Die Rede der Lebendigen Seele

The 'Speech of the Living Soul' is the only Middle Persian verse-cycle extensively preserved in the Turfan Collection in Berlin. It constitutes an important Manichaean text dedicated to the central Manichaean concept of the Living Soul, the light trapped in the material world which desires to return to its proper place in the paradise of light and which the Manichaeans have a duty to save. The fact that the language of the text is Middle Persian rather than Parthian suggests that it may have been made during Mani's lifetime though perhaps not by Mani himself. A small part of a Sogdian translation is also preserved. This edition presents 252 verses of the text on the basis of 54 fragments, some of which have never been published before.