A popular view of history today is that ‘polytheism’ implies tolerance, whereas ‘monotheism’ implies intolerance. This simple formulation ignores the messy reality of Asian religion: in the past, categories and religious tactics were always in motion. No tradition affirms this as Manichaeism does. Founded by an Iraqi, it was a syncretic religion that revered Jesus, Zoroaster and the Buddha. Over 500 years, it expanded from the Mediterranean Sea to the Pacific Ocean, assimilating, squabbling with, and being persecuted by nearly every religion it came across.
Mani, the last prophet?
Born in present-day Iraq early in the 3rd century CE, the future prophet Mani belonged to an Aramaic-speaking community in the heartland of the newly-established Sasanian Empire. As professor Iain Gardner writes in The Founder of Manichaeism, his birth name is not known—Mani is a title he later adopted, meaning “my living vessel”. He grew up in a world of sprawling, cosmopolitan, and religiously plural polities.
The Roman Empire dominated the Mediterranean region, where Christian sects were steadily growing in strength, along with the cults of the sun god Sol Invictus and the saviour-god Mithra, of Iranian origin. Iran, Iraq, and parts of Central Asia were controlled by the Sasanian Empire, whose populace worshipped a diverse cast of Zoroastrian and Iranian gods. Similar Iranian and Hellenic gods were also popular in Afghanistan and Northwest India, controlled by the Kushan Empire, whose sway extended well into the Gangetic Plains, where Buddhism, Jainism, and various Hindu gods thrived.
Despite the distances involved, enormous volumes of trade ensured that all these religious cultures were very well aware of each other. As recent excavations at Berenike in Egypt have confirmed, there was a small community of Indian Buddhists at Alexandria, the greatest of all Roman ports.
Roman artistic ideas contributed to the ‘international’ style of Kushan art in the Gandhara region of Northwest India. Embassies were also exchanged: between 218 and 222, an Indian delegation visited the imperial court of Rome. One of its members was a Jain merchant, as suggested by scholars Max Deeg and Iain Gardner in ‘Indian Influence on Mani Reconsidered: The Case of Jainism’. This Jain merchant shared religious ideas with the Syrian writer Bardaisan of Edessa, whose work may have inspired the future prophet to travel to India around 242. When he eventually returned to his homeland, he adopted the title of ‘Mani’, claimed that he had converted a king in ‘Turan’—either Central Asia or Balochistan—and been acclaimed as a Buddha.
Mani saw himself as the culmination of a line of prophets—the culmination of the rich religious history of his world. According to historian David Scott, in his paper ‘Manichaean Views of Buddhism’, Mani and his successors claimed that Jesus was an earlier prophet, who had his church in the West alone; Buddha was also a prophet, but had his church in the East alone.
Mani’s church aimed to spread both West and East, and from its outset was a proselytising religion focused on converting elites. It claimed that the true teachings of earlier prophets had been corrupted. Mani (according to them) was the ultimate messenger of truth and light: he was the future Buddha Maitreya, he accepted the Buddhist doctrine of rebirth, he adapted the Jain notions of karma and atman and the Zoroastrian notion of cosmic light versus dark. But after early successes in Iran, the Zoroastrian high priesthood had Mani arrested and his followers brutally persecuted.
He died in prison. The Zoroastrian backlash continued as Sasanian power expanded: in ‘Manichaeism in Bactria: Political Patterns & East-West Paradigms’, Scott writes that they seized and converted Hindu and Buddhist sites at Kara-Tepe and Surkh Kotal in Central Asia.
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Buddhist and Manichaean rivalry
Despite Sasanian persecution, by the late 3rd century, Manichaean communities were well-ensconced in Syria, Iraq, and especially in Central Asia. This crossroads of the world saw frequent, world-changing migratory waves. Many of these new arrivals found Manichaean ideas appealing. Though there is little archaeological evidence of this, a later text, reported by Scott, accused the 6th-century Hunnic ruler Mihirakula of destroying Buddhism and venerating the “heresy” of Mani.
In ‘Buddhist Responses to Manichaeism: Mahayana Reaffirmation of the “Middle Path”?’, Scott writes that Buddhism did not take Manichaean challenges lying down. Of particular concern was the fact that Manichaeism tried to subsume Buddhism within its umbrella.
In addition to making Buddha part of their tradition, they claimed that Mani had achieved Maha-pari-nirvana, just as Buddha had; they even used Buddhist terminology like samsara (the material world) and nirvana (liberation), but in ways that supported Mani’s teachings (so Manichaean nirvana actually referred to a heavenly kingdom of light).
This syncretism was both its strength and its weakness, allowing more established Asian religions to accuse it of heresy. For example, the Tibetan Bstan-‘gyur, a text dating to the end of the 8th century, excoriated Mani for “borrowing something from all systems to fabricate a system deviating from all others”.
Ironically, as Scott points out, Manichaeans were using the Buddhists’ own tactics against them. Buddhists had previously (and would continue to) assimilate Hindu deities as subordinate and temporary beings, and the dominant Mahayana (Greater Vehicle) school of Buddhism had adopted the title to denigrate other schools, dubbed Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle). Rather amusingly, Manichaeans claimed the title of ‘Supreme Vehicle’ to attract followers.
With all this said and done, Manichaeism remained politically insignificant until the 8th century, when it found a following among the expanding Turk and Uyghur confederations. The Uyghurs were important allies of the Tang Dynasty of China, forcing the latter to grudgingly proclaim tolerance for Manichaeism in 732.
Soon after, Uyghur Khans ordered the destruction of Buddhist images. But in this moment of triumph, Manichaeism was faced with its most serious threat. In Syria, it underwent a major schism. Also in the 8th century, conquering Arab armies penetrated Iran and reached Central Asia, where they defeated a Chinese-Turk coalition.
In subsequent centuries, many formerly Buddhist and Manichaean communities converted to Islam—a complex story, which we’ll address in future editions of Thinking Medieval. Despite its eventual disappearance, Manichaeism left behind many traces. As Scott writes, it was the only religion “to be condemned across the East-West divide”, but it also, in some ways, transcended it—challenging how we imagine these divisions.
Manichaean icons and ideas trickled into the art of Tibet and Japan, with Mani and Jesus represented as Buddhas. In its rise, expansion and fall, Manichaeism reminds us that the past was always a more diverse and contested place than we might imagine.
Anirudh Kanisetti is a public historian. He is the author of Lords of the Deccan, a new history of medieval South India, and hosts the Echoes of India and Yuddha podcasts. He tweets @AKanisetti. Views are personal.
This article is a part of the ‘Thinking Medieval‘ series that takes a deep dive into India’s medieval culture, politics, and history.
(Edited by Zoya Bhatti)