The work opens with accounts of the seven buddhas of the past 七佛 and the twenty-eight Indian patriarchs 二十八祖. These, together with the accounts of the six Chinese patriarchs and their important descendants to the end of the Tang 唐代, follow the order found in the Chuandeng lu 傳燈錄. The remainder of the work, from the Five Dynasties 五代 (907–960) until the beginning of the thirteen century, is arranged according to the Five Houses and Seven Schools 五家七宗. The Wudeng huiyuan has had a wide circle of readers both in China and in Japan and has frequently been reprinted. The original edition, in twenty fascicles, had no table of contents. The editor of the Yuan edition (1364), however, removed the headings of the individual sections, making from them a detailed Table of Contents in two additional fascicles.

Several editions of the text were printed in Japan by the Five Monasteries 五山版 during the years 1364–1371. The Zokuzōkyō edition is based on the Yuan edition. A photographic reprint based upon the original text of 1252 was published in Changsha 長沙 (Hunan province) in 1930. English translations of material from the Wudeng Huiyuan can be found in Yu, Lu K'uan Ch'an and Zen teaching. London: Rider (1960). There is also a partial English translation in Ferguson, Andrew E. 2000. Zenʼs Chinese Heritage: The Masters and Their Teachings. Boston: Wisdom Publications.