This blog means to add some persuasive force to the preceding one on Maṇḍalas of Medieval Arabic (and Latin) Magic. 

I wrote to a professor at Tel Aviv University, Gideon Bohak, author of an impressive Book with the title Ancient Jewish Magic. His quick answer took my breath away. He not only knew of a Jewish example of a Maṇḍala in a magic book, he sent the manuscript page with a sketch for one, labelled with the word Mandal in larger Hebrew letters in the upper left corner. I feel humbled but then again slightly intelligent just because I knew enough to write the right person with my question. He not only knew of this manuscript — as he informed me it is available online — he studied it and published an edition of it.

The manuscript you see here is not in Hebrew, no matter how much it may appear to be. It’s in what is sometimes known as Judaeo-Arabic. That means it was written by Arabic speaker more comfortable writing their Arabic in Hebrew letters. The language is Arabic, although Hebrew terms might appear here and there, and even, as we see here, at least one Sanskrit word. Oh, and some Greek terms, too. However, that is not to say that the work was originally in Arabic. It was not, it was in Hebrew. 

The Book of Secrets is sometimes believed to stem from the Second Temple period, although it may be more correct to say that it could well preserve elements from that period. Prof. Bohak says it originated in a Hebrew speaking area under Hellenistic or Graeco-Egyptian influences. That means vaguely late antiquity, with the latest possible date, according to him, around the 7th century CE, since it bears hardly any trace of Muslim/Arabic magical influences. But one caveat before jumping to conclusions: the book is full of magical recipes, and individual recipes could have been inserted at any point in the very long and complicated history of the manuscripts. That would mean the part mentioning mandal or almandal could be centuries later, I have no way of knowing for sure, although I believe it likely this bit of the magic book would be later, say in the 10th-13th centuries.

Noah received the transmission of the text from an angel prior to the Great Flood and inscribed it on a sapphire slate. This he placed in a gold box he took aboard the ark, and after the flood was over passed it on to his descendants until it finally reached the hands of King Solomon, who evidently was the most remarkable in ability to make use of its magic.

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The Digital Collection of the New York Public Library is the source of the page from the manuscript that you see above in the frontispiece. You should go have a look at the link to find out more, but just let me say that the scribing was done in the year 1468 by one Mosheh ben Yaʻaḳov ben Mordekhai.

The specific text the frontispiece is taken from is Sefer ha-Razim, or Book of Secrets. It makes use of a Hebrew word borrowed from Persian raz, ‘secret.’ It occurs to me that one of many words in Sanskrit that mean ‘secret’ is rahasya, although I don’t propose to prove any linguistic connection, just to suggest the possibility. And now that I check into it, I’m hardly the first, since a lexicon by Georg Rosen entitled Elementa Persica beat me to it by one hundred and eighty years.

More to read

Gideon Bohak, Ancient Jewish Magic: A History, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge 2008). The brief part about the Book of Secrets on pp. 170-177 is most recommended, and is the main source of my knowledge about it.

Gideon Bohak, A Fifteenth-Century Manuscript of Jewish Magic: MS New York Public Library, Heb. 190 (Formerly Sassoon 56) - Introduction, Annotated Edition and Facsimile [in Hebrew], Sources and Studies in the Literature of Jewish Mysticism no. 44], Cherub Press (Los Angeles 2014), in 2 vols. There are more relevant editions and studies not listed here, as they may be easily found with an internet search. I’ll just mention there is an inexpensive English translation:

Michael A. Morgan, Sepher Ha-Razim: The Book of the Mysteries, Society of Biblical Literature, Scholars Press (Chico CA 1983).

Prof. Bohak told me about some more relevant publications I had neglected to mention, with yet another article suggested by Gal Sofer, a doctoral candidate at Ben Gurion University. There are still more to be found, I know there are, but here are the ones I think to be most relevant:

Vajra Regan, “The De  consecratione lapidum: A Previously Unknown Thirteenth-Century Version of the Liber Almandal Salomonis, Newly Introduced with a Critical Edition and Translation,” The Journal of Medieval Latin, vol. 28 (2018), pp. 277-333. I haven’t yet seen this apart from an abstract on the internet. Notice the author’s first name Vajra, of Sanskrit origins.

Anne Regourd, “Al-Mandal as-Sulaymānī appliqué: Une section interpolée dans le Ms. Sanna 2774?”  The Arabist: Budapest Studies in Arabic, vol. 37 [Studies in Memory of Alexander Fodor] (2016), pp. 135-152.

Anne Regourd, “Images de djinns et exorcisme dans le Mandal al-Sulaymānī” [with text edition, and translation], contained in: Jean-Patrice Boudet, Anna Caiozzo and Nicolas Weill-Parot, eds., Images et magie: Picatrix entre Orient et Occident, Honoré Champion (Paris 2011), pp. 253-294.

Julien Véronèse, L’Almandal et l’Almandel latins au Moyen Âge: Introduction et éditions critiques, Micrologus’ Library no. 46, Salomon Latinus no. 2, SISMEL Edizioni del Galluzzo (Florence 2012).