Abstract
We are able to verify the variety of the religions of the Sogdians by the text fragments found in the Turfan oasis (East Turkistan, today’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China). They are housed in several libraries and museums in Europe, Japan, and China. The Berlin Turfan collection contains a large part of them. The catalogue of the Sogdian text fragments in the indigenous Sogdian script of that collection was completed in 2018. The fragments represent parts of the literature of Christian, Manichaean and Buddhist communities in Turfan from the eighth to eleventh century CE. The best represented religion in the homeland of the Sogdians is a type of the Zoroastrian religion, as evidenced by archaeological findings and wall paintings. However, there are only very few texts found in Turfan and other locations in Central Asia which could be interpreted as Zoroastrian. The discussion about the religious affiliation of those texts is going on. The religious background of some other text fragments from Turfan is difficult to identify as well. Two of these examples will be published here. A remarkable feature of the religious communities in Turfan is the multilingual character of their literature, reflecting the development and path of the believers and the multi-ethnical structure of the community.
Highlights
We are able to verify the variety of the religions of the Sogdians by the text fragments found in the Turfan oasis (East Turkistan, today’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China)
This article gives a short survey of the religions of the Sogdians, a population which lived [1] in Central Asia, speaking an Indo-European language known as Sogdian, which has come to our knowledge by several coins and numerous text materials from Central Asia as described below
The article shows the different religions followed by Sogdians in their homeland and in the di- [22] aspora as well
Summary
This article gives a short survey of the religions of the Sogdians, a population which lived [1] in Central Asia, speaking an Indo-European language known as Sogdian, which has come to our knowledge by several coins and numerous text materials from Central Asia as described below. Dians, so-called Sogdiana, and in the textual remains found along the Silk Road to China, mainly Turfan and Dunhuang 敦煌 and some graves in Ningxia 宁夏. The archaeological findings in the Sogdiana area, documents from Mt. Mugh, text fragments from the Turfan and Dunhuang areas, and grave inscriptions from tombs in today’s Ningxia region up to Xian give some insights into the history of the Sogdians and into their religions. An-Nadīm (tenth century CE) reported on the Manichaean community in Samarkand, its history, the schism of the community, the teachings, and the rituals of the Manichaeans in his Kitāb al-fihrist (Dodge 1970, 773–805) This testimony is mostly reliable and that is why it is useful for the research of the history of this religion. Thereafter the head of the Manicheans, their archegos, lived in Samarkand before the seat moved on to Turfan
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