傳法正宗記 9.65

9.65

The Preface states: The Nirvāṇa [Sūtra] says, 'Go further to other lands where there are the poison arrows of afflictions, manifest as patriarchs, and cure them.' It also says, 'I have entirely entrusted the unsurpassed true Dharma to Mahākāśyapa; this Kāśyapa shall serve as a great refuge for all of you.' From this, [it is clear that] our Way possessing patriarchs and an ancestral lineage is of ancient standing. Yet China and India are distant from one another, and those who transmitted it were not authentic, causing the sagely virtues not to be clearly manifest. Moreover, tyrannical rulers, jealous of goodness, destroyed and abandoned the great teaching, while Buddhist disciples were inept at composing books, falsely asserting that its patriarchs ended with the twenty-fourth generation; thus doubts were engendered in later generations, and the sagely virtues were increasingly obscured. I have often lamented this. Having recently attended to editing books, I obtained the deeds of the patriarchs and ancestral lineage narrated by various worthy figures, totaling ten accounts. Therefore, taking their authors together, I have arranged them as the Biographies Testifying to the Lineage, so it is said.