Ancient Turkic-Manichaean Confession (Tāvbanāma)

The present article considers of tovbanama (confession), which takes an important place in the history of the Turkic literature and the history of the Turkic culture as a whole, as a genre of literature. Tovbanamas, as it is known, belong to pre-Islamic period of Central Asia. Studied different types of sources, the main of them are “Khuastuanit” and other preserved but partly several tovbanamas, give the certain facts on tovbanama as a genre of literature and connection of them with munajat. The Sogdian sources shows that Turkic-Manichaean confession texts, especially “Khuastuanit” was free translated from Sogdian one. Moreover, a number of issues was found, that requires to be studied in the context of tovbanama as a genre of literature. For instant, tovbanama as a phenomenon of literature has implications literature and languages dynamics and as a same time literature and language change, relationship between tovbanamas and munajat and so on. The article includes three items that describe the raise of tovbanamas, there meaning and the structure of the texts. The main idea of the article is given in these items. Each item has its own name. Every point of the article proved by its cites from certain tovbanama with translation into Turkish and commentary.

Keywords

confession, Manichaeism, Khuastuanit, munājāt, Old Turkic literature