The surviving traces of Manichaeism are scattered across languages, regions, and media, yet together they sketch a surprisingly rich picture of this dualistic tradition. Manuscript discoveries are especially central: Coptic codices from Egypt, notably those from Medinet Madi, preserve psalms, homilies, and the Kephalaia, while the Greek *Codex Manichaicus Coloniensis* (often called the Cologne Mani Codex) offers a biographical account of Mani and the early community. From the Turfan oasis in Central Asia come extensive fragments in Middle Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, and Old Uyghur (Old Turkish), including doctrinal treatises, hymns, liturgical pieces, and missionary texts. Chinese materials from Dunhuang and other sites, such as the *Compendium of the Teachings of Mani, the Buddha of Light*, show how Manichaean doctrine was translated into a distinctly East Asian idiom. Even though Mani’s original Syriac works are almost entirely lost, these multilingual witnesses allow a partial reconstruction of his message and its transformations across cultures.

Archaeological remains add a more tangible dimension to this textual legacy. In Egypt, the Medinet Madi site has yielded the ruins of what appears to be a Manichaean religious complex, along with the codices themselves. In Central Asia, especially around Turfan and related sites, the remains of Manichaean temples or meeting halls have been uncovered, often in close proximity to Buddhist and Christian structures, hinting at a shared sacred landscape along the Silk Road. Wall paintings and murals from these sites depict Mani as a radiant apostle of light, along with cosmological scenes that echo the religion’s dramatic narrative of Light and Darkness. Funerary monuments, seal impressions, and inscriptions scattered across Central Asia and China further attest to the presence of Manichaean communities and their devotional life.

The artistic and epigraphic evidence deepens this picture by revealing how Manichaean self-understanding was expressed visually and ritually. Illuminated manuscripts and painted scrolls from the Turfan region, as well as silk banners and wooden panels, preserve a distinctive iconography that many scholars see as echoing the lost *Arzhang*, the illustrated book attributed to Mani. In China, images and inscriptions presenting Mani as “Buddha of Light” show how his figure was reinterpreted within a Buddhist framework, while still retaining core themes of light, salvation, and cosmic struggle. Chinese stelae and inscriptions, along with shorter dedicatory texts in Sogdian and Uyghur, record donors, communities, and summaries of Mani’s life and teaching. Across this wide geographic arc—from Egypt and the Roman world through Central Asia to East Asia—the surviving manuscripts, buildings, images, and inscriptions together bear witness to a tradition that, though often persecuted and suppressed, left a remarkably persistent and multifaceted imprint on the religious landscape.