ABSTRACT
Mandaeans, as unique Gnostics, believe that Manda d-Hiia inspired and taught Adam two main things: first, the "Divine Knowledge and Wisdom"; and secondly, the "Sacred Rituals" as practiced originally in the Light-worlds. Mandaeans believe that they were keeping up their way of life in the Middle East many centuries before the time of Jesus. Without baptism, no Mandaean, above all his/her soul, can attain the celestial Light-worlds, a belief explaining the imperative baptism of infants. The Mandaic script carries a uniquely geometric quality related to the tradition's remarkable "stick-figure" art, giving us the largest extant body of Gnostic artistry from Antiquity. Mandaic scriptural texts, especially the esoteric ones, are sacred, kept in perfumed cotton within large sandalwood boxes. In that cosmogonic and cosmological interests always take priority and concern for human life in any detail has always been secondary, Mandaean preoccupations are characteristically Gnostic.
