Įmperors of China occasionally organized debates between Buddhists and Taoists, and granted political favor to the winners. In 705, the Emperor Zhongzong of Tang prohibited distribution of the text. It has been suggested that the Taoist Wang Fu ( 王浮) may have originally compiled the Huahujing circa 300 CE.
Some scholars believe it is a forgery because there are no historical references to it until the early 4th century CE. The Taoists are sometimes claimed to have developed the Huahujing to support one of their favourite arguments against the Buddhists: that after leaving China to the West, Laozi had travelled as far as India, where he had converted-or even become-the Buddha and thus Buddhism had been created as a somewhat distorted offshoot of Taoism. Traditionally, it is said that Laozi wrote it with the intention of converting Buddhists to Taoism, when they began to cross over from India. The work is honorifically known as the Taishang lingbao Laozi huahu miaojing ( 太上靈寶老子化胡妙經, "The Supreme Numinous Treasure's Sublime Classic on Laozi's Conversion of the Barbarians"). Two unrelated versions are claimed to exist, a partial manuscript discovered in the Mogao Caves, Dunhuang, in China and a modern English rendering from oral tradition, while some scholars believe the whole work to be a later work from the 4th century CE. The Huahujing (formerly written Hua Hu Ching) is a Taoist work, traditionally attributed to Laozi (formerly written Lao Tzu).