brought me this and I have eaten it without guilt.’
Augustinus of Hippo (354-430)
exorcism
• Augustinus raised as christian
• Converted to manichaeism for 9 years as auditor
• Converted many of his friends
• Mother Monika did not allow him in her house because of his conversion to manichaeism
• Augustinus met master Faustus, disappointment
• Faustus: manichaeists do not believe in the physical crucifixian, death and resurrection of Jesus.
These were not physical. A demiurg died on the cross
• Augustinus stated that manichaeists worship the sun, moon and nature, but not god and Jesus
• In manichaeism Jesus is sometimes equated to the snake in the paradise. The snake does not seduce
humanity, but brings a message of true knowledge, wisdom. The distinction between good and evil
• Augustinus came back to christianity, but introduced the asceticism of manichaeism and the anti physical, anti carnal. Body is evil
