Sassanid monarch Shapur promotes the growth of Zoroastrianism in the Persian Empire, eventually making it the official state religion.

Inscriptions show that he also founded Zoroastrian fire temples and sought to broaden the base of the newly revived Zoroastrian religion by the addition of material derived from both Greek and Indian sources.

He appears also to have tried to find a religion suitable for all of the empire, showing marked favor to Mani, the founder of Manichaeism, permitting Mani to establish his philosophy at the royal court, a move that displeases the court’s Zoroastrian priests.

Manichaeism, as it develops, denies the reality of Christ's body and rejects the notion of free will.

The religion adapts from Christianity baptism, the Eucharist, and a third sacrament of remission of sins at the time of death.

The essence of Manichaeism remains the principle of absolute dualism: the primal conflict between God, represented by light and spirit, and Satan, represented by darkness and the material world.

Humans, being creatures of God, possess divine spirits but carry within their material bodies seeds of darkness, sown by Satan.

In regarding evil as a physical rather than a moral entity, Manichaeism apparently considers women to be forces of darkness that bind men to the flesh.

Lactantius, an early Christian source, will maintain  that for some time prior to Valerian’s death he had been subjected to the greatest insults by his captors, but some modern scholars believe that, contrary to Lactantius' account, Shapur sent Valerian and some of his army to the new city of Bishapur (Shapur’s City) where they lived in relatively good condition.

The influential Kartir has called for the persecution of adherents of other religions, in particular Manichaeans.

Under the guidance of Kartir, Bahram has had the prophet Mani, the founder of Manichaeism (and the author of the Shapurgan, which was dedicated to Bahram's father Shapur) sentenced to death.

Mani dies in his cell shortly before his execution.

However, rumors persist that Mani might have been flayed alive and his skin, stuffed with straw, suspended for some time over one of the gates of the great city of Shapur.

On Bahram’s orders, the prophet's death is followed by the persecution of his disciples.

Manichaeism is relatively well established by that time, and is supported by numerous priests under a hierarchy of religious leaders that include twelve apostles and seventy-two bishops.

Nearly all of them are handed over to the Zoroastrian clergy, who—under Kartir —consider Manichaeism a heresy and cause the followers of Mani to be executed or otherwise punished.

When Bahram dies, possibly of disease, later in 276, his son ascends the throne to rule as Bahram II; he will continue his predecessors' work of strengthening dynastic power as opposed to the nobility.

Bahram is believed to have been involved in a campaign in Sakasthan (the modern-day Sistan) and Afghanistan against his brother Hormizd.

The hostilities end in 283 with his victory in Sakasthan.

He later has rock reliefs cut at Bishapur and …