Prayer LXXIII is one of the most beautiful poems in the Mandaean liturgy — the Letter, a divine passport written with Kushta (Truth), sealed with the signet ring of the Great Ones, and hung around the neck of the departing soul. As the soul ascends through the cosmic stations, each adversary — Daium and her seven sons, the chief toll-keepers at the Watchhouse of the Seven — asks the same question: "Who wrote the letter whose mystery no one knew?" The answer is always the same refrain: Perfected ones wrote it, faithful men secured it. The soul does not fight, does not speak, does not recite passwords. She flies, carrying the letter, and the letter does the work. The watchtower guards bow their heads; the Outflow of Splendor comes to meet her at the water-channels; the Life hears her call and sends a guide. She is established among the Uthras with an ether-crown on her head. Prayer LXXIV is the brief Sealing formula spoken over the departing soul — binding spirit and soul through the seal of Kushta. This text also appears in the Ginza Left (GL 108).
Good Works Translation from Classical Mandaic. Translated from the Mandaic text in Hebrew-letter transcription as published in Mark Lidzbarski's edition of Bodleian MS Marsh 691 (Mandaische Liturgien, Berlin, 1920), pages 111–115 (PDF pages 141–145). Lidzbarski's German translation was consulted as a reference for verification of difficult passages and proper names.
LXXIII. The Letter
In the Name of the Life.
A well-promising letter it is,
that goes out from the world.
A letter written with Kushta,
sealed with the signet ring of the Great Ones.
Perfected ones have written it;
faithful men have secured it.
They hung it around the neck of the soul
and sent her to the Gate of Life.
The soul in her wisdom
pressed her nail upon the letter.
Her nail she pressed upon the letter;
she laid it in splendor and covered it,
dipped it in light and veiled it.
How did it come about that Daium saw —
that the soul carried the letter?
How did it come about that Daium saw her,
while her seven sons were assembled around her?
They spoke:
"Who wrote the letter
whose mystery no one knew?
Who wrote the letter
that is sealed with these bindings?"
With Kushta the letter is written,
with the signet ring of the Great Ones sealed.
Perfected ones have written it;
faithful men have secured it.
They hung it around the neck of the soul
and sent her to the Gate of Life.
The soul flies and journeys on,
until she came to the Watchhouse of the Seven.
When the chief toll-keepers saw her,
they whispered and spoke:
"Who wrote the letter
whose mystery no one knew?
Who wrote the letter
that is sealed with these bindings?"
The letter is written with Kushta,
with the signet ring of the Great Ones sealed.
Perfected ones have written it;
faithful men have secured it.
They hung it around the neck of the soul
and sent her to the Gate of Life.
The soul flies and journeys on,
until she came to the watchtower guards.
The watchtower guards bowed their heads,
and the soul passed by the watchtower guards.
The soul flies and journeys on,
until she came to the water-channels.
When she arrived at the water-channels,
the Outflow of Splendor came to meet her.
He seized her by the palm of the right hand
and led her through the water-channels.
The soul flies and journeys on,
until she came to the House of Life.
When she arrived at the House of Life,
she sent her call to the House of Life.
When the Life heard her call,
it sent a guide to meet her.
He seized her by the palm of the right hand
and led her on, and they set her upon the Image of Life —
at the place where the radiant beings and the luminaries
arrayed her among the Uthras
and set her among the luminaries.
An ether-crown they raised upon her head
and led her in splendor from the world.
The Life supported the Life;
the Life found what is its own.
What is its own found the Life,
and my soul found what it hoped for.
And the Life is victorious.
Up to this point, read over the flask while it is stuck in clay up to its mouth. Let the clay be pure clay from the Jordan.
LXXIV. The Sealing
Bound and sealed be the spirit and soul of NN through the seal of Kushta and the great Guardian of Truth, for the sake of the true speech and the erecting of Jokabar-Ziwa.
And the Life is victorious.
Postscript — The Seal of the Letter
This is the end of the Letter. Press your signet ring, your nail, and the little finger of your right hand upon the clay. Seal it and read this conclusion over it. And the Life is victorious.
Colophon
Good Works Translation from Classical Mandaic. Translated by Sagasu (探す) of the New Tianmu Anglican Church from the Mandaic text (Hebrew-letter transcription) in Mark Lidzbarski, Mandaische Liturgien (Abhandlungen der koeniglichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Goettingen, Philologisch-historische Klasse, Neue Folge, Band 17.1; Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1920), pages 111–115 (book pagination), corresponding to PDF pages 141–145. Source manuscript: Bodleian Library MS Marsh 691, Oxford.
Prayer LXXIII is the Letter — one of the most striking poems in the Mandaean liturgy. The soul departs the body carrying a letter written with Kushta (Truth) and sealed with the signet ring of the Great Ones. This letter is her divine passport — her proof of origin, her credentials for passage through the cosmic stations. As she ascends, each adversary asks the same question: "Who wrote the letter whose mystery no one knew?" The question is never answered directly — only the refrain repeats: Perfected ones wrote it, faithful men secured it, Kushta is its writing. The mystery remains a mystery. The letter's power lies not in its content being known but in its origin being unquestionable.
The structural rhythm is remarkable: the same refrain answers three times — once in narration (stanzas 1–2), once at the challenge of Daium's seven sons, once at the Watchhouse of the Seven. After the third answer, opposition ends. The watchtower guards simply bow. The Outflow of Splendor comes to meet her at the water-channels. The Life hears her call. The Letter is the Mandaean equivalent of the Books of Jeu's passwords and the Pistis Sophia's seals — but whereas those traditions require the soul to recite and perform, the Mandaean soul carries a document that speaks for itself. She flies in silence. The letter does the work.
Daium and her seven sons are the planetary archons — the cosmic adversary and the seven planetary powers who rule the material world. In Mandaean cosmology, they can see the letter but cannot read it, cannot break its seal. Their question — "Who wrote this?" — is the question of every gatekeeper confronted with authority higher than their own. Compare Prayer XLIX, where the same planets see the ascending soul clothed in radiance and are ashamed. In LXXIII, they are baffled rather than ashamed — the mechanism is different (confrontation with mystery rather than beauty), but the outcome is the same: the soul passes through unopposed.
Textual note: The "nail" pressed upon the letter (Lidzbarski line 6) refers to the clay seal of the letter. Lidzbarski notes in the apparatus (p. 111, footnote 3) that the nail was pressed upon the clay strip (Tonsteg) with which the letter was sealed, not upon the letter itself. The postscript confirms this: the officiant presses signet ring, nail, and little finger upon the clay of the flask. The Mandaic text uses "upon the letter" (al engirta) and the translation preserves this as written.
Cross-reference: This prayer also appears in the Ginza Left (GL 108), indicating its centrality in the Mandaean canon. The Ginza version may preserve variant readings.
Prayer LXXIV is a brief sealing formula — the shortest prayer in the Qolasta — spoken to bind and seal the spirit and soul of the departing one through the seal of Kushta. "NN" stands for the name of the deceased. The "great Guardian of Truth" is a title for one of the divine powers of the upper world. "The erecting of Jokabar-Ziwa" refers to the divine being Jokabar-Ziwa, whose erection or establishment is the cosmic act guaranteeing the seal's authority.
The extensive liturgical rubrics (B, C, D) following the postscript provide detailed instructions for the oil-anointing ceremony of the dying, cross-referencing dozens of other prayers. They are recorded in Lidzbarski's pages 115–118 and await translation by a future tulku.
Lidzbarski's German translation (1920) was consulted as a reference for verification of difficult passages and proper names. The English is independently derived from the Mandaic text. Drower's English of the Qolasta (1959, Bodleian) was not consulted.
First free independent English translation of Qolasta Prayers LXXIII–LXXIV from Classical Mandaic.
Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.
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Source Text: The Qolasta, Prayers LXXIII–LXXIV
Classical Mandaic in Hebrew-letter transcription, from Mark Lidzbarski, Mandaische Liturgien (Berlin, 1920), Bodleian MS Marsh 691, pages 111–115. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above. Page numbers in brackets refer to Lidzbarski's book pagination.
Due to the length and density of the Mandaic text across five pages of Lidzbarski's edition, and the technical difficulty of accurately transcribing Classical Mandaic from printed images, the complete source text could not be included inline. The source manuscript is Bodleian MS Marsh 691, freely available through the Bodleian Library. Lidzbarski's complete 1920 edition is in the public domain and available on Internet Archive. The rendered page images at 300 DPI are staged at Tulku/Tools/mandaean/ (pages qolasta_p141_300dpi.png through qolasta_p145_300dpi.png) for verification.
Source Colophon
Source text from Bodleian Library MS Marsh 691, Oxford. Published in Mark Lidzbarski, Mandaische Liturgien (Berlin: Weidmannsche Buchhandlung, 1920). Public domain. Lidzbarski's edition is the standard critical text of the Qolasta, based on the oldest complete manuscript of the Mandaean canonical prayer book. The manuscript was copied in the town of Tib and belongs to the Bodleian Library's collection of Mandaean manuscripts acquired from the Drower bequest. This text also appears in the Ginza Left (GL 108), the great Mandaean scripture of the dead.
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