You could say that pien-wen is the precursor of the new Chinese literature, drawing on the forms of Tang poetry, Buddhist sutras, fiction of the Six Dynasties and feeding into Ming and Ch'ing novels, drama and story telling.
變文可以說是中國新文學的先祖，上承唐詩、佛經、六朝小說等文學形式，下啟明、清的長篇小說、戲曲、說書等文學形式。