In 2021, Cao'an was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List along with many other sites near Quanzhou because of its unique testimony to the exchange of religious ideas and cultures in medieval China.

The religion was, however, primarily present in northern and central China (the Yangtze region) at the time and suffered a strong setback during the anti-Manichaean campaign of 843, the prelude to the Great Anti-Buddhist Persecution of 845, when foreign Manichaean priests were exiled or executed.

[12] Chinese translations of Manichaean treatises are couched in Buddhist phraseology,[13] and the religion's founder (Mar) Mani (known in China as (末)摩尼, (Mo)-Mani) received the title of the "Buddha of Light" (Chinese: 光明佛 Guangming Fo or 光佛 Guangfo), and a life story resembling that of Gautama Buddha.

[14] At the same time, the supposedly Taoist treatise, the Huahujing "Scripture of the Conversion of the Barbarians", popular with Chinese Manichaeans, declared Mani to be a reincarnation of Laozi.

[15] As to the Confucian civil authorities of the Song state, when the clandestine cells of Mani's followers came to their attention, they were usually lumped together with assorted other suspicious and potentially troublesome sects as "vegetarian demon worshipers" (Chinese: 吃菜事魔 Chi cai shi mo).

This temple - one of the northernmost known Manichaean sites of the Song era - was established in the 960s, and was still active - in a more standard Taoist way, but with a memory of Manichaeism retained - in the 1260s.

Manichaeism in China became practically forgotten by non-followers during the close of the Ming dynasty; As the followers of Manichaeaism had intended, in accompaniment with further syncretization with Taoism and Buddhism.

[22] As Samuel N. C. Lieu notes, worshipers at the time may have begun to think that the "Moni" moniker in Cao'an inscriptions referred to "[Śākya]muni" ([释迦]牟尼), i.e. Gautama Buddha;[22] this is what the locals told archaeologist Wu Wenliang a few years later as well.

[23] After He Qiaoyuan's account of the Manichaean shrine was brought to the attention of modern scholars in 1923, by Chen Yuan (陈垣) and Paul Pelliot,[24] local researchers started looking for it.

[3] In order to give the statue an overall luminous impression, the sculptor carved its head, body, and hands from stones of different hues.