Year of manufacture: 2005
Author: Zsuzsanna Gulácsi
Genre: History of Culture / Art History of Central Asia / Eastern Book Miniature / Study
Publisher: Brill
Series: Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies
English language
ISBN: 90-04-13994-X
Format: PDF
Number of Pages: 240

The material considered in the book was created in the context of the Manichaean religion in Eastern Central Asia. Between the 8th and 11th centuries, Manichaeism was accepted by local leading elites of Turkic speaking Uighurs, who founded the winter capital on the Silk Road in Kocho, near the modern oasis of Turfan in Northwest China. With local imperial patronage, this high-literary Gnostic religion introduced the West Asian book culture into the Turfan region. For almost three hundred years, the adherents of this religion, continued the tradition of book art, supplementing it with local cultural features, which eventually led to the emergence of a peculiar style, now known as the Turfan Manichaean book miniature. The basis of this work is the study of the Manichaean manuscripts of the Turfan Assembly in the Berlin Museum of Indian Art. In addition to analyzing the materials of this largest collection, the author supplemented the work with the results of processing samples from the world centers that hold the largest number of Manichaean monuments: the British Library, the Ryukoku University Manuscripts in Kyoto, the Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in St. Petersburg, the Turpan Museum in Turfan (Xinjiang - Uygur Autonomous Region in China).

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