The Book of the Zodiacs in Mandaean Tradition

Record summary

Mandaean literature contains cosmological, ritual, and astrological materials concerning planetary powers, fate, purification, and the structure of the unseen world. These texts are relevant to comparison with neighboring Jewish, Christian, and Islamic occult traditions, especially where Mesopotamian communities preserved distinctive ritual languages and scribal practices. Dating individual compositions is difficult because manuscripts are generally much later than the traditions they transmit. Terminology, translation, and community-specific theology must be respected rather than collapsed into generic “Gnosticism.”