MANICHAEAN LITERATURE^649
and you assembled their thoughts,
and so they understood their origin
in the realm of light.
Those living beings in the five states of existence^4
you freed from ignorance
and gave them wisdom,
leading them to parinirvana.^5
Many differing passions—hatred and bitterness—
troubled these thinking beings
and scattered their thought,
but holy father, when you descended from the sky,
the families of all thinking beings
reached the peace of nirvana.^6YOU RESCUED FROM SAMSARA^7
We who are miserable and with no hope
would have stayed in the torture of samsara,
not finding the end of your path.^8
You set up the ladder of wisdom,
you let us supersede the five forms of being,
and you delivered us.
We who were fettered in suffering
were rescued from rebirth
to see the Buddha-like sun god
who is like you.
For those tied to transitory pleasure,
you preached the true law.- In Buddhism these are the states of gods, humans, hungry spirits (pretas), animals, and be-
ings of hell. - This Buddhist nirvana is the Manichaean realm of light.
- The next six verses are badly preserved and are reconstructed.
- The cyclical process of metempsychosis, that is, the transmigration of the soul by way of re-
births and deaths, is called samsara. This transmigration extends from the lowest insect to the
Brahma, the highest of the gods. The rank of one's new birth, after passing through a hell or a
heaven, depends on one's karma in the previous life. In Sanskrit samsara means "the running
around." - The realm of light.