“Laozi’s Transformation of the Hu” is a renowned historical event first documented in the Records of the Grand Historian. However, over successive generations, speculation has led to the interpretation that, after Laozi passed through the Hangu Pass toward the west, he was subsequently depicted as having “become a Buddhist.” In the seventh year of the Dading era of the Jin dynasty (1167 AD), Qiu Chuji of the Quanzhen school received protection from the Mongol imperial court; consequently, Taoist influence expanded rapidly, with temples and monasteries established across the north. Drawing on the text of the Laozi’s Transformation of the Hu, he created the Eighty-one Transformations of Laozi; these images were widely disseminated through stone inscriptions and woodblock printing, which provoked widespread dissatisfaction within Buddhist circles. In 1258, at the behest of Möngke Khan, Kublai Khan convened a debate between eminent Buddhist and Taoist scholars at the Wan ‘an Pavilion in Kaiping Prefecture; this event is recorded in history as the “Wu-Wu Debate.” With Kublai Khan’s support, the Buddhist scholar Pāśābā emerged victorious. Accordingly, in 1281, the Yuan court issued an edict comprehensively banning and destroying the steles and illustrated scrolls containing these images, in an attempt to erase the associated memory. This ban did not achieve its intended effect; instead, the prohibitory edicts and decrees preserved a substantial body of related documentary material. Using the Record of Debates on Falsification during the Zhiyuan Era and its later reprints as core materials, this paper explores the historical process through which this phenomenon emerged.

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