There were various sects like the White Lotus, the Red Turbans, the Holy Lodge and the followers of the Kingdom of Light, some touched by the strange afterglow of Manichaeism, the Near Eastern sect which had become the state religion of the Uighur kingdom in the seventh century. It had vanished as an organised religion in the ninth century during the Buddhist persecutions, but still survived in the countryside during the Yuan, when Marco Polo reported 700,000 followers in Fujian (where a Manichaean temple with its cult image still survives near Quanzhou). Though long gone now, Manichaeism left
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