Manda d-Hayyi (Knowledge of Life)

Manda d-Hayyi, 'Knowledge of Life', is the most important of the uthras (the emanated light-beings of Mandaeism). His name embodies the central concept of the faith — manda, saving knowledge or gnosis — and the Mandaeans take their own name from this word. Sent forth by the Great Life, he descends to the world of mortals to summon souls and reveal the way of ascent back to the World of Light. In the Mandaean Book of John he appears to John the Baptizer. He is closely bound up with Hibil Ziwa, with whom he is sometimes identified, though the two are treated as distinct beings in the liturgical and esoteric scrolls.

Domains

• saving knowledge gnosis
• revelation and messengership

Powers

• to bring the saving knowledge of Life to the world
• to summon and guide the souls of the faithful upward to the Light

Epithets

• Manda ḏ-Hiia

Relations

• subordinate to: Hayyi Rabbi (the Great Life)
• ally: Hibil Ziwa (Abel of Splendour)

Sources

• E.S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937)
• Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and Modern People (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002)
• Kurt Rudolph, 'Mandaeans ii. The Mandaean Religion', Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed., 2008)