The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign (Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture)

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The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign

Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture Editors

Guy Stroumsa David Shulman Hebrew University of Jerusalem Department of Comparative Religion

VOLUME 6

The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign Edited by

S. La Porta and D. Shulman

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

The JSRC book series aims to publish the best of scholarship on religion, on the highest international level. Jerusalem is a major center for the study of monotheistic religions, or “religions of the book”. The creation of a Center for the Study of Christianity has added a significant emphasis on Christianity. Other religions, like Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese religion, are studied here, too, as well as anthropological studies or religious phenomena. This book series will publish dissertations, re-written and translated into English, various monographs and books emerging from conferences.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress

ISSN: 1570-078X ISBN: 978 90 04 15810 8 © Copyright 2007 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS Introduction ........................................................................................ S. La Porta and D. Shulman

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PART ONE

CREATION 1. Creation through Hieroglyphs: The Cosmic Grammatology of Ancient Egypt ........................................................................... Jan Assmann

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2. KUN—the Existence-Bestowing Word in Islamic Mysticism: A Survey of Texts on the Creative Power of Language ............ Sara Sviri

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3. Adam’s Naming of the Animals: Naming or Creation? ........... Michael E. Stone

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4. Greek Distrust of Language ......................................................... Margalit Finkelberg

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PART TWO

CULTURAL ENCODING 5. This is no Lotus, it is a Face: Poetics as Grammar in Danˢdˢin’s Investigation of the Simile ........................................................... Yigal Bronner 6. The Performance of Writing in Western Zhou China .............. Martin Kern 7. Counseling through Enigmas: Monastic Leadership and Linguistic Techniques in Sixth-Century Gaza .......................... Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony 8. Devotional, Covenantal and Yogic: Three Episodes in the Religious Use of Alphabet and Letter from a Millennium of Great Vehicle Buddhism .............................................................. Dan Martin

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contents PART THREE

SELFTRANSFORMATION 9. Powers of Language in Kabbalah: Comparative Reflections ... Jonathan Garb

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10. The Poetics of Grammar in the Javano-Balinese Tradition ... Thomas M. Hunter

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11. How to Bring a Goddess into Being through Visible Sound David Shulman

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12. Translation and Transformation: Armenian Meditations on the Metamorphic Power of Language ................................. Sergio La Porta

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Index ....................................................................................................

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INTRODUCTION 1. A Sound Instead of Letters A great thing for them was the voice of the Creator, which shouted out over the earth, And he taught them a new book, which they did not know. As if for children, he wrote a sound instead of letters, And he caused them to meditate upon those characters concerning the existence of light. Like a line he made straight the expression before their sight, And they began crying, “Blessed is the creator who created the light!” “Let there be light,” cried the voice which possesses no voice, And the word issued forth to action without delay.

These verses are from the memrâ of Narsai of Nisibis (399–402) entitled “On the Expression, ‘In the Beginning’ and Concerning the Existence of God,”1 one of the most powerful statements about language in the Syriac Christian corpus. Narsai, the rabban (director) of the school at Edessa that focused on biblical interpretation, evokes in this passage the inherent tension between the semantic and trans-semantic modes of language—language as Creator and created, as sound and symbol, as model and actualization. Here language is the constructive element of the universe, its grammar the order and wonder of cosmic operation. According to Narsai, the creation, already formed by God but hidden as with a cloak, does not fully come into existence until communication between God and the intelligible universe begins. The previous verses of the poem tell us that God has already once exclaimed “Let there be light”, to which the angels now respond. Although the world has come into existence by means of God’s initial exclamation, He withholds its full actualization until the angelic host achieves awareness. It is only after their acclamation of praise that He once again releases His effectual pronouncement. The created universe is thus an echo, a reduplicated sound which refers to itself, but that sound is a voice that has issued

1 Trigg 1988, 213–214; Syriac text and French translation in Gignoux 1968, 570–3, ll. 249–56.

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from no-voice, from silence, and only derives its full meaning and efficacy from the angelic antiphonal. According to Narsai, God exits from his silence into this conversation in order to teach his remzâ—symbol, sign, mystery, suggestion—to the angels. In the work of Syriac authors of the 5th and 6th century, as Gignoux and Alwan have demonstrated, the remzâ also encapsulates the divine power that creates the universe, holds it together, arranges it, and refashions it at the eschaton (i.e., the end of days).2 The remzâ is the ultimate referent but is itself a symbol, transcending linguistic potential; it is an ineffable sign that refers to something that is beyond reference and therefore refers only to itself. The understanding and effectuality of that remzâ in Narsai’s poem, however, is related to the angelic praise—the actualization of the remzâ awaits the recognition and praise of the angelic host. It is clear from this emphasis on ‘praise’ that Narsai is here depicting the first heavenly liturgy. Through participation in this liturgical praise the angels become aware of the mysterious sign, the remzâ—‘more beautiful than the light itself ’—as well as of the universe, from the creation to the end, and of their own existence. The impact of this sacred act is not limited to the celestial sphere. As the reflection of the heavenly liturgy, the earthly, ecclesiastical liturgy partakes of this continuing cosmogonic revelation of the remzâ, and through communion in this liturgy, its participants likewise share in the knowledge of the ineffable beauty of the creation and of themselves. While God thus imparts His remzâ to the angels as a sound that attains actualization through the angelic echo of praise, He teaches his remzâ to humanity through scripture, whose fulfillment is attained through the liturgical act. The complete revelation of the remzâ transforms both angels and men and, ultimately, the universe itself. Narsai’s cosmogony of the remzâ exemplifies the kind of problems with which this volume is concerned. The remzâ is close to what we will be calling grammar—a paradigmatic mapping or reality made accessible to the angels as a creative sound functioning as a sign and to human beings as written signs, actualized in the audible, spoken liturgy. One could go much further in exploring this particular Syriac grammar; but in fact sounds and signs are everywhere, in all civilizations, saturated with metaphysical content. They always tend to be organized in ‘grammars’—sets of rules regulating the relations and transitions between

2

Gignoux 1966; Alwan 1988/89.

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perception and expression, that is, between primary cultural intuitions and their articulated modes. More generally, such grammars turn sounds into signs and define the range of signification. Each such grammar is itself a poetic enterprise, creating—or more accurately, refashioning—the world it purports to describe. 2. Grammar as a Privileged Mode In many civilizations, grammar, widely defined, is perceived as constituting the core of the cultural, intellectual enterprise as a whole. Probably the most striking example is that of ancient India, where grammar in its several modes evolved very early out of the attempt to preserve and analyze the sacred texts of the Veda. By the middle of the 1st millennium bc, the great grammarian Pānˢini had produced a systematic and generative system of Sanskrit articulated in its own meta-language with explicit hermeneutic procedures and devices for ‘reality-checking’. This system was so powerful that it became the paradigm for any scientific investigation in pre-modern India. For the early Sanskrit grammarians, linguistic science is heavily empirical and pragmatic. Nonetheless, its deeper metaphysical implications were never far from the grammarians’ own awareness. Patanjali, the author of the Mahābhāshya commentary on Pānˢini’s sutras, offers a series of justifications and rationales for studying grammar, culminating in the assertion that by studying grammar one becomes like God.3 Later Sanskrit grammarians claimed that they happened upon god in the midst of the arid materials of morphology as a man might by chance find a diamond buried under a heap of chaff. In short, for classical India, grammar offers privileged access to the primary forces that constitute reality. Such a view imparts a particular power and dignity to the grammarian. Thus for the Tamils in South India, the maverick Vedic sage, Agastya, the author of the first Tamil grammar, is the first culture hero and the creator of civilization. Similarly in Greece, the grammatical tradition was preoccupied with the nuts and bolts of linguistic analysis and yet served as a springboard for theological speculation. Plutarch, himself a priest at the famous Apollo shrine at Delphi, reveals that in the heart of the sanctuary was

3

Patanjali 1962.

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an inscription with the Greek word ei—‘you exist’ or, maybe, ‘if ’. . . .4 The word itself is clearly a trigger to altered perception, its grammatical ambiguity—verb, conditional particle—instigating theosophical ambiguity. Such effects may have been a normative component in oracular speech. Among Christian theologians, there developed a ‘sacred’ grammar in which the tools uncovered by their pagan predecessors unlocked the doors to knowledge of the Bible and its Creator. For example, Origen, in the Prologue to his Commentary on the Song of Songs, regards grammar as an absolutely necessary fundament to any intellectual and spiritual progress; grammar permeates all levels of science: There are three general disciplines by which one attains knowledge of the universe. The Greeks call them ethics, physics, and enoptics; and we can give them the terms moral, natural, and contemplative. Some among the Greeks, of course, also add logic as a fourth, which we can call reasoning. Others say that it is not a separate discipline, but is intertwined and bound up through the entire body with the three disciplines we have mentioned. For this ‘logic,’ or as we have said, reasoning, which apparently includes the rules for words and speech, is instruction in proper and improper meanings, general and particular terms, and the inflections of the different sorts of words. For this reason it is suitable that this discipline should not so much be separated from the others as bound in with them and hidden.5

While it is true that the object of Origen’s discussion is the correct reading and grasping of the biblical text, it is impossible to distinguish his textual world from the physical one, and thus the latter is equally amenable to a grammatical reading. In ninth-century Latin monasteries, grammar was the foundation of the liberal arts, the key to understanding the Bible and reality, and an instrument of salvation. Maurus Rabanus emphasizes the importance of grammar in the preface to his De clericum insitutione: Know, brethren, what the law requires Which fitly commands us to know the Word of God. It asks that he who has ears, should hear What the Holy Spirit speaks in the Church. Through grammar the Psalmist brings this to the people, Duly confirming their grasp on the law of God.

4 5

Plutarch 1969. Origen 1979, 231.

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So, brethren, we should strive always, With eyes and ears intent, to learn the Word of God.6

Such statements imply the notion of a universal grammar. It is however striking that often a particular linguistic paradigm retained its primacy even after its transposition to other languages. For example, the Armenian grammatical tradition struggled to resolve the tension inherent in applying Dionysius Thrax’s grammar of Greek to the Armenian language. However, the faith in a universal grammar, of which Greek and Armenian were just resonances, ensured that this Greek grammar in Armenian translation remained the standard grammatical text book well into the Middle Ages. Similarly, Sanskrit grammatical categories were projected, despite an inherent lack of suitability, onto medieval grammars of languages such as Tamil and Tibetan. It would be easy to adduce further examples of the privileged position of grammar in various civilizations. What needs to be stressed is the potential, always latent in the very notion of grammar, for applying this paradigm to contexts that transcend the purely morphological or syntactical study of speech. Grammar is magic. Let us try to explain what a sentence like this might mean. In a famous article from 1968, Stanley Tambiah proposed a method for making sense of the so-called “magical power of words.” Working with Malinowski’s Trobriand island materials—the spells and charms used in everyday rituals—Tambiah offers a highly rational, semiotic explanation for the expressivity activated by these ritualized forms of language. The problem here is not so much a purely logical one. To restate a Trobriand spell in terms of a metaphoric or metonymic semantics will not really help us to understand its dynamics. Such spells work. Even a word like metaphor used to explain such contexts seems hopelessly impoverished. In an organic cosmos like that of the Trobriand highlands or, indeed, of most of the cultures discussed in this volume—that is to say, in a cosmos in which everything is interconnected—what we call metaphor is almost always a statement about causality. These rituals are, of course, logical, and this logic can be analytically restated. More than logic, however, their grammar differs from ours. We would do better to ask ourselves what grammar they are using, rather than whether they are logical and rational in senses familiar to us.

6 Cited in Colish 1983, 64. On the importance of grammar for ninth-century Latin monasticism, see also Leclercq 1948, 15–22.

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Grammar in this sense offers a wider template than discursive logic or emotional and associative experience, both of which have served the historians of culture as readily accessible tools. By way of contrast, grammar, though selective, presents a methodology much more textured and elastic than other conceptual models. It is, for one thing, capable of containing both the semantic and the trans-semantic pieces of reality. It retains the contours of cultural expressivity, and allows for structured transitions among disparate domains. Grammar also accounts for iconic and symbolic effects, in which the intimacy, or indeed identity, between sign and signed or sound and meaning has been preserved. In an organic cosmos, the very existence of accidental effects within language may be precluded. Grammar is thus a privileged mode for perceiving or articulating such non-accidental relations. It is thus no accident that in culture after culture, grammar turns out to be dependably linked with creation and restoration. Knowledge of grammar allows access to the workings of reality, which the skilled grammarian is capable of using effectively—to bless or to curse, to kill or to heal, to make present or to transform. In this sense, grammar transcends the merely descriptive or referential analysis of linguistic systems. Such systems are perceived as subsets of a far more comprehensive poetics. The world itself is grammar-ed, though not necessarily in transparent ways. 3. What is Grammar? It is one thing to think of God as a grammarian and the Creation as essentially grammatical in its construction and operation, another to use the word grammar as a pragmatic system for describing and generating linguistic practices. Modern linguists in their more circumspect mode tend to operate on the basis of the latter perspective. They are not alone. Classical Greek, Sanskrit, Armenian, and Arabic grammarians, for example, were for the most part driven by empirical, highly analytical, and non-metaphysical concerns. Nonetheless, for these cultures, too, the grammarian may very easily shade off into the philosopher and, in some cases, into the healer/necromancer. Take the Armenian word for grammarian: k‘ert‘oł, which also means poet and philosopher; in the later grammatical tradition, the healing aspects of grammar are noted by the commentators.7 The whole history and self-perception of the 7

See S. La Porta’s contribution to this volume as well as Ervine 1995, 158.

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Sanskrit grammatical tradition—arguably the world’s most elaborate and sophisticated form of pre-modern linguistics—seem to be balanced somewhere between the blessing of divine omniscience [a gift of the god Śiva to the grammarians] and the curse of human forgetfulness. Moreover, from the very heart of the grammatical enterprise there emerged the figure of Bhartrˢhari (5th c.), a radical philosopher of the cosmos as a linguistic organism. Let us be clear. For the purposes of this book, we are using ‘grammar’ as a heuristic model that enables wide-ranging cross-cultural comparison. We think of the cosmos as grammaticalized—which is to say that all the sub-grammatical domains mentioned earlier are operative and accessible to analytic interpretation. Our usage extends and builds upon the latent linguistic presuppositions that we find in culture after culture. This view regards grammar not as a convention—even if specific intellectual traditions, and most modern linguists, think of language as largely or partly conventional—but as an inherent blue-print for reality, perhaps somewhat abstracted or generalized, but in any case, deeply woven into the fabric of cosmic experience. Sometimes we see a productive tension between the conventionalist and the naturally iconic understanding of language, with grammar poised somewhat uncomfortably between them. Take the Cratylus, for example. Much of Plato’s discussion revolves around the question of whether words, and especially names, are inherently or naturally linked to their referents. Throughout the text, Socrates, as usual, undermines the naive and absolutist positions of his interlocutors, Hermogenes and Cratylus, with a no-nonsense skepticism. Still, an understanding of the operation of the basic elements of language as organic and non-random keeps breaking through the surface of the debate, even in Socrates’s analysis. Look, for example, at Socrates’ deconstruction of Hermogenes’ conventionalist position (426d–427a–d): Well, the letter rho, as I was saying, appeared to be a fine instrument expressive of motion to the name-giver who wished to immitate rapidity, and he often applies it to motion. In the first place, in the words ῥειν (flow) and ῥοή (current) he imitates their rapidity by this letter, then in τρόμος (trembling), and in τρέχειν (run), and also in such words as κρούειν (strike), θραύειν (break), ἐρείκειν (rend), θρύπτειν (crush), κερματίζειν (crumble), ῥυμβει ːν (whirl), he expresses the action of them all chiefly by means of the letter rho; for he observed, I suppose, that the tongue is least at rest and most agitated in pronouncing this letter, and that is probably the reason why he employed it for these words. Iota again, he employs for everything subtle, which can most readily pass through all things. Therefore he imitates the nature of ἰέναι (go) and ἵεσθαι (hasten) by means of

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s. la porta and d. shulman iota, just as he imitated all such notions as ψυχρόν (cold, shivering), ζέον (seething), σείεσθαι (shake), and σεισμός (shock) by means of phi, psi, and zeta, because those letters are pronounced with much breath. Whenever he imitates that which resembles blowing, the giver of names always appears to use for the most part such letters. And again he appears to have thought that the compression and pressure of the tongue in the pronunciation of delta and tau was naturally fitted to imitate the notion of binding and rest. And perceiving that the tongue has a gliding movement most in the pronunciation of lambda, he made the words λει ːα (level), ὀλισθάνειν (glide) itself, λιπαρόν (sleek), κολλωː δες (glutinous), and the like to conform to it. Where the gliding of the tongue is stopped by the sound of gamma he reproduced the nature of γλισχρόν (glutinous), γλυκύ (sweet), and γλοιωː δες (gluey). And again perceiving that nu is an internal sound, he made the words ἔνδον (inside) and ἐντός (within), assimilating the meanings to the letters, and alpha again he assigned to greatness, and eta to length, because the letters are large. He needed the sign O for the expression of γόγγυλον (round), and made it the chief element of the word. Thus the legislator seems to have applied all the rest [of the letters], making a sign or names for each existing thing out of [these] letters and syllables; and in like fashion [he seems] then to have formed out of these [names and signs] everything else—by means of these same [letters and syllables]. That is my view, Hermogenes, of the truth of names.8

In the conclusion to his list of examples, Socrates says that God or the divine legislator first created the universe, including apparently its linguistic constituents, then produced names that have an intrinsic relation to the phonetic materials which constitute them. The process includes several stages including a final one compounding the coordinated phonetic materials to produce further names and signs and the phenomena construed out of them. Implicit in this view is a strong notion of a grammaticalized universe—mostly iconic, logically and syntactically ordered, and generative. This vision of a linguistically imprinted universe exerts so powerful a fascination that even Socrates, for all his radical skepticism, seems unable to escape it. A line leads from this point in the direction of a magical or sympathetic pragmatics such as we see in the Greek and Coptic magical papyri (circa 2nd c. bc to 2nd c. ad). As Patricia Cox Miller aptly observes, “when juxtaposed with the magical papyri, the Cratylus reads like the manual of instructions out of which the authors of those texts worked,

8 Plato 1977, 145–7 (426D–427D). We have altered the last two sentences of the translation.

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patiently dividing language into letters, letters into vowels, and so on.”9 There is an implicit notion of grammar as a systematic mechanics ordering the use of these efficacious materials. The papyri do not offer us a grammar; they presuppose one. There are still more far reaching possibilities to mention only a few that are germane to the following essays: We have Abulafia’s theology of the name as well as Kabbalistic theories of creative sounds and syllables (as in Sefer Yezˢira); Bhartrˢhari’s vision of a buzzing, humming, inherently divine linguistic world underlying and predating words and objects; the Christian apotheosis of grammar in God as Logos; the earlier Biblical insistence that God is a verb (‘to be’); and Ibn al-ʚArabī’s reading of the cosmos as an evolution from the divine imperative.10 For all such conceptual models, some notion of grammar, however minimal, provides a necessary condition for the operation of a linguistic cosmos. Yet if grammar comes to provide an authoritative paradigm for reading the world, we inevitably find voices that reject or rebel against this patterning. There are two skeptical approaches to the inherently linguistic ordering of the cosmos, both of which paradoxically end up reaffirming that very principle. One distrusts language as an accurate medium for truth without denying the latent grammaticality of reality. In such a view, ordinary language is incapable of expressing or containing the true underlying richness of experience. The only hope lies in repackaging and reordering the linguistic materials, sometimes in a trans-semantic mode. As M. Finkelberg says in her essay in this volume, “For Plato as for many others, rather than in language, the true grammar of the universe resided in the all-embracing harmony of music and number that represented the world order as it really is.” A second, more radical and subversive attitude seeks to undermine and dissolve anything that looks like authoritative syntax or semantics. There is a continuing tradition of such voices from the Nag Hammadi codices of Late Antiquity11 to the Dadaist poets of the twentieth century. W. Bohn remarks in the introduction to his anthology of Dada poetry that “opposing discursive and nondiscursive structures to each other, the Dadaists were among the first to discover that words could be used to convey information that was essentially extralinguistic.”12 Note, 9 10 11 12

Miller 1989, 492. See S. Sviri’s essay in this volume. See, e.g., Miller 1989, 481–2. Bohn 1993, xviii.

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however, that this vision, too, ultimately acknowledges and uses the linguistic building blocks that it finds so repulsive. If even conventionalist and skeptical views cannot avoid conceiving reality grammatically, it is no wonder that grammar serves as a culturally privileged mode for cognitive mapping. As such, it is also a good basis for the cross-cultural comparisons we are attempting here. IV. A Typology of Themes We have divided this volume into three relatively delimited domains, each of which takes up one major strand of the grammatical paradigm: issues of creation through grammaticalized language, of cultural encoding as poetics, and of meta-linguistic existential transformation. Let us take them one by one. 1. Creation Often we find a strong notion of creativity as an inherently linguistic act. As we saw in Narsai and as we know from other biblical and post-biblical traditions, God creates the world by speech of one kind or another— imperative, dialogic, meditative, mantric. In India, too, language is the creative mode par excellence, embodied in the goddess Vāc (‘voice’), without whom no cosmos is possible. Jan Assmann’s article uncovers a differential typology of linguistic creativity in ancient Egypt. Creation, whether conceived as an ‘intransitive’ cosmogony or a ‘transitive’ intentional act ultimately evolves a mythology which “shows the structure of the divine world to be primarily linguistic.” In the Egyptian case, this linguistic blueprint for reality materializes itself in the cosmic grammatology of the hieroglyphic signs. This link between writing and speech or sound is a rich comparative theme in its own right, as we see from M. Kern’s essay on Chinese bronze inscriptions in section 2 and in S. La Porta’s essay on Armenian theories of Logos and sign in section 3. Sara Sviri explores the immense ramifications of a single Arabic word (spoken by God), namely, kun, ‘be’! This Qur’ānic theme exfoliates itself in Sufi theories of creation as a divine linguistic imperative, which the human mystic assimilates and imitates in his own being. As Sviri shows, the creative power of this single word becomes in Ibn al-ʚArabī the key to the insoluble but generative “perplexity between the ‘yes’ and the ‘no’,” which lies at the heart of Ibn al-‘Arabī’s mystic anthropology.

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Michael Stone surveys the various and complex ways Armenian authors view the relationship between naming and creation in connection with Adam’s bestowal of names on the creatures. Stone elucidates the intimate link between naming and creation based upon the theology of Adam as the image of God in the Armenian exegetical tradition. According to these authors, the very word for God (֭‫[ קך׻ױ׸׶‬Astuac]) in Armenian is derived (by Volksetymologie) from the fact that God led (‫[ ׫ױקך ׸׶ך‬ast acoł]) the animals before Adam to be named. Thus, Adam’s God-given ability to bestow names actually produces God’s own name in a moment of profound mutual self-reference. As the tradition evolved, this power became associated with the sacerdotal function of naming at the rite of baptism. Finally, Margalit Finkelberg shows us the inevitable negative to all the above positives that imply an optimistic understanding of the potentiality of language, either for conveying truth or for shaping reality. In her paper, she argues that the classical Greek world was highly suspicious of language, viewing it as a social convention. But here, too, the world remains saturated with eloquent signs requiring interpretation and organized grammatically—in our use of the term. 2. Encoding To postulate grammar as an underlying grid or template allows the possibility of mapping the cultural topography which is often deeply encoded. As we stated earlier, visions of culture as grammaticalized sometimes privileged non-semantic or trans-semantic effects. Language may operate in a highly regular but non-transparent manner. In all such cases, the culture will elaborate a set of rules of interpretation, or protocol of reading—what we would call poetics. In other words, we take poetics as the hermeneutics of a grammaticalized universe. Since each culture encodes its grammar differently, distinctive configurations stand out clearly when we attempt to formulate or formalize such a poetic hermeneutic in a cross-cultural comparison. In India, for example, poetics is a natural extension of the grammatical sciences whose terminology and hermeneutic procedures it adopts. Y. Bronner reveals the operation of one primary mechanism, the simile, that becomes a building block for the logical analysis of figuration. Poetic language, for these poeticians, operates by a set of logical relations that diverge radically from ‘normal’ speech. Such operations require decoding and philosophical formulation. In other words, poetics

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is the science that maps that level of language—always slightly twisted (vakrokti) in comparison with everyday speech—in which the poet’s visionary truth embodies itself. Such a grammar of poetic speech is clearly privileged over standard denotative language. Writing is perhaps one of the most deeply encoded, culturally specific, forms of language; and the Chinese case is unique in this respect. Martin Kern describes the cultural valency of writing during the Western Zhou period (ca. 1200–ca. 1045 bce) and the formation of an official culture that the bronze inscriptions reflect. In the evolution of court ritual at this time, “writing transcended its principal functions of storing and circulating information” and “visually displayed cultural and social accomplishment.” As is clear from the Chinese example, implicit in the process of encoding and decoding is the question of power: who is authorized to conceal and reveal the message? In her contribution to this volume, Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony reveals how the sixth-century Gazan ascetic, Barsanuphius, both deciphered signs and employed coded language to empower and grant authority to his teachings. In addition, Ashkelony argues, the technique of what the ancient redactor of Barsanuphius’s writings termed ‘counseling through enigmas’ created an intimacy between the master and his distant pupils. Dan Martin offers a rich typology of uses of and attitudes to phonemes and the raw stuff of Sanskrit and Tibetan syllabaries. There is a cross-cultural element to this typology which takes account of Tibetan appropriation of Sanskrit phonetic analysis. The northern Buddhist tradition rearranges its inherited linguistic materials in ways that are deliberately related to a theory of breath-driven metabolism, yogic innerness, and a Buddhist epistemology. Such a theory aims ultimately at “transforming our instruments of engagement with the world, not just the body, but also speech and mind.” Each of the articles in this section exemplifies what may turn out to be a normative evolutionary sequence from grammar as primarily creative, in various modes, via the elaboration of culturally sanctioned intra- and meta-linguistic codes toward the possibility of radical transformation of the self that inhabits this grammaticalized cosmos. 3. Self-Transformation One of the most striking features of the diverse traditions studied here— all presupposing a grammatical foundation culturally encoded and

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poetically elaborated—is the ease with which they open up the possibility for existential transformation. Stated differently, the particular poetics of grammar construct a bridge between the structured metaphysical domain and the individual self. Again and again, our texts offer programs for potential re-formation of the person who knows the grammar and the valence of sounds and signs. The final section of this volume presents four distinct cultural approaches to a language-based pragmatics of self-transformation. J. Garb focuses on the power of those radically non-semantic aspects of language, such as voice and breath, in certain strands of Kabbalistic praxis. Although these aspects have received much less attention than the powers operative within Hebrew letters and words, they nonetheless possess a theurgic potential rooted in the isomorphic relationship between human and divine breathing. Here we find a grammar of perhaps the most elemental aspect of language, that is, the breath that precedes and sustains articulation. The Kabbalist who gains access to this level of awareness, either individually or as part of a communal voice, impacts upon the internal composition of the deity and, in consequence, upon his own state of being. Garb situates his discussion within a comparative framework drawing parallels between Kabbalistic and tantric reflections on the power and uses of non-semanticized speech. Tom Hunter’s article begins with the theme of encoding, which in Java takes the form of an ‘orthographic mysticism’. The sheer graphic shape of the syllables turns out to be pregnant with vast energies available to the mystic. The grapheme resonates with the sonic levels of reality defined and contoured by poetry. The guiding principle is one of aesthetic condensation of metaphysical forces that, once controlled within the highly structured domain of kakawin poetry, are capable of revolutionizing the listener’s self-awareness. The Javanese example emerges in part from the kind of transformative linguistic practices that we find in Hindu-Buddhist tantra. David Shulman attempts to work out a rule-bound semiotic of mantric syllables both in South Indian poetics and in a major text of the Śrīvidyā cult. The successful application of syllable sequences by a practitioner who knows and understands their grammar of resonance enables him or her to materialize the goddess—who is the world—in her full, immediate presence. Readers who want to try it out for themselves should follow the rules given in the article—carefully. Finally, the Armenian materials discussed by S. La Porta offer perhaps the most complete elaboration of a grammar of sound and sign.

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Grammatical materials proper, derived from the Greek tradition, are recycled by the medieval Armenian theologians Grigor Narekac‘i and Grigor Tat‘ewac‘i so as to explain the underlying order of the universe infused by the divine Logos. In such a universe, the linguistic sign— sonar, graphic, and mathematical—serves the self as a primary means of divinization. Here grammar in the deepest sense becomes the preferred channel connecting and transforming the cosmic and the mundane. Grammar translates the divine into intelligible human language just as it translates the human soul into the divine Word. References Alwan, K. 1988/89. “Le ‘remzō’ selon la pensée de Jacques de Saroug.” Parole de l’Orient 15: 91–106. Bohn, W. (tr.) 1993. The Dada Market: An Anthology of Poetry. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. Colish, M. 1983. The Mirror of Language: A Study in the Medieval Theory of Knowledge. Rev. ed. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Ervine, R. 1995. “Yovhannēs Erznkac‘i Pluz’s Compilation of Commentary on Grammar as a starting point for the study of Medieval Grammars.” In New Approaches to Medieval Armenian Language and Literature, ed. J.J.S. Weitenberg. Dutch Studies in Armenian Language and Literature 3. Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, 149–66. Gignoux, P. 1966. “Les doctrines eschatologiques de Narsaï.” Oriens Syrianus 11: 321–52 and 461–88. ———— 1968. Homélies de Narsaï sur la Création, Patrologia Orientalis 34.3–4. Turnhout: Brepols. Leclercq, J. 1948. “Smagarde et la grammaire chrétienne.” Revue du Moyen Age Latin 4: 15–22. Miller, P.C. 1989. “In Praise of Nonsense.” In Classical Mediterranean Spirituality, ed. A. Hilary Armstrong, 489–505. New York: Crossroad. Origen 1979. “Prologue” to the Commentary on the Song of Songs. In Origen: An Exhortation to Martyrdom, Prayer, and Selected Works. Ed. R. Greer, The Classics of Western Spirituality, New York: Paulist Press. Patanjali 1962. Paspaśāhnika. Poona. Plato 1977. Plato: Cratylus, Parmenides, Greater Hippias, Lesser Hippias. Tr. H.N. Fowler. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Plutarch 1969. “De e apud Delphos.” In Moralia. Tr. F.C. Babbitt. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 384–94. J. Trigg 1988, Biblical Interpretation. Wilmington, Del.: M. Glazier.

PART ONE

CREATION

CREATION THROUGH HIEROGLYPHS: THE COSMIC GRAMMATOLOGY OF ANCIENT EGYPT Jan Assmann I. Creation and Cosmogony There are two fundamental models of conceiving the origin of the world, an intransitive and a transitive one. The intransitive model views the origin of the world as a spontaneous growth, developing all of itself out of a primordial chaos or matter, mostly water. The transitive model takes the world to be the object of a constructive activity of a creator. In what follows, I shall refer to the intransitive model by the term “cosmogony” and to the transitive one by the term “creation”. To us, creation, the transitive model, is the more familiar one, since it is shared by the three monotheistic religions, biblical and rabbinical Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. In ancient Egypt, the two models combine and interact in a rather complex manner. The first cosmogonic impulse is generally represented as a spontaneous process. Out of the primordial waters, a god arises. His name, Atum, signifies “non-being” and “complete being”; it is a typical example of what Sigmund Freud called “der Gegensinn der Urworte”, the contrarious meanings of primal terms.1 The cosmogonical moment is when Atum turns from non-being into being, adopting in the act the shape of the sun and emitting, according to Egyptian conceptions, air and fire, i.e. the god of air, Shu, and the goddess of fire, Tefnut. From then on, the process of creation or cosmogony continues in the “biomorphic” form of begetting and giving birth and unfolds in four generations. This is the famous cosmogony of Heliopolis which, in Egypt, holds the place of a Great Tradition, all other cosmogonies and creation accounts (of which there are a great many) being just variations of and commentaries on this basic conception. Shu-air and Tefnut-fire beget Geb-earth and Nut-heaven, who in turn gives birth to

1 Freud 2000, 227–34, a short article published in 1910 and based upon K. Abel, Über den Gegensinn der Urworte, 1884, which in its turn is dependent mostly upon Ancient Egyptian examples.

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five children: Osiris, Seth, Isis, Nephthys, and Horus. Horus, however, is also the child of Osiris and Isis, forming the fourth generation. Atum is the only god who has no parents and came spontaneously into being. He is therefore called kheper-djesef, “the self-generated one”, in Greek “autogenes”. This idea of a self-generated primordial deity personifying the origin of the universe had an enormous influence not only within the three millennia of ancient Egyptian cosmo-theological speculations but far beyond. The terms autogenes and monogenes abound in the Hermetic, Neoplatonic and related writings. In the Heliopolitan cosmogony, his mode of generating Shu and Tefnut is depicted as an act of masturbation and ejaculation, or of coughing and spitting, all of which are images for the idea of motherless procreation. Since the Egyptians ascribed the same mode of procreation also to the scarabbeetle scarabaeus sacer, this animal became a symbol of the “autogenic” god. Creation through procreation is a “biomorphic” concept, which is closer to cosmogony than to creation. There is no planning and no goaldirected activity involved. Also the unfolding of a genealogy in four generations may be seen as a form of natural growth, rather than of technical construction. The gods, however, interfere with creative acts into this natural process. Atum, having turned into the sun god Re and ruling his creation as the first king, decides after rebellious intentions against his rule by humankind to separate heaven and earth, to raise the sky high above the earth and to withdraw thither with the gods, leaving the kingship to his son Shu, who, being the god of the air, is perfectly fit for the task both of separating and connecting the spheres of gods and humans. The Egyptian story of the separation of heaven and earth has many parallels in the biblical story of the flood. In both cases, humankind is nearly annihilated and a new order is established which guarantees the continuation of the world under new conditions: in the Bible under the conditions of the Noachidic laws, in Egypt under the conditions of the state, which serves as a kind of church, establishing communication with the divine under the conditions of separation. The Heliopolitan cosmogony is at the same time what may be called a “cratogony”: a mythical account of the emergence and development of political power. At the beginning, be-reshit, is kingship. Kingship or rulership is conceived of in Egypt as the continuation of creation under the conditions of existence. It is first exercised by the creator himself in a still state-less form of immediate rulership and passes from him to Shu, to Geb and to Osiris. With Shu, it loses its immediate character and takes on the forms of symbolic

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representation, with Geb, the god of the earth, it becomes terrestrial and with Osiris, the god of the netherworld, it becomes political and historical. The line of succession describes a downward movement: from the sun via the air and the earth down into the netherworld. Moreover, it describes the transition from cosmogony to history, from the dynasties of the gods to the dynasties of human kings, from “deep time” to “historical time”. In the context of the Heliopolitan cosmogony, the central term is not “to create”, in Egyptian jrj “to do, to create, to produce”, but kheper, “to become, to take shape”. Kheper refers to the ideas of transformation, emanation and evolution. The god transforms himself into an active, conscious being emanating air and light, from which then the other gods evolve. There is a clear distinction between what emanates or evolves from god’s own substance and what is created out of external material. Typical of this thought are the metaphors of “secretion”: the first gods were spat and coughed out, while men arose from the tears of god.2 Even when the “issuing from the mouth” is no longer understood as secretion, but as a speech act, the names of the gods arise, as it were, incidentally and certainly unintentionally from the conversations of the god with himself or the primeval waters from which he emerged.3 II. Creation by Speech The creation by speech, or the speech act as a major means of creation, seems to be the great innovation of the New Kingdom, after some significant precursors in the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom. Let’s listen to a creation account in a hymn to Amun-Re dating from about 1400 bce: He came forth as self-generated, all his limbs speaking to him He formed himself before heaven and earth came into being the earth being in the primeval waters in the midst of the “weary flood”.4

2

CT VII 464–5; cf. also infra 1.4. Cf. the emergence of the “Eight Heh Gods” on the occasion of a conversation between Atum and Nun CT II 5–8; cf. Sauneron and Yoyotte 1959, 47. 4 Or, with Zandee 1992, 36f.: “between these” (nn = demonstrative, referring to “heaven and earth”). The words, jmjtw nn, occur in a similar context in pLeiden I 344v., i, 7. 3

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jan assmann You have started to create this land to establish what has come from your mouth (= the gods) You have raised heaven and kept earth down to make this land wide enough for your image You have taken on your first form as Re to illuminate the Two Lands for that what you have created. as your heart [planned], you being alone You created them, the gods being in your retinue after you came forth alone from the primeval waters You created humans together with creatures great and small and all that has come into existence and all that exists.

The text starts with the motif of self-generation (kheper-djesef ). The god takes on bodily shape, and this body forms already the first pantheon: a community of limbs who start speaking with their god and master. According to this text, this sacred conversation took place already before the origin of the world. This is the first act of cosmogony. The second act is described as “creation”, jr.t. The land is “created” for the gods who issued from the mouth of god, obviously in form of utterances. The third act is the separation of heaven and earth, leading to the establishment on earth of the divine image, i.e. the replacement of real presence by a representation. The whole process is then traced back to an act of willful planning preceding both cosmogony and creation. Before anything originates or is created, the world is already conceived in the heart of god. I call this idea “creation through the heart”, the heart being the organ of planning and thinking according to Egyptian anthropology. This is an idea becoming more and more prominent in the course of time. Let me just quote a short selection of pertinent passages in order to illustrate the idea. Queen Hatshepsut praises the god Amun-Re as “he who devises (thinks, plans) everything that exists.”5 The same epithet occurs in a short hymn to Re: Re who planned everything that exists, lord of humankind, creator of what exists.6 You created the earth according to your will, you being alone.7

5 6 7

Zandee 1992, 99, ll. 15–16. BM 29944 ed. Steward, JEA 53,37. Amarna ÄHG no. 92,79.

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The one who created the earth in the seeking (enquiring spirit) of his heart.8 The one who initiated everything that exists as his heart planned.9 The one who created heaven and earth with his heart.10

Conspicuously frequent is this motif in hymns to Ptah, the god of Memphis: The one who created the arts and gave birth to the gods as a creation his heart.11 The one who created the arts as a discovery of his heart.12 Who made heaven as the creation of his heart.13 The things that are said (or “thought”) in his heart one sees that they come into being.14 The one who formed the earth by the providence of his heart.15

The activity of the heart, in planning, devising and conceiving, is obviously related to the way of working characteristic of the artists and craftsmen, whose patron is the god Ptah. Besides planning, the most typical modes of creation are begetting, shaping and speaking. We have already dealt with the biomorphic model of begetting; it remains the most fundamental concept throughout Egyptian pharaonic history. The act of shaping or molding may be labeled as the technomorphic model. In Egypt, it is related to the god Khnum who is believed to form humans on a potter’s wheel. Interestingly enough, in the Bible, man is also “formed” by god, whereas the rest of creation comes into being through god’s commanding speech.

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

Leiden K1. pBerlin 3049,XI,3–4 = ÄHG no. 127B,80. Neschons, 9–10 = ÄHG no. 131,26. Berlin 6910, Ägyptische Inschriften 1913–1924, II:66–7. TT 44(5) (unpubl.). pHarris, I,44,5 = ÄHG no. 199,7. Copenhagen A 719 = ÄHG no. 223,7. pBerlin 3048,III,1 = ÄHG no. 143,22.

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The third mode, speaking, gains enormously in prominence during the New Kingdom. In texts of the 15th and 14th centuries, speaking is still exclusively related to the creation of the gods. The gods are constantly referred to as having issued from the mouth of god. The concept of creative utterance does not in the first instance interpret the relationship of “god” to the world, but of “god” to the other gods. To the creation of the gods by speech refers the very widespread motif that correlates the gods with the mouth or lips of the creator, and humans with his eyes. The gods originate by speaking, humans by weeping: Humans issued from his eyes the gods emerged on his mouth.16 Humans issued from his eyes, the gods from his lips.17 He secreted everybody from his eyes, but the gods issued from his mouth.18 Gods issued from his mouth and humans from his eye.19

There are very many variants to this motif. The theme still plays an important role in Greco-Roman texts20 and is related, in a way that has yet to be explained, to the particularly Orphic21 and generally Greek idea22 that the gods issued from the laughter, humans from the tears of the primeval creator god.23 The relationship between tears and human beings in Egyptian texts is clearly based on the homophony of the words rmt ˰ (human beings) and rmjt (tears). But what could be the relationship between the gods and the speaking mouth? These gods embody the hidden verbal order of the world, as it were, its conception, as it was devised and uttered by “god,” the one who, as it is expressed in a contemporary hymn,

16

pCairo 58038,vi,3. prr.n must be a mistake; read prrw or pr.n. STG Text no. 188 (e). 18 RT 13, 163.16. 19 Ramses III’s hymn, Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak I, OIP XXV pl. xxv = ÄHG no. 196. 20 Otto 1964, 58ff.; Schott and Erichsen 1954, no. 2,12; Sauneron 1963, V 261 (a). 21 Orph. fr. 28 Abel. 22 Dieterich 1891, 28; Proclus on Plato, Politics 385. 23 Esna no. 272,2–3; cf. also Sauneron 1963, V, 142. 17

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creates what is created, who speaks, and the gods come into being.24

A similar formulation occurs in a longer text of fundamental importance for the theology of Amun in this period, Papyrus Boulaq 17 (= Cairo CG 58038), which contains hymns to Amun-Re.25 I shall cite the formulation in its context, which makes it clear that we are dealing with more than creation theology: Hail to you, Re, lord of Maat, who hides his chapel, lord of the gods, Khepri in his barque, who commands and the gods come into existence, Atum, creator of humankind, who distinguishes their characteristics and creates their means of subsistence, who distinguishes their skin color, one from the other. He who listens to the entreaty of one in distress, gracious to one who calls to him, who saves the timorous from the hand of the violent, who pronounces justice between the poor and the rich. Lord of cognition, on whose lips is creative word, for whose sake the Nile inundation comes; the lord of affection, the great of love, when he (i.e., the inundation) comes, humankind lives.26

The god from whose will and commanding utterance the other deities emerge is none other than the “lord of Maat,” the supreme judge who “pronounces justice between the poor and the rich,” “saves the timorous from the hand of the violent,” and “listens to the entreaty of one in distress.” This is clearly a god who speaks, not only as a creator who by his words brought the gods into being, but also as the maintainer of the universe who rules it by what the Egyptians call “Sia”, cognition” and “Hu”, authoritative and performative utterance. Hu and Sia are epithets both of the creator and of the ruler. Sia refers to the recognizing and devising heart, Hu to the speaking, ordaining and commanding mouth.

24 25 26

Cairo JE 11509; see J. Assmann 1995, 127. See J. Assmann 1995, 120–5. ÄHG, no. 87C; RuA, pp. 176–177.

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That the idea of a creation through the word is originally related to the divine world and not the world as such seems to me highly significative. The pantheon appears in this tradition as a speech act, an act of verbal articulation. The gods are articulations of reality, their names, competences, and powers give shape and differentiation to the diffuse experience of reality and makes it addressable. This mythology shows the structure of the divine world to be primarily linguistic. In the later stages of the New Kingdom and during the Late period, however, the speaking mode of creation becomes generalized, referring now not only to the gods but to “everything that exists”. For this idea, let me quote just one example from the tomb of the high-priest Nebwenenef dating from the first half of the 13th c.: Who created heaven and earth and gave birth to human beings, who brought forth all that is through the utterance of his mouth. Who spoke and it happened, who gave birth to what exists, Great One, creator of the gods and human beings. Who came into being alone and gave birth to himself as millions. It was his limbs that answered him, it was his tongue that formed everything he created.27

The idea of verbal creation, according to a plan conceived in the heart, emphasized the organisational aspect of the created world, its rational character. What was conceived in the heart of god and came forth from his mouth were not the things themselves, but the “names of all things”,28 which the Egyptians imagined to be arranged hierarchically in the form of an onomasticon. An onomasticon does not enumerate individual objects, but classes of objects.29 It can therefore be understood as an exhaustive inventory of the cosmos and a replica of its structure. The doctrine of verbal creation envisaged the well-appointed nature of the world, its fullness and order, and attributed them to the wisdom of the creator, the spiritual conception in the heart. This was an aspect of the world especially emphasised by Amarna religion, which also influenced Psalms 104 and Wisdom in Hebrew literature.30

27

STG, No. 149 p. 188f. Memphite Theology 55; similarly pBerlin 3055 XVI 3ff. = ÄHG no. 122,7. 29 This is true of entities such as “heaven”, “sun”, “moon” “king”, which have to be understood as one-element classes. 30 Cf. n. 1. 28

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III. Creation through Hieroglyphs in the Memphite Theology The Memphite Theology has always been interpreted as the closest Egyptian parallel to the Biblical idea of creation through the word.31 The gods that originated from Ptah/became Ptah (. . .) originated through the heart as symbol of Atum, originated through the tongue as symbol of Atum, being great and powerful. But Ptah transferred [his strength] to the gods and their ka’s by means of this heart through which Horus originated from Ptah, by means of this tongue through which Thoth originated from Ptah. It came to pass that heart and tongue gained power over all other parts on the basis of the teaching that it [the heart] is in every body and it [the tongue] in every mouth of all gods, humans, animals, insects, and all living things, the heart thinking and the tongue commanding whatever they desire.

In the guise of tongue and heart a portion of Ptah’s original creative power remains in all living things that have come forth from him. An anthropological discourse now beings: His Ennead stood before him as teeth, that is the seed of Atum, and as lips, that is the hands of Atum. Verily, the Ennead of Atum originated through his seed and through his fingers. But the Ennead is in truth teeth and lips in this mouth of him who thought up the names of all things, from whom Shu and Tefnut came forth, he who created the Ennead.

This section of the Theology has always been interpreted as a polemical engagement with Heliopolis. However, it seems to me much more convincing to read it as a commentary, in which the ancient, supra-regionally valid teachings are specifically related to Memphis. The “seed” and “hands” of Amun, by which in an act of self-begetting he brought forth Shu and Tefnut, are interpreted as “teeth” and “lips,” forming the frame for the tongue that creates everything by naming it: 31

Cf. Koch 1988, 61–105.

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jan assmann That the eyes see, the ears hear, and the nose breathes air is in order to make report to the heart. This it is that makes all knowledge originate. The tongue it is that repeats what is thought by the heart.

The process of creation is here conceived in bodily terms. “Phallus” and “hand”—the traditional physical symbols of creativity—are represented as or replaced with “teeth and lips.” The genuinely creative organs are heart and tongue. As the Egyptians made no strict distinction between “body” and “mind/spirit,” knowledge and language are also understood as bodily phenomena. Knowledge originates in the heart on the basis of the perceptions reported to it. The knowledge formed in the heart is communicated by the tongue. And thus were all gods born, that is Atum and his Ennead. But all hieroglyphs originated from that which was thought up by the heart and commanded by the tongue. And thus were all ka’s created and the Hemuset determined, which bring forth all food and all offering meats by this word, [the word invented by the heart and commanded by the tongue]. [And thus is ma’at given to him] who does what is loved, [and isfet to him] who does what is hated. And thus is life given to the peaceable and death given to the criminal. And thus were all trades created and all arts, the action of the arms and the walking of the legs, the movement of all limbs in accordance with the instruction of these words that were thought up by the heart and uttered by the tongue and provide for all things. (. . .) And so Ptah was well pleased (or: rested) after he had created all things and all hieroglyphs, after he had formed the gods, after he had created their towns and founded their names, after he had endowed their offering cakes and established their chapels, after he had created their bodies [= images of them] in their likeness, such that they were content. And thus the gods entered their bodies of every kind of wood and mineral, all kinds of clay and all other things that grow on him from whom they originated. And thus assembled around him all gods and their ka’s, content and united with the lord of the two lands.

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This is the most elaborate Egyptian account of creation by the Word, and it differs from the Biblical account in two ways. The first is the role of the heart, i.e. the planned conception of creation—an idea absent from the Bible. The second is the role of script, the hieroglyphs, mentioned on two occasions. These two points are closely related. For what the heart thinks up are not the names of things but their “concepts” and their “forms.” Hieroglyphic script is a pictorial rendering of the forms. It relates to the concepts by way of those forms. The tongue vocalizes the concepts, which were “thought up” by the heart and given outward and visible form by hieroglyphic script: But all hieroglyphs originated from that which was thought up [conceived of] by the heart and commanded by the tongue.

Ptah is the god of artists and craftsmen, the one who endows things with their “design,” their immutable form depicted by the written signs. Thus Thoth, the god of the “tongue,” is also the god of hieroglyphic script. He is able to transform the thoughts of the heart into spoken and written language. Creation is an act of articulation—conceptually, iconically, phonetically. The written signs originate at the same time as the things they stand for and the names they bear: And so Ptah was well pleased after he had created all things and all hieroglyphs.

The totality of creation is encompassed in the term “all things and all hieroglyphs.” The Egyptian word for “hieroglyphs”, which the Greeks translated as ta hiera grammata is zS n mdw nTr “the writing of divine speech”.32 Thoth, the god of writing, is called “the lord of divine speech”.33 The sacred texts which were written in hieroglyphs are called “scrolls of divine speech”.34 Thus it is quite evident that “divine speech” refers to the signs (and not to the sounds), which Thoth commands, which the sacred books contain and which constitute the sacred script. If the distinction between a sphere of original forms (Ideas) and a world of infinitely reproduced copies is a principle of Plato’s philosophy, then the Egyptian division of Creation expresses a primal, pre-theoretical Platonism. The hieroglyphs are the forms of the things that constitute 32 33 34

Wb II, 181.2. Wb II, 181.6. Wb II, 181.1.

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the totality of the real world. Egyptian “hieroglyphic” thinking presents a relation between thing and written sign similar to that between thing and concept in Greek philosophy. When Ptah conceives of the Ideas of things, he at the same time invents the script that Thoth has only to read. The act of thinking or conceptual articulation is represented in this mythology as an act of interior writing. The act of speaking, on the other hand, is conceived of as an act of reading aloud, reciting the inner script. The speaking tongue, or Thoth, recites what the thinking heart, or Horus, writes. However, Thoth appears in this mythology not only as a reciter but also as a copyist. Thoth, the god of script, only has to find, not invent, what is inherent in the structure of things. He copies the interior writing of the heart onto papyrus. Thus an onomasticon, a list of words arranged not alphabetically but in an order reflecting the structure of reality, is titled as a catalogue of “all things that exist: what Ptah created, what Thoth copied down.”35 The collaboration between Ptah, who creates all things, and Thoth, who records them, is reminiscent of the collaboration between God and Adam in Paradise. God creates living things and “Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field” (Gen. 2:20). Adam’s act of naming and Thoth’s act of recording both fulfill the same function of linking things and words. And as this is creation by the Word, Adam and Thoth both “read” from the created things what they then utter or record. In his Mysteries of the Egyptians, the neo-Platonist Iamblichus perceptively identifies the latent Platonism of hieroglyphic thinking in his interpretation of Egyptian script as an imitation of divine “demiurgy”: The Egyptians imitate the nature of the universe (τὴν ϕύσιν τουː παντὸς) and the divine ways of creation (τὴν δημιουργίαν τωː ν θεωː ν μιμούμενοι), in that they also produce “icons” (εἰκονας eikonas) as symbols of mystic, occult and invisible conceptions (τωː ν μυστικωː ν καὶ ἀποκεκρυμμένων καὶ ἀϕανωː ν νοήσεων), in a similar manner as of Nature (the productive principle), in her peculiar way, makes a likeness of invisible principles through symbols in visible forms and expresses in writing (ὑπεγράφατο) the truth of ideas by visible icons (εἰκονες).36

“Nature” (φύσις) takes here the place of Ptah in the Memphite Theology. Like Ptah, nature conceives “invisible principles” and expresses them

35 36

Gardiner 1947, I, *1. Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, VII.1.

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through symbols in visible form. The world as we see it is the visible expression of an invisible conception. The Egyptians imitate this procedure in their hieroglyphic script. In using the visible forms of nature for letters, they refer to invisible principles, i.e. to meanings. If god or nature created the world by inventing signs, the Egyptians imitate this device by using these signs for their script. IV. Cosmic Grammatology The creation account of the Memphite Theology teaches us, therefore, above all two things: one regarding the conception of the cosmos and another regarding the conception of hieroglyphs. It stresses the “scriptural” structure of the cosmos and the “cosmic” structure of the hieroglyphic signs. Let me first explain what I mean by the scriptural structure of the cosmos. All creation accounts that view the world as generated by verbal articulation presuppose a structural analogy between language and cosmos. The late-Egyptian account, however, goes even a step further in conceiving of the world as the result not only of an act of speech but of writing. It presupposes an analogy between cosmos and writing and establishes a relationship not only between res and verba but between res and signs. In the Biblical creation account, god speaks and the world appears. In the Egyptian text, god first conceives the signs in his heart and only then, in a second step, expresses them in phonetic language. In the Bible, we have the two-step procedure from verba to res, in Egypt we have three steps: from signs via verba to res. It is only with the rabbinic commentary on Genesis, Bereshit rabbah, that the Biblical conception of the creation is also extended to a three step procedure. In this text, the phrase be-reshit is interpreted not as “in the beginning” but “by means of the beginning”, and the beginning is identified as the Torah. God created heaven and earth by means of the Torah: be-reshit = be-torah. First there was Torah, a universe of signs, which God only had to read aloud in order to create a universe of things. The Torah here plays the role of a preexistent script or blueprint of the universe which God only had to read out in order to create the world. If we consider the iconic character of hieroglyphs, the analogy between writing and cosmos becomes obvious. It is much more evident to postulate a correlation between the iconic signs of the hieroglyphic script and the things of reality than between the words of language and the things of nature. The relationship of hieroglyphic signs to the world seems

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much more direct than the relationship of words to what they denote. To use a term coined by Aleida Assmann, we may speak, with regard to hieroglyphs, of “immediate signification”.37 The iconic sign immediately shows what it means, without the detour of a specific language. To be sure, this is not the way hieroglyphs normally function, but it is a plausible assumption about hieroglyphs, given their pictorial character, and it is this assumption that underlies the creation concept of the Memphite Theology. The only difference between a stock of iconic signs and a stock of existing things is the number. The set of signs is necessarily much smaller than the set of things. But this is exactly what the late Egyptian priests and grammatologists strived at correcting. They extended the stock of signs by approximately a factor 10, turning a well functioning script of about 700 signs into an extremely difficult and awkward system of about 7,000 in order to make the script correspond as closely as possible to the structure of reality: a universe of signs representing a universe of things, and vice-versa. By approximating the number of signs to the number of things, the late Egyptian priests stressed the cosmic structure of their script as well as the grammatological or scriptural structure of their universe. However, immediate signification is precisely what the Bible shuns as idolatry. Already the church fathers recognized the idolatrous character of the hieroglyphic script and destroyed the Egyptian temple schools because they considered them to be schools of magic. In the Renaissance, Giordano Bruno made the same connection but inverted the valuation. Hieroglyphs were the superior script because of their magical power, which derived from their principle of immediate signification: . . . . the sacred letters used among the Egyptians were called hieroglyphs . . . which were images . . . taken from the things of nature, or their parts. By using such writings and voices, the Egyptians used to capture with marvellous skill the language of the gods.38

37 A. Assmann 1980. See also Greene 1997, 255–72. In exactly the same sense as A. Assmann, Greene distinguishes between a “conjunctive” and a “disjunctive” theory of language. Cf. also Tambiah 1968, 175–208. 38 Giordano Bruno, De Magia (Opera Latina III, 411–12), quoted after Yates 1964, 263. The connection between hieroglyphics and magic is provided by the church historian Rufinus who reports that the temple at Canopus has been destroyed by the Christians because there existed a school of magic arts under the pretext of teaching the “sacerdotal” characters of the Egyptians (ubi praetextu sacerdotalium litterarum (ita etenim appellant antiquas Aegyptiorum litteras) magicae artis erat paene publica schola; Rufinus, Hist.eccles. XI 26).

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Bruno is clearly thinking of Iamblichus and what he has to say about the Egyptian ways of imitating in their script the demiourgia of the gods. Still, one wonders how closely he comes to the Egyptian term designating the hieroglyphs: md.t nature, divine speech, language of the gods. Some 150 years later, the Anglican bishop William Warburton made the same connection between hieroglyphs and idols.39 As Warburton pointed out, the second commandment forbids not only the representation of God because he is invisible and omnipresent,40 but also the making of “any graven images, the similitude of any figure, the likeness of male or female, the likeness of any beast that is on the earth, the likeness of any winged fowl that flies in the air, the likeness of anything that creeps on the ground, the likeness of any fish that is in the waters beneath the earth” (Dt. 4.15–18, Warburton’s translation). Images are idols because by virtue of ‘immediate signification’ they conjure up what they represent. Hieroglyphs are idols because they are images. Warburton’s interpretation emphasizes the anti-Egyptian meaning of the prohibition of idolatry. It is the exact “normative inversion” of the very fundamental principles of Egyptian writing, thinking, and speaking: “Do not idolize the created world by representation.” The second commandment is the rejection of hieroglyphic knowledge because it amounts to an illicit magical idolization of the world. The second commandment is, at least originally, directed against all kinds of magic, necromancy, divination and other religious practices operating with images. Precisely this magical power is connected, in the Late Egyptian imagination and far beyond, with the hieroglyphic script which they call “god’s words” or “divine speech”. Their magical power lies in their “cosmic structure”, corresponding to the “scriptural” or hieroglyphic structure of the cosmos. This magical conception of hieroglyphic writing, the Egyptians handed down to the Greeks who, in their turn, handed it down to the renaissance and Enlightenment. Hieroglyphs were regarded as “natural signs”, a “scripture of nature,” a writing which would refer not to the sounds of language, but to the things of nature and to the concepts of the mind. To quote Ralph Cudworth’s definition: “The Egyptian hieroglyphicks were figures not answering to sounds or words, but immediately representing the objects and conceptions of the mind.”41 39 40 41

See J. Assmann 2001, 297–311. Cf. Halbertal and Margalit 1982, 37–66 (“Idolatry and Representation”). Cudworth 1678, 316.

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However, we may not draw too sharp a distinction between writing and language. The two are constantly confounded, by the Egyptians, the Greeks and by Europeans well into the 18th century. The Egyptian term md.t nTr, literally meaning “divine speech”, refers not only to hieroglyphs but also to what the Hebrews would call d’barej ha-Elohim. If there is any Egyptian specificity, it lies in the particularly strong association of script and language. Md.t nTr “divine speech” means “hieroglyphs”, it is true, but the orally spoken word of the gods is also of enormous importance. Whenever a god opens his mouth, we may be sure that something very important comes forth, an irrevocable order, an institution which is still existing, a being, a rite, an element of reality. A divine word becomes immediately reality, even independent of any conscious intention of the speaker, by way of pun or assonance or whatever association. The utterance is treated as another bodily secretion such as blood, sweat, semen, saliva—all of them generating various things. The divine word appears here rather as a kind of sonoric/semantic substance containing not just one, but all possible meanings which may be associated with its homonyms, antonyms, its connotations and assonances without being limited by any intention, syntax or context. The constructive creativity of divine words unfold under the conditions of deconstruction. Divine speech is over-determined like the symbolism of dreams according to Freud. In consequence of the typical non-distinction between script and language, Iamblichus applies the characteristic of the Egyptian sacred script, i.e. hieroglyphs, to the Egyptian sacred language. If hieroglyphs refer “immediately”, that is iconically, to reality, the words of the sacred language “depend on” the things they denote (τῃː φύσει συνήρτηται τωː ν ὄντων). This is “the conjunctive theory of language” (Th. Greene) in its purest form. Treatise XVI of the Corpus Hermeticum forbids the translation into Greek of texts in the sacred language in rather violent terms: Preserve this discourse untranslated in order that such mysteries may be kept from the Greek and that their insolent, insipid and meretricious manner of speech may not reduce to impotence the dignity and strength of our language, and the cogent force of the words. For all the Greeks have . . . is empty speech, good for showing off; and the philosophy of the Greeks is just noisy talk. For our part, we use not words, but sounds full of energy (φωναι ːς μεσται ːς τωː ν ἔργων).42

42

Festugière and Nock 1945, II:232; Fowden 1993, 37.

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Instead of “sounds” (phonais), we may as well read “signs”. The Egyptians were convinced of the power of language, not only in spoken but above all in written form. This is the reason why they never changed or reduced the pictorial realism and the iconic character of the hieroglyphs. They would rather invent, at first a second and then a third script alongside the hieroglyphs than adapt the hieroglyphs to everyday purposes. In their iconity lay their cosmological character which corresponded to the “grammatological” structure of the cosmos. References Ägyptische Inschriften 1913–1924. Ägyptische Inschriften aus den Königlichen Museen zu Berlin. Herausgegeben von der Generalverwaltung. Leipzig: Hinrichs. Assmann, A. 1980. Die Legitimität der Fiktion, Munich. Assmann, J. 1995. Egyptian Solar Religion in the New Kingdom: Re, Amun and the crisis of polytheism. Tr. A. Alcock, New York: Kegan Paul. ———— 2001. “Pictures versus Letters: William Warburton’s Theory of Grammatological Iconoclasm.” in Representation in Religion: Studies in Honor of Moshe Barasch, ed. J. Assmann and A. Baumgarten, Leiden: Brill, 297–311. Cudworth, R. 1678. The True Intellectual System of the Universe: the First Part, wherein All the Reason and Philosophy of Atheism is Confuted and its Impossibility Demonstrated. 1st ed. London: 1678; 2nd ed. London: 1743. Dieterich, A. 1891. Abraxas: Studien zur Religionsgeschichte des späteren Altertums. Leipzig: Tuebner. Erichsen, W. and S. Schott 1954. Fragmente memphitischer Theologie in demotischer Schrift (Pap. demot. Berlin 13603), Mainz: Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur. Festugière, A.J. and A.D. Nock 1945. Corpus Hermeticum, Paris, Société d’édition “Les Belles lettres”. Fowden, G. 1993. The Egyptian Hermes: a historical approach to the late pagan mind, Princeton: Princeton University Press. Freud, S. 2000. “Über den Gegensinn der Urworte,” Studienausgabe Frankfurt, vol. 4:227–234. Gardiner, A.H. 1947. Ancient Egyptian Onomastica, London: Oxford University Press. Greene, T.M. 1997. “Language, Signs and Magic”, in Envisioning Magic: a Princeton Seminar and Symposium, ed. P. Schäfer and H.G. Kippenberg, Leiden, New York: Brill. Halbertal, M. and A. Margalit 1982. Idolatry, Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press. Koch, K. 1988. “Wort und Einheit des Schöpfergottes in Memphis und Jerusalem. Zur Einzigartigkeit Israels,” Studien zur alttestamentlichen und altorientalischen Religionsgeschichte: zum 60 Geburtstag von Klaus Koch, ed. E. Otto, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht. Nelson, H.H. 1936. Reliefs and Inscriptions at Karnak I, Oriental Institute Publications XXIV, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Otto, E. 1964. Gott und Mensch nach den ägyptischen Tempelinschriften der griechischrömischen Zeit; eine Untersuchung zur Phraseologie der Tempelinschriften, Heidelberg: Winter. Sauneron, S. 1963. Le temple d’Esna, Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale. Sauneron, S. and J. Yoyotte 1959. “La Naissance du monde selon l’Égypte ancienne.”

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In La Naissance du monde; Égypte ancienne, Sumer, Akkad, Hourrites et Hittites, Canaan, Israel, Islam, Turcs et Mongols, Iran préislamique, Inde, Siam, Laos, Tibet, Chine. Sources Orientales I, Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 17–91. Tambiah, S.J. 1968. “The Magical Power of Words,” Man, n.s. 3:175–208. Yates, F. 1964. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Zandee, J. 1992. Der Amunshymnus des Papyrus Leiden I 344, Verso, Leiden: Rijksmuseum van Oudheden.

KUNTHE EXISTENCEBESTOWING WORD IN ISLAMIC MYSTICISM: A SURVEY OF TEXTS ON THE CREATIVE POWER OF LANGUAGE* Sara Sviri I. Introduction According to the Qurʙān, the divine power to create by language manifests through the command Kun! (Be!). God says: “Our command to a thing when We will it, is to say to it kun and it is”.1 Several verses attest to this mode of creation.2 That a prophet may also be endowed, with God’s permission, with the miraculous power to bestow life is seen in Qurʙānic reports concerning Abraham and Jesus: both were able, the one through calling out (2:260) and the other through breathing (3:49, 5:110), to bring dead and inanimate birds into life.3 Ever since the “science of the friends of God” (ʚilm al-awliyāʙ) was laid down by al-Hˢ akīm al-Tirmidhī in the ninth century, Islamic mystics have associated empowered language with the holy man (walī, pl. awliyāʙ).4 The creative power by kun is an aspect of this “science.” A previous paper concerned with mystical linguistics alluded only briefly to the possibility that man, too, may be endowed with the creative power of kun.5 I wish to devote this presentation to a more detailed discussion of speculations and dicta, circulating mainly in mystical literature, that arise from the claim that kun (or an equally empowered command), whether spoken by God or by an extraordinary human being, possesses the power to bestow life and bring forth existence.6

* This article is a sequel to Sviri 2002. My thanks go to Prof. Meir Bar-Asher for reading a draft of this paper and for making very useful comments. 1 “          ”. 2 See 2:117, 3:47, 3:59, 6:73, 16:40, 19:35, 36:82, 40:68—translation of Qur. verses by SS. 3 For the Qurʙānic foundation of the discourse on miracles, see Gril 2000; for early discussions on prophetic and saintly miracles, see Radtke 2000. 4 Sviri 2002, esp. 206ff. 5 Sviri 2002, 216, nn. 38–40. 6 In the context of this presentation I have only sporadically referred to Shīʚite literature; it is worth noting, however, that the Shīʚite imāms, too, were believed to be the

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In the process of searching for the literary prooftexts relevant for this topic, I have come upon material that show that such a claim made, allegedly, by Sˢūfis of previous generations, is even currently the target of strong criticism by Muslim spokesmen engaged in an animated combat against Sˢūfism. Thus, searching for kun on the world-wide-web, a wondrous and powerful linguistic tool in its own right, I came across a website entitled “antihabashis.com.” This website, it turns out, is devoted to the repudiation of the Ahˢbāsh, a contemporary Sˢūfi affiliation whose base is in Lebanon and which sees itself as a new Sˢūfi brotherhood following an Ethiopian-born Sheikh, ʚAbdallāh al-Hˢ abashī.7 In one of the “pages” of this website, the following critique can be viewed: The Ahˢbāsh have spent years urging people to read al-Rifāʚī’s The Helpful Proof, 8 claiming that it represents the doctrine of Divine Unification (tawhˢīd). Look at the unification in this book: Among other things, it says the following: “God enables the awliyāʙ to operate on9 beings; He makes them say to a thing Be! And it is.”10

Aiming their rebuttal against the allegedly offensive connection of the Ahˢbāsh with Ahˢmad al-Rifāʚī, a twelfth-century Sˢūfi Sheikh after whom the Rifāʚīyya Brotherhood is named,11 the authors of this online rebuke go on to cite various other sources that portray al-Rifāʚī as making the same claim and basing it, misleadingly according to them, on

recipients of the power of kun; for the power of the Shīʚite imāms in general, see AmirMoezzi 1994, 91ff; see also Amir-Moezzi 2000, 251–86. 7 On the Ahˢbāsh, see Hamzeh and Dekmejian 1996, 217–229. See also Hamzeh 1997. 8 The reference is to Ahˢmad al-Rifāʚī’s al-Burhān al-muʙayyid, al-Rifāʚī 1987/88. 9 The verbal form for “operating on” is sˢarrafa (also tasˢarrafa); ordinarily it means “to behave, operate, employ” etc., but in Sˢūfi terminology, especially in the infinitive forms tasˢrīf and tasˢarruf, it often denotes the supernatural power by which the holy man ‘manipulates’, ‘operates upon’, ‘disposes of ’ beings; for an intriguing discussion concerning tasˢarruf by means of names and letters, see Ibn Khaldūn 1959, 53ff; F. Meier, in his “Introduction” to Najm al-Dīn Kubrā’s Fawāʙihˢ al-jamāl wa-fawātihˢ al-jalāl, translates tasˢarruf by “Verfügunskraft” = the power to dispose, Kubrā 1957, 233ff. Cf. Meier 1994, where Meier offers other translations for tasˢarruf: “Machtausübung” (50), “seelisch-geistige Wirkungskraft” (115); see also Meier 1999, 643; also Gramlich 1987, 180–5.

  !"# ($%&  '") ) +-. /"  0  23% 4%6 8:; ?  @” A B? C"E D » F  GH . . . +JK L'  $>-    B"M  .$>-  /$ ! N2% OL  +JK .“«   #   % PQRSB ? —see al-Rifāʚī 1987/88, 125 (for the full passage, 10

see Appendix, A). 11 On Shaykh Ahˢmad al-Rifāʚī (d. 1182) and the Rifāʚīyya Sˢūfi brotherhood, see Trimingham 1971, 37–40 passim.

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 37 authoritative, even divine, dicta. They point out, for example, that ʚAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʚrānī, an influential Sˢūfi master in sixteenth-century Egypt, in his hagiographical Kitāb al-t ˢabaqāt al-kubrā (“The Book of the Great Generations”), ascribes to al-Rifāʚī a citation of a divine tradition (hˢadīth qudsī) in which God allegedly says: “O, sons of Adam, obey me and I shall obey you; observe me, and I shall observe you, and I shall make you say to a thing ‘Be!” and it will be.”12 In fact, on inspection of the source referred to, one finds a passage which is even more outspoken than the online excerpt. The passage in Kitāb al-t ˢabaqāt al-kubrā reads as follows: He [al-Rifāʚī] used to say: when the worshipper is established in the mystical states, he attains the place of God’s proximity, and then his [spiritual] intention (himma) pierces the seven heavens; as for the [seven] earths, they become like an anklet on his leg; he becomes an attribute of God’s attributes, and there is nothing that he cannot do. God is then pleased when he is pleased, and is displeased when he is displeased. He said: what we say is corroborated by what came down in one of the divine books: God has said: O sons of Adam! Obey me and I shall obey you, choose me and I shall choose you, be pleased with me and I shall be pleased with you, love me and I shall love you, observe me and I shall observe you, and I shall make you say to a thing Be! And it will be.13

Needless to say that to the pious author/s of the “Antihabashis” website such claims are absurd, scandalous, and blasphemous; in their opinion they should, therefore, be strongly refuted and fought.14

TPR6  RA6 UV @ W : F  4AQ Y ZJK [R@  \   "R  . . . P!]B” .“  #   ^ PRSB P=  =B See al-Shaʚrānī 1887/88, I:141 on Ahˢmad Abū al-Hˢ usayn al-Rifāʚī:  : % .B” 8EB 8;  _`:;# 4a -' 8EB 8 F H +"  N3H b@ >? H ^  $`R  c"d 8 e3  EB f ghR% i jB N\ e3  8kE H 4kE EB \"l mm . c? @ W :N\B g! F  % :4AQ Y ZJK [R@  B H   $%B : . no; po;qB c"

PRSB P=  =B P=>  =>B P! r ! cB P."sa  BJtB PR6  RA6 !UV “. . .   #   ^; note the similarity of this passage with a Rabbinic dictum 12

13

from Avot, 2, 4: “Make His will as your will so that He will make your will as His will; annul your will in front of His will, so that He may annul the will of others in front of your will,” see Garb 2004, 38ff; I wish to thank Dr. Garb for this reference as well as for our ongoing exchange concerning power and language in Judaism and Islam. 14 In the homepage of the “antihabashis” website, the al-Ahˢbāsh are described thus: “they are a lost group which associates itself with ʚAbdallāh al-Hˢ abashī. They have recently [!] appeared in Lebanon to exploit there the ignorance and poverty in the wake of the Lebanese civil wars. They propagate the call to revive the ways of the theologians, the Sˢūfis and the Shīʚites in order to destroy the faith and to break the unity of the Muslims, and in order to avert Muslims from their essential problems” Z;v^ wc 4kx6)

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Although the Ahˢbāsh do not necessarily claim that their Sheikh possesses the creative power of kun, the above refutation directed at them inadvertently exposes interesting material which indeed portray the holy man as a possessor of this extraordinary existence-bestowing power. It also shows that the claim for the power of kun is seen today as an abidingly abusive issue characteristic of Sˢūfism (and, one should add, of Shīʚism too) that should be forcefully counteracted. The follow-up to this contemporary polemic has been, therefore, unexpectedly fruitful in unraveling testimonies of claims of possessing the power to bring things into existence by means of kun.15 These testimonies appear to be mostly ascribed to eminent Sˢūfi figures of the twelfth century onwards. Their confident claim that the Sˢūfi Sheikh may hold the power of creation coincides, it would seem, with the emergence during this period of the Sˢūfi Brotherhoods (t ˢuruq, sg. t ˢarīqa).16 It may be suggested, therefore, that within Sˢūfism such claims reflect the attempt to build up the figure of the Sheikh of the t ˢarīqa to nearly divine proportions.17

" k B NQh  H 4A `# 4A'? +B"3  Jka H 4y-:;H `  2%$z 8"Q{ T)|  F $`!   };  /$zB ~k^B /$ R  ; C$Q@ 4A6` B 4 B UjK N' €'GH >   /!$ B .(4A:? P'W‚ ! PQ"EB

15 For testimonies based on the references mentioned in the “antihabashis” website, see the Appendix. 16 Note, however, the early anecdote related by Sufyān ibn ʚUyayna (d. 198/813), a renowned pietist from the town of Kufa; according to this anecdote, recorded in a 3rd/9th-century text by Ibn Abī al-Dunyā (d. 281/894), an anonymous and wondrous figure delivers several divine messages during the Hˢ ajj. One of these messages is the following: “I am God the King; when I wish a thing, I say to it Be and it is; therefore come to Me, and I shall make you such that when you wish [a thing], you will say to it Be and it will be”—see Ibn Abī al-Dunyā 1993, 32 (for the full text, see Appendix G); a milder, “cleaned up” version of this anecdote appears in the 5th/11th-century compilation Hˢ ilyat al-awliyāʙ by Abū Nuʚaym al-Isˢfahānī (d. 430/1038–9), Abū Nuʚaym al-Isˢfahānī 1997, VII:354, no. 10831; the difference in the tenor of the two versions is significant: it indicates the restraint, typical of classical Sˢūfi literature, vis-à-vis the claim of kun for human beings; such restraint seems to have become more relaxed in later texts; as for the early text on hand, it seems to have somehow escaped, quite uniquely, possible censoring eyes; in any case, it obviously shows that in the early formative phases of Islamic mysticism such ideas were prevalent—can one detect here the echoes of Rabbinic ideas? Cf. above, n. 13. 17 For a general orientation concerning the Sˢūfi Brotherhoods, see Trimingham 1971; also Popovic and Veinstein 1996.

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 39 II. Kun and Sˢūfi karāmāt That Sˢūfi sheikhs from early on have been endowed with the power to perform “miracles” is well known; their marvelous and miraculous deeds are known as karāmāt (literally: graces) or khawāriq al-ʚādāt (literally, events that are beyond the ordinary). These have been discussed and recorded in many chapters within classical Sˢūfi compilations18 and have been collected in a special literary genre known as karāmāt al-awliyāʙ19 as well as in hagiographical works in praise of a particular Sˢūfi master or group.20 Many miracles have been known to be performed by using “God’s greatest name” (ismullāh al-aʚzˢam),21 or by special invocations. The concept of the holy man as mujāb al-daʚwa, he whose call [to God] is answered, has been, from early on, part and parcel of Sˢūfi vocabulary and one of the appellations by which the holy man was known.22 Even the feat of reviving the dead is acknowledged with no apologetics and is amply recorded in Sˢūfi manuals and in relevant studies thereof.23 But the use of kun as a creative means employed by humans, albeit superior and holy ones, is rather more contentious; not only is the mere thought of it abhorred and vehemently refuted by the adversaries of Sˢūfism, but Sˢūfis themselves seem to shy away from broadcasting it openly as a holy man’s feat.24 Speculations as regards kun and anecdotes concerning the holy men who have used it tend to be phrased, it seems, with circumspection,

18 See, for example, al-Kalābādhī 1935, ch. 26 on “Their Doctrine of the Miracles of Saints,” pp. 57–66; also “Discourse on the Affirmation of Miracles” in al-Hujwīrī 1911, 218–35; cf. Radtke 2000, 286–99. 19 See, e.g., Abū Nuʚaym al-Isˢfahānī 1997; al-Yāfiʚī 1955; also the fairly late collection, al-Nabhānī 2001; the most comprehensive study to date concerning the miracles of the Islamic friends of God is Gramlich 1987; also Badrān 2001. 20 See, e.g., Al-Aflākī 1959–61 (in French: Al-Aflākī 1978; in English: Al-Aflākī 2002); also al-Rakhāwī. 21 The potency of the Great Name of God used by a walī is displayed, for example, in the hagiographical accounts on Ibrāhim ibn Adham (2nd/8th century), one of the earliest protagonists of the Sˢūfi tradition, see al-Sulamī 1960, 15; see also Gramlich 1987,164–6; for a comparative study on “the great name of God”, see Zoran 1996, 19–62; see also Sviri 2002, 207f. 22 See, e.g., al-Qushayrī n.d., 9, in the section on Maʚrūf al-Karkhī (d. ca 200/815): “He was one of the great masters, one whose call [to God] is answered and in whose tomb people look for healing”; see also Appendix, E. 23 See, e.g., Badrān 2001, 150–3; also Balivet 2000, 403; cf. also the literature mentioned in previous footnotes. 24 For Sˢūfī reservations concerning the use, or abuse, of kun, see Gramlich 1987, 184f.; also Sviri 2002, 216, n. 39.

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and their tenor is reserved and cautious. Even Ibn al-ʚArabī, the Andalusian thirteenth-century mystic-philosopher,25 one of the most outspoken Sˢūfi authors, writes that the power of kun, or the fact that inherently man is a creator (khallāq), should be approached with the reservation demanded of good manners (hˢusn al-adab, tazˢarruf ) towards God.26 Thus, in chapter Three Hundred Fifty Three of his Meccan Revelations, “On Knowing the Position of Three Talismanic Secrets,” he writes: Man inherently has the power of kun, but outwardly he has got only the passive faculty [of being the object of kun]; yet in the world-to-come man will possess the power of kun also outwardly. It may happen that some men are given it in this world, but this is not a universal [human] faculty. Among God’s men there are those who hold on to it and there are those who, being courteous towards God, [relinquish it] as they know that this is not its proper abode . . .27 When God’s men see that in this world this is not a universal law, they relegate the particular law to the universal law and leave all in its proper abode. This is the state of the courteous ones among God’s Knowers who are constantly present with Him. In this world, therefore, the courteous [among God’s men] is a creator by means of his [religious] deed; not by means of kun, but rather by means of bismillāh al-rahˢmān al-rahˢīm (= in the name of God the Merciful the Compassionate).28

25

See on him Addas 1993; also Chodkiewicz 1993. For his prudence, see also n. 55 below; cf. also n. 16 above. 27 An example for an exceptional man who, according to Ibn al-ʚArabī, had relinquished the power to operate on existents (tasˢarruf ), is Abū al-Suʚūd ibn al-Shibl, a disciple of ʚAbd al-Qādir al-Jīlānī (Baghdad, 12th century); see, e.g., Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, I: 452; Ibn al-ʚArabī 1946, 128–9 (the Chapter on Lot). Ibn al-ʚArabī explains that he himself has relinquished the act of tasˢarruf not out of courtesy towards God, but rather out of his perfect mystical knowledge (kamāl al-maʚrifa), Ibn al-ʚArabī 1946, 129; through true knowledge one knows that such an act should be employed only when one is forced to do so by an unavoidable divine command (amr ilāhī wa-jabr), but by no means out of personal choice; cf. also Appendix E. 26

 P> d /"tƒ B TRk i i "'{  QGH HB “” / 6„  ;…Y ” HB TQ@ La H F \  TUR  ~# Q †} B A $   0  [R` nR% $B ."'M   GH P3  4H "}‡ F \ 'V  . . . Q 6@ †} L'  R Q F _H +ˆ^ H F \ „? 4 z L'B . 6H   NK Œ"s R^ H P>   PR^ i H P> RS $  L'  >"  F P;)@ N@ l i NR „ $  L'  ja Z%? TUB$   RH d"c|  „ R  “. . . P>" , Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, V: 459–60; cf. also Ibn al-ʚArabī’s answer to the hundred 28

and forty seventh question of al-Hˢ akīm al-Tirmidhī: “What is the interpretation of the formula bismillāh”: “For the worshipper, with regard to bringing something into existence, this [formula] is like kun for God; by its means certain men bring forth what they will into existence,” Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, III:222 (for al-Tirmidhī’s spiritual questionnaire, see Al-Hˢ akīm al-Tirmidhī 1992b, 28); cf. also Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, VI:5: “no divine scripture and no prophetic tradition has come down concerning a created being who has been given kun apart from man specifically; this happened in the time of the Prophet

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 41 Najm al-Dīn Kubrā, a twelfth-thirteenth century mystic from Central Asia, in his Breaths of Beauty and Revelations of Majesty, seems rather more forthright as regards the human kun. Kubrā’s book, essentially a personal account of mystical visions and experiences, is interlaced with insights and teachings that had emanated, according to his own statement, from direct mystical experiences. Describing the characteristics of holiness (or, as it is known in Sˢūfi vocabulary, “friendship with God”—walāya), we read the following: Know that the wayfarer will be designated as a “friend” only when he is given kun. Kun is God’s command in His saying: “Our command to a thing when We will it is to say to it kun! and it is” (Qurʙān 16:40). The walī, however, is given [the power of] kun only when his will is annihilated in the will of God. When his will is annihilated in the will of God and his will is the will of God, then any thing that God wills His servant wills, while the servant does not will anything unless God wills it. This is alluded to in God’s saying: “You will not wish unless God the Lord of all Worlds wishes” (Qurʙān 81:29, 76:30).29

Kubrā insists, it appears, that possessing the extraordinary creative power of kun is, by definition, a proviso of being a friend of God, a walī. He hastens, however, to clarify and qualify his statement: Pronouncing the kāf and the nūn [that make up kun] does not transgress the Creator’s privilege, Praise be to Him; it only relates to the speed of the coming into being [of a thing]. The kāf is the kāf of existence (= kawn) and the nūn is His light (= nūr); thus we find among the traditions: O You who make all things exist! O You who is hidden [in? by? from?] all things!30

Kubrā may not share Ibn al-ʚArabī’s preference for deferring the power of kun altogether to the world-to-come; both mystics, however, despite their cautiousness, agree that to make a thing exist by means of kun [Muhˢammad], peace be on him, in the battle of Tabūk (9/630): He said, “Be Abū Dharr” and there was Abū Dharr” (for this tradition, which is well attested to in early historical sources, see, e.g., al-Tˢabarī 1964, IV:1700; for a discussion on the parity of bismillāh and kun, see below 53ff.

  "H  ” :   e3  "H ““B T ^B  4%i „ ‘E%   A:;   PB” /  ^ ’AG “ e3  /  ^  ’AG      ^&%  B T“     A B Te3  $%"d i ”}f $`R  $%"d iB $`R  $%"d i ”}f e3  $%"d  e3  / ^ ’ .B e3  “.} R  +  q  i B• HB” :  @ /fY, Kubrā 1957, 86–7; cf. above, 37, n. 13. CK   Tp  –%Y 4" RH   T |`: —`  e>  g˜\  B CK„ ™k-  †} B” “!f N. GH W !f N. H W :š%z?  \ T  B K C., Kubrā 1957, 29

30

87.

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should be reckoned as a power that is within human reach. They also share the understanding that the secret of the walī’s power to use kun efficaciously lies in the alignment of his will with the divine will; when the human and divine will are fused, creation may be executed as a simultaneous human-divine act. III. Language, Creation and Hermeneutics in a Historical and Comparative Context Speech and words play an important role in Islamic thought and culture. Speech, kalām, and its cognate kalima, word, are laden with meanings and ideas analogous to the numerous connotations of logos in other religious and philosophical systems. Kalāmu Allāh, God’s speech, as we have seen, is an attribute of the divine creative power by which the world and its beings are created. Kalāmu Allāh also designates the Qurʙān, God’s ultimate, non-created and inimitable manifestation; God’s word, or words, being inexhaustible and unchangeable, kalāmu Allāh signifies also Divine omniscience and immutability.31 In humanity, a species created in the image of God, it is the power of speech and reason that singles out man of all other creatures; speech represents language as well as the rational soul; the two are intrinsically connected. The appellation mutakallimūn by which the polemicists and theologians of Islam are designated, refer both to their power of reasoning and to their verbal skills of putting forward argumentations and rejoinders in defense of creed and faith. It is, therefore, clear that traditions and speculations concerning speech and language are fundamental to Islamic discourse and are exhibited profusely in its various literary branches: Hˢ adīth collections, Qurʙān commentaries, grammar, literature (adab), poetics, theology, heresiography, philosophy, and mysticism. Moreover, the metaphysics of that compact cluster—God’s creative power, His speech, His book and His commanding language—underlie the extraordinary interest in the sacred text, as well as in language as such, in the quest for uncovering the blueprint of the Divine design and wisdom. Thus we find that, from a very early stage in Islamic intellectual history, Islamic mystics and

31 See, e.g., Qurʙān 6:115: “The word of thy Lord finds its fulfillment in truth and in justice: none can change His Words for He is the One Who hears and knows all” ’^B)

.(PAR  _A;  'B ^K $=H i i$B $E ~@ 4.

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 43 thinkers have explored assiduously the nature, structure, and meaning of the cosmos by means of pondering the nexus of language, text, creation, and order.32 Such investigations constitute a vital component also of the esoteric and mystical trends in the religious and philosophical systems of Late Antiquity. The fundamental theme of the ancient Sefer Yetsira, for example, which views creation as bound up with the twentytwo letters of the Hebrew language as well as with the first ten numbers, is echoed throughout Islamic esoteric literature with its similar claims for the twenty-eight (or twenty-nine) letters of the Arabic language.33 Language speculations are, no doubt, among the clearest examples for the continuity and flow of these speculative currents from Late Antiquity into early Islam. A principal element that ties Islam with these pre-Islamic traditions is the notion that behind the exoteric words and letters of sacred texts lay deep secrets. These secrets, when deciphered, reveal the blueprint of creation and the design of its wise Creator. Knowledge of the techniques by which to decipher these secrets can, and should, be gained, but only by “specialists” who are endowed not only with a penetrating insight and divine inspiration, but also with exemplary moral qualities and sound beliefs. These specialists constitute an esoteric hierarchy of philosophers, ‘gnostics,’ mystics, saints, imāms, and holy men. By accessing, through the sacred texts, the foundations of the divine wisdom and design, they gain not only knowledge, but also power. Like scientists who learn how to decipher the fundamental codes of creation they can, ultimately, make use of their knowledge effectively. The study of language, therefore, can be described as the study of extraordinary human potencies, leading, no less, to that potency by which non-existents existentiate. In Islam, the esoteric study of creation, text, language, and power can be condensed into the study of one word: kun (Be!)34

32 The earliest examples seem to be associated with Shīʚite-Ismāʚīlī circles, see, e.g., Kraus 1942, II: 262ff.; Fahd 1960, 375–7; Lory 1996, 101–9. 33 For the ancient, enigmatic Sefer Yetsira (= “The Book of Formation”), see Liebes 2000; for late antique systems in which such theories were expressed, see the papers by J. Assman, B. Bitton-Ashkeloni, and Y. Garb in this volume. 34 Although Shīʚite-Ismāʚīli speculations are, in general, beyond the scope of this paper, it is worth mentioning here the significance of kun for early Ismāʚīli cosmology, to the point of aggrandizing kun to the rank of a “deified” entity, Kūnī, a (feminine?) divine power by which the world was created; for these early speculations, which are imbibed with Gnostic and Neoplatonic ideas, see Stern 1983, 3–29.

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Al-Hˢ akīm al-Tirmidhī, a ninth century Muslim ‘gnostic’ from the northeastern edges of the Islamic world, builds his mystical understanding of language, as has already been shown, on the notion of “God’s perfect word”—kalimatu allāh al-tāmma, or, in the plural form, kalimātu allāh al-tāmmāt. This expression occurs frequently in supplication formulae; for example: “by all the perfect words of God, I ask refuge from the evil that He has created” (aʚūdhu bi-kalimātillāh al-tāmma kullihā min sharri ma khalaqa). Although the expression “the perfect word” or, in the plural form, “the perfect words,” does not appear in the Qurʙān, its roots are Qurʙānic; thus Qurʙān 6:115: “your Lord’s word has become perfect (or fulfilled) in truth and in justice; no one can change His words”.35 AlTirmidhī ponders the fact that in the first part of the verse “God’s word” appears in the singular while in the second part it comes in the plural. Referring to this seeming discrepancy he writes: Whether one says ‘God’s perfect word’ or ‘God’s perfect words’ both forms stem from one single notion (maʚnan wāhˢid). The singular refers to the totality [of God’s words] (al-jumla), and the plural refers to the words into which this single ‘word,’ at different times, was dispersed and became many; all, however, go back to one single word.”36

The single word, according to al-Tirmidhī, is God’s existence-bestowing command kun, the creative logos; the multitude of things and beings into which kun is dispersed and which come into existence by its creative potency, they, too, are God’s words—hence the plural side by side with the singular.37 Ibn al-ʚArabī, who has been inspired by al-Tirmidhī and, in many senses, has picked up the thread from him several centuries later,38 sums up this powerful idea in the following statement (which paraphrases Qur. 18:109): “All existents are God’s words which will not be exhausted; they are from kun and kun is God’s word.”39

35

See above, n. 31; see also Qur. 7:137 and 11:119. See Al-Hˢ akīm al-Tirmidhī 1992a, 3, ll. 2–5. 37 Cf. [Pseudo-] al-Tustarī 1974, 368: “The Mother of the Book is the root: it contains all that was and that will be . . . [then] by means of His saying kun He dispersed them out of the Hidden” Q  R^  ' OL  K„B . . . dB . H _AS B NE? 'B +JK U ) (ZAy  H; see also below, 45–46. 38 Consider, for example, the answers that Ibn al-ʚArabī wrote to the “spiritual questions” laid down by al-Tirmidhī; see the insertion of Ibn al-ʚArabī’s answers (in two versions) into the fourth chapter of Khatm al-awliyāʙ, Al-Hˢ akīm al-Tirmidhī 1965, 142– 326; see also Chodkiewicz 1993, 26ff. 39 See Ibn al-ʚArabī, 1946, 142 (the chapter on Jesus): i -   8. Q. 8S   4. B  ! Q “ $k^; also Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, IV, 35 (On Knowing the Breath— †k  4"RH )”. 36

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 45 Kun is a keyword also in other speculations that can be traced back to the ninth century. In the Kitāb al-Zīna (“The Book of Loveliness”), for example, a treatise on language written by Abū Hˢ ātim al-Rāzī, an eminent Ismāʚīli missionary from Rayy who flourished in the third/ninthfourth/tenth century,40 in the chapter on the Divine command (amru -llāh), al-Rāzī makes a striking analogy between kun and the Gospel of John’s logos: His command is His word by which He has created things. Thus He says: “God’s command when He wishes a thing is to say to it Be and it is.” By this word God has created all of creation. In the Gospels, in the opening ( fātihˢa) of the beginning of the book41 [it is written]: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and by this Word God has created all things. This is what was before all things.” This is the beginning of the Gospels and it is in accord with what is in the Qurʙān, except that in the Qurʙān it is more condensed. The Word that is mentioned in the Gospels is kun, and this is God’s command.42

Here, once more, one can detect the clear reverberations that arise from the association with pre-Islamic traditions. Another intriguing example of speculation on kun, supposedly from the ninth century, is attributed, probably erroneously, to Sahl al-Tustarī, an early ninth century mystic, whose followers resided mainly in the town of Basra. In an epistle titled Risālat al-hˢurūf (“The Epistle on Letters”), Sahl, or, in my opinion, pseudo-Sahl, writes: When God says to a thing “be” such and such and it is, [what comes into being] is, in fact, the form of the thing; [the form is] spiritual; it is composed of forces and of a spirit that were dispersed from the “big kun” which God said to the All. This spiritual form is the word [that issued] 40 On al-Rāzī (d. 322/934), see Daftary 1998, 43 passim; for the similarities between al-Rāzī’s work and that of al-Tirmidhī’s and for al-Rāzī’s explicit reference to al-Tirmidhī, see Sviri 2002, 214, n. 31. 41 By “Gospel” Al-Razi refers to the Gospel of John, but without specifying, or knowing of, the authorship of John; or he could have culled his proof-text from the running Arabic translation (ca. 6th C.), which opens with John; thanks go to my colleague Dr. Serge Ruzer. 42 .(82: 36) “   %  ”}f   "H  ” :  A:f? Q@ D -  -. "HB

4KB T4K ’ . $`  ” : -3^B +JK B  NAh Y B . . em   ea 4K LQ= 'B TNAh Y B ' L'—“f N. N= . H L' .Q. A:f?  ea 4K„B T $! ’ . “” ' NAh Y  8" -  4KB TJt $f V"   OL   "}› TV"    eH N\B g!  "H 'B; the connection between God’s word and Jesus is borne out by Qur. 4:171: “The Messiah Jesus son of Maryam is God’s messenger and His word that He had thrown into Maryam”—(P%"H   '  -.B   P%"H l ;} œA:;   ).

46

sara sviri from God in order that a thing may come to be. It is the truth of that thing which comes into being; it is the [divine] Will that it should come to be, and this is founded on the [divine] encompassing knowledge. The philosophers name it the nature of the thing. Some of them name it soul (nafs). All these [names] are related [to one another in the sense] that it is a divine command which gives forms to the bodies, watches over them, and protects them from harm.43

On the level of ideas, the spiritual “big kun” of this excerpt, out of which all existents dispersed, is reminiscent of al-Tirmidhī’s distinction between the original divine creative “word” in the singular and the many existential “words” which issued from it. On the level of terminology, however, it is hard to tie the two pieces together. As regards alTustarī himself, this is even more problematic. Such terms as “the truth of the thing,” “the nature of the thing,” “spiritual form,” “the big kun,” “philosophers” do not tie in with al-Tustarī’s idiomatic and thought patterns as they transpire from the numerous sources in which his tradition has been preserved.44 The linguistic, typological and thematic characteristics of the short epistle from which this passage has been culled call for a review of its ascription to Sahl al-Tustarī. This, it is hoped, will be dealt with elsewhere. It is worth noting here, however, that such speculations as the Epistle on Letters displays, formulated in a comparable vocabulary, tie in much more feasibly with ideas and idioms that are found in the writings of “The Brethren of Purity,” Ikhwān al-sˢafāʙ. This group of theosophists from tenth century Basra (or earlier) was known for its Shīʚite-Ismāʚīlī affiliations and for its Neoplatonic, Pythagorean and Hermetic leanings.45 In their encyclopaedic “Epistles” (rasāʙil Ikhwān al-sˢafāʙ) numerous examples of speculations on language and on kun can be found. In the concluding and encompassing epistle (al-risāla al-jāmiʚa), for example,

$ BB — H 4k žJH 4A zB   /E '    H  L.B L. “” 8  B” 'B   K  H 4K ' 4A zB"  /  ~J TN#  OL  “PM!? K” H ’k  PQ‚R@B T  4RA`6 4kjk  QA;•B TpA3  PR   @ K /Y 'B T    4  > “8ƒ _AS H _ H Q ™z U;SŸ H 'i "H  B" H PQ.B ;k QA;q, [Pseudo-] 43

al-Tustarī 1974, 367. 44 For a thorough analysis of al-Tustarī’s tradition, see Böwering 1980, 7–42; as for the Risālat al-hˢurūf (based on Ms. Chester Beatty 3168/3), Böwering expresses some doubts whether this is an authentic work by al-Tustarī, but is not categorical, 18. 45 The Brethren’s association with Hermetic wisdom is borne out by numerous statements and references they make, see, e.g., the 52nd epistle on Magic, Talismans and the Eye, Ikhwān al-sˢafāʙ 1928, IV:461f.; references to Pythagoras, Hermes Trismegistos, Aristotle and other pre-Islamic philosophers are scattered throughout their epistles; for a general overview on the Brethren of Purity, whose provenance, identity and dating are still debated among scholars, see Nasr 1964, 25–95; Hamdani 1996, 145–52.

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 47 an intriguing passage shows the Brethren’s attempt to knit together the Neoplatonic system of hypostatic emanations, a system they upheld, with the Qurʙānic notion of creation by the imperative kun. Thus, in a rather curious manner, the Brethren describe the process of creation as a relay of kun from one ‘hypostasis’ to another. In their description they also make an analogy between this creative process and the faculty of speech—of human speech in general and of the prophetic discourse in particular. They write: The Active Intellect is the face of God that does not change and does not cease . . . it is the first manifestation. Since this is so, it behooves that this should be the place of God’s word by which He created things as He wished. Its light spread and Its bounty emanated upon what was beneath it, and thus the Universal Soul became the face of the Active Intellect . . . Then [appeared] the Prima Materia to which the emanated light and the power of the word of the first manifestation became attached . . . Then the Universal Face appeared, and this is the highest sphere. It shone and took its appropriate position according to the order requisite by Divine Wisdom . . . and by the unceasing attachment of the . . . word to the first limit and its successive, ceaseless, timeless emanation upon it . . . Command and prohibition are in the same position as the heart with regard to what descends upon it from the spiritual senses, as God has said: “The trustworthy spirit has brought it down upon your heart that you may be one of the warners, in a clear Arabic tongue” (26:193–195). The spirit descends upon the heart, and then the power attaches itself to the tongue, whose place is the face, and from it, by speech (nut ˢq), commands and prohibitions issue. By command (i.e., by kun) existents come into being, and by speech sayings which report of what was and of what will be become articulated. The power which is attached to the heart is similar to the fire of the word that is united by the command (= the creative kun) with the Source of Life. When the spirit descended upon the heart by [or with?] the First Agent (= the active, or universal, intellect), it attached itself to its face; it then spoke out kun, and what the Creator wished was. Then the first face shone and executed the command and creation appeared. Then the second face took its position (i.e., its rank in the emanative order) and it, too, spoke out the command that was thrown upon it by the first [face], and what was below it came to be. Hence the word kun became constructed of two letters: the kāf is connected with the upper realm within the limit of the first face, and the nūn descends into the lower [realm of] entities, which issues from the first one: this is the kāf that brings to completion (as alluded to by kamāl = perfection, completion?) and which leads to the best of all states . . .46

ZSB ~# .  B TB?  $@YB . . . Bgd iB 3% i OL  N\B g!  \B ' Rk  N R  . . . ’ .B T B  S rB  —"; . . . f . A:f? ea Q@ -  8  4. _cH d  46

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The hermeneutic strategy used at the end of this passage, namely, the breaking down of kun into its consonantal components in order to draw out of each component the ‘meaning’ concealed within it, displays a technique that was widely used by Islamic mystics and exegetes. AlTirmidhī, as has been previously shown, used it prolifically alongside other techniques in developing the ‘science’ which he named ʚilm alawliyāʙ—the science, or knowledge, of the Friends of God. Islamic traditions in general, not necessarily mystical traditions, show that exegetes, from early on, used this technique, or referred to it, especially in their attempts to decipher the enigmatic letters that appear at the beginnings of certain Qurʙānic sūras.47 In Islam, this hermeneutical technique does not seem to have acquired a specific technical term; al-Tˢabarī, the most celebrated Qurʙān commentator of the ninth century, whose commentary adduces much of the exegetical material accumulated up to his time, mentions several attempts at reading these letters as acronyms and, consequently, of various attempt at deciphering the message encoded in the acronym. Al-Tˢabarī himself (d. 310/923) does not commit himself to accepting any one of these propositions, but refers to the letters under consideration as “lexical letters which, in distinction to ordinary speech where letters are combined, God left isolated (muqat ˢt ˢaʚa) in order to

P¡ . . . B?  $@Y„ 4K /B  [ Q@ N-   B?  AQ  P¡ . . . Rk  N R  \B 4AK †k  UBB . . . 4A'ii 43# ZS  @ exj  RcH  Z^"¢B "fˆ T? ~k  'B K \  $@ HB Z  4 gv@ £Q B "H? B . . . H] j@ UB$ B "¢- „ A -cB B? $| „ 4K $A%ˆ^ ^ dL  H - ~`  }H? B"  g¤» :N\B g!   . T4A zB"  03  H A  p3% £Q B "H? ! $%B \  HB ;#„ /  N-^ P¡ Z   gv^ B"  T“}=H £@"! ;@ Z „ 4-  / B TdB . H =tY _H 8i   P-^ en „B T8  -^ "H?= Ten „ 4AK †k „ N R  ¥V ^ N2. Q¦H :133 §> /A3   =v%   "H?„ /$|-  4K  N2. Q¦H enG QS@ ’^ Rk  B?„ Z   B"  ’ g¤ “ H 4A=H  4. 8 T~# B H  B? H A     "H?„ en B ! 4%„ Nk   4n3GH  B B? \  $|@ 'B T UR „ Nk;    R  ! 42R`GH CK 'B :133 § > . . . >? N‚   b` B N  CK 'B TB? C"6B $-:;q C"6 T}"6 B  2   N ~#L B T 2  \  'B '"tV ' 4n @ 4RS QRS ©¡ N\   PhR  .“$zB RH  i /"}2. RH  GH C"> Nl 4 i$  Mk@  " g! ? CB"3  48

49 For the Mesopotamian antecedents of this rabbinic technique, see Liebermann1987, 157–225; my thanks go to Prof. Moshe Idel for this reference. 50 See, e.g., the traditions related by the early exegete Muqātil ibn Sulaymān (d.150/ 767) in his commentary to Qur. 2:1, Muqātil ibn Sulaymān 1979, I: 83–7 and especially 85; cf. also al-Tˢabarī 1988, 92–3; for the use of this technique by the early Shīʚites in order to predict the termination of the Umayyad rule, see Bar-Asher 1999, 212–3.

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any obvious context, almost as though their author wished to play them down, or even make them inconspicuous, especially when they could be understood as related to magical acts.51 Nevertheless, a comprehensive and systematic discussion on language and its creative power is offered in chapter One Hundred Ninety Eight of the Futūhˢāt al-makkiyya; it is entitled “Concerning the Knowledge of Breath.” The breath, nafas, is a seminal theme in Ibn al-ʚArabī’s system of thought. First and foremost, it is a divine act; as such, Ibn al-ʚArabī names it the Breath of the Compassionate, Nafas al-rahˢmān. God’s Breath is the releasing, merciful act through which existence burst forth out of the divine Hiddenness. For Ibn al-ʚArabī creation is seen not only as God’s word, or words, but also as the product of God’s exhalation: existents, which were held within God’s Hiddenness in stressful suspension and latency, are released into existence through his exhaling attribute of rahˢma, Compassion. Inherently, this creative breathing out is associated with the divine kun. Human speech, in which breath is the operating mechanism, reflects, or is reflected by, this divine act of breathing out. Thus, in human beings, too, before letters and words are articulated, they exist as latent essences within the vapor with which man’s entrails are filled before breath or language form. Speech, therefore, is the ultimate feature by which man bears likeness to God: inasmuch as man articulates separate sounds by breathing them out, and, when combined, these sounds become meaningful words and statements, so also God “breathes out” creation through the overflow of generosity and love; hence, as we have seen, the countless existents are all “God’s words”: Letters issue from the breath of the human breather, who is the most perfect of all created formations; all letters appear through him and by his breath. He is thus on the divine form, namely, [the form of] the breath of the Merciful. The emergence of the ‘letters of existents’ and [the emergence] of the ‘world of words’ is the same. He has assigned them to the human breath as twenty-eight letters which affirm what issued from the breath of the Merciful: the essences of the divine words are twenty eight; each word has faces.52 They have issued from the breath of the Merciful, which is the ʚamāʙ, the fog in which God was before He created creation.53 51

See, e.g., n. 59. The Arabic li-kulli kalima wujūh may, simply, mean “each word has aspects,” that is, “meanings”—it can thus be understood in the context of semantics; note, however, the use of “face,” wajh, in the cosmogonic context of the hypostatic series of emanations in the excerpt from the Brethren of Purity cited above, 47; wajh, face, would thus signify that each of the twenty-eight hypostatic manifestations “faces” the one above it and the one beneath it. 52

53

_AS ;k@B 8"Q{ @B 8žv  N. ' OL   ;…Y †k-  †kª ª H CB"3  ’S"o”

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 51 Ibn al-ʚArabī goes on to enumerate the ‘twenty-eight’ divine ‘words’ which were breathed out by God from the fog (ʚamāʙ) in which, primordially, He was.54 This for him is analogous to the humid vapor that precedes speech. The first four ‘words,’ in Neoplatonic fashion, are the Intellect (ʚaql which is also called “the Pen”, al-qalam), the Soul (nafs, also the Tablet, al-lawhˢ), Nature (t ˢabīʚa) and the Primordial Matter (habāʙ, literally, dust). From here follows a list of twenty-four other cosmic and earthly ‘hypostases,’ i.e., worlds, or words, although not necessarily in the order in which they came into existence.55 The list includes angels (in the twenty-fifth position), Jinns (in the twenty-sixth), humans (in the penultimate, twenty-seventh position) and, lastly, the martaba, the ‘degree,’ ‘level’ or ‘rank’. This curious idiom, which Ibn al-ʚArabī explains as “the end goal ( ghāya) of every existent,” seems to refer to the principle of purpose, of the telos, of each and every being, as well as to the principle of order and hierarchy upon which existence is built. In the parallel world of cosmic spheres and human sounds (or letters), the first divine “word,” the Intellect, is reflected in the sound ‘h,’ which is the first distinct sound that comes out of the breath when it flows out without being hindered by any articulation point; the last “word” in the existential order, the martaba, is reflected in the sound ‘w,’ which is labial, and therefore the farthest from the source of the breath. Between the two phonetic extremities lie the rest of the “letters”; their sounds are determined by the articulation points (makhārij, maqāt ˢiʚ) where the breath is blocked before it moves on. When the first and the last sounds are combined, they make out the word ', huwa, “he”—the third person singular. As the breath moves along the articulation passage, it

Q.B T 8K P B 8xK CB"> Q{B T >"  †kª ª „ 4AQ Y /    TCB"3  d"!B A ¡ 4A'ii 8K A!  >"  †k  H $E  4 3H "> d"!B 4A ¡,  ;…Y †k  “em  em%  N= @  . OL  R  'B >"  †k ! $, SB 4. NK, 4., Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, IV:43. 54 For the tradition “God was in a fog” (kānallāhu fī ʚamāʙ), see Al-Tirmidhī 1934, XI: 273 (min tafsīr sūrat Hūd); also al-Tˢabarī 1964, I:34; for Ibn al-ʚArabī, the ʚamāʙ, literally fog, is analogous to the vapor, bukhār, which is formed from the moistness of the elements and which precedes human breath and the letters that it produces. 55 Ibn al-ʚArabī writes that, in the same way that one enumerates letters as a-b-g-d-hw-z etc., and not according to the order of their articulation points, so also his listing of the world’s constituents simply lists their names, and is not intended as an exposition of the order by which they came into being  $ . SB Z}^"¢ i P R   " 8$B) (¬m   'SB Z}^"¢ i CB"3  "> . . . n> ]' $–@, Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, IV:44.

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carries with it from sound to sound the characteristics and powers of each previous sound. Ibn al-ʚArabī infers, therefore, that the word huwa (') = he, in which the first hāʙ () and the last wāw (B) are combined, possesses the cumulative power of all letters. This, to be sure, alludes to the huwiyya (4%'), the divine Ipseity; which, by means of this phonetic analogy, is shown to be both the most inclusive and the most powerful of all existents.56 By analogy, all this alludes to the power that man holds: since man, in Ibn al-ʚArabī’s cosmogony, is the last in the chain of breathed-out entities (apart from the martaba, or ghāya, the principle of telos that pertains to each and every level and entity), man, necessarily, contains the cumulative power of all other existents. He is thus the most perfect and most powerful of all entities on all levels of being; he is, in fact, the goal and aim of existence as such.57 The wāw, too, due to its being the most external and least subtle of all letters, is, paradoxically, the most perfect and most powerful of all letters.58 And here Ibn alʚArabī inserts, casually, fleetingly, one of his comments concerning the efficacy of words and says: “For he who knows how to execute a ‘deed’ by means of letters, it is the same with regard to the ‘deed’ ”—the deed, no doubt, is the magical, or talismanic, act; to the one who knows how to perform such an act by means of using the correct letters, the wāw, it would appear, carries a particular significance.59

“jR A:f? PM! 4%Q  ’ . LQ T8K P   CB"3  — _AS ’RS ' 4”; for the esoteric significance of huwa in earlier Sˢūfi lore, cf. al-Sarrāj 2001, 79: “It has been said that the Great Name of God is Allāh, for when the letter A is removed, LLH remains [which means “to God”]; and when the L is removed, LH remains [which means “to Him”], so the allusion [to God] does not fall off; and when the second L is removed, the H remains [which is the third person pronoun]—and all secrets are [contained] in the H, as it means He . . .” B   `% ‘ ? ! Z'  ? PM!?  P   ‚% N $B) 56

Q   "? _ASB '  ` "tƒ Uj  ! Z' B /fY Z'L^ P  `% Uj  ! Z' .(' RH i  SH N. / ;…Y k T0GS?  4AQ Y 8KB †k  4%› "tV ;…Y ~#L.B” “. . . Z^"  _AS  P R  “CB"3  N. B B 8S  N. ;…Y ”, Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, IV:45; for 57

58

the significant invisibility of the wāw—the middle letter in the root k-w-n, the verb of existence—in the imperative form kun, see IV:57; cf. al-Hˢ akīm al-Tirmidhī’s notion of “deficient letters”, Sviri 2002, 217; cf. Ibn al-ʚArabī 1948, 5: “the wāw contains the characteristics and powers of all letters because, when the air reaches its articulation point, the wāw does not appear in its own essence only; rather, the air moves through all the [preceding] articulation points and [the wāw] therefore receives the power of all letters.” ~# % J> \"oH  Q   n  $! A! "QM% i ? 'B Q. CB"3  §t B  k) .(C"> N. / H  N3 Q. ¬m  _AS  Q  59 “CB"3 „ NR  C"R% H $! NR   ' L.B”, Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, IV:45; concerning

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 53 V. Bismillāh Chapter Hundred Ninety Eight of the Meccan Revelations “On the Knowledge of the Breath” is a remarkable source from which to glean esoteric speculations concerning letter mysticism in Islam in general and in Ibn al-ʚArabī’s system in particular. The elaborate discussion on kun, its creative power, its connections with the Breath of the Merciful, the hierarchical order of breathed-out existents and, by analogy, of human breathed-out letters and words, is only a prelude to a long and elaborate study by Ibn al-ʚArabī of what is the culmination of speech: sacred formulae of praise of God as well as supplication to God and the divine names. Before offering a list of chapter-headings on the various topics that he is going to discuss, Ibn al-ʚArabī refers briefly to kun again and says: Since mentioning His names is the quintessence of praise, we have mentioned in this chapter what for us is the same as the word kun for Him, namely, the basmala (= the formula bismillāh, “in the name of God”). God’s people say: “For us, in bringing acts into existence, the bismillāh is in the same stance as kun is for Him.”60

Further on, in the fourth section of the ensuing exposition on sacred formulae and divine names, Ibn al-ʚArabī offers the following insight into the basmala: The basmala is your saying bismillāh (= in the name of God). For the worshipper this is the word of the Presence of existence61 and of bringing things into existence; its stance is equivalent to the word of the Presence62 when He says kun. When the worshipper acts truthfully by it, what becomes affected by kun becomes affected by the basmala. It is as though he is saying: In the name of God existence appears! This reveals the truth of the genuine beloved’s relationship [with God]: God is his ears and his tongue, and, hence, what comes about by kun, comes about by him (or by the basmala).63 the efficacy of the wāw, cf. the hint inserted in Risālat al-mīm wal-wāw wal-nūn, Ibn al-ʚArabī 1948, 10: “he who fathoms the secrets of wāw [knows that, or knows how to make] the supernal spiritual entities descend by it in a noble way” ("  ‘B  k%"f igv^ R  8A zB"  Q@ gv^ B ); in this interesting Epistle, Ibn al-ʚArabī explains why he is prudent when it comes to discussing the efficacious aspects of letters, 8. 60 “ GH  4 gv@ R? –%  GH  P;­ ”. Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, IV:47; see also above, 40. 61 “Presence” translates the Arabic hˢadˢra, which, in Ibn al-ʚArabī’s terminology, refers to a “level,” “plane,” “domain” of being, see Chittick 1989, 5 passim. 62 When hˢadˢra is introduced on its own with no qualification it, usually, denotes the Presence par excellence, i.e., the Divine Presence. 63

T“”   /"‚3  4. 4 gv@ d-# K /"‚> 4. $`R# 'B  P;­ ~# 4;) ”

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The somewhat equivocal phrase “in bringing acts into existence” of the first passage is elucidated by the purport of the second passage: Ibn alʚArabī clearly refers in both passages to the extraordinary ability, displayed by certain people—to wit, prophets and the Friends of God—to bring things into existence through the power of the basmala. However, from further amplification of prophets’ and holy men’s acts, it becomes evident that all their activities, be they basic bodily functions, daily acts of worship, or supernatural feats such as reviving the dead and bringing inanimate objects to life—all are enacted in an extraordinary, indeed unique manner. When such men are considered, Ibn al-ʚArabī suggests, it is evident that all their activities are done through God’s agency. By the phrase “God is his ears and his tongue” Ibn al-ʚArabī alludes to an extraQurʙānic divine tradition (hˢadīth qudsī), ubiquitous in Sˢūfī writings and attested also in canonical literature. This tradition is known as hˢadīth al-nawāfil, the tradition concerning supererogatory acts, and it underscores Islamic theory of the Friends of God and their miraculous deeds; in fact, it offers the key to the extraordinary power displayed by prophets and holy men: since they are utterly devoted to God and absorbed in His worship, their relationship with God becomes one of reciprocal love; in this love relationship God, as it were, acts through them in every sense of the word, in their mundane as well as in their extraordinary activities.64 It is a mystical union that overrides mystical experiences. In one of its most authoritative versions, this tradition runs as follows: . . . My servant does not come close to Me by means of anything I like better than the prescribed commandments; yet he goes on coming closer to Me by means of supererogatory acts until I love him; and when I love him I become his ears by which he hears, his eyes by which he sees, his hand by which he hits, his leg by which he walks. If he asks Me for anything, I shall surely give it to him; if he asks refuge in Me, I shall surely give him My refuge. . . .65

Q TK Q{ d  P;­ : % ˆ T ! NRk% H Q@ e 3^  4;) „ $`R  ! NRk “ ! d H !  T ; B R e3  . +`3H $E Q@ "s 4  > ! =t, Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, IV:54f. To this unique love, cf. Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, I:482–3. J> N „   +" -% O$`! gd HB T A ’c"s H   Z> ­ $`!   +" ^ HB . . .” % -  \B Q@ ®n`% -  $%B @ "`% OL  "@B @ _;q OL  R ’¯ -`=> “ T => “. . . L? £@ R-: ° B An!?  ˆ B TQ@, see al-Bukhārī 1908, IV:231. 64 65

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 55 Ibn al-ʚArabī now refers to one of the Qurʙānic passages that relate a miracle of revival: Jesus’ breathing into an inanimate figure of a bird and bringing it to life. Verse 110 of Sūra 5 lists, in fact, a series of miracles committed by Jesus: Then Allāh said: “O ʚĪsā son of Maryam! Tell of My favors to you and to your mother: I supported you with the Holy Spirit so that you spoke to the people in infancy and in manhood; I taught you the Book and the Wisdom, the Torah and the Gospel; and when you made out of clay, as it were, the figure of a bird, by My permission, and you breathed into it, and it became a bird, by My permission; and you healed the blind and the lepers, by My permission; and you brought forth the dead, by My permission; and when you showed the Children of Israel clear signs, I restrained them from [doing harm] to you, but the unbelievers among them said: It is clear magic.

These undisputed miracles provide Ibn al-ʚArabī with a platform from which to assert that the recurring Qurʙānic idiom “by My permission” (bi-idhnī) is, in fact, equivalent to the idiom “by My command” (bi-amrī) and, evidently, also to the formula “by the name of God (bismillāh), that is, by “My Name”; and since God’s command, as we have seen, is to say to a thing Be! (kun) and it is, then this command, when issued by a tongue which is activated by God—which, in fact, is God’s—has the same efficacy as when God speaks it directly: “By My permission” means “by My command”; since I was your tongue and your eyes, things came to be by you which are not within the power of the one through whose tongue I do not say [Be!]. In both cases (i.e., whether it is directly through My saying or yours), the bringing into existence belongs to Me. And bismi-llāh is the quintessence of kun.66

The resurrection of the dead and the other miraculous deeds of Jesus are pondered also in chapter fifteen of Ibn al-ʚArabī’s Fusˢūsˢ al-hˢikam (“The Gemstones of Wisdoms”), the chapter which is devoted to the prophetic wisdom of Jesus. The discourse on Jesus revolves around the Qurʙānic account of his miracles in general, but special place is given to the revival of the clay figure of the bird. Jesus’ birth is in itself a miraculous event. Naturally, it is associated with the fact that he is God’s Word

 i  /B$ @ ’;} -  A:f? ~! ’ ¢ Œ"@B ~ ; ’¯  TO"Hˆ@ O  “@” “. }  P;) T } |   d-  T ; , Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, IV:55; it is worth 66

referring here to Appendix B, where Ahˢmad al-Rifāʚī is described as reviving fried fish commanding them to arise “by God’s permission.”

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and also with the fact that he was breathed into Mary; he is “His Word that He threw into Maryam and a spirit from Him” (4:171). The association of Jesus with “word” and “spirit” also connects him with God’s command. “ʚĪsā,” says Ibn al-ʚArabī, “came [out into the world] to revive the dead, for he was a divine spirit. The revival [however] was God’s and the breathing was Jesus’. ”67 And also: “The power to revive and heal that ʚĪsā possessed came from the fact that Gabriel breathed him [while] in the form of a man, therefore ʚĪsā [too] revived the dead in the form of a man. If Gabriel had not come in the form of a man but in a different form, then ʚĪsā would not have revived unless he were clothed in that form and came out with it.”68 The point that Ibn al-ʚArabī is making becomes apparent when we juxtapose the statement, “In both cases (i.e., whether it is directly through My saying or yours), the bringing into existence belongs to Me,” with the statement “The revival [however] was God’s and the breathing was Jesus’.” It also transpires from the statement, “When he revived the dead, it was said about him ‘he/not he’. ”69 The apophatic statement “he/not he” is characteristic of Ibn al-ʚArabī’s portrayal of the aporia that arises from the quandary who, in fact, is the actor in such miraculous deeds. Ibn al-ʚArabī ponders this aporia and poses the following question: When the creative kun, by which existents come into being, is performed by a prophet or by a holy man—should the creative act be ascribed to [the unknowable] God and, therefore, its quiddity would remain unknowable? Or is it the case that God descends upon the ‘form’ of him who says kun, in which case saying kun is the ‘truth’ of the human ‘form’ upon which God has descended and in which it has appeared?70 To put it in a simpler way: who is the one who ‘breathes out’ the existence-bestowing kun? Is it God in His essence—which is hidden and unknowable—or is it God in the ‘form’ of the human breather? Some mystics, says Ibn al-ʚArabī, uphold the first opinion; others uphold

“;}R ²k B  >Y .B T'i B ? ^  £A3% ;} ¬"o”, Ibn al-ʚArabī ^  £A3% ;} .B ")  /E  N%")\ ²k 4QS  "lYB >Y / H  . HB” J> i £A3% i ;} K . . . '"}› /E  ^B ")  /E  N%")\ 8ˆ% P  B T")  /@ “Q "QM%B /  ~-@ †)-%, ibid., 140. “' i ' ^  x> $!   % ”, ibid., 141. Z;3@ A  4K Z;v^ NQ . 4. B T ! Q “ T$k^ i -   8. Q. 8S ” /  ~- 4  >      % H /E    R^ ' gv% B TQ-A'H PR^ j A ' H “ŠQ "Q{B QA  g¤ -  , ibid., 142; note the echoes that one can detect here of the dicta 67

1946, 139. 68

69 70

attributed to Sahl al-Tustarī adduced earlier—cf. above, 45.

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 57 the second, and still others remain perplexed and unknowing. In fact, he says, the truth of this question can only be known and determined by ‘taste’ (dhawq, i.e., by direct mystical experience). To amplify this point, he relates an anecdote concerning an act of “revival” performed by Abū Yazīd [al-Bistˢāmī], a celebrated ninth-century mystic. Abū Yazīd, the story goes, inadvertently killed an ant. Full of sorrow he breathed into the ant and it came back to life. “He immediately knew,” states Ibn alʚArabī, “who the breather was, so he breathed. Thus he was in the line of Jesus.”71 Ibn al-ʚArabī’s solution here, as elsewhere, is apophatic. It is both Abū Yazīd and not-Abū Yazīd who performed the miraculous revival. Abū Yazīd, indeed, performed the breathing into the dead creature and it was revived, but it was God’s breath which breathed through him. For Ibn al-ʚArabī, such an act exhibits the ultimate and most intimate relationship between man, as the perfect man (al-insān al-kāmil), and God as Creator. God is, indeed, the breather, and man is the vehicle through which the divine breath operates in the world; but this does not mean that the man who breathes is nothing more than a mechanical, instrumental vehicle. “He is,” as has been cited above, “on the divine form, namely, [the form of] the breath of the Merciful.”72 The perfect man is thus the accomplished human “form” that is “on the divine form.” His breathing and command, too, acted out in the plane of human existence, are creative and existentiating; without such “forms,” or, in other words, without accomplished human beings such as prophets and the friends of God, divine acts would not be made manifest. In the last resort, the “he/ not he,” according to Ibn al-ʚArabī’s formula, is the core of the science of the holy men; it is also the solution, hovering in perplexity between the “yes” and the “no,” to the quandary regarding these extraordinary deeds performed by extraordinary men via speech and breath. VI. Conclusion: Some Methodological Considerations The study of language as a creative power in Islam is exceedingly complex and offers many dimensions that have yet to be chartered. It

iB "H?  |% PQ‚R@B T"tƒ C"n    PQ‚R@ T$z  C"n    Z'L% }R  [R=” ~# $! PR ’}A3 QJ -  4   ²k }z $%gd £@. B i C"R^  % i 4 ˆ;H L'B .O$% “$Q  O;}  ²kG ²k% @—see, Ibn al-ʚArabī 1946, 142; Ibn al-ʚArabī considered 71

himself, too, to be a walī in the line of Jesus—on the friends of God who are in the line of Jesus, see Chodkiewicz 1993, 76ff. 72 See above, 50f., Ibn al-ʚArabī 1994, IV:43.

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brings to mind the Qurʙānic verse, 18:108, often quoted in association with the immeasurable dimension of the divine words: “Say: if the sea were ink for the words of my Lord, the sea would be exhausted before the words of my Lord are exhausted—even if we bring another sea to its aid.” In the attempt to chart the impact of powerful language in Islam, especially in its esoteric context, the ink has not yet been exhausted. The range of speculations on the correlation of divine and human speech, and the creative power that such a correlation implies, is vast; the dialectical strategies employed in order to reconcile human creative power with the rejection of any trace of theosis—especially in a comparative context (e.g., versus the Christian saint, the Jewish Zaddik or, for that matter, the Shīʚite imām)—this, too, is a subject that requires further research. In this paper I have tried to pursue several key notions within the works of a few seminal figures who were engaged in pondering the nexus of language, creation and power, be it divine or human. The authors whose speculations I have cited in this paper—The Brethren of Purity, Abū Hˢ ātim al-Rāzī, Ibn al-ʚArabī, as well as al-Hˢ akīm al-Tirmidhī, [Pseudo-] Sahl al-Tustarī and Najm al-Dīn Kubrā—offer remarkable views on language and its mysteries; so much so that each of them would merit a separate in-depth study. The most exemplary, even heroic, study dedicated to one Islamic personality, or to the collective literary corpus that bears his name—a corpus that contributed immensely to linguistic esotericism in both Sˢūfism and Shīʚism—is, no doubt, Paul Kraus’s study of Jābir ibn Hˢ ayyān.73 For the pursuit of the multidimensional implications of language—scientific, magical, creative, theurgic; in particular, for its implications and use within almost all pre-Islamic religious and philosophical systems of the Near East in Late Antiquity; and, consequently, for assessing the abiding vitality of language speculations and practices in the esoteric scene in Islam—for all these aspects Kraus’s work, both as exemplum and data base, is indispensable. By focusing, for this paper, on kun and equivalent formulae of creative power, it has become evident to me that, for the study of esoteric language in Islam, two distinct perspectives should be employed in tandem, as has been masterfully done by Kraus; the one: the comparative-historical perspective on the flow of esoteric ideas and techniques from one culture to another and the developmental lines that these ideas then took in Islam; the other: the thematic and terminological study of the various components of these techniques and ideas. Both perspectives call for interdisciplinary and 73

See Kraus, 1942.

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 59 interactive effort, built on sound philological grounds. As the material exhibited in the Appendix indicates, interactive effort is called for also for studying the phenomena of power, in particular the power of the friend of God, within the history of Islam itself. From a historical, developmental aspect, the material used here suggests to me that the notion of the human potential to use language as a tool for creation, a notion that reverberates with ideas prevalent in late-antiquity, can still be heard in early Islamic traditions (second/eighth—third/ninth centuries); then, during the phase that produced the classical Sˢūfi compilations (fourth/ tenth—fifth/eleventh centuries), such echoes become so dissonant with the concept of the oneness and totality of the divine power, that they are silenced out; they resurface, however, in the phase during which the Sˢūfi Brotherhoods emerge and with them also the growing power of the Sheikh of the t ˢarīqa (sixth/twelfth century onwards). The material collected for this paper has convinced me that in studying the emergence of the Sˢūfi Brotherhoods in the twelfth-thirteenth centuries, to take this one historical example, the esoteric subtleties concerning practices, techniques, enigmatic dicta, speculation and terminology, which the texts reveal, should be assessed along with the relevant historical and sociological data culled from them. Questions concerning the growing power of the Sheikh and its impact on his followers, as well as on Islamic society at large, would thus benefit from a multifaceted platform of study and discussion—a platform that is wider-ranging than has been commonly envisaged or taken up so far. To sum up: questions concerning the creative power of the walī, to the point of assuming the divine act of creating by kun, open up for the researcher comparative avenues of historical, phenomenological, anthropological, philosophical, as well as literary and philological character. The material that has been culled here, limited by the constraints of the presentation as well as by the limitations of the presenter, has exposed the significance of such a wide-ranging research for a better understanding of the phenomena of spiritual power in mystical Islam and their development. As we have seen, these phenomena are not simply antiquated pieces of information; rather, in the landscape of contemporary polemics within Islam, they are part and parcel of a vital and public discourse concerning spiritual and religious power.

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Prooftexts concerning the power of the walī to existentiate by kun and by its equivalents. A. Al-Rifāʚī, Al-burhān al-muʙayyid, 1408h., pp. 124–26: Dear men! When you seek help by means of God’s servants and friends, do not regard this help and succor as coming from them, for this is idolatry; rather, ask God [to grant you] what you need by His love for them; [for the tradition says:]: “Many unkempt, dust-covered, tattered men, who are driven away at the doors—were they to adjure God, He would grant them [their request]” (this tradition is reported by Ahˢmad [ibn Hˢ anbal] in his musnad, by Muslim [in his sunan] and by others).74 God gives them power to operate on existents, makes essences transform for them, and, by His permission, makes them say to a thing Be and it is. ʚĪsā, peace be with him, created a bird out of clay by God’s permission, revived the dead by God’s permission. Our prophet and beloved, the master of all masters of prophets, Muhˢammad, may peace and the best of prayers be with him, a trunk of a tree inclined towards him and inanimate objects greeted him; in him God brought together all the miracles (muʚjizāt) that He had dispersed among the rest of the prophets and messengers. Then the secrets of his miracle (muʚjiza) were carried on in the friends [of God] of this people; for them they became graces (karāmāt) that are transient, while with him, may peace be with him, [there remains] the abiding miracle (i.e., the Qurʙān).75 O, my child! O, my brother! If you say, “God, I ask you by Your Compassion,” it is as though you say, “I ask you by the ‘friendship’ of your servant Sheikh Mansˢūr” or another one of the friends; for friendship (wilāya) is a special privilege (“by His compassion He privileges whom He wishes”—Qur. 2:105, 3:74); therefore, beware of ascribing the power of the Compassionate to the one for whom he has compassion: the deed and the power and the might are His, praise be to Him; yet the liaison (wasīla, literally: means, medium) is His compassion by which He has privileged His servant the walī. Therefore, when in need, approach him [the walī] by God’s compassion and the love and protection with which He has privileged the choicest from among His servants, but affirm God’s oneness in every deed, for He is [a] jealous [God].76

74

References to authoritative Hˢ adīth collections have been probably inserted by the editor/s or copyist/s. 75 The Qurʙān is considered the most extraordinary and inimitable of all miracles that were vouchsafed on prophets; this is why, with regard to Muhˢammad, al-Rifāʚī reverts to talking of a “miracle” (muʚjiza) in the singular; it is obviously the power of this unique miracle, the Qurʙān, God’s word, which runs through the awliyāʙ and allows them to commit marvelous deeds, karāmāt. 76 This double-edged theology of miracles and human power is reminiscent of Ibn al-ʚArabī’s discussion—see above, 53f.

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 61

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77 This extraordinary revival story is associated, no doubt, with Qurʙān 5:110, where Jesus’ miracles are enumerated, and where the phrase “by God’s permission” recurs several times, see above, 55; clearly, it is also reminiscent of the miraculous revival of the fish in sūra 18: 61, 63; for al-Rifāʚī’s revival of a child, who was trampled to death by Sˢūfis dancing in ecstasy, by saying to him: “Arise, man, sit and pray,” see al-Nabhānī 2001, I:438–9.

62

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C. Ibid., p. 145: Sheikh Ahˢmad al-Rifāʚī said to Sheikh Shams al-Dīn Muhˢammad, may God sanctify his heart: O Muhˢammad, the seeker will not attain that which he seeks unless he withdraws from his lower-self, from the acquired habits of the senses, and from all desires, permitted or otherwise. Then God will give him the power to operate on the existence of His existents and worlds. When he gives him power to operate on the existence of His existents and worlds, He gives him power to operate on absolute existence; and when He gives him power to operate on absolute existence, then his command becomes God’s command, so that when he says to a thing Be, it is.

"H   $%"  N% i $3H O :" 0$ $3H d$  †f ²A:# !  c B    "%B '"}›B 8z`  8Q  _AS Œ"s%B ;> 8 ˆHB ;k ! ¬"o% J> K  "E B en  K  8 "E  !B SB   "E B  !B SB . . .  < !L'>  #    R^  "Hˆ@ "H E en  D. al-Shaʚrānī, ʚAbd al-Wahhāb, Kitāb al-Tˢabaqāt al-Kubrā, Cairo 1305, vol.1, p. 141: He [al-Rifāʚī] used to say: when the worshipper is established in the mystical states, he attains the place of God’s proximity, and then his [spiritual] intention (himma) pierces the seven heavens; as for the [seven] earths, they become like an anklet on his leg; he becomes an attribute of God’s attributes, and there is nothing that he cannot do. God then is pleased when he is pleased and is displeased when he is displeased. He said: what we say is corroborated by what came down in one of the divine books: God has said: O sons of Adam! Obey me and I shall obey you, choose me and I shall choose you, be pleased with me and I shall be pleased with you, love me and I shall love you, observe me and I shall observe you and I shall make you say to a thing Be! And it will be.

_`:;# 4a -' 8EB  R^  H +"  N3H b@ >? H ^  $`R   : % .B f ghR% i jB N\ e3  8kE H 4kE EB \"l mm . c? 8EB 8;  :4AQ Y ZJK [R@  B H   $%B : . no; po;qB c" c"d  R^ e3  EB  =>B P! r ! cB P."sa  BJtB PR6  RA6 !UV @ W :N\B g!   % . . .   #   ^ PRSB P=  =B P=> E. Ibid., p. 102 Among them (the Sˢūfī Sheikhs) was Mamshādh al-Dīnawarī.78 . . . He said: For the last twenty years I have lost my heart with God; and for twenty years, due to good manners towards God, I have relinquished saying to a thing “Be!” and it was. . . .

78

Mamshādh al-Dīnawarī (d. 299/911), a Persian Sˢūfi master of the 3rd/9th century; see on him al-Sulamī 1960, 318–20.

kun—the existence-bestowing word in islamic mysticism 63 One of them said: The meaning of “I have relinquished saying to a thing Be and it was” is this: Mamshādh was mujāb al-daʚwa (namely, one whose call to God is answered); whenever he appealed to God, his call was answered. Eventually he lifted all this to God and went along by God’s will not by his own will, and he stopped therefore appealing to God.79

: % !  c .B . . . O%$  H PQGHB @ 4: d"! LGH   #   ’"¢B  R^ # _H 4: d"! LGH £` 8$  . . . N\B g!  _H _k^ P¡ TZS  . T/!$  +–H .  “  #   ’"¢” RH :PQ‚R@  .$  Œ"s "@ i  "@   R^    ~# ! F. Ibn ʚAjība, Īqāzˢ al-himam fī sharhˢ al-hˢikam,80 pp. 488–89: It is written in the [books of] wisdom: “O, My servant! I have made existence and all that it includes bow down to you. . . . By My support to you, you are I, and by what I have conferred on you, I am you; therefore, live forever; none shall vie for your place. O, My servant! I have rent the veil for you and have opened the door for you; I have shown you the most amazing command; give, therefore, [the message] to your noble people, even if they name you “magician” or “impostor”; I have given you all created beings—let them say “This is nothing but fraud” (38:7). O, My servant! I have made you say to a thing Be! And it is. Why worry that they name you “magician” or “madman” when you drink from the nectar of Kawthar (= a river in Paradise) while they say, “this is nothing but magic of old” (74:24). . . . When, in His bounty and kindness, God chooses a servant from among His servants, He brings him near to Him and elects him to enter the Presence of His holiness. . . . There the servant becomes as one in God and for God, his command is by God’s command until no fleck [of attention] remains in him for another, and nothing veils him from God. He whom his Lord loves, whom He elects for the Presence of His holiness . . ., God becomes his ears and his eyes, his helper and protector in all his circumstances and abodes. . . .

79 Not surprisingly, the section on Mamshādh in al-Sulamī’s Tˢabaqāt al-sūfiyya does not record his kun feats; it does record, however, an anecdote according to which by saying “lā ilāha illāllāh” (“there is no god but God”) to a barking dog, Mamshādh brought about the dog’s death; curiously, this is an example for the destructive rather than the creative power of language; for the topic of relinquishing kun out of courtesy towards God, see above, 40; for the discrimination of classical Sufi literature, see above n. 16. 80 Ibn ʚAjība (d. 1809), an 18th-century Sˢūfī author who wrote a popular commentary on the Hˢ ikam (= aphorisms) of Ibn ʚAtˢāʙllāh al-Iskandarī, a 13th-century Sˢūfī of the Shādhiliyya brotherhood; the above passage is culled from the commentary to the 9th section of Ibn ʚAtˢāʙllāh’s communication with God (munājāt), which is appended to the end of the hˢikam.

64

sara sviri

:+JH 43  B $@Ÿ ®R T~^$ @ ’  B T~^$% @  ’ ˆ . . .  @ K ~# 8$– $ O$`! W .$z  ~>gd i ~H   B +`# ~H b@ˆ T+–R  "H? ~# 8"Q{B +`  ~# ’3JB +–3  ~# ’"t O$`! W .(7:38) “jJt i L' ” :  % PQ!$ ja? ~-`'B $ ˆ T+L. B ">   H +"• ’  hH B ">    ~A HB   #  ^ ~-RS $ TO$`! W . . . (24:74) “"º&% "3 i L' ” :  % P'B "ºK e> ~#' . . . $ /"‚3 `JSB ‚k@ @" `! H $`! knE  ‚B h@  R^  . ! `h3% f iB ; 4`xf  e`% P š>  "Hˆ@ "H B „ $`R  "}% ` JH  MzB "EB "@B R  . . . $ /"‚3 knEB iH => OL  LQ . . . ¦HB G. Ibn Abī al-Dunyā, Kitab al-hawātif, p. 32: Sufyān ibn ʚUyayna related: During the circumambulation [of the Kaʚba in the Hˢ ajj] I saw a man—handsome, well-attired, and towering above the people. I said to myself: It behooves that such a one will be holding knowledge. I approached him and said: “Would you teach us something or say something?” He did not answer till he finished his circumambulation. Then he stood by the Prayer Place [of Abraham], prayed behind it performing two bowings hastily, and then turned to us and said: “Do you know what your Lord has said?” We said, “What has our Lord said?” The one whose name is “the calling voice” (al-hātif ) said: “I am God the King who does not cease; come to Me and I shall make you kings who do not cease.” Then he said: “Do you know what your Lord has said?” We said: “What has our Lord said?” He said: “I am God the living who does not die; come to Me and I shall make you the living who do not die.” Then he said, “Do you know what your Lord has said?” We said, “What has our Lord said?” He said, “I am God the King who when I wish a thing, I say to it Be and it is; come to Me and I shall make you [such that] when you wish [a thing] you will say to it Be and it will be.”

: .0   kAGH +A2  ;> \  ;> Cn   j\ ’% :4G}A! l k ! P T”}f N  ”}f R^ : ’  J}^ˆ : .P L' $! d  y=v% :;k  ’  :  A N= P¡ TQ ‘kt }-R¯ ka  U   ^ P¡ T 6 H ¼" J> d i OL  ~   ” n); that is, the oil ‫( ע׻פת‬jiwt‘), becomes the substance ‫ע׻פׯ‬ (niwt‘) of the true letter, which is the leavening.43 For the meaning of the ‘true letter’, however, we must return to the beginning and redo the

42

On the symbolism of numbers in Armenian see, Thomson 1976. This is also noted by Awetik‘ean 1859, 534, n. 136; by P. Xač‘atryan and A. Łazinyan, Grigor Narekac‘i 1985, 1121, n. 87; and by J.-P. and A. Mahé 2000 in their translation of this passage. 43

armenian meditations on the metamorphic power

363

calculations according to a different mode. The alphabet of twenty-four letters mentioned by Narekac‘i is the Greek alphabet and so the numerical equivalents should also be worked out according to the ordering of the Greek letters.44 The twenty-second letter of the Greek alphabet is χ (chi), which, like Armenian ‫ ׻ױׯ‬has a numerical value of four hundred. The Greek letter equivalent of eighty is the letter ρ (rho). We thus attain χρ, the Greek abbreviation for Χριστός, Christ. In Armenian, the last letter of the alphabet is ‫( א‬k‘), which is the first letter in the Armenian name for Christ, ‫׶ױ׸׶פ׹א‬. The letter itself was formed by a combination of the Greeks letters χ and ρ.45 The true letter is thus Armenian ‫א‬ (k‘), symbolic of Christ, who is the leavening that raises the candidate to Himself. We recall the previously cited verse of the Song of Songs: “the oil poured forth is your name” (1:2). Through his etymology Narekac‘i demonstrates how the oil, ‫ע׻פת‬, is literally Christ’s name. In the seventh line above, Narekac‘i employs the verb ‘to translate’ (‫[ ץמׯך׭ל׹ךע‬t‘argmanel]); the verb also means ‘to interpret’. Grigor is playing on both meanings here for to interpret the mystery is to translate the Armenian numbers into their Greek equivalents and then back again into the true Armenian letter. In the subheading to the hymn itself, Narekac‘i also mentions that this chapter is composed of prayers “in translation” (‫[ ׹ךכךׯך׭ל׹ךע‬t‘argmanabar]). It has been suggested that this be taken literally and the chapter be regarded as a translation of a work by Cyril of Jerusalem,46 but this is not the case. Grigor, again, intends both ‘translation’ and ‘interpretation’, but here not a linguistic motion from Greek to Armenian. Rather, it is a translation of the divine mysteries into the interpretative language of mystical symbolism intended for the initiated.

44 Grigor’s reference to twenty-four letters clarifies that he is referring to the Greek alphabet employed for writing and not the twenty-seven letters of the Greek alphabet reserved for numerical purposes. The three extra letters are the digamma, the qoppa, and the sampi. Either Narekac‘i was unaware of the Greek numerical alphabet or he purposely avoided using it because it would not produce the equivalents he was seeking. 45 As the first letter of the Armenian alphabet, ֭/‫ך‬, is also the first letter in the Armenian word for God, ֭‫קך׻ױ׸׶‬, the Armenian alphabet fulfills the declaration of Christ Himself that, “I am the alpha and omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end” (Rev. 22.13). 46 Awetik‘ean 1859, p. 509, n. 2, thinks this to be a translation of Cyril’s third Mystagogical Catechesis, though he notes that the latter work was intended as an instruction and not as an offering. See also Russell 1997, 96–7, n. 12.

364

sergio la porta V. Conclusion

In the above presentation I have tried to sketch a very broad development in Armenian attitudes toward language. At the very outset of the Armenian literary tradition, the Armenian language was intimately associated with the process of Christianization and was instrumental in the success of the conversion through the translation of the holy scriptures and patristic writings. This translation enterprise in turn endowed the Armenian language with a certain sanctity, especially with regards to the divinely bestowed alphabet. Interestingly enough, as the tradition evolved, the Armenians did not develop any exclusive attitude towards their language. The Armenians do not claim any particular holiness for their language; they do not posit it as the language of Eden, or the language spoken before the tower of Babel. This contrasts, for example, with the Old Irish commentators who did attribute precisely such status to Gaelic.47 The grammatical tradition enhanced the vitality of the Armenian attitude to language. Consistently faced with formal grammatical differences between Greek and Armenian, the early grammarians searched for meta-grammatical correspondences in the physical cosmos to represent the universality of grammar. The later generations of commentators continued and expanded these speculations even once the Greek base text had long been out of their reach. Grigor Narekac‘i and Grigor Tat‘ewac‘i—two very different authors, writing in distinct genres—share a common vision of the written word as a vehicle for redemptive transformation. Their insights rest squarely on the shoulders of the linguistic positions of the early Armenian Fathers and the grammatical tradition; but they have both filtered the observations of their predecessors through the lens of the liturgy which informs their approaches to the world as well as the word. It is a viewpoint which seeks to find the physical presence of God in every corner of the cosmos. Within this paradigm, there can be no ‘holy language’ exclusive of others, as all languages are translations of the true holy text—God’s love and compassion for his creation. It is that language of love in which God spoke to man at the beginning that we have garbled time and time again. All languages, then, including those of the natural universe and liturgical symbols, are but codes that invite translation in order to regain that original language in which there is no separation between thought

47

See Eco 1998, 28–9.

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and word, subject and object, and signifier and signified, but only the unity and harmony of love. It is a translation achieved through laborious meditation and penitence, ceaseless prayer and worship. It involves the death and regeneration of the individual through a spiritual conversion and transformation—a true metanoia—resulting in the full restoration of man’s glory. References Adontz, N. 1970. Denys de Thrace et les Commentateurs arméniens. Tr. R. Hotterbeex. Louvain: Impr. Orientaliste. Ananean, P. 1961. “La data e le circostanze della consecrazione di S. Gregorio Illuminatore.” Le Muséon 84: 43–73, 319–60. Anderson, G. 2001. The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination. Lousiville: Westminster John Knox Press. Awetik‘ean, G. 1859. ׂ‫( ק׻ױץרמ׹ך‬Narek-explanation). Venice: Mxit‘arist Press. Cousins, E. 2000. “The Fourfold Sense of Scripture in Christian Mysticism.” In Mysticism and Sacred Scripture, ed. S. Katz. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 118–37. Cowe, P. 1990/91. “The two Armenian Versions of Chronicles. Their Origin and Translation Technique.” Revue des Études Arméniennes 22: 53–96. Cox, C. 1982. “Biblical Studies and the Armenian Bible, 1955–1980.” Revue Biblique 89: 99–113. Eco, U. 1998. Serendipities: Language and Lunacy. Tr. W. Weaver. San Diego, New York, London: Harcourt Brace. Ervine, R. 1988. “Yovhannēs Erznkac‘i Pluz’s Compilation of Commentary on Grammar.” Ph.D. diss. Columbia University. ———— 1995. “Yovhannēs Erznkac‘i Pluz’s Compilation of Commentary on Grammar as a starting point for the study of Medieval Grammars.” In New Approaches to Medieval Armenian Language and Literature, ed. J.J.S. Weitenberg. Dutch Studies in Armenian Language and Literature 3. Amsterdam, Atlanta: Rodopi, 149–66. Garsoïan, N. 1976. “Prolegomena to a study of the Iranian Elements in Arsacid Armenia.” Handes Amsorya 90: 177–234. ———— 1982. “The Iranian Substratum of the ‘Agat‘angełos’ Cycle.” In East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period. Ed. N. Garsoïan, T. Mathews, and R. Thomson. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 151–74. Grigor Narekac‘i 1985. ‫( ׯךמע׻ױל׹מכ׫ׄ
ׯךמ׸ך׀‬Book of Lamentation). Ed. P. Xač‘atryan and A. Łazinyan. Erevan. Grigor Tat‘ewac‘i 1993. ֯‫( ׺ׯך׭׺׹ךּ
׽׹פ‬Book of Questions), Jerusalem: St. James Press [repr. of Constantinople edition of 1729]. Isaac of Nineveh 1995. Isaac of Nineveh (Isaac the Syrian): “the second part,” chapters IV–XLI. Tr. S. Brock. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 555 [scrip. syr. 225]. Louvain: Peeters. Koriwn 1985. ‫( פ׺ױ׸װך׀
׽׹ך׊‬Life of Maštoc‘). Intr. K. Maksoudian. Delmar, NY: Caravan [repr. of edition of M. Abełean, Erevan 1941]. La Porta, S. 2001. “ ‘The Theology of the Holy Dionysius,’ Volume III of Grigor Tat‘ewac‘i’s Book of Questions: Introduction, Translation, and Commentary,” Ph.D. diss. Harvard University. ———— 2006a. “The Liturgical Imagination of Medieval Armenian Monasticism.” In Worship Traditions in Armenia and the Neighboring Christian East. Ed. R.R. Ervire, AVANT 3. New York: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press/St. Nersess Theological Seminary, 197–221.

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———— 2006b. “A Theology of Mysticism: The Vision of God and the Trinity in the Thought of Grigor Narekac‘i.” In Saint Grégoire de Narek: Théologien et Mystique. Ed. J.-P. Mahé and B.L. Zekiyan, Orientalia Christiana Analecta 275, Rome: Pontificio Istituto Orientale, 83–97. ———— Forthcoming (a). “To walk in the footsteps of Christ: Grigor Tat’ewac’i’s exhortation to pilgrimage.” In Two Millennia of Christianity in Jerusalem: Proceedings of The Third International Conference on Christian Heritage, Jerusalem, June 28–30, 2000. ———— Forthcoming (b). “The Image of the Beloved in Grigor Narekac’i’s Book of Lamentations.” In Proceedings of the International symposium on the Millennium of St. Grigor Narekac‘i, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, 10–11 October, 2003. Ed. J. Russell. Leclerq, J. 1988. The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture. Tr. C. Mizrahi. New York: Fordham University Press. Leloir, L. 1960. “Versions arméniennes.” Dictionnaire de la Bible, Supplément. Paris, VI: 810–18. Lyonnet, S. 1935. “Aux origines de l’église arménienne, la traduction de la Bible et la témoignage des historiens arméniens.” Revue des sciences religieuses 25: 170–87. Mahé, J.-P. 1988. “Traduction et Exégèse: Réflexions sur l’Exemple Arménien.” In Mélanges Antoines Guillaumont. Cahiers d’Orientalisme XX. Geneva: Patrick Cramer. Mahé, J.-P. and A. Mahé 2000. Grégoire de Narek: Tragédie, Matean ołbergut‘ean. Le Livre de Lamentation. Louvain: Peeters. Maksoudian, K. 1998. “Chapter II: The Religion of Armenia.” In Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Art, Religion, and Society. Ed. T. Mathews and R. Wieck. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 24–37. Manandian, H. 1928. ׁ‫( ס׹מׯׯך״׹׃
ׯך׭׺ךל׹ךֲ
ך׹ׯ
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ס׺ױ׹׳ם
ׯךכךׯ׻ױ‬The Hellenizing School and the Stages of its Development). Vienna: Mxit‘arist Press. Mercier, Ch. 1978/79. “L’école hellénistique dans la littérature arméniennes,” Revue des Études Arméniens. I: 59–75. Movsēs Xorenac‘i 1991. ‫( ׺ױ׮ךּ
ׯ׻פע׻ױ׭׸ך׆‬History of the Armenians). Erevan [facs. ed. by A. Sargsean of the edition of M. Abełean and S. Yarut‘iwnean, Tiflis, 1913]. Nersoyan, H.J. 1985/86. “The Why and When of the Armenian Alphabet.” Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies 2: 51–71. Peeters, P. 1929. “Pour l’histoire des origines de l’alphabet arménien.” Revue des Études Arméniennes, o.s., 9: 203–37. Russell, J. 1987. Zoroastrianism in Armenia. Harvard Iranian Series V. Cambridge, MA: Dept. NELC, National Association for Armenian Studies and Research. ———— 1990/1. “Two Notes on Biblical Tradition and Native Epic in the ‘Book of Lamentation’ of St. Grigor Narekac‘i.” Revue des Études Arméniennes 22: 135–45. ———— 1994. “On the Origin and Invention of the Armenian Script.” Le Muséon 107.3– 4: 317–33. ———— 1997. “Scythians and Avesta in an Armenian Vernacular Paternoster, and a Zok Paternoster.” Le Muséon 110.1–2: 91–114. Spuler, B. 1955. Die Mongolen in Iran: Politik, Verwaltung und Kultur der Ilchanzeit 1220–1350. 2nd ed. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag. Stone, M., D. Kouymjian, H. Lehmann 2001. Album of Armenian Paleography. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press. Tēr-Petrosyan, L. 1984. “La plus ancienne traduction arménienne des Chroniques. Étude préliminaire.” Revue des Études Arméniennes 18: 215–25. Terian. A. 1982. “The Hellenizing School: Its Time, Place, and Scope of Activities Reconsidered.” In East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period. Ed. N. Garsoïan, T. Mathews, and R. Thomson. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 175–86.

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Thomson, R. 1976. “Number Symbolism and patristic exegesis in some early Armenian writers.” Handes Amsorya 90: 117–38. ———— 1982. “The Formation of the Armenian Literary Tradition.” East of Byzantium: Syria and Armenia in the Formative Period. Ed. N. Garsoïan, T. Mathews, and R. Thomson. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 135–50. ———— 1988/89. “Mission, conversion, Christianization: the Armenian example.” Harvard Ukranian Studies 12/13: 28–45. Urbaniak-Walczak, K. 1992. Die “Conceptio per aurem”: Untersuchungen zum Marienbild in Ägypten unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Malereien in El-Bagawat. Altenberge: Oros. Weitenberg, J.J.S. 1997. “Eusebius of Emesa and Armenian Translations.” In The Book of Genesis in Jewish and Christian Interpretation. Ed. J. Frishman and L. van Rompay. Louvain: Peeters, 163–70. Zuckerman, C. 1996. A Repertory of Published Armenian Translation of Classical Texts. Jerusalem: Institute of Asian and African Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

INDEX OF NAMES ʚAbd al-Wahhāb al-Shaʚrāni 37, 62 ʚAbdallāh al-Hˢ abashī 36, 37 Abhayākaragupta 212 Abhidharma 207, 216 Abhinavagupta 330, 333 Abhinisˢkramanˢa-sūtra 203 Abraham 350 Abraham Azulai of Hevron 246–49, 251, 252 Abraham Yehoshua Heschel of Apta (Rabbi) 240 Abū Hˢ ātim al-Rāzī 45, 58 Abū Nuʚaym al-Isˢfahānī 38, 39 Abū Yazīd al-Bistˢāmī 57 Abulafia 9 Adam 11, 28, 69, 70, 72–79, 189, 350, 360 Adam Book (Adamgirkʚ) 77 Against Heresies (Irenaeus) 180 Agastya 3 Agatʚangełos (Agathangelos) 72, 73, 75, 78 Ahˢbāsh 36, 38 Ahˢmad al-Rifāʚī 36, 37, 60–62 Al-burhān al-muʙayyid 60 Al-Hˢ akīm al-Tirmidhī 35, 40, 44, 45, 47, 48, 51, 52, 58 Al-Hujwīrī 39 Al-Kalābādhī 39 Al-Sˢayyādī Muhˢammad 61 Al-Tˢabarī 48, 49, 51 Alamˢ kārasarvasva 93 Ālikālimantrajñāna (or Ālikālimantrakrama) 221 Amarakośa 287 Amun-Re 19, 20, 23 Ānanda 210, 217 Ānanda-laharī 317, 318, 320 Ānanda-laharī-t ˢīkā 329 Ānandavardhana 298, 314 Apophthegmata patrum 193 Appayya Dīksˢita 93, 105 Arˆakʚel Siwnecʚi (of Siwnikʚ) 77, 78 Arapacana 204–06, 212, 214, 216 Aristotle 46, 85 Arjuna 296 Arjuna Wiwāha 288 Ars Grammatica 346, 359, 360

Arśapraśamani Sūtra 210 Arthavarga 216 Asanˆga 211 Asita 215 Aśoka 216, 275 Asˢt ˢasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitāpañjikāsārottamā 212 Asˢt ˢasāhasrikāprajñāpāramitā-vrˢttimarmakaumudī 212 Atˢiyārkkunallār 311 Atum 17, 23, 25, 26 Baal 70 Badei Haaron 264 Bahye (Rabbi) 241 Barsanuphius 12, 177–79, 181–97 Bde-bar-gshegs-pa’i Bstan-pa Rin-po-che-la ’Jug-pa’i Lam-gyi Rim-pa Rnam-par Bshad-pa 213 Beit Habechirah 241 Bhagavatyāmnāyānuśārinˢi-nāmavyākhyā 212 Bharata 223, 224 Bhartrˢhari 7, 9, 306, 315, 333, 337, 338 Bhāsˢā Tanakuŋ 296, 297 Bhāsˢāprānˢa 287 Bereshit rabbah 29 Bhāmaha 92, 93 Bhavya 211, 212 Bible 4, 18, 21, 27, 69, 81 Gen 1 69, 71, 72 Gen 1.2 70 Gen 1.26–30 71–2 Gen 1.27 72 Gen 1.28–30 78 Gen 2 71, 72 Gen 2.1–19 71 Gen 2.7 72, 261 Gen 2.19 73 Gen 2.20 28 Gen 3.20 358 Gen 5.3 78 Ex 3.13–16 75 Ex 3.16, 75 76 Ex 6.1–5 75 Ex 19.16–19 239 Ex 31.18 85

370

index of names

Lev 19.2 186 Num 14.17 264 Dt 4.15–18 31 Dt 5.19 243 Dt 6.8 196 1Kgs 19.12 237 Job 32.8 251 Ps 29.4 237 Ps 65.2 263 Ps 118.16 184 Prov 4.4 196 Prov 2.5 251 PrMan 1.3 69–70 Song 1.2 361, 363 Isa 7.14 186 Isa 8.18 197 Jer 23.24 238 Jer 31.11 238 Ezek 1.13–14 187 Mt 1.23 186 Mt 25.31–34 197 Mt 25.33 183 Jn 45 Jn 17.21 185 Rom 12.16 192 1Cor 14.22 193 1Cor 15.28 197 Gal 4.3 188 Col 2.8 188 Col 2.20 188 Heb 2.13 197 Rev 22.13 363 Bo-dong-pa Phyogs-las-rnam-rgyal 220 Bodhisattvabhūmi 211 Bohn, W. 9 Bonaventura 349 Book of Lamentation (Matean Ołbergutʚean) 360, 361 Book of Questions (Girkʚ Harcʚmancʚ, Grigor Tatʚewacʚi) 76, 348–52, 357, 359 Book of Questions (Girkʚ Harcʚmancʚ, Vanakan vardapet) 76 Brahma 281 Breaths of Beauty and Revelations of Majesty 41 Brethren of Purity (Ikhwān al-sˢafā’) 46, 47, 58 Buddha 202, 203, 205, 208, 210, 211, 217, 218, 222, 224, 225 Cai Yong 111 Chandahˢ-karanˢa

287

Changes (Yi), see Yi Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn Annals), 126 Chunqiu Gongyang zhuan (Gongyang tradition) 126 Commentary on Song of Songs (Grigor Narekacʚi) 73 Coravidhvamˢ sana Dhāranˢī (’Phags-pa Mi-rgod Rnam-par ’Joms-pa zhes byaba’i Gzungs) 210 Corpus Hermeticum 32 Cratylus 7, 86 Cudworth, R. 31 Cui Huan 111 Cyril of Jerusalem 363 Dada 9 Dalai Lama 204 Damˢ sˢtrˢ asena 212, 214 Danˢdˢin 92–103, 105–7, 298, 310, 311, 314 Daniel 358 David of Ganjak 73 Dawitʚ Anyałtʚ (David the Invincible Philosopher) 347, 348, 351, 359 De clericum institutione 4 De Mysteriis 28 Deng Xiaoping, 111 Derekh Etz Hahayim 250 Derge Canon (Derge Tanjur) 201, 221 Derrida, J. 81, 293 Devarim Rabbah 241 Devī-śataka 314 Dhamadhuma 221 Dhāranˢī-sūtras 209–11, 225 Dharmagunˢa 290 Dharmapāda 216 Dharmaraksˢa 204, 205, 208 Dharmaskandha 216 Dˢ inˢdiˢ ma 318 Dionysius the Areopagite 357, 360 Dionysius Thrax 5, 346, 359 Diotima 88 Divine Names 357 Documents (Shu), see Shu Duan Yucai 154 Elijah (Gaon of Vilna) 247 Ełišē 74, 78 Emek ha-Melekh 249 Epistle of Barnabas 187 Eretz Tov 253 Eusebius of Caesarea 187

index of names Evagrius Ponticus 183–85 Eve 358, 360 Exodus Rabbah 237, 239, 265 Freud, S. 17 Fusˢūsˢ al-hˢikam (The Gemstones of Wisdom) 55 Futūhˢāt al-makkiyya 50 Gandha 221 Gaudˢa-pāda 320 Gdams-ngag Mdzod 221 Geb 17, 18, 19 Giordano Bruno 30, 31 Gongyang Tradition (Chunqiu Gongyang zhuan), see Chunqiu Gongyang zhuan Gospel of Truth 188 Gregory of Nyssa 358 Grigor Magistros 347 Grigor Narekacʚi 14, 73, 360–64 Grigor Tatʚewacʚi 14, 76–79, 348–54, 357–60, 364 Gri-lung-pa 213 Guoyu (Discourses of the States) 125 Haribhadra 225 Hariwaŋśa (HW) 297, 298 Hatshepsut (Queen of Egypt) 19 Hayim Vital (Rabbi) 239, 240, 245 Hemdat Yamim 260 Heraclitus 82 Hercules 83 Hermes Trismegistos 46 Hermogenes 7, 8 Herodotus 83, 84 Hesed Le Avraham 246 Hevajra Tantra 221 Hˢ ilyat al-awliyā 38 Hippolytus 180 Horus 18, 25, 28 Huan 141, 149 Huan (Zuoce, ʚMaker of Records’) 127, 130, 132, 133, 158, 159 Hyllus 84 Iamblichus 28, 31, 32 Ibn ʚAjība 63 Ibn al-ʚArabī 9, 10, 40, 41, 44, 49–58, 60 Ibn al-Dunyā 38, 64 Ibn ʚAtˢāllāh al-Iskandarī 63 Ibrāhim ibn Adham 39 Indra 326 Infancy Gospel of Thomas 180

371

Irenaeus 180 Isaac the Blind 261, 264, 265 Isaac Luria (Rabbi) 239, 245, 261 Isaac of Nineveh 353, 354 Isis 18 Īqāzˢ al-himam fī sharhˢ al-hˢikam 63 Itzhak Haver (Rabbi) 247, 248, 252, 264 Jābir ibn Hˢ ayyān 58 Jacob Ben Sheset (Rabbi) 241 Jacob Joseph of Polony (Rabbi) 254 Jaggadalavihāra 212 Jerome 179, 187, 194 Jesus Christ 45, 55–57, 61, 79, 184–86, 190, 358, 360 John of Beersheba 177, 178, 193, 195 John Climacus 194, 195 John Milton 74 Joseph Karo (Rabbi) 262 Kaivalyâśrama 322, 323, 335 Kakawin 13, 279, 286, 288, 290, 293, 294, 297–99, 301, 302 Kālidāsa 289 Kālimārgabhāvanā 221 Kāma 326 Kātantra 287 Katyāyana 287 Kavi-rāja Panˢtiˢ tar 319, 320 Kāvyādarśa (Mirror of Poetry) 93, 94, 100, 105, 106, 310, 314 Kāvyālamˢ kārasūtravrˢtti 93 Kāvya-prakāśa 305 Kephalai Gnostica 184 Keśarī 297 Khepri 23 Khnum 21 Kitāb al-hawātif 64 Kitāb al-t ˢabaqāt al-kubrā 37, 62 Kitāb al-Zīna 45 Kol ha’oneh 241 Kook, A.I. (Rabbi) 236, 265 Koriwn 344, 345 Krishna 297 Krˢs ˢnˢāyana (KY) 290–93, 299, 300 Kumārasamˢ bhava 289 Kunˢdˢalinī 324, 325, 329, 331–33, 335, 339 The Ladder of Divine Ascent 194, 195 Laksˢmī-dhara 317, 320–22, 324–37 Lalitā 318 Lalitavistara Sūtra 203, 204, 206, 207, 215, 217

372

index of names

Levi Isaac of Berdichev (Rabbi) 262 Life of Maštocʚ 344, 345 Liji 114, 126 Liu Xin 109 Ma Jianzhong 110 Mahābhāsˢya 3, 337 Mahavairocana-sūtra (MVS) 279–81 Maimonidies 233, 234, 236, 263 Majapahit (dynasty) 302 Mālinīvijayottara tantra 225 Malinowski, B. 5 Mallinātha 329 Mammatˢa 305, 306, 310 Mamshādh al-Dīnawarī 62, 63 Mañjuśrī 204, 205 Mao Zedong 111 Maor Vashemesh 253 Mary 358 Maurus Rabanus 4 Meccan Revelations 40, 53 Memphite Theology 25, 28, 29 Mechilta De Rabbi Shimeon 237 Mechilta De Rabbi Yishmael 262 Meir Ibn Gabbai 242, 262, 264 Meno 86 Mesrop Maštocʚ 344, 345 Midrash Rabbi Akiva 187 Midrash Tanhuma 238 Mīmāmˢ sā-sūtra 305 Mirror of Poetry (Kāvyādarśa), see Kāvyādarśa The Mysteries of the Greek Letters 186–90 Moses 85, 196, 350 Moses Cordovero (Rabbi) 245–47, 249, 251, 254, 263 Moses Hayim Luzatto (Rabbi) 250–52 Movsēs Kʚertoł 347, 348 Mozi 115 Mu (Middle Western Zhou King) 112, 140 Muhˢammad 49, 60 Munidatta 218, 219 Munˢimatālamˢ kāra 212 Muttusvāmi Dīksˢitar 339 Mystagogical Catechesis 363 Naftali Bachrach 249, 262 Nag Hammadi 9, 180 Nahmanidies 233, 234, 264 Nahum (Rabbi) 255 Najm al-Dīn Kubrā 41, 58 Nammālvār 311

Nandikeśvara 319 Narsai of Nisibis 1, 2, 10 Nātˢyaśāstra 223 Nebwenenef 24 Nemesius of Emesa 358 Nephthys 18 Nersēs of Lambron 75, 78 Noah 350 Nut (Egyptian god of heaven) 17 Odes (Shi), see Shi On the Vices Opposed to the Virtues (Evagrius Ponticus) 183 On the Eight Thoughts (Evagrius Ponticus) 185 Or ha-Meir 240 Origen 4 Osiris 18, 19 Otiot de Rabbi Akiva 180, 187, 190 Pachomius 179, 194 Pānˢini 3, 91, 105, 278, 323, 332, 336–38 Pardes Rimonim 246 Pārthayajña (Pyn) 295, 296 Paśpasâhnika 305 Paśupati-Śiva 326 Patañjali 3, 305, 337 Penitence of Adam 78 Perfection of Insight Sūtras 205, 207, 209, 213–16, 225 Pesikta de Rav Kahana 237 Phadampa 221, 225 Phaedrus 86 Philebus 86 Philo 362 Plato 7, 27, 82, 86, 88 Plotinus 84 Plutarch 3, 85 Praeparatio Evangelica 187 Prajāpati 308, 326 Praktikos 184, 185 Pratāpa-rudrīya 310 Ptah 21, 25–28 Pusˢpadanta 320 Pythagoras 46 Qalonimus Qalman Epstein (Rabbi) 253, 258 Qiang (Shi, ʚSecretary’) 167, 169–71 Qilādat al-jawāhir fi dhikr al-ghwath al-Rifāʚī wa-atbāʚihi al-akābir 61 Qin dynasty 165, 166 Qin First Emperor 110, 112, 113

index of names Qing dynasty 120 Questions and Answers (Eratopokriseis), 178–88, 191–97 Qur’ān 2:1 48, 49 2:105 60 2:117 35 2:260 35 3:47 35 3:49 35 3:59 35 3:74 60 4:171 56 5:110 35, 55, 61 6:73 35 6:115 42, 44 7:137 44 11:119 44 16:40 35, 41 18:109 44 19:35 35 36:82 35 38:7 63, 64 40:68 35 74:24 63, 64 76:30 41 81:29 41 Rāma-kavi 318 Rāmāyanˢa 298 Rasā’il Ikhwān al-sˢafā’ (Epistles of the Brethren of Purity) 46 Rashi 241 Ratnākaraśānti 212 Reflection on the Holy Liturgy (Nersēs of Lambron) 75 The Refutation of all Heresies (Hippolytus) 180 Remnant Zhou Documents (Yi Zhou Shu), see Yi Zhou Shu Republic, 86 Rĕrajahan 271, 273, 274, 277, 278, 281, 282, 285, 287, 288, 300, 302 Risālat al-hˢūrūf (The Epistle on Letters), 45, 46 Risālat al-mī wal-wāw wal nūn 53 Rukminˢī 292, 297 Ruyyaka 93 Śabara 305 Sadāprarudita 224, 25 Sāgara 221 Sahl al-Tustarī 45, 46, 48, 58 Śakti 326

373

Samatāvastupradīpa 221 Samvaracakrālikālimahāyogabhāvanā, 221 Samyutta Nikāya 218 Sang Hyang Kamahāyanan Mantranāya (SHM) 279, 281 Sang Hyang Kamahāyanikan (SHKM), 279, 281, 282 Sanˆgīta-ratnâkara 332 Śanˆkara (Śanˆkarâcārya) 308, 317, 319, 320 Sarasvatī 319, 320 Śārnˆgadeva 332 Satan 358 Śatasāhasrikā-pañcavimˢ śatisāhasrikāasˢt ˢādaśasāhasrikā-prajñāpāramitābrˢhat ˢt ˢīkā 212 Saubhāgya-vardhanī 322, 335 Saundarya-laharī (SL) 317–25, 331, 334, 337–39 Sefat Emmet 252 Sefer Hatemunah 263, 264 Sefer Yesˢira 9, 43, 180, 187, 189, 191, 233, 245, 255, 262 Seridus (Abbot) 191–93 Seth (Egyptian god) 18 Shanfu Shan 141, 149–52 Shang dynasty 112, 116, 120, 121, 124, 153–55, 165 Shem Tov ibn Gaon (Rabbi) 264, 265 Shenrab (Lord) 215 Shi (Odes) 117, 120–26 Shneur Zalman of Liady 239, 248, 261 Shnei Luhot Habrith 243 Shu (Documents) 117, 120–27, 155, 157, 164 Shu (Egyptian god of air) 17, 18, 25 Shuowen jiezi 109, 116, 154, 155 Siddhārtha 203, 206, 215, 225 Śiva 318–20, 322, 323, 326, 330 Śivā 323 Smāradahana (SD) 289, 290, 292 Socrates 7, 8, 86, 88 Song (Shi, ʚSecretary’) 133, 136, 139–41, 149, 150, 152 Song of Songs Rabbah 238 Sophist 86 Sophocles 83, 84 Spring and Autumn Annals (Chunqiu), see Chunqiu Śrīvidyā 13 Stepʚanos Siwnecʚi 347 Stepʚanos Tarōnacʚi Asołik 354 Sufyān ign ʚUyayna 38, 64

374

index of names

Sumanasāntaka (Sum) 295 Sun Xingyan 155, 156 Sutasoma (Sut) 279, 294 Suvarnˢaprabhāsa Sūtra 209 Swarawyañjana Tutur (ST) 277, 278, 280, 281, 283, 284 Symposium 86, 88 Taittīyaprātiśākhya 279 Talmud BT Berakhot 6B 238 BT Berakhot 7B–8A 242 BT Berakhot 21B 241 BT Berakhot 24A 263 BT Shabbat 89A 264 BT Shabbat 119B 241, 244 BT Yomah 20B 237 BT Ta’anit 26B 239 BT Hagigah 14a 236 BT Nedarim 2A 233 BT Nedarim 32A 244 BT Gittin 6B 243 BT Sanhedrin 26B 237 BT Sanhedrin 4A 237 BT Avodah Zara 19B 252 Tambiah, S. 5 Tanakuŋ 296 Tanˢt ˢiyalanˆkāram 311, 314 Tantra 13, 235, 256–59, 281, 289, 309, 310, 316, 317, 322, 326, 329, 333–35, 337, 339 Tantrâloka 333 Tanya 248 Tārā (Bodhisattva) 212 Teaching of St. Gregory 72, 74, 76 The Teachings by Aksˢayamati 208, 209 Tefnut 17, 18, 25 Tevāram 319 Theaetetus 86 Themistocles 83 Thon-mi Sambhotaˢ 221 Thoth 25, 27, 28 Tiruñānacampantar 319 Tiruviruttam 311 Trachiniae 83 Trdat (King of Armenia) 344 The Tree of Life 349 Tripura-sundarī 317, 318, 320, 327, 329–31, 335 Tutur Aji Saraswati (TAS) 275, 277, 278, 281, 283 Tzaddok Hacohen of Lublin (Rabbi) 262, 264

Udānavarga 216, 217 Upanisˢads 257, 329, 330 Chāndogya Upanisˢad 306, 308, 309, 323, 329, 334 Brˢhad-āranˢyaka Upanisˢad 307 Vāc 10 Vajracchedikā Sūtra 215 Valery, P. 237 Vāmana 93 Vanakan vardapet, see Yovhannēs Tawušecʚi Veda 3, 212, 256, 257, 289, 305, 307–9, 317, 319, 326, 329, 339 Vidyācakravartin 93 Vidyānātha 310 Vīnˢāpāda 218, 219, 221 Visˢnˢu 326, 328 Viśvāmitra 203, 205 Vowels and Consonants Tantra 217, 220, 221, 225 Wang Guowei 120 Warburton, W. 31 Wedawatī 281 Wrˢttasañcaya 287 Wu (Zhou King) 124 Xu Shen 109, 154 Xuan (Zhou King) 149 Yamalā 319 Yamm 70 Yehudah Aryeh Leib of Gur (Rabbi) 252 Yehudah ha-Levi (Rabbi) 233 Yeshiah Horowitz of Prague 243 Yi (Changes) 117, 122, 126 Yi Zhou Shu (Remnant Zhou Documents), 124, 125, 155, 157 Yili (Ceremonial Rites) 126 Yishayahu Jacob Halevi 253, 262 You (Taishi, ʚGrand Secretary’) 127, 132 Yovhannēs Erznkacʚi 348, 359 Yovhannēs Vanakan vardapet Tawušecʚi, 76, 79 Yun (Shi, ʚSecretary’) 159 Zeev Wolf of Zhitomir (Rabbi) 240 Zeus 82, 84 Zhao (Early Western Zhou King) 118, 140 Zhao Yi 111 Zheng Xuan 156

index of names Zhou dyansty 12, 112, 114–27, 130, 133, 136, 139–41, 149–51, 153, 155, 157–59, 164, 165, 167, 170, 171 Zhouli 115, 116, 126

375

Zohar 189, 236, 239, 242–44, 247, 263 Zosimos 189, 190 Zuo zhuan (Zuo Tradition) 125, 126

JERUSALEM STUDIES IN RELIGION AND CULTURE The JSRC book series aims to publish the best of scholarship on religion, on the highest international level. Jerusalem is a major center for the study of monotheistic religions, or “religions of the book”. The creation of a Center for the Study of Christianity has added a significant emphasis on Christianity. Other religions, like Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Chinese religion, are studied here, too, as well as anthropological studies of religious phenomena. This book series will publish dissertations, re-written and translated into English, various monographs and books emerging from conferences. Volume 1 The NußayrÊ-#AlawÊ Religion. An Enquiry into its Theology and Liturgy. Meir M. Bar-Asher & Aryeh Kofsky. 2002. ISBN 9004 12552 3 Volume 2 Homer, the Bible, and Beyond. Literary and Religious Canons in the Ancient World. Edited by Margalit Finkelberg & Guy G. Stroumsa. 2003. ISBN 9004 12665 1 Volume 3 Christian Gaza in Late Antiquity. Edited by Brouria BittonAshkelony & Aryeh Kofsky. 2004. ISBN 9004 13868 4 Volume 4 Axial Civilizations and World History. Edited by Johann P. Arnason, S.N. Eisenstadt & Björn Wittrock. 2004. ISBN 9004 13955 9 Volume 5 Rational Theology in Interfaith Communication. Abu l-\usayn al-BaßrÊ’s Mu#tazilÊ Theology among the Karaites in the F§ãimid Age. Edited by Wilferd Madelung and Sabine Schmidtke. 2006. ISBN 978 90 04 15177 2 Volume 6 The Poetics of Grammar and the Metaphysics of Sound and Sign. Edited by S. La Porta and D. Shulman. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15810 8 Volume 7 Islamic Piety in Medieval Syria. Mosques, Cemeteries and Sermons under the Zangids and Ayyåbids (1146-1260). Daniella Talmon-Heller. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15809 2