On Lao-tzu-pa-shi-i-hua-t\u27u-shuo : Did Ch\u27en-chih-hsu Compile it ?

In the reign of Hsien-tsung of the Yuan dynasty, a bitter dispute arose between Buddhists and Taoists.The cause was the publication of a book called Lao-tzŭ-pa-shi-i-hua-t‘u-shuo by the adherents of the Chuom-chin-chiao sect.It gave a pictorial representation to a tradition that Lao-tzŭ went to India, turned himself into Gautama Buddha and preached.Taoists got the worst of the argument, and copies of the book as well as the printing blocks were, as tradition says, destroyed by fire.We have, however, a book that bears that title.Dr. Yoshitoyo Yoshioka maintains that the existent text was originally compiled by a Taoist called Ch‘ên-chih-hsŭ on the ground of his investigation of its introduction written by Ch‘ên and of the pictures of thirty-one Taoists contained in the text.Ch‘ên\u27s intoduction is, however, not for his compilation of Lao-tzŭ-pa-shi-i-hua-t‘u-shuo but for his gloss on Tao-te-ching.Among the thirty-one Taoists pictured, there are no teachers of the school of Ch‘ên.Moreover, there are six Taoists who lived undoubtedly after Ch‘ên\u27s death.Judging from the date of death of the one who was the last to live and die among them, the pictures were prepared a little before the middle of the fifteenth century.Dr. Yoshioka supposes that the original copy of Lao-tzŭ-pa-shi-i-hua-t‘u-shuo came into the possession of Ch‘ên, but the author\u27s investigation suggests that it was not the case.Besides, the doctrine preached by Ch‘ên was not related to the arguments advanced in Lao-tzŭ-pa-shi-i-hua-t‘u-shuo.The conclusion is that the existent text was not compiled by Ch‘ên but by a Taoist who belonged to some other sect than Ch‘ên\u27s, and that a Lao-tzŭ-pa-shi-i-hua-t‘u-shuo which was compiled by Ch‘ên exists only in the fanciful imagination of Dr. Yoshioka.This is the result of his failure to make a careful study of the introductory and pictorial part of the text