Liu Hsieh's did research on the classics of Confuscianism and the Buddhist scriptures. He combined and cohered chinese culture with indian culture, and wrote a book, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons (The Wenxin Dialong), about the first theory of chinese literal thought. His two Buddhist articles, Mie Huo Lun (Disquisition on extinguishing doubts) and A Stone Statue in the Shicheng Temple of Mount Shan, still be conserved now. Liu Hsieh helped Shi Sengyou to edit and revise the following Buddhist scriptures: Chu Sanzang Ji Ji (Collection of notes on the translated Tripitaka), Shijie Ji (Records of the worlds), Shijia Pu (Genealogy of Sakaya clan), Hongming Ji (Collection on the propagation of the light), etc. His contributions on revising the Buddhist scriptures and buliding the theory of Chinese literal thought were very important.
ln Xuzhi (preface and treatise), from The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, 'The context of The Wenxin Dialong is originally from the nature and wisers, and is verified by the classics. I distinguished the original classics from the fake books and took something good for chinese literature in it. QuYan's Li Sao has a change on chinese literature.' The quoted sentences above are the core of literature in The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. Liu Hsieh regarded the nature as 'the common origin' of all literary creation. He considered that elaborating on the classics was 'the individual origin' of chinese literary creation. He had a extraordinary interpretation of QuYan's Li Sao. Liu Hsieh claimed that QuYan's Li Sao was 'the changing origin' of chinese literary creation ;The introduction of Buddhism also led to the transformation of Chinese literary creation.
