He remained true to this subject after leaving the Academy, and it may be said that he devoted most of his further research to it, achieving multiple results. Here are some examples in chronological order: "Sogdica” (1940), in which Henning published bilingual Middle Persian/Parthian and Sogdian glossaries and Sogdian lists of words, a Buddhist-Sogdian text (cf. Kudara and Sundermann) and a fragment of the Sogdian version of the Xvāstwānīft (further pieces by Sims-Williams, 1991a, in Tangeloo and Giverson, eds., pp. 323-28). Henning was not able to include the great Sogdian word list T III T = So 16201, which has now been printed (Sundermann, 2002), but his little book remains an unsurpassable achievement of lexicographical research.
"Mani’s Last Journey” (1942), in which Henning published definitively the Middle Persian fragment M 3 and proved the assumption he had already expressed in 1936, namely that its content dealt with a disastrous meeting between Mani and King Bahrām I (rather than Šāpur I). The equally well presented and astutely interpreted Parthian fragments of a report of Mani’s last journey to the royal court could only later be placed within the larger context of a series of homilies in ecclesiastical history (Sundermann, 1981, p. 71).
"The Book of the Giants” (1943), in which Henning edited and described almost all fragments of a canonical work of Mani’s with the greatest possible assurance, distinguishing between parts of this work, parts of other works with the same content, and passages from different texts in the same manuscripts (see GIANTS, THE BOOK OF).
"Sogdian Tales” (1945) provides examples for the narrative art of the Central Asian Manicheans and in many cases refers to Indian motifs. This is also true of the later edited “Sogdian Book of Parables” (see Sundermann, 1985). Additions have been found to the Daēnā mythos (by Reck, forthcoming; see DĒN), to the so-called Job Story (pp. 485-87; cf. Yoshida, pp. 989-90), and to the tale of the Kar-Fish (pp. 482-84; Sundermann, 1998, pp. 173-78).
"Two Manichean Magical Texts with an Excursus on the Parthian Ending -ēndēh” (1947) led to recognizing not only the Indian sources of the Manichean magical texts, but also their Western additions. They testify more to the syncretism of magic literature than to Manichean syncretism.
"A Sogdian Fragment of the Manichean Cosmogony” (1948) discusses, not only the description of the building of the world by the Living Spirit and the Mother of Life, but also the then little-known ideas from eastern Manicheism about the realm of light of the Father of Greatness. It is not yet known to what work of Mani’s should be attributed this fragment, which also excels by its splendid form.
In “Persian Poetical Manuscripts from the Time of Rudaki” (1962), the peculiarities of the New Persian spell-ing and language of the Manicheans are deciphered; and fragments of New Persian poetry are presented, which Henning attributed to the 10th century. At the time the greatest Manichean text in New Persian language was considered as lost (M 105a + b, M 106, M 901). An edition of it is now in print (Sundermann, 2003).
In “A Grain of Mustard” (1965) Henning discussed one of the many Manichean parables inculcating the necessity for the hearers to give alms to the chosen people for their salvation. What makes this article a “storehouse of scholarly contributions” (M. Schwartz) for lexicography is the analysis of the word for “white mustard” in all its Iranian forms and the comments on other terms such as Sogdian šrγw “lion.”
Henning also involved his students in his work on the Iranian Turfan texts, and under his guidance and cooperation there emerged such fundamental works on Iranistics as A Grammar of Manichean Sogdian (Oxford, 1954), by Ilya Gershevitch; The Manichaean Hymn-Cycles in Parthian (London, 1954) and, above all, A Catalogue of the Iranian Manuscripts in Manichean Script in the German Turfan Collection (Berlin, 1960), by Mary Boyce. The latter work is a contribution that was and has remained indispensable for any further work on the Iranian Turfan texts.
Henning’s contributions to Turfan research are all the more admirable because they were carried out under difficult working conditions. From the time he left Germany, he was denied direct access to the Turfan texts except for a brief visit to the Academy in the year 1958. It is true that understanding supporters such as H. Lüders, R. Hartmann, and H. Grapow, who were responsible for looking after the Turfan collection, did their best under the difficult conditions of National Socialism and the subsequent partition of Germany to supply him with text photos and to preserve his publishing rights, and that he was also able in time to benefit from the work of his students at the Berlin Academy; but those who work on Turfan texts are well aware that any publication requires the steady checking and revision of the readings with the original. Henning was prevented from doing so and was thus unable, for example, to combine fragment M 48 of the history of the Manichean mission with numerous other pieces and to obtain interesting details about the conversion of Tūrānšāh. It is, nevertheless, characteristic for Henning’s perspicacity and reliable judgement that he guessed correctly the possibility of the make-up of fragments of this page: “With the help of the originals it may be possible to produce complete pages of these and a few other fragments,” he wrote in 1945 (Henning, 1945c, p. 86, n. 6).
The Academic Career of Henning
