Szilágyi András (szerk.): Ars Decorativa 23. (Budapest, 2004)

Gábor KÓSA: Extatic Flight and the Realm of Light. Changes in the Estimation of Chinese Manichaeism as mirrored in its relationship with Shamanism

GÁBOR KÓSA ECSTATIC FLIGHT AND THE REALM OF LIGHT Changes in the Estimation of Chinese Manichaeism as Mirrored in its Relationship with Shamanism Essentially, the Chinese history of Manichaeism and shamanism is not in the traditional focus of Sinological research, more specifically, research on history of religion. Consequently, it is natural that no thorough examination of their relationship has been carried out yet (among others, due to the extraordinary rarity of sources). In the present article, I am going to present five texts that represent the changes and differences the estimation of Manichaeism underwent in the Tang, Song and Ming eras, in the mirror of its relationship with folk religion and shamanism. I am going to give a brief delineation of the principal periods of Manichaeism and shamanism, then, with the help of two examples ftrom the Tang, one from the Song era and two further examples from the Ming era, I am going to point out the way the negative estimation of Manichaeism gradually became dominant. 1. Chinese Manichaeism Manichaeism was established in Iran by Mam (214-277 AD), who grew up in a JewishChristian sect. It spread eastwards and appeared not only in the Sogdian, Parthian, and Uighur cultures but in China as well. One can distinguish two principal periods of Chinese Manichaeism [monijiao Hlftíír. ; the Religion of Light - mingjiao BJ3#fc ; the religion of the One Honoured by Light - mingzunjiao B^#$5(

. ( 1 ) The official date of its arrival to China is 694,' it basically flourished from that time on. (2) However, after the severe persecutions in 843-845, Manichaeism reached Fujian in the 9"-10

th centuries, where it achieved further success and survived until the Ming era, though by that time it had diappeared in other regions of the country. While in the first period (694-843 AD) it was given state support and primarily appeared in the "guise" of Buddhism, as it were, in the second period (10

lh century - 16

,h century AD) it was surveyed distrustfully by state and Buddhist historiographers alike; consequently, it gradually got close to "religious" Taoism and thus, to a certain extent, folk religion. Moreover, Chinese Manichaeism displays several peculiar features. As far as Eastern (middle-Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, Uighur) Manichaeism is concerned, we basically have fragments; however, we are in the possession of texts of some length in Chinese. In addition, it was in China that Manichaeism survived the longest. The only extant statue of Mânï, that is, the statue of the shrine on the Huabiao Mountain is to be found also in China, presently, in the Museum in Quanzhou. 2. Chinese Shamanism The present article does not render it possible to give even a rough outline of the fairly complex issue of Chinese shamanism.

2 As for the central figure of those cultures that are traditionally called shamanic - that is, the shaman its best analogy in Chinese environment is the wu M. It has to be emphasized that this does not imply the identity of the two figures but provides the best analogy known so far. Similarly, by Chinese shamanism we do not mean the existence of a form of religion that can be identified as Siberian or Inner Asian