Shutao Wang Successfully Defends PhD Dissertation

11 July 2024

Photo: CSMC

Shutao Wang has passed his viva voce examination, thus completing his PhD in Sinology.

Congratulations to Shutao Wang, who defended his PhD dissertation on 10 July 2024! His thesis, The Functions of Manuscripts for the Turfan Manichaean Community (9th–11th Centuries), was supervised by Michael Friedrich and Desmond Durkin-Meisterernst (Freie Universität Berlin).

The dissertation delves into Turfan multilingual Manichaean manuscripts, written in Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, Uyghur, and Chinese languages, as well as Turfan Manichaean book art. It gives a new perspective on the Turfan Manichaean community by seeing it from the inside. By investigating the triangle relationship between manuscripts, elects (monks), and auditors (laymen), it reconstructs how the Turfan Manichaean community was built up, and what its social, political, and economic bases were. This dissertation illuminates three points: the use of manuscripts and texts among elects and auditors, the interaction between elects and auditors through manuscripts, and the political and economic aspects of the Turfan Manichaean community with manuscripts. Additionally, it explores how texts and pictures aided the eastward spread of Manichaean knowledge, serving as ritual objects within eastern Manichaean traditions. The research on the multilingual and illuminated Manichaean manuscripts of Turfan region sheds light on the functions of Turfan Manichaean manuscripts in the missionary and religious practices, as well as their contributions to constructing the Turfan Manichaean community and identity. The dissertation also shows how the Turfan Manichaean manuscripts and texts functioned with the secular field, and what they meant to lay Manichaeans.