Mingjiao was originally just an ancient foreign religion, but what kind of sect was Mingjiao? Mingjiao originated in Persia, its original name was Manichaeism, and it was introduced to Middle-earth during the Tang Dynasty.

At that time, the Persians came to the dynasty with the Ming Sect "Two Sects Sutra", and the Chinese began to learn the classics of this religion. Chang'an Luoyang Jianming temple Dayun Guangming Temple, after Taiyuan, Jingzhou, Yangzhou, Hongzhou, Yuezhou and other important towns, all built Dayun Guangming Temple.

In the third year of Huichang, the imperial court ordered the killing of Mingjiao followers, and the power of Mingjiao declined greatly. Since then, Mingjiao has become a secret church that has been banned and destroyed by the government in all dynasties. In order to survive, Mingjiao acted secretly, and finally the word Manichaeism was changed to a magic word, and the world called it a demon religion.

The two realms are the so-called light and darkness, that is, good and evil, and the three worlds, the so-called primary, middle, and posterior, that is, the past, the present, and the future. Mani believed that before there was heaven and earth, there was a kingdom of light and a kingdom of darkness, the kingdom of light was full of goodness and beauty, while the kingdom of darkness was full of ugliness, and the two were categorically separated and did not interfere with each other.

Later, due to the invasion of darkness into the light, it caused a great war between light and darkness, so it entered the middle period. In the Middle Rim, light and darkness are mixed, and heaven and earth and human beings are the product of this mixture. Mani was founded to transcend the human soul, so that he could get rid of the entanglement of darkness and return to the kingdom of light as soon as possible.

Mani believed that the end of the world would eventually come, when the earth would be destroyed, and light and darkness would be completely separated, returning to the first realm, which is the later realm. Because its teachings clarify the sect and use it to remove dark confusion, it is also called Mingjiao in China.

However, the name Mingjiao did not exist from the beginning, and in the Song, Yuan, and Ming dynasties, this sect was indeed called Mingjiao, but in the Tang Dynasty, there is no sufficient proof that the Tang people called Manichaeism also Mingjiao. Therefore, Manichaeism is named after the founder Mani, but over time, the religion gradually became Chinese and accepted by the common people of China. People call it Mingjiao, which is also based on its doctrine of advocating light.

The establishment of Manichaeism, that is, in the Persian Empire, was in the Sassanid era, and spread widely in the territory, and quickly entered North Africa, Europe, Asia Minor, Central Asia, and at the same time from the traditional Silk Road in Central Asia, introduced to Chinese mainland.

There was a Persian Manichaean monk who made a pilgrimage to Wuhou with a classic called "Erzong Sutra", and Manichaeism was favored in the post-martial period, and it was still in a legal position until the nineteenth year of Xuanzong of the Tang Dynasty. However, in the twentieth year of the Kaiyuan Dynasty, it was banned, and the imperial court believed that the religion was not a famous and decent sect, and falsely claimed Buddhism to deceive the people, so it was not allowed to be believed by the Chinese people, and it was only allowed to spread among the people of the Western Regions.

But time came and went, and after the Anshi Rebellion, Manichaeism flourished in China for a while. In order to quell Shi Chaoyi's rebellion, Tang Suzong relied on the Uighur army living in the Mongolian region, and at that time, the Uighur Mu Yu Khan led his troops into Luoyang, contacted the Xihumuni teacher stationed in Luoyang, and was influenced by him to convert to Manichaeism, and made the religion the state religion, and ordered the whole country to follow it.

Manichaeism, with the help of the Uighurs, ran rampant in China. At the request of the Uighurs, the imperial court successively allowed the construction of Mani Monastery in Jingshi, Jingzhou, Yangzhou, Hongzhou, Yuezhou, Henan, Taiyuan and other places, known as the Dayun Guangming Temple.

At this time, Manichaeism was the most prosperous period in China, when Manichaeism was second only to Buddhism in its power among the many foreign religions introduced into China, and it was the first of the famous Sanyi religions, namely Manichaeism, Nestorianism, and Zoroastrianism.

The Uighurs were defeated by another nomadic tribe known as the Uighurs, and moved west to the area of Xinjiang in Gansu, unable to support its Manichaeans in Chinese mainland. As a result, Tang Wuzong, who was famous for his anti-foreign religion, let go of the persecution of Manichaeism.

Emperor Wuzong of the Tang Dynasty issued an edict prohibiting the spread of Manichaeism in China. These edicts included the expulsion of Manichaean monks from the Western Regions, the confiscation of Manichaean temples and their property, and the destruction of Manichaean paintings. During this persecution campaign, many monks did die as a result of their mistreatment.

There was no explicit order to kill monks, but in any case, Manichaeism suffered a serious setback after this battle, and its remaining followers in Chinese mainland, whether Hu or Han, could no longer openly engage in religious activities. Organizationally, it cannot be connected with the headquarters of Manichaeism in the Western Regions, and can only fend for itself in Middle-earth.

Since Manichaeism had lost contact with the headquarters of the Western Regions and was in an illegal position, the factions were fragmented, and it was difficult to have a unified organization. Although Manichaeism suffered a fatal blow, the scriptures, calligraphy, paintings, and statues still existed, and the people practiced them on their own, but they were obviously apprehensive about the persecution of the government, so they made more changes to cover it up.

Believers in the intellectual class mostly advocate the self-discipline and asceticism of the religion, and from the perspective of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism, they absorb the rational elements of the religion and become their own sect. Following the example of Buddhist monasteries and Taoism, these intellectuals successively established some Mingjiao monasteries, lived in seclusion, practiced on their own, and sat down to discuss the Tao. These temples, the most famous of which are Chongshou Palace, built in the early Song Dynasty or the Fifth Dynasty, located in Zhejiang, and built in the Yuan Dynasty, at the foot of Huabiao Mountain in Jinjiang County, Quanzhou City, Fujian Province.

However, the intellectuals are a minority after all, and the broad masses of the people believe in Manichaeism, hoping to use this belief and organization to relieve themselves of the reality of their suffering, so they mostly use the form of secret societies. During the peasant movement of the Song Dynasty, especially in Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian, many of the secret societies in which the peasants who rebelled against the government participated absorbed elements of Manichaeism. In the Yuan Dynasty, whether it was a monastic-style Mingjiao or a secret society-type Mingjiao, it was quite vigorous.

Eating food is vegetarian, and many folk sects have this precept, and the demon is a derogatory name for these sects by enemy people, saying that he serves demons. The rulers denounced all vegetarian folk secret societies as vegetable eaters, so in the official ordinance, those who were accused of eating vegetables could be Ming Christians or followers of other sects. Like Fang La, a famous peasant leader, he was also denounced as a vegetable eater, so he always thought that he was a Mingjiao, but Fang La and Mingjiao were really incompatible.

The heroes of the Central Plains devoted themselves to Mingjiao, Mingjiao has been despised by people for hundreds of years, regarded as demons and lewd evil, after this earth-shaking change, it has become the head of the Central Plains, and the great cause of Zhongxing, the descendants of the Han Dynasty. Later, although Zhu Yuanzhang had different intentions and ascended to the throne with treacherous schemes, the people who helped him conquer the country were all Mingjiao, and he had to be called a Ming character with the name of the country. The Ming Dynasty from the first year of Hongwu Wushen to the seventeenth year of Chongzhen Jiashen, 277 years of the world, all from the Ming religion.

Zhu Yuanzhang and his gang said that they were Mingjiao, and said that his country was laid down by people in Mingjiao, so the country name had to be called a Ming character, thinking that the Ming Dynasty had a close relationship with Mingjiao. It is not so much that Zhu Yuanzhang and his gang are Ming Sectists, but that they are more closely related to other secret sects such as the White Lotus Sect.

The doctrines and rituals of religion are all intermingled and absorbed from each other, and this is especially true of folk religions. The various sects that rebelled against the Yuan together with Zhu Yuanzhang absorbed some of the doctrines and customs of Mingjiao, and some of them proclaimed themselves Mingjiao. But if Zhu Yuanzhang is a Mingjiao, the Ming Empire was played by Mingjiao, and the name of the Ming Dynasty is derived from Mingjiao, which still lacks sufficient evidence.

Historically, what was the relationship between the Ming Religion of Middle Earth and the Persian Church? The Manichaeism that spread in China during the Tang Dynasty did not come directly from the Manichaean headquarters in Persia, but from the independent Manichaean Order of Central Asia. The ancestor of this order was the head of the sect, Master Mani, the high-footed Master Amo, who was a Sabbath and knew the language of Sabbath, that is, Parthian. He also had good relations with many princes in the East, and he had a number of capable attachés, some of whom were proficient in doctrine, some of whom were proficient in the languages of Central Asia, and some of whom were good at painting, so that the mission in the East was very successful, and a large order was established.

According to the history of Manichaeism in Persia, the Persian king Wahran I put Mani to death, followed by a full-scale persecution of Manichaeism throughout the country, forcing many Manichaeans to flee eastward. The Manichaeans who fled east joined the Central Asian Order, which greatly increased its power.

The order broke with the Manichaean General Church in Babylon and declared its independence, and its leader was Sath Olmiz. This person originally came from the headquarters of Babylon, the headquarters of the Central Asian Order was in the famous Samarkhan in the Transoxiana region, and the Manichaean religion that flowed into China belonged to the Manichaean Order of Central Asia. Therefore, the Ming Church in Middle-earth did not have a general church affiliated with Persian Babylon, and since the Ming religion in Middle Earth was under the jurisdiction of the Central Asian general church, the Central Asian general church sent envoys to China through the overland Silk Road.

By the time of Emperor Yuan Shun, whether it was Persia or Central Asia, the entire Western Regions had been Islamized, and Manichaeism had disappeared in the Western Regions.

Mingjiao want vegetarianism, this is a major principle, Zhang Wuji saw the so-called Mingjiao Zhu Yuanzhang, Xu Da and his gang eating beef, was shocked, but Xu Da defended: "The first meaning of our canon is to do good and go evil, although eating meat is not good, but that is the last verse." ”

The Mingjiao canon was originally called the so-called food eater, prohibiting alcohol and meat, but since the main altar moved into the Kunlun Mountains, these dietary taboos have been removed. Vegetables in the Western Regions are rare, more expensive than meat, and the climate is cold, if you don't eat beef and mutton fat, those with slightly poor physical strength will not be able to withstand it.

The food of the Ming Christians is not limited to eating only vegetables, but the so-called vegetarian diet. In ancient times, the Western Regions were widely spread and rich in melons and fruits, which were the most ideal food for the Manichaeans. When they eat the melon and fruit, they even eat the seeds inside, because they believe that the seeds contain a lot of light and are very beneficial to purify their souls.

The vegetarian precept of the Ming Christians has never been abolished, except by apostates. It is precisely because it is characterized by vegetarianism that it is easy for outsiders and modern people to associate those sects that avoid meat and fasting with Mingjiao.

The costume of the Mingjiao, the Mingjiao wore a white robe with a red flame embroidered on the robe. Manichaean monks were required to wear white hats and robes, but the general believers were not required to do so. The Ming Christians in the form of secret societies in the Song and Yuan dynasties, even if they were not monks, also admired white, so there were many people who wore white clothes.

The Manichaeans revered light, but they did not worship fire, which is characteristic of Zoroastrianism. Fire Zoroastrianism originated from the Zoroastrian religion in Persia, which believed that worshipping the holy fire could channel the gods, so in the places where believers lived, fire altars and fire temples must be set up for worship, but Manichaeism did not have this ritual.