Yushamin (the Second Life)

Yushamin, called the Second Life and 'the Ancient One', is the first emanation to issue from the Great Life and stands at the head of the descending hierarchy of Lives. His role is comparatively obscure: the chief narrative attached to him is that of rebellion. Wishing to create a world of his own, he opposes the King of Light and is punished for it, though he is ultimately pardoned. The opening chapters of the Mandaean Book of John recount the progress of the rebellion of Yushamin and his sons and their eventual reconciliation. Buckley reads him as both a faultless light-world uthra and the prototype of a priest who has erred in ritual. He is the father of Abathur, the Third Life.

Parentage

• parent: Hayyi Rabbi (the Great Life)

Children

• Abathur (the Third Life, weigher of souls)

Domains

• first emanation

Powers

• to generate the further uthras of the lower world

Epithets

• YušaminMark Lidzbarski (trans.), Das Johannesbuch der Mandäer (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1915) (primary); E.S. Drower, The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1937) (secondary)

Relations

• subordinate to: Hayyi Rabbi (the Great Life)Yushamin is the Second Life, the first emanation proceeding from the Great Life, against whom he briefly rebels before reconciliation.Kurt Rudolph, 'Mandaeans ii. The Mandaean Religion', Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed., 2008) (secondary); Mark Lidzbarski (trans.), Das Johannesbuch der Mandäer (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1915) (primary)

Sources

• Yushamin, the Second Life, is the primal uthra emanated first from the Great Life, remembered chiefly for his rebellion against the King of Light and subsequent forgiveness.: Mark Lidzbarski (trans.), Das Johannesbuch der Mandäer (Giessen: Töpelmann, 1915) (primary); Kurt Rudolph, 'Mandaeans ii. The Mandaean Religion', Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed., 2008) (secondary); Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley, The Mandaeans: Ancient Texts and Modern People (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) (secondary)