Chinese Manichaeism


Chinese Manichaeism, known as Monijiao or Mingjiao, is the form of Manichaeism transmitted and practiced in China. It rose to prominence during the Tang dynasty and, despite frequent persecutions, continued long after the other forms of Manichaeism were eradicated in the West. The most complete set of surviving Manichaean writings were written in Chinese sometime before the 9th century and were found in the Mogao Caves among the Dunhuang manuscripts.
Chinese Manichaeism represents a set of teachings with the purpose of inducing awakening, and it is a dualistic religion that believes in the eternal fight between the principles of good/light and evil/darkness, the former being represented by a God known as Shangdi, Míngzūn 明尊 "Radiant Lord" or Zhēnshén 真神 "True God". Salvation is delivered by the Living Spirit of God, of whom there have been many manifestations in human form, including Mani.

History

Due to how adaptable the teachings and beliefs of Manichaeism were, they were able to spread across a vast expanse of different cultures from the Roman Empire to the west and China to the east. The religion arrived alongside Christianity through the various south-eastern Chinese sea-ports and overland Silk Road trade routes from the western desert regions.
Sources state that Manichaeism was first brought into China in the year 694, but this may have happened much earlier. Since its introduction, Manichaeism was deeply sinicised in its style, adapting to the Chinese cultural context.

Tang dynasty

Manichaeism was introduced into China during the Tang dynasty through Central Asian communities and was regarded as an improper form of Buddhism by the Tang authorities. Although religions of the Western peoples were not outlawed, they were prohibited from spreading among the native Chinese population.
According to the Manichaeans of China, their religion entered the country through Mōzak during the reign of Emperor Gaozong of Tang. The pupil of Mōzak, bishop Mihr-Ohrmazd, followed his leader into China and was granted an audience with Wu Zetian where, according to later Buddhist sources, he presented the Erzongjing which ended up becoming the most popular text of the country’s Manichaeans. In 731, Emperor Xuanzong asked a Manichaean to summarize their foreign religious doctrines, and the result was a text known as the Compendium of the Teachings of Mani, the Awakened One of Light. The text interprets the prophet Mani as an incarnation of Laozi ; a version of the Taoist Huahujing from the 8th century shares the same perspective as the Compendium, stating that Laozi reincarnated among the Western barbarian peoples as the prophet Mani.
The north-western Uyghur Khaganate learned of Manichaeism from Sogdian foreigners. After the Khagan Bögü Qaghan held a three-day discussion with members of the Manichean clergy, he converted to the religion in 763. Manichaeism subsequently became the official religion of the Khaganate, prompting the Babylonian headquarters of Manichaeism to send high-rank clerics to the north-western Uyghur territory. Due to the peace between the Uyghurs and Chinese populations during this time, the Tang government relaxed its restraints on Manichaeism, allowing it to flourish with monasteries built by the Uyghurs in places such as Shaoxing, Yangzhou, Nanjing, and Jingzhou, with the first being built in 768.

Persecution

The years of prosperity for Manichaeism came to an end in the wake of the Kyrgyz's defeat of the Uyghur Khaganate in 840 and a rising resentment for non-Chinese foreigners. Manichaeism was officially banned and persecuted through the suppression of non-Chinese religions started by the Emperor Wuzong of Tang in 843. During that year, the Tang Dynasty government confiscated all of the property belonging to the Manichaean monasteries, destroyed the temples, burnt their scriptures, laicized or killed the clergy, and specifically executed seventy Manichaean nuns in Chang'an.
Instead of their traditional clothing, the Manichaean priests were ordered to wear the hanfu, as the typical attire of Manichaeism was deemed un-Chinese. In some cases, the Manichaeans were ordered by Tang authorities to dress like Buddhist monks and, also since Manichaean priests were known for their long hair, they were forced to have their heads shaven. Over half of the Manichaean population is estimated to have been killed due to Emperor Wuzong's Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution. Two years after the persecution began, a total ban on foreign relations caused Manichaeism to hide underground, where it never rose to its past prominence.

Song and Yuan dynasties

Though they participated in rebellions against the government during the Song dynasty, the Chinese Manichaeans were continually stamped down by the successive Chinese dynasties, with the Confucian authorities of the Song era disregarding the local Manichaeans as “vegetarian demon worshipers". Their fortunes changed during the Mongol-lead Yuan dynasty, where the religion enjoyed a stable existence while the Sakya sect of Tibetan Buddhism served as the ‘’de facto’’ state religion of the Yuan. Two elaborate silk paintings survive from this era: Manichaean Diagram of the Universe and Sermon on Mani's Teaching of Salvation. These works provide an insight into Yuan-era cosmology of Chinese Manichaeism.

Disappearance

Manichaeism survived among the population and had a profound influence on the tradition of the Chinese folk religious sects integrating with the Maitreyan beliefs such as the White Lotus Sect. During and after the 14th century, Chinese Manichaeans involved themselves with the Pure Land school of Mahayana Buddhism in southern China. The remaining Manichaeans practiced their rituals so closely alongside the Mahayana Buddhists that over the years the two schools became indistinguishable. The Cao'an temple in Fujian stands as an example this synthesis, as statue of the "Buddha of Light" is a representation of the prophet Mani.

Present-day

In modern China, there is a rumor that Manichaean groups are still active in southern provinces, especially in Quanzhou and around the Cao'an, the only Manichaean temple that has survived until today. There is a Chinese Manichaean Council with representatives in Tibet and Beijing.

Texts

Although there is no shortage of documentation of Manichaeism in southern China, doctrinal and liturgical writings remain rare. Nearly all present knowledge of the beliefs and teachings of Chinese Manichaeism draws from three texts compiled before the end of the 9th century: the Traité, the Hymnscroll, and the Compendium.
Besides a few absent opening lines, the Traité is in excellent condition and corresponds with Manichaean texts found in other languages. Within the Traité are discourses attributed to Mani in response to questions from a disciple on the nature of Manichaean cosmogony and ethics. The first discourse primarily concerns the creation of the universe via the salvation of primal man by the powers of light, a subsequent attack by the prince of darkness, and the eventual triumph of light over the darkness. Themes such as the symbol of trees and the enumeration of nights and days are found in other western Manichaean texts, namely those written in Coptic. More precise parallels can be drawn between the fragments of Turkish-Manichaean texts. In 1983, Werner Sundermann detailed how twenty-two Parthian manuscripts served as the original compositions of the texts, which were subsequently translated into Turkish and Sogdian, and then one of those Central Asian translations served as the basis for the Chinese language versions.
The Hymnscroll consists of thirty hymns that were likely directly translated from Parthian into the Chinese language, as several of the hymns are phonetic transcriptions of the original Parthian hymns, unintelligible to the common Chinese reader. The scroll finishes with an appeal for blessing. The text indicates that it was translated and compiled in Turfan. The Compendium  begins with an account of Mani's birth that is directly based on the life of the Buddha and then provides a summarization of Manichaean doctrines. The text opens with a paragraph that explains how the text was ordered by the Tang dynasty on July 16, 731, and in a later passage mentions how Mani was a reincarnation of Lao-tzu.

Artwork

Painting is a Manichaean tradition that traces its roots back to Mani himself, who elevated art-making to the esteem of the divine spirit, believed that meditating on beauty brought one closer to god, and ultimately saw the practicality of pictures as a transcultural method of teaching.
Just as the pristine-condition Manichaean texts come from Chinese Manichaeism, so do the remaining examples of Manichaean artwork, in the forms of fragments and full hanging-scrolls.