China: Manichaean representation of 'Ming Nu', the 'Maiden of Light', and 'The Mother of Life', Xinjiang, possibly Turfan, 8th - 10th Century

Manichaeism was the most important Gnostic religion. Central in the Manichaean teaching was dualism, that the world itself, and all creatures, were part of a battle between the good, represented by God, and the bad, the darkness, represented by a power driven by envy and lust.

Manichaeism spread over most of the known world of the 1st millennium CE, from Spain to China. But the religion disappeared from the West in 10th century, and from China in the 14th century. Today it is extinct.

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