Abstract: The increasingly available sources of Ming and Qing popular religions dramatically changed the research field in recent years because of the publication of large number of archives and scriptures．Collection of Sawada Mizuho of the Waseda University and part of Lin Hanzhang collection of the Taiwan Museum of World Ｒeligions，for instance，are freely accessible online.But to date and indentify a popular religious text，particularly a sectarian scripture，could be extremely difficult． The author uses the well-known Jiu-lian Sutra and the San-sha Jie-gui Sutra as examples to show the controversial nature of the extant popular religious texts．