出三藏記集 5.8

5.8

In foreign countries, the monastic method of learning is always to kneel and receive instruction orally. Transmitted through teachers for ten or twenty generations to be conferred upon later students, if there is even a single variant character, they investigate and collate it together; once verified, [the error] is discarded. The monastic method allows no laxity. It has not been long since the sūtras arrived in the land of Jin, yet meddlesome individuals mark sand as gold, presenting an elegant surface without any rectification; how could one discern the genuine from the spurious? When weeds and grain grow together for the farmer, Houji sighs in sorrow; when uncut stones are enclosed together in the same coffer as gold, Bian He harbors grief. How could I, Dao'an, daring to be counted among students of learning and seeing the rivers Jing and Wei mingling their streams or dragons and snakes advancing together, not feel shame? Now I set forth those texts which in my estimation are not authentic Buddhist sūtras as follows, in order to show future scholars so that they may jointly know what to disdain and what to trust.