貞元新定釋教目錄 26.4

26.4

支流經者。謂大部之中抄出別行。大般若第二會之類是也。夫法門浩廣罕究津涯。典籍紛綸靡窮邊際。故有隨宜化誘應物施緣。於大部之中隨時略用。披尋者莫知所生。翫習者將義不終。今統集多端會歸當部。仍刪夷舊錄增減有無。具載名題備詳差互。庶使將來學者覽派知源。或恐未周用希來哲。

As for 'branch-extraction sūtras': this refers to those excerpted from major works to circulate separately, such as the Second Assembly of the Mahāprajñāpāramitā-sūtra. Indeed, the Dharma-gates are vast and extensive, their shores and shallows seldom charted; the canonical scriptures are teeming and manifold, their boundaries never exhausted. Therefore, to teach and guide in accordance with circumstance, responding to living beings by providing conditions, brief selections were drawn from large works to be used as the occasion required. Those who opened and explored them did not know their source, while those who studied and practiced them found that their doctrinal coherence was left incomplete. Now I bring together their multiple offshoots and return them each to their proper work; moreover, I prune the old catalogues, adjusting additions and omissions according to whether texts exist or not, fully recording their titles and meticulously explaining discrepancies. I hope to enable future scholars to inspect the branches and thereby know the source, yet fearing this may still fall short of perfection, I entrust it to the wisdom of future sages.