Manichaean scripture once formed a sevenfold canon that, piece by piece, sketched out its sweeping vision of Light battling Darkness. Unfortunately, most of these texts survive only as fragments snatched from desert caves in Turfan, Egypt and Central Asia. Yet a few jewels remain:

• The Shabuhragan
Commissioned by the Sasanian king Shapur I around 242 CE, this Middle Persian work was Mani’s own résumé for royalty. Its blend of Persian courtly style and Gnostic theology still shines through the remnants.

• The Treasure of Life
A poetic treatise describing the soul’s luminous origins. Portions in Coptic and Parthian read like devotional hymns, recalling how “sparklets of Light” yearn to return home.

• The Living Gospel (Evangelion)
Once a manual for missionary journeys, this text offered parables where cosmic struggle mirrors everyday choices. Coptic fragments at the Berlin State Library give a glimpse of its narrations.

• The Book of Giants
An imaginative expansion of Enochic tales, where shadowy behemoths clash with heavenly messengers. Rediscovered in early 20th-century Turfan digs, its epic tone rivals any blockbuster fantasy today.

• The Pragmateia
A sort of Manichaean “current affairs” journal, it tackled legal rulings and missionary strategy. Only snippets remain, yet they hint at a church very much engaged with the secular world.

• Psalms and Prayers
Short, lyrical compositions used in communal worship. Like modern playlists, these selections have a rhythm that still resonates in Coptic liturgy studies.

• Epistles and Kephalaia (Chapters)
Letters and concise teachings organized into chapters—think of them as proto-devotional tweets, offering quick moral boosts for believers on the go.

Recent digital humanities efforts—most notably the 2023 British Library initiative to put Aramaic and Middle Persian fragments online—are helping scholars piece together this jigsaw puzzle. Between Berlin’s Codex Manichaicus and the Silk Road cave finds, readers today can almost hear Mani’s call: a universal bridge between East and West, written in a dozen languages yet united by a singular, dualistic beat.