Introduction to Yutaka Yoshida's lecture : the rediscovery of Manichaean dialectic art

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One of the greatest recent discoveries in the history of Eurasian religions has been the massive rediscovery of Manichaean didactic art, thanks to paintings produced in southern China between the ^12th and ^14th centuries and then, in circumstances that remain unclear, transported to Japan, where they have been identified as Manichaean in the last ten years.

What does this have to do with Central Asia? A great deal, because these paintings have a demonstrable link with the only previously known Manichaean paintings: those of Qocho in Xinjizang, from the ^9th-10th centuries. As Manichaean readings were always based on images, we can be sure that similar things were already being seen in the Manichaean monasteries of Bactria and Sogdiana in the ^6th-10th centuries, where in some places (notably Samarkand) they formed an important part of the urban landscape.

Since the beginning of the modern study of Manichaeism, two wild hopes have been pursued: to find where Manichaeism had died out (or perhaps, who knows, was not completely dead?); to find Mani'sArzhang (or Ardahang): the "Image" considered to be one of his nine canonical works.

The last Manichaeans: since 1957 in China (and 1988 in the West), we've known that the last traceable monastery is in Fukien - the province opposite Taiwan - near the great medieval port of Quanzhou; the last inscription is from 1445, the last mention as a "temple of Mani" from 1615, after which, at an unknown date, the site is abandoned, but retaining a statue of Mani still recognizable and identified by an inscription. In fact, there must have been others at the same time, some of which were probably absorbed by Buddhist monasteries. In any case, it was near here, in Fuzhou, that Marco Polo met a group of Manichaeans in 1290, whom he mistook for Christians. It has recently come to light that in a nearby region, a group of Taoist exorcists were still using Manichaean texts transcribed in Chinese, the " Xiapu manuscripts" (where Yoshida was able to retro-transcribe previously unknown Parthian Manichaean prayers!)

A new twist came in 2010, thanks to Yutaka Yoshida, who identified as Manichaean a group of five paintings on hanging silk, plus three fragments, mostly preserved in Japan where they were considered Buddhist. It's a coherent group, dating from the ^12th and ^14th centuries and, from a dedication, appears to have been produced in Ningbo, a little south of Shanghai. All this (apart from the last fragment presented by Yoshida at the Collège) has been the subject of two detailed publications: Y. Yoshida, Studies of the Chinese Manichaean paintings of South Chinese origin preserved in Japan, Kyoto, 2015 (in Japanese, with the best photos); Z. Gulácsi, Mani's pictures. The didactic images of the Manichaeans from Sasanian Mesopotamia to Uyghur Central Asia and Tang-Ming China, Leiden, 2015.

Two of the large complete panels are cult images (Mani, Jesus), the other three didactic compositions: the life of Mani up to the establishment of the community; the salvation of the individual soul; the "diagram of the Universe"; to which is added the last identified fragment, a group of parables from a source common to the Coptic Kephalaia and the Syriac tale Bilawhar and Yudasaf.

The "Diagram of the Universe" is the most ambitious composition, and probably the closest to Mani's teachings. It features 900 animate and inanimate objects, including 458 human figures (particular deities or anonymous protagonists in groups). Maximum intelligibility is now possible thanks to Gulacsi's coded digital illustrations, but in a way the original was already computerized: we're dealing with extremely disembodied art, where the human figures have no individual character, apart from a few attributes thrown onto "Barbie dolls"; only the demons have expressive faces! These paintings were impossible to understand without the support of an oral explanation given by a Chosen One perfectly familiar with the Scriptures and their myths. On the other hand, if we look at the textual references produced by Yoshida and Gulácsi, we realize that such a painting was the only way to get a synthetic view of Manichaean cosmology.

The world is depicted as the macranthropos (it is already described as such in the Kephalaia, which also clearly alludes to a visual medium of the same type): the head (the reconstituted Primordial Man), the neck (the Column of Light where souls rise), the ribcage (the ten nested firmaments), the navel (the Zodiac), the viscera (the knot of serpents of the cycle of reincarnations), the phallus (Mount Sumeru), the thighs (the lateral columns). He surmounts the eight subterranean "Earths", and is surmounted by the New Aeon, the temporary station of the deities, and by the Kingdom of Light where the Father of Greatness sits. At all levels, Mani appears as an observer. The surface of the earth is divided into four quarters, each with its own playlets: to the north, Adamas-Light pierces the monster born of the irretrievable part of the sperm that fell from the heavens; to the west, the swarming of creatures born of fornication; to the east, episodes from the Book of Enoch (?); to the south, according to a hypothesis I submitted, a remnant of the myth of Adam and Eve (a river, a serpent, a demon).

The possible relationship between this image and Mani'sArzhang is the subject of contrasting assessments. Yoshida considers it to be quite directly related, at least to the central part, the "Time of Mixing", which would have formed a triptych with the "Earlier Time" and the "Third Time" (Last Judgment, combustion of the world). But according to Gulácsi, the original copies and their ancient copies could not have survived the Abbasid autodafes, and their material support could only have been parchment, in scrolls or codexes. The paintings of southern China are thought to have been recomposed in the Uyghur kingdom, on silk and from texts and partial images transmitted. As far as material form is concerned, it's tempting to object that the large hanging panel was a much more suitable teaching tool for the extreme complexity of Manichaean cosmology than were the scroll or codex, and that in the absence of silk fabrics, people knew how to make them from batik-treated cotton (cf. the recently discovered throne scene of the Kushan king Huvishka, comparable in size to the Chinese Manichaean paintings).