According to George Keyworth, the Linjian lu is arguably the best expression of literary Chanʼs multifaceted nature during the Northern Song 北宋 dynasty. The text contains examples of literati or gṛhapati 居士 relations with Chan monks and vital information about the geographical locations of literary Chan masters and their disciples. Additionally, the Linjian lu is a good source for records about Huihongʼs contemporaries, including secular and monastic entries. In particular, the text includes information about the masters of the Yangqi 楊岐 branch of the Linji school 臨濟宗. Another factor that makes this text intriguing is that it portrays a regional view of the Chan school as opposed to the national one presented in the later gong'an 公案 collections and Lamp Histories 燈史. Or, as Keyworth puts it, "It is a much more intimate depiction of Song Chan. Because instead of being an account of Chan masters already known from the lamp histories, the Linjian lu records people, in a sense, before history had a chance to judge them as in the lamp histories or even discourse records." (2001, p. 342).

References:

Ahn, Juhn Y. 2009. “Who Has the Last Word in Chan? Transmission, Secrecy, and Reading During the Northern Song Dynasty.” Journal of Chinese Religions 37 : 1–72.

Keyworth, George A. 2001. “Transmitting the Lamp of Learning in Classical Chan Buddhism: Juefan Huihong (1071–1128) and Literary Chan.” Ph.D. diss.,