People always believe that Buddhism exerts influence on Taoism. However，the question that whether Buddhism had ever been influenced by Taoism and Chinese culture as well as whether there exists the problem of authenticity of Buddhist sutras remains neglected or even denied for a logn thime. In fact，we often see that Buddhist sutras contain Taoist liturgy，ritual and even talismans. Therefore, it is not difficult to determine whether Buddhism had ever been influenced by Taoism. The exchange of the two religions is two-way，not oneway. From Buddhist literature，we can find that some Buddhist sutras took elements of Taoism. As to philosophic thought, Tao-sheng and Shen-chao had the imprint of Lao-tze and Chuang-tze; the Mahayana Sraddhotpada Sastra has the image of Chuang-tze's theory of the easence of path; Chung-mi of T'ang Dynasty applied the Taichi Diagram of Taoism to elucidate the theory of mindonly; Hsion t'se of Ch'ing Dynasty also used Taichi Diagram to describe the characters of the Ch'ao Tung Ch'an School. As to the authenticity of Buddhist sutras, people always make judgement on the basis that whether a book is written by the author. From this angle，there would be no genuine Buddhist sutras since all Buddhist sutras start with the words "Thus 1 have heard". Besides, the Mahayana and Tantric sutras were written much later. There would be no need to debate their authenticity. People mistake that only the sutras written by Indian people are genuine while those sutras by Chinese monks are not; only the sutras which have Sanskrit version are genuine while those sutras which have no Sanskrit version are not; only the sutras written earlier are genuine while those sutras written in later age are not; that complete version and short version exist in the same time. These arguments are not in agreement with fact. In fact, we need only to judge whether a sutra is good or bad. We don't need to attach to the problem of authenticity. It is more meaningful to investigate when a sutra was written and what are its influence on and contribution to later age than to debate the authenticity of sutras.
