is
said to have been a native of Ecbatana but visited Afghanistan,
Bactria and India, and his followers carried his faith across Asia to
China, while in the west it was the parent inspiration of the Bogomils
and Albigenses. The nature and sources of his creed have been the
subject of considerable discussion but new light is now pouring in
from the Manichaean manuscripts discovered in Central Asia, some of
which have already been published. These show that about the seventh
century and probably considerably earlier the Manichaeism of those
regions had much in common with Buddhism. A Manichaean treatise
discovered at Tun-huang[1137] has the form of a Buddhist Sutra: it
speaks of Mani as the Tathagata, it mentions Buddhas of Transformation
(Hua-fo) and the Bodhisattva Ti-tsang. Even more important is the
confessional formula called Khuastuanift[1138] found in the same
locality. It is clearly similar to the Patimokkha and besides using
much Buddhist terminology it reckons killing or injuring animals as a
serious sin. It is true that many of these resemblances may be due to
association with Buddhism and not to the original teaching of Mani,
which was strongly dualistic and contained many Zoroastrian and
Babylonian ideas. But it was eclectic and held up an ascetic ideal of
celibacy, poverty and fasting unknown to Persia and Babylon. To take
life was counted a sin and the adepts formed an order apart who lived
on the food given to them by the laity. The more western accounts of
the Manichaeans testify to these features as strongly as do the records
from Central Asia and China. Cyril of Jerusalem in his polemic against
them[1139] charges them with believing in retributive metempsychosis,
he who kills an animal being changed into that animal after death. The
Persian king Hormizd is said to have accused Mani of bidding people
destroy the world, that is, to retire from social life and not have
children. Alberuni[1140] states definitely that Mani wrote a book
called Shaburkan in which he said that God sent different messengers
to mankind in different ages, Buddha to India, Zaradusht to Persia
and Jesus to the west. According to Cyril the Manichaean scriptures
were written by one Scythianus and revised by his disciple Terebinthus
who changed his name to Boddas. This may be a jumble, but it is hard
to stifle the suspicion that it contains some allusion to the Buddha,
Sakya-muni and the Bo tree.

I think therefore that primitive Mani