The Wedding of the Great Shishlam
Mandaean text
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Copies of the text include Manuscript 38 of the Drower Collection (DC 38), currently held at the Bodleian Library. A full transliteration, English translation, and commentary were published as a book by E. S. Drower in 1950.
Manuscripts held at the Bibliothèque nationale de France include:
- Code Sabéen 15 (Mark Lidzbarski's F manuscript) (partial copy)
- Code Sabéen 25 (Mark Lidzbarski's E manuscript) (partial copy)
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Contents
The DC 38 manuscript has five parts. However, since Part 5 is a duplicate of Part 1, there are only four unique parts.
- Part 1 (about 240 lines): instructions on how to perform each step of the Mandaean wedding ceremony, with ritual and Qulasta prayer sequences
- Part 2 (about 110 lines): Qulasta prayers 179–199
- Part 3 (about 1,320 lines): Qulasta prayers 200–256 (including the kḏ azil bhira dakia prayers from 233–256)
- Part 4 (just over 170 lines): titled "The weekly forecast of hourly fortune" (Šabania Šaia), an astrological treatise dealing with the planets and times of the day and week
Part 2 has 16 hymns, and Part 3 has 55 hymns. They are not numbered in Drower (1950).
Prayers
The qabin prayers in the Qulasta constitute prayers 179–232, all of which are also duplicated in Parts 2 and 3 of The Wedding of the Great Shishlam. There are two sequences, with the latter sequence consisting of two series.
- 180–199 (identical to 285–304): Qabin prayers (1st sequence) (Prayers 1–20 in Part 2 of the Oxford Collection in Mark Lidzbarski's Mandäische Liturgien (1920); also repeated in Part 2 of The Wedding of the Great Shishlam)
- 181: putting the lbuša (garment) on Manda d-Hayyi
- 182: putting the himiana (belt) on Manda d-Hayyi
- 183: putting the ksuia (tunic) on Manda d-Hayyi
- 184: putting the naṣipa (stole), named Šamašeil, on Manda d-Hayyi
- 185: putting the taga (crown) on Manda d-Hayyi
- 186: putting the šarwala (leggings), named Nṣab, on Manda d-Hayyi
- 187: putting the margna (staff) on Manda d-Hayyi
- 188: putting the klila (wreath) on Yawar
- 200–214: Qabin prayers (2nd sequence, 1st series) (201–205 correspond to Prayers 21–33 in Part 2 of the Oxford Collection in Mark Lidzbarski's Mandäische Liturgien (1920); also repeated in Part 3 of The Wedding of the Great Shishlam)
- 208: the bridegroom's various pieces of clothing
- 210: the Seven bowing down before the bridegroom
- 215–232: Qabin prayers (2nd sequence, 2nd series) (repeated in Part 3 of The Wedding of the Great Shishlam): songs praising the bride and bridegroom
The kḏ azil bhira dakia prayers, which constitute prayers 233–256 of the Qulasta and are repeated in Part 3 of The Wedding of the Great Shishlam, come after qabin prayer 232.
All of the prayers above have been published using typesetted Mandaic by Majid Fandi Al-Mubaraki in Ktaba ḏ-Qabin (Book of Marriage), which makes up Part 2 in Volume 2 of Al-Mubaraki's Qulasta set (initially published in 1999 and subsequently revised in 2010).
Prayer sequence
In Part 1 of The Wedding of the Great Shishlam, the prescribed sequence of Qulasta prayers (numbered below according to Drower's 1959 Canonical Prayerbook) to be recited is as follows.
- 26–28 (1st repetition)
- 26–28 (2nd repetition)
- 179
- 173
- 26–28 (3rd repetition)
- 35, 9
- 15–17
- 180
- 188
- 197–199
- 248
- 179
- 207–215
- 199
- kḏ azil bhira dakia prayers (253 is skipped)