Maṇḍalas of Medieval Jewish Magic

 

Book of Secrets manuscript, New York
Public Library no. 190, page 167

This blog ought to add some persuasive force to the preceding one on Maṇḍalas of Medieval Arabic (and Latin) Magic. After posting it, I wrote to a professor at Tel Aviv University, Gideon Bohak, author of an impressive book with the title Ancient Jewish Magic. His quick answer took my breath away. He not only knew of a Jewish example of a maṇḍala in a magic book, he sent the manuscript page with a sketch for one, labelled with the word mandal in larger Hebrew letters in the upper right corner. I feel humbled but then again slightly intelligent just because I knew enough to write the right person with my question. He not only knew of this manuscript — as he informed me it is available online — he studied it and published an edition of it.

The manuscript you see here is not in Hebrew, no matter how much it may appear to be. It’s in what is sometimes known as Judaeo-Arabic. That means it was written by an Arabic speaker more comfortable writing their Arabic in Hebrew letters. It has the title Book of Secrets. The language is Arabic, although Hebrew terms might appear here and there, and even, as we see here, at least one Sanskrit word. Oh, and some Greek terms, too. It appears it is little more than a lengthy book of magical prescriptions.

The title makes us think of a different magic book: Noah received the transmission of a Book of Secrets from an angel prior to the Great Flood and inscribed it on a sapphire slate. This he placed in a gold box he took aboard the ark, and after the flood was over passed it on to his descendants until it finally reached the hands of King Solomon, who evidently was the most remarkable in ability to make use of its magic. It dates from the Second Temple, at least in its essentials, preserving elements from that period, but possibly dating as late as the 7th century, according to G.B. 

But no, that older Book of Secrets is a different one from this one with the mandal. I say that because it is likely to confuse other people as it also confused me until G.B. set me straight. The two books of secrets share the same title. They have nothing especially in common besides the title and of course the general subject matter.

Title page of the Book of Secrets in
the New York Public Library

The New York Public Library’s Book of Secrets is a collection of recipes put together by the 15th-century scribe. Its significance right now is this: It supplies us with yet another example of the medieval Indian Buddhist maṇḍala moving far to the west, not just as a word, but as a corresponding object, a device used in ritual contexts. That is enough of a point to make for now.

§  §  §

On the frontispiece: The Digital Collection of the New York Public Library is the source of the page from the manuscript that you see at the top of this blog. You should go have a look at the link to find out more, but just let me say that the scribing was done in the year 1468 CE by one Mosheh ben Yaʻaḳov ben Mordekhai or משה בן יעקב בן מרדכי בן יעקב בן משה.  I assume this scribe must have been equally responsible for the sketch illustrated above, even if he likely copied from an earlier book.

A side note:  The title Sefer ha-Razim (ספר הרזים), or Book of Secrets, makes use of a Hebrew word borrowed from Persian raz, ‘secret.’ It occurs to me that one of many words in Sanskrit that mean ‘secret’ is rahasya, although I don’t propose to prove any linguistic connection, just to suggest the possibility. And now that I check into it, I’m hardly the first, since a lexicon by Georg Rosen entitled Elementa Persica beat me to it by one hundred and eighty years.

More to read

Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge 2008). The brief part about the earlier Book of Secrets on pp. 170-177 is most recommended, and is the main source of my knowledge about it.

Gideon Bohak, A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript of Jewish Magic: MS New York Public Library, Heb. 190 (Formerly Sassoon 56) - Introduction, Annotated Edition and Facsimile [in Hebrew], Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism no. 44], Cherub Press (Los Angeles 2014), in 2 volumes.

Michael A. Morgan, Sepher Ha-Razim: The Book of the Mysteries, Society of Biblical Literature, Scholars Press (Chico CA 1983). An inexpensive English translation of the more ancient and well known Book of Secrets.

• Prof. Bohak told me about some more relevant publications I had neglected to mention, with yet another article suggested by Gal Sofer, a doctoral candidate at Ben Gurion University. There are still more to be found, I know there are, but here are the ones I think to be most relevant in case you want to look into the matter of westward moving magical maṇḍalas some more:

Vajra Regan, “The De  consecratione lapidum: A Previously Unknown Thirteenth-Century Version of the Liber Almandal Salomonis, Newly Introduced with a Critical Edition and Translation,” The Journal of Medieval Latin, vol. 28 (2018), pp. 277-333. I haven’t yet seen this apart from an abstract on the internet. Notice the author’s first name Vajra, of Sanskrit origins. I must highly recommend an interview with the author on the subject of his published article at spreaker.com: https://www.spreaker.com/user/glitchbottle/035-the-unknown-liber-almandal-salomonis. Eleven minutes into it you can hear a description of the “portable altar.” And you might prefer the YouTube version of the same, https://youtu.be/fWAO-H5IKqg, since it has a diagram of the “Almadel.”

Anne Regourd, “Al-Mandal as-Sulaymānī appliqué: Une section interpolée dans le Ms. Sanna 2774?”  The Arabist: Budapest Studies in Arabic, vol. 37 [Studies in Memory of Alexander Fodor] (2016), pp. 135-152.

Anne Regourd, “Images de djinns et exorcisme dans le Mandal al-Sulaymānī” [with text edition, and translation], contained in: Jean-Patrice Boudet, Anna Caiozzo and Nicolas Weill-Parot, eds., Images et magie: Picatrix entre Orient et Occident, Honoré Champion (Paris 2011), pp. 253-294.

Julien Véronèse, L’Almandal et l’Almandel latins au Moyen Âge: Introduction et éditions critiques, Micrologus’ Library no. 46, Salomon Latinus no. 2, SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo (Florence 2012).

Note: On May 8, 2022, I received some corrections from Gideon Bohak that lead me to remove and rewrite this blog before reposting it.