The contents are arranged by ritual occasion, and many entries are composed in parallel prose or verse. The anthology gathers exemplary 'sayings' from earlier texts, such as Ruru jushi yulu (Wagner, forthcoming) and Yuanwu Foguo chanshi yulu (Protass, 2021:243–246); it is possible that some entries are original compositions by Deyin. Despite its name, this is not a 'recorded sayings'  語錄 text per se.

Each fascicle of Master Yinʼs Collected Records of the Sages includes up to several dozen individual texts, each appropriate for a particular ritual event. Altogether, these texts provide a sense of the range of rituals that might be performed in a Southern Song Chan monastery. For example, one finds exemplars for how to begin a sermon at calendrical events; for 'during snow,' 'after snow has stopped,' and other climatological events; as well as for 'Amitâbhaʼs Birthday' (on the latter see Wagner, forthcoming). An entire fascicle provides instructions for 'Arranging Boxed Food' 設斛 (cf. 斛食) to feed various ghosts 鬼神, which incorporates a series of mantras 眞言. Several fascicles contain verses to be used at funerals, some for monastic funerals. Many of the funereal verses are for laypersons, each modified for a particular occupation or social status. Some entries include descriptive titles, such as the verse to be recited for "someone who drunkenly fell off a bridge and drowned" 因醉渡橋溺死. The final fascicle includes “Master Yinʼs Autobiography” 因師自敍, the primary source for Deyinʼs career. Therein, Deyin provides the sexegenary cycle for the year, month, day, and hour of his birth, corresponding most likely to 1226.

A Yuan-era woodblock print of fascicles 1 through 10 is in the collection of Guojia tushuguan, Beijing. The earliest complete text is a Japanese Gozen edition 五山版, likely 14th century (Kawase, 1970:354). The Gozan edition has the same format as the Yuan text (Shiina, 2013:661–663). Photographs of the complete Gozan text were recently published in Gozan-ban, Chūgoku zenseki sōkan, vol 9. The Japanese edition produced in 1634 introduced the text to new audiences, and became the ancestral redaction of most early modern editions as well as the edition in the modern Zokuzōkyō 續藏經 (Z. 1277, vol. 65 of 90; vol. 114 of 150).

References:

Kawase, Kazuma 川瀬一馬. 1970. Gozan ban no kenkyū 五山版の研究 . Tokyo:  Nihon Kosho Shosekishō Kyōkai. vol. 2

Protass, Jason. 2021. The Poetry Demon: Song-Dynasty Monks on Verse and the Way. University of Hawaii Press.

Shiina Kōyū  椎名宏雄. 2012. Gozan-ban, Chūgoku zenseki sōkan 五山版中国禅籍叢刊 . Kyōto:  Rinsen Shoten. vol. v. 7