開元釋教錄 16.4

16.4

Extracted sūtras refers to those copied out of larger works to circulate independently, such as the Second Assembly of the *Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra*. The gates of the Dharma are vast, their shores rarely reached; the scriptures are manifold, their boundaries inexhaustible. Hence, adapting to circumstances to transform and guide, responding to beings to bestow conditions, teachers often made brief use of them from within larger works according to the occasion. Readers did not know their origins, while students found their principles incomplete. Now I bring together their multiple strands and return them to their proper collections, pruning the older catalogues and adjusting their presence and absence. I fully record their titles and exhaustively detail their discrepancies, hoping that future scholars, observing the branches, will recognize the source. Fearing this may not yet be exhaustive, I entrust it to future sages.