The hard life of Mani the Light Chaser
On a stormy night, a pregnant woman woke up from her slumber, pushed her sleeping husband awake, and said to him, "I just dreamed of the angel Taun, who told me that we would have a son, and that this son would have a noble mission." After the husband listened, he was excited and nervous, and he could not speak in his mouth. And this couple is Patik and Mar Meli, who are famous families in Iran. The child they gave birth to was Manichaeism, the founder of Manichaeism, born in 216 AD.
Portrait of Mani
In the 1st to 3rd centuries AD, a sect was popular in the lower reaches of the Two Rivers Valley called baptists, a branch of the well-known "Gnostics" at that time, whose general denomination was that only by relying on "de-knowledge", that is, mysterious intuition, could people truly realize that they were divine. This religious atmosphere had a great influence on Mani's thought.
In 228 A.D., when Mani was just 12 years old, the angel Taun gave Mani instructions to break away from baptistism. In 240 A.D., when Manichae turned 24, the angel Tauern again instructed him to openly create a sect in front of everyone. At this point, he saw himself as the embodiment of all knowledge and the Holy Spirit, the "messenger of light" sent by God to the world. At first, he promoted his sectarian ideas to the people around him, but suffered many setbacks, and the only sect he founded was his father and two other people, a total of three believers. Based on this, Mani decided to travel around in order to attract more believers. He first came to the Sassanid capital of Taisiphon, and then to Mekran, northwestern India, and Central Asia. After about a year of this, Mani returned to Iran and Babylon.
In 242 AD, the Sassanid monarch Adahir died and was succeeded by Prince Shabur I. Mani gave Shabul a book called Shabulgan. Mani wrote in this book: "Good deeds and wisdom are always transmitted to the earth by the messengers of light. There was an age in which an emissary named Buddha spread good works and wisdom to India; in another, an emissary named Jesus spread good deeds and wisdom to the West. Now, the instructions have descended again, and I, Mani, have come to act as this messenger to convey God's truth to Babylon. "
In addition to considering himself the last messenger sent by the gods, Mani wanted to establish a religion that would contain all the essentials of the existing religion and be universally believed by the nations of the world. This lofty idea of Mani was greatly appreciated by Shabul I, whose "universally believed" religion was indeed suitable for the development needs of the Shabul Empire, and Shabul I gave Mani great material and financial support, allowing him to vigorously spread his "universally believed" religion to the people.
The doctrine preached by Mani is generally referred to as the "Three Ages and Two Sects", which refers to the two existences of the universe, that is, to darkness and light; and the "Three Worlds" refers to the three ages through which darkness and light run through, which can be roughly summarized as follows:
The first era, the beginning. Light and darkness coexist, and the Bright Realm lives the "Ming Father", who owns five lands, named Afterness, Reason, Thinking, Imagination, and Will. The Dark Realm lives with the Three Kings of Darkness, and there is only one connection between the Light and Dark Realms, and the two sides were originally at peace, but because a small number of elements in the Dark Realm rushed into the Bright Realm, the peace was destroyed, and the initial end ended.
The second era, the middle. In this era, the two forces have been fighting repeatedly for a long time, the Bright Realm has been invaded by darkness, the two worlds have fought with each other, and the two have fought each other, so the world has begun to form.
The third era, the posterior. In fact, this era is the permanent separation of darkness and light, and after many struggles between darkness and light, the final result is to return to the original state in which both coexist.
In a general direction, Mani's teachings are imbued with pessimism and dualistic theology, which can reflect in a very deep essence the dissatisfaction of the broad masses of the people in Iran during the period of slavery with social reality. In general, it is clear that this kind of religious theology, which places hope in illusion, does not help substantially. But while instructing humanity to endure harsh realities, it presents a negative response, that is, to deny production and procreation altogether, which is also a unique concept of Manichaeanism. It was precisely because of this that it could not exist under the rule of the Sassanid Dynasty for a long time. As a result, Manichae was finally imprisoned by the Sassanid monarchs in the city of Gundish Shabul in southwestern Iran, where he was subjected to mortal punishment and died in prison on February 27, 277 AD. Poor a person who has been pursuing the light all his life, but finally ended up in a foreign land, can also be regarded as a real song and tears.
The statue of the Buddha of Light erected by manichae by posterity