《西游记》中“江流儿”故事已久为学界所关注，该故事的文献源头也已经成了几项研究的主要对象。前贤关于该故事源头的研究大致有两种意见：一是该故事取自我国本土文学或戏剧，比如《齐东野语》和《西游记杂剧》；二是该故事源于佛典《六度集经》中的“国王本生”或者“四姓害子”。本篇短文通过简略对比故事情节，认定“江流儿”故事的佛教源头是五世纪末译来中国的《善见律毘婆沙》，并且认为这个故事是“生而被弃，长为俊杰”这个世界性母题故事的一个变体。

Much scholarly attention has been paid to the story of ‘floating baby’ in the Journey to the West. The story itself has also been the focus of a few studies. The views on the origins of the story can be roughly divided into to two groups: one suggests that the story belongs to the Chinese indigenous folk literature and regional operas, such as the Random Words of East Qi and the Journey to the West in Opera, the other maintains that it was adapted from either the ‘King’s Jātaka’ or the ‘Sudra who killed his son’ of the Liudu jijing. This short paper briefly compares the details of different versions of the story and argues that the original source of this story is the fifth-century Chinese translation of the Samantapāsādikā. The paper also suggests that the floating-baby story of the Journey to the West is only one sub-version of the motif of ‘an abandoned birth and a glorious grow-up’ in the folk literature across the ancient world.