page_title: Cao'an
section_title: Background: Manichaeism in Fujian
hierarchical_section_title: Cao'an / Background: Manichaeism in Fujian
caption_attribution_description: 中文: 草庵，位于中国福建省晋江市，是全国重点文物保护单位。
context_page_description: Cao'an is a temple in Jinjiang, Fujian. Originally constructed by Chinese Manicheans, it was considered by later worshipers as a Buddhist temple.
  This "Manichean temple in Buddhist disguise"
  is seen by modern experts on Manichaeism as "the only extant Manichean temple in China", or "the only Manichean building which has survived intact".
context_section_description: Manichaeism arrived in China in 694 or earlier during the Tang dynasty (618-907). Early on, the Manichaean religion was strongly associated  with Sogdian merchants, and, later, with Uyghurs resident in the Tang state. The religion was, however, primarily present in northern and central China (the Yangtze region) and suffered a strong setback during the anti-Manichaean campaign of 843, the prelude to the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution of 845, when foreign Manichaean priests were exiled or executed.
  It was in the 10th century, after the fall of the Tang, that Manichaeism, now primarily practised by Han Chinese, reached Fujian. Its arrival in the province is linked to a certain Manichaean preacher who fled to Fujian from persecutions in North China, traveled extensively throughout the province, and eventually died and was buried in Quanzhou Prefecture, which thus became one of the centers of Chinese Manichaeism during the Song dynasty.
  Manichaeism in China assumed certain Chinese characteristics, assimilating to both Buddhism and Taoism. 
  Chinese translations of Manichaean treatises were couched in Buddhist phraseology, and the religion's founder (Mar) Mani (known in China as (末)摩尼,  (Mo)-Mani) received the title of the  "Buddha of Light" (Chinese: 光明佛 or 光佛), and a life story resembling that of Gautama Buddha. At the same time, the Taoist (or pseudo-Taoist?) treatise, the Huahujing "Scripture of the Conversion of the Barbarians", popular with Chinese Manichaeans, declared Mani to be a reincarnation of Laozi.  As to the Confucian civil authorities of the Song state, when the clandestine cells of Mani's followers came to their attention, they were usually lumped together with assorted other suspicious and potentially troublesome sects as "vegetarian demon worshipers" (Chinese: 吃菜事魔).
  Not surprisingly, such Manichaean temples as were erected in Song China usually had an official Buddhist or Taoist affiliation. There are records, for example, of a Manichaean temple in Taoist disguise at Siming. This temple - one of the northernmost known Manichaean sites of the Song era - was established in the 960s, and was still active - in a more standard Taoist way, but with a memory of Manichaeism retained - in the 1260s.
caption: General view of Cao'an Temple
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