Sogdian Tales

Abstract

The röle which the Manichæans played in the migration of tales and fables from East to West and West to East has received much attention in recent years, but next to nothing has been published of the abundant Iranian material which was found in Chinese Turkestan. The present collection of Sogdian stories, taken (with the possible exception of text J) from Manichæan manuscripts, is meant to close this gap. These stories are also of some interest from the linguist's point of view. For while the Christian and Buddhist Sogdian texts are valuable merely as repositories of vocables, the Manichæan texts alone (apart from the few available Sogdian documents and letters) give us a clear idea of the true structure and syntax of the Sogdian language, and this quality is nowhere better apparent than in these stories, which are sometimes pleasingly vivid. Even the translated texts are written in good Sogdian, partly because the Manichæans were better translators than their Christian and Buddhist compatriots, partly because it was easier to translate from Middle Persian or Parthian, languages closely related to Sogdian, than from Syriac or Chinese. How different real Sogdian was from the miserable stammer of the Christian and Buddhist translators is shown at a glance by the Sogdian Tale of Rustam, of which we have a larger fragment now, thanks to the publication of the Codices Sogdiani, Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Nationale (Mission Pelliot).