Fascicles One and Two are subdivided into separate collections of sermons that follow Fayanʼs peripatetic career in chronological order, and concludes with a section of “Chinese gāthā” 偈頌, consisting of occasional poems and other verse. Fascicle Three includes a series of sermons from a subsequent abbotship, and concludes with another section of 'Chinese gāthā.' The original format was two separate texts: a two-fascicle lifetime edition, and a one-fascicle supplement. In early editions, the first two fascicles are collectively entitled Recorded Sayings of the Venerable [Fa]yan from Haihui [Temple] of Mount Baiyun in Shuzhou 舒州白雲山海會演和尙語錄. The third fascicle is separately entitled Recorded Sayings from the East Mountain Temple of Huangmei 黃梅東山語錄.

The earliest surviving printed material is part of an object in the Japanese Imperial Household Kunaichō collection, also in three fascicles. Only fascicle three is printed, and a printerʼs colophon yields a date of 1200 (慶元庚申), most likely not the first edition. Fascicles one and two are transcribed, without a date. Fascicle One reproduces the preface to an earlier edition, composed by Zhang Jingxiu 張景脩 (jinshi 1067) and signed in 1096 (紹聖三年); Fascicle Two concludes with a undated printerʼs colophon, 'Printed by Hu Chang of Ningbo'  四明胡昶刊. This two-fascicle book was first produced in Fayanʼs lifetime, before his final abbatial appointment. Book-ended by these two colophons, these same two fascicles correspond to the entirety of fascicle sixteen of the National Central Library (Taiwan) woodblock edition of Recorded Sayings of Past Worthies 古尊宿語錄, produced in 1267. This suggests the two fascicle and one fascicle texts still circulated independently as late as then. The separate one-fascicle text contains the teachings from the following part of his career. The printed edition of the one-fascicle text in the Kunaichō collection has a colophon dated 1200 that notes "relying on the text from Yunju, I have expanded and supplemented the Records of East Mountain"  依雲居本續添東山錄. There is no record of whether the Yunju temple text was a manuscript or printed book.

The earliest surviving complete printed three-fascicle edition is in the Yongle Southern Canon edition of Recorded Sayings of Past Worthies 古尊宿語錄 (reproduced in Zhonghua zang, vol. 77, no. 1710, pp. 766–786). The entire three-fascicle text has been renamed “Sayings of Venerable Huangmei Donghsan” 黃梅東山和尙語, and all earlier colophons and paratexts removed. The same text is also found in the Yongle Northern Canon (vol. 197, pp. 497–556). The contents, sequence, and organization otherwise match both that of the Kunaichō edition and the late Southern Song edition at National Central Library, unlike the late Ming Jingshan edition. Separately, other relatively early material is the abbreviated extract included in the Southern Song anthology Xukan gu zunsu yuyao 續刊古尊宿語要.