From: IRWINL@COFC.EDU

Date: Mon, 06 Jun 1994 12:37:40 -0400 (EDT)

Subject: Re: Manichees

To: alexandria@world.std.com

Organization: College of Charleston


	                   
Esoteric Note:
                  
Mazdeans, Nestorians & Manichees
                             
in China

	Somewhere in the 6th century, in the old capital of Ch'ang-an, two 
Mazdean ambassadors, one in c.518 (proabably another in 528 CE), arrived from  
the court of Kobad in Persia. This was a time of a divided China, where the  
old regime had fled to the south and the north was ruled by a loose hegemony 
dominated by the Toba (T'o-pa), called the Northern Wei dynasty (which 
would collapse in 534). These Toba where "barbarians" from the central 
steppes of eastern Mongolia (descendants of the Hsiung-Nu) who had driven  
out the revered Old Royal Families and forced them into the south. These 
were Turks with strong connections and alliances with the Persian 
Sassanians.


	As a powerful military horse-riding peoples (who destroyed the  
White Huns in 560), they brought with them many "foreign" religions, 
particularly Buddhism, but others as well...they controlled the caravan 
routes (the "silk road"...many gnostic texts, recently published) and were 
receptive to non-Chinese worldviews, being, as many nomadic peoples are, 
electic in their religious views. Among these was Zoroastrianism, founded 
by Zoroaster, or in Chinese, Su-lu-chih. Apparently the ambassadors helped 
to establisg a Fire Temple in Ch'ang-an, a school (Saabaa) with priests and  
elders, where they worshiped Fire (Spirit of Heaven) and had Chinese 
converts. About 100 years later, c.630s, a famous magi (Mogh in Chinese) 
arrived and the Emperor gave permission to rebuild and expand the Fire 
Temple. When the Sassanians dynasty fell, many fled to China where the son 
of the last Sassanian ruler (fleeing the Muslim invasion of Persia) became 
a Captain of the Chinese Imperial Guard (and built another temple for 
private worship of the displaced royalty of Persia)...c.670s...some of 
which were also followers of Mani.


	But wait! When the Khan of the western Turks died in 630 CE, the 
tribes split and fell to warring and competition giving the southern 
Chinese regimes an opportunity to reclaim Northern China. This gave the     
famous Emperor, T'ai Tsung (The Great) an opportunity to sieze the Khan of 
the eastern Kurks and subdue the "barbarian" threat, and thus establish the 
renown Golden Age of the T'ang Dynasty. Further, an alliance was made with 
the Uighur Turks to help subdue the other Turkish tribes. So what, you 
ask? Ah! The Uighurs religion at this time was, yes, Manichaeanism! With 
the T'ang dynasty constantly in need of Uighur allies to subdue the other 
Turkish nomads, this opened the silk road to the teaching of Mani. Now 
piture the Silk Road active and relatively safe--picture, if you would,     
Turks, Tocharians, Khotanese, Sogdians, Persians, Jews, and even Armenians 
traveling with goods, camels, and many world pictures in their respective 
and honorable heads. By the time of T'ai Tsung, Mazdaists had regular 
shrines in Norther Chinese cities; Syrian missionaries had appeared, and, 
about 635, Nestorian Christianity spread up from the south brought by sea-
sailing missionaries and from the west by silk-raod travellers.


	Remember Nestorius, condemned in 434 for heretical Christian 
doctrines? He espoused the "two-natures" of Christ in Constantinople (he 
was the Bishop there) and emphasized a doctrine of the co-operation between 
the human and the divine, the so-called "consenting union" of the two. This 
doctrine was carried to China by missionaries after the rejection of 
Nestorians where they were heard with receptive ears (having a rather heaven 
and earth, yin-yang sound). Here was propagated the *Doctrine of Splendor* 
and by 638 there was a monastery housing 21 monks at, yes once again, 
Ch'ang-an. T'ang rulers allowed it to spread and develop and gave it 
support, for example, in 742 there was a Royal Offering at the Nestorian 
Temple; in 745 the Nestorian-Chinese priests obtained an edict 
distinguishing them from the Mazdeans and the Manicheans (said edict notes 
over 2,000 Mazdeans and Nestorians in China). A carved rock edict dating 
from 781 (exhumed in 1625) speaks of the one Triune God, mentions the Son 
of the Virgin (but not as divine) and his ascension as an Immortal.


	In the midst of all these religious riches, we find the mention of 
a treaties called, *The Book of Two Principles* expounded at the Chinese 
royal court (Ch'ang-an) in 694 CE by a Persian Manichean and again in 719.  
Later, this sect was known as *Doctrine of the Light* whereby each soul must  
seek to liberate the light (yang) held captive by the physical darkness of the  
body (yin). Supported by the Taoists, which eventual assimilated much of the 
teachings into the White Cloud Sect (a vegetarian sect). Several Greek 
texts have been preserved in Chinese translations--the Syriac Acts of the 
Martyrs (Acta Archelai) and writings by Photius.


	Of course the primary development during this period was that of 
Buddhism and Tibetan and Indian Tantra and the emergence of a genuine 
Chinese Buddhism, most well known it its Ch'an-Zen forms. But that's 
another story!


	                     -zos-

                     irwinl@ashley.cofc.edu


	This tale may be propagated on the net (or elsewhere) in either
 electronic or hardcopy form by first attaining permission from the author. 
 This is written for all seekers of knowledge, and transmitted with pure
 intent. May others do likewise.


                                 -zos-


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