Yushamin

Also Known As: Classical Mandaic ࡉࡅࡔࡀࡌࡉࡍ; the Second Life, Hiia Tiniania; rendered Yushamen by Haberl and McGrath, Yosamin by Aldihisi, Yusamin by Drower, Yosamin and Joshamin by earlier translators
Region/Culture: Mesopotamia and Ancient Near East
Mythos: Mandaeist Mythology
Primary Type/Nature: Gods and Deities
Mythical Attributes: He is the first being the Great Life brought out of itself, and the first to want a world of his own making.
Role in Mythos: He is the Second Life, the head of the descending chain of emanations that ends in the making of the material world, and the prisoner whose rebellion Mandaean scripture returns to again and again.
Relation to Humans: Mandaeans do not pray to him for favours the way a petitioner approaches a patron, but his name is spoken over running water in the liturgy, where he is invoked as pure and as the one who abides upon the wellsprings of light. Everything mortal, including the bodies Mandaeans spend their lives ritually cleansing, descends from the chain of events he started.

There is a gate at the bottom of the World of Light, and behind it, in bonds, sits the first thing the Great Life ever made.

Mandaeans call him Yushamin, the Second Life. Before there was dry land or a body or a planet, before anything existed that could go wrong, Hayyi Rabbi, the Great Life, brought him forth, and the rest of the order followed downward from him: Abatur the Third Life, who says of himself that he is a king’s son, and then Ptahil the Fourth, who did the actual work of shaping a world out of dark water. Yushamin stands at the top of that slope. Every material thing, every fever and harvest and drowned field, can be traced back up the chain to a moment when the first emanation decided he wanted a creation of his own.

That is the scandal, and the scriptures never quite let it go. In the third book of the Right Ginza, the Second Life and his sons resolve to take part in creation without consulting the First Life. They do not ask. They simply begin. The Book of John opens with a catechism in which Truth stands at the entrance of the worlds firing questions at the demiurge Ptahil, and among the answers is a single flat line: Yushamen set in motion the great conflict, which will not be resolved for an eternity.

The chapter that follows says what it cost him. He revealed the secret of the Great. He started a fight with the Mighty’s house. He hatched wicked schemes and was bound. He had no concern and was not humbled. Eight further chapters, which the text’s modern translators label simply as the fall of Yushamen, circle the same event from every angle: the plot, the war, the sentence, and the long argument about whether any of it can be undone.

The war is told with a relish that borders on the gleeful. Twenty-one of his sons take up swords while their father sits in chains, the eldest already armoured and the youngest scrambling into his gear, and they go down to the realm of Air after Nbat, called Great Sprout, the air king who holds the bonds. Their leader is Etinsib Ziwa, Splendid Transplant. He draws and falls on the air king and strikes him once, and the poem answers with a line it will repeat twice more like a man shrugging: his sword did not cut through his splendor. The noise of that fight, weapons and gear together, climbs all the way to the light king, who wants to know who is trying to ruin the prison.

Then the answer comes down. Gubran arms himself and mounts a great scorpion named Parahiel, and behind him four hundred and forty thousand excellencies ride out of the enclosure of Intellect and fall on the realm of Air with arrows that do not fail. Splendid Yawar kills twelve of Yushamin’s sons. Behram takes nine more with his sword. It is not a battle so much as a demonstration.

The one moment in the whole cycle where Yushamin stops being a doctrine and becomes a parent is what happens next. Yukabar, his most precious son, shouts, and the shout carries up to the settlement where his father is chained. Who has killed my son, Yushamin says, and who has held my beloved behind? Then he lifts the bonds from his hands and feet.

Nothing in it makes him a devil. This is the strange, careful thing the Mandaean record does with him, and it is why he is worth knowing. His own son Nsab Ziwa, Splendid Plant, stands and rebukes him to his face for the rebellion, telling him he knows full well what he did and asking whether he did not know better. And yet in the prayers Mandaean priests still recite standing in the river, the same being is called pure Yusamin, who abides upon treasures of the waters and upon mighty celestial wellsprings of light, invoked alongside the great Jordan of Life itself. The liturgy blesses him with the smell of myrtle and cold moving water while the scripture keeps him in irons. Both are true at once, and the tradition has never seen a need to resolve it.

What he can do follows from what he is. He is an emanation of the Great Life, so his light is real light and his sons are excellencies in their own right, the beings other Gnostic systems would call aeons. His voice crosses between realms. He can break his own bonds when he is angry enough, which is more than the powers of darkness ever manage. He rides.

What he cannot do follows from the same fact. Everything he has is borrowed from above, and against the splendour of a being still standing in the King of Light’s favour, a sword in his son’s hand simply slides off. He cannot make a world; he can only start the process that hands the job downward, to Abatur and then to Ptahil, until the actual clay is being handled two ranks below him. He cannot free himself for good by force, only briefly and at the cost of nine more of his children. In the systems that grew up alongside Mandaeism, the same structural role belongs to Sophia, the aeon whose reaching beyond herself brings the lower world into being. The Mandaeans put a father there instead of a mother, moved the demiurge two steps further down the ladder, and then, having chained him, went on calling him pure.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Yushamin in Mandaeism?

Yushamin is the Second Life, the first being emanated by Hayyi Rabbi, the Great Life, in Mandaean belief. He heads the chain of emanations that runs down through Abatur, the Third Life, to Ptahil, the Fourth Life, who shapes the material world. He is also called the primal uthra, one of the beings of light whose Mandaic name is usually translated as excellency.

What did Yushamin do wrong?

He decided to take part in creation without consulting the First Life, and wanted a world of his own. The third book of the Right Ginza records the decision, and the Mandaean Book of John states that Yushamin set in motion the great conflict that will not be resolved for an eternity. For this he was cast down and bound.

Is Yushamin evil in Mandaean belief?

No. He is a fallen and punished being of light, not a power of darkness, and Mandaean liturgy praises him as pure Yusamin who abides upon the treasures of the waters and the wellsprings of light. The Mandaean powers of darkness are separate figures, chiefly the dragon Ur and the spirit Ruha.

What happens in the war of Yushamin’s sons?

Twenty-one of Yushamin’s sons, led by Etinsib Ziwa, attack Nbat, the king of the realm of Air, to free their father, and their swords cannot cut through his splendor. The King of Light sends Gubran on the scorpion Parahiel with four hundred and forty thousand excellencies. Yawar kills twelve of the sons and Behram nine, and Yushamin breaks his bonds when he hears the cry of his favourite son Yukabar.

How is Yushamin related to Sophia in other Gnostic systems?

Both figures occupy the same position in their traditions: a high emanation whose attempt to create without the supreme being’s consent sets the making of the material world in motion. The difference is that Mandaeism places the demiurge two ranks below Yushamin, in Ptahil, rather than making him the direct product of the transgression.