Manichaeism was a gnostic religion founded by the alleged prophet Mani who was put to death by the Sassanid Shahanshah Bahram I in 277. His "religion of light" incorporated elements of Christianity, Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, and Gnosticism. It was regarded as Zoroastrian heresy and had no head. The religion once spread from the Roman Empire to China, surviving longer in the east than it did in the west; it faded away in the 1300s alongside Nestorian Christianity.