A comparative study of the Manichaean scripture Xiangkong Baochan(香空宝忏)from Fuqing and the Old Turkic Xuāstvānīft(prayers of repentance)
Xiangkong Baochan is a Manichaean scripture discovered by the author during the field-work.Its primary content was fifteen prayers of repentance,with the themes and structures similar to those of the Old Turkic Xuāstvānīft.It is the earliest Chinese translation of the repentance prayer known so far.Xiangkong Baochan belongs to the same genre as the Xiapu(霞浦)Manichaean manuscripts and Pingnan(屏南)Manichaean manuscripts,while its discourses followed the tradition of the Dunhuang manuscripts.Different versions of Xiangkong Baochan have different textual contents;this conforms to the diffusion pattern of folk documents,which is characterised by the uniformity of the core theme but varied forms of expressions.Based on fragmented information from the Coptic language,the Old Turkic,and the Dunhuang manuscripts from the Tang Dynasty,as well as the discoveries made so far,these copies of Xiangkong Baochan have similar motifs and texts of repentance.Despite highly regionalised characteris-tics introduced by the geographic areas,languages,and ethnicities,they were able to maintain their in-ner uniformity.
ManicheanismThe Fuqing(福清)manuscriptsOld TurkicPrayers of repentance
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