Page 648 - The Encyclopedia of Taoism v1_A-L

606 THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF TAOISM A-L

Laojun

Lord Lao

See *Laozi and Laojun 12; T . 12; ~ .

Laojun bashiyi hua tu

Eighty-One Transformations of Lord Lao, Illustrated

The Laojun bashiyi hua tu is an illustrated hagiography of Laozi which, as its
title indicates, shows his supposed eighty-one interventions in human form
in the life of the world. The text gained fame in the disputations between
Buddhists and Taoists during the Yuan dynasty and was one of those that
were destroyed after the proscription of all Taoist books with the exception
of the Daode jingo As a result, no version of this text exists in the Taoist Canon.
The particular notoriety of the Eighty-One Transformations was due largely
to its explicit claim that the Buddha was but one of the transformations of
Laozi. This theory-"the conversion of the barbarians" -had a long history
probably extending back to the Later Han period and arguments between
Buddhists and Taoists on the topic had raged from the Six Dynasties (see the
entry *Huahujing).
The precise origins of the Eighty-One Transformations are murky, and the
validity of the claim of surviving texts to authenticity remains open to ques-
tion. The most detailed version of the events surrounding the composition
of the text-and its subsequent use in debates between Buddhists and Tao-
ists-comes in the form of a Buddhist polemic, the Bianwei lu ¥Ml!~j~ (Accounts
of Disputation of [Taoist] Falsehood; T. 2II6), by Xiangmai ;ff ~, which was
complete by I291. Bearing in mind that this text has been examined and found
severely wanting in historical reliability by Kubo Noritada (I968), it neverthe-
less provides the information that the two main figures in the authorship of
the Eighty-One Transformations were Linghu Zhang 4- 5JII l' and Shi Zhijing
.9: it #~, a follower of *Qiu Chuji (II48-I227). A version of the text under the
title Jinque xuanyuan Taishang Laojun bashiyi hua tushuo ::'0': ~K 5l;);: L·i{;;g