New Book on Armenian Prayer Scroll (Hmayil)

NEW YORK  — Tarkmaneal Press announces the release of An Early-Eighteenth-Century Hmayil (Armenian Prayer Scroll): Introduction, Facsimile, Transcription and Annotated Translation by Matthew J. Sarkisian, edited and with a foreword by Jesse S. Arlen. The volume is part of the Sources from the Armenian Christian Tradition series, which presents bilingual editions of classical Armenian texts with annotated English translations, making them available to a wide audience. Originally released online in a digital format in 2022, this slightly revised edition now makes the volume available in print with full color illustrations, in both hardcover and paperback formats. Also part of the same series is Odes of Saint Nersess the Graceful: Annotated Translation, which presents the Armenian text and an English translation of sixty of St. Nersess’s liturgical odes (tagh), fifty-eight of which have never been previously translated into English.

A hmayil is a handwritten or printed scroll containing prayers, supplications, Psalms, Gospel passages, hymns, and incantations. These scrolls, often richly illustrated, were a popular medium used for protection against maladies and other evils during the early modern period and were often carried or worn like a talisman. In this volume, Matthew J. Sarkisian and editor Jesse S. Arlen provide the Armenian text and an English translation of one such scroll printed in Constantinople in 1727, Library of Congress Armenian Prayer Scroll no. 1. Together with facsimile images of the hmayil, this volume offers the reader an experience similar to unrolling and reading the original scroll. The translation is accompanied by an introduction, extensive annotation, and appendices, which bring to light the Scriptural and theological background as well as the folk and traditional characteristics of the hmayil’s texts and illustrations, making this fascinating artifact accessible to the general reader in the twenty-first century.

The publication of this volume was supported by a generous grant from Souren A. Israelyan.