釋鑑稽古略續集 1.231

1.231

寶洲沙門　諱覺岸。號寶洲。烏程職里寶相寺（今清泰菴）沙門也。學博通古今。甞考釋氏事實上下數千載年經國緯。著為手鑑。再治名釋氏稽古略。蓋自有佛以來。凡名師大德之行業出處。以及塔廟之興廢僧侶之眾寡。靡不具載。本之內典參之諸史。旁及於傳記。而間之以事之顯著者。為之據歲月先後。考覈精審。無所遺闕。李桓序。實能補國史之未周葺。禪編之大備。一代之司南云。

Śramaṇa Baozhou: taboo name Jue'an, styled Baozhou. He was a śramaṇa of Baoxiang Monastery (now Qingtai Hermitage) in Zhi Village, Wucheng. His learning was vast, penetrating past and present. He once examined the historical facts of the Buddhists spanning several thousand years, with years as the warp and dynasties as the weft, composing them as the Hand Mirror (Shoujian). Later revised, it was titled Brief Historical Survey of the Śākya Lineage (Shishi jigu lüe). From the time of the Buddha onwards, the deeds and careers of famous masters and great worthies, as well as the rise and decline of stūpas and shrines and the numbers of the monastic community, were recorded without exception. Grounded in the internal scriptures and cross-referenced with various histories, it extended to biographies, interspersed with prominent events. Arranging them sequentially by year and month, his investigation was precise and thorough, omitting nothing. Li Huan's preface says: "It truly supplements what the national histories left incomplete, fully furnishes the Zen records, and may be called the guidepost of an entire age."