Zhu Fonian may have begun to produce new ‘scriptures’ without benefit of any Indian source-texts in an attempt to revive his own flagging fame.

How one Chinese Āgama translator came to write Chinese apocrypha.

We are thus in the highly unusual situation of being able not only to recognize the text as an apocryphon, but knowing the name of the author as well. Weaving passages from translated scriptures together with his own creative work, Zhu Fonian has produced a “sūtra” which is neither wholly invented nor wholly borrowed, but is rather a pastiche.