佛祖統紀 1.41

1.41

What are the 'Buddhas and Patriarchs'? Taking the founder of the teaching as root, the various patriarchs are appended. What is the 'Comprehensive Record'? It systematically orders the transmission between the Buddhas and Patriarchs. (The 'Table of Meritorious Officials' in the Shiji says: 'Summarizing through successful completion serves as the comprehensive record.' In the 'Basic Annals of Gaozu' in the Book of Han, Yan Shigu's commentary states: 'Ji means to order; it brings comprehensive order to myriad affairs and binds them to years and months.') What are the 'Basic Annals'? Beginning with Śākya[muni] and ending with Fazhi, covering one Buddha and twenty-nine patriarchs, they are that by which the orthodox lineage of transmitting the teaching is recorded. What are the 'Hereditary Houses'? They represent those who generation after generation guarded the household patrimony to assist the Way of the patriarchs. What are the 'Biographies'? They record the words and deeds of the successive masters, enabling the Way of the patriarchs to have successors. The 'Tables' are that by which the historical timing of the transmission of the teaching and the orderly succession of receiving the Dharma are made manifest. The 'Treatises' are that by which events are recorded. Whether the doctrinal texts of our mountain school, the founding of teachings by various schools, rebirth in the Pure Land, the formation and destruction of the world, the glorious manifestation of the Dharma gate, the prosperity and decline of the Dharma's fortunes, the essential compendia to bridge past and present, or the recounting of writings to glorify the Great Teaching—all can be investigated in the Treatises.