Focus on Sermon on Mani's Teaching of Salvation and explore the Analysis.
Zsuzsanna Gulácsi states in her article A Visual Sermon on Mani's Teaching of Salvation: The Manichaean origin of this Chinese painting is unquestionable for three principal reasons: its dedicatory inscription that bestowed the object on a Chinese Manichaean temple most likely at Ningbo, in Zhejiang province; the iconography of its main deity, Mani, as well as that of the elect (Manichaean priests), who are shown in Chinese versions of characteristically Manichaean attire; and the significant amount of documentary evidence on the worship of Manichaean deities (Mani and Jesus) represented in pictorial and sculptural forms by the Manichaean communities of southern China, especially Fujian and Zhejiang provinces, between the 10th and 17th centuries. […] This hanging scroll is clearly not a devotional work of art that was used for the purposes of religious worship. It is dominated by a narrative character displayed throughout its complex pictorial program that relies on a large set of uniquely arranged individual scenes. Although the sequence of the scenes is logical, it is not self-evident. Their comprehension implies a beholder familiar with Manichaean religious teaching. We have seen that various compositional elements, just as a comprehensive theme, unite the individual registers (scenes) into this intricate image that is hardly suitable for casual viewing. Therefore, this silk painting can be best interpreted as a didactic work of art designed as a visual aid for religious instruction. If so, this painting constitutes a prime example of such an image that was used by a Manichaean community in ca. 13th-century southern China, possibly in the region of Ningbo, in Zhejiang province.In the article "The Origin of the Manichaean "Hades Frame" in the Yamato Bunkakan Collection, Japan", Ma Xiaohe, a scholar specializing in Manichaeism, made a hypothetical reconstruction of the evolution of the image: 
The author of this painting probably copied the Five Dynasties and Northern Song dynasties' Ten Kings Sutra painting and the Six Paths of the Earth and the Ten Kings painting, replacing Shakyamuni with Mani, King Yiluo with the King of Equality, Six Paths with the Three Paths, and the Bodhisattva of Guidance with the Buddha of Lightning, as well as the scenes of priests from the West speaking to the listeners, forming the basic outline. In the subsequent evolution of this diagram, the scene of the trial of the king of the underworld was absorbed from the Southern Song Dynasty's Lu Xinzhong's painting of the Ten Kings scroll, and later from the Yuan Dynasty's Lu Zhongyuan's painting of the Ten Kings scroll, resulting in the diagram we see today.
Chinese Six Paths Zhejiang King Yiluo Ningbo Ma Xiaohe Jesus Shakyamuni silk silk painting Manichaeism Chinese Manichaean Fujian hanging scroll Mani Manichaean Zsuzsanna Gulácsi