佛祖統紀 1.38

1.38

What is compiled here relies upon the Zongyuan lu and the Shimen zhengtong, collating text and meaning, excising and supplementing. It further draws on the scriptures of the Great Canon, commentaries and notes of the doctrinal schools, historical records of the Confucian tradition, the accounts and records of various authors, as well as Master Xiu's Longxing tongji and Master Xiu's Shishi tongji, to assist in citations. Following the method of historians, it forms four fascicles of Annals of the Buddhas, four fascicles of Annals of the Patriarchs, two fascicles of Hereditary Houses, eleven fascicles of Biographies, one fascicle of Miscellaneous Biographies, one fascicle of Biographies of Uncertain Succession, two fascicles of Tables, and thirty fascicles of Treatises, thereby completing an independent and comprehensive work. As for adding an appreciation after a biography to recount virtue, presenting a discourse beneath an event to resolve doubts, and where the text cites antiquity or an event holds residual significance, notes are invariably appended beneath, enabling readers to comprehend it easily. (If judged by this and the previous text explaining the Biographies, one knows that the Biographies of the Masters originally comprised eleven fascicles; the Basic Annals later omitted this phrasing and counted only ten fascicles.)