In his work Chung-kuo Fo-chiao Shih-chi Kai-lun (中國佛教史籍概論 or 'An Outline of Chinese Buddhist Historical Works')，late Professor Ch'en `Yuan` (陳垣，1880-1971) outlines detailly each one the contents of the thirty-five Buddhist historical works that he chosen. These works are composed by the Chinese Buddhist cleric or laymen during a long period from the 5th to the 17th centries A.D. As his work bibliographically suggests an useful guide for the self-teaching students of Buddhist history to find the certain texts they needed for their researches, the late Professor had already contributed a great many in promulgating the study of this field in modern China. Owing to the guidance of the late Professor，numerous junior students, including the author himself，therefore found their own way to enter the gate of Chinese Buddhist history and then they are enable to publish their own research works.
After having read through the entire 35 Buddhist 'historical works' following the guidance of the late Professor，the author has a different view of his work. As the late Professor stresses in his preface that he outlines these 'historical works' in order to "guide the students to enter a new field for the research of Buddhist history"，therefore, the works that he chosed to outline should have been the basic texts a student should have to read them through. According to the author's observation, except from work 1 to work 8 in accordance with the serial order that arranged in the late Professor's book are the basic texts for a student to read through, while work 9 is an useful Buddhist encyclopedia; works 15，16，24，26 and 34 are the foundamental texts for the history of Ch'an (禪) Buddhism with works 20 and 21 for the history of the T'ien-t'ai (天臺) Buddhism; the others are not the basic texts.
Moreover，among the above-mentioned non-basic texts, some of them are in fact full with errors and inacculate descriptions, some of them are but the second hand materials. Furthermore，some of them are even entirely not historical works and without any usage for historical researches.
Why should late Professor Ch'en `Yuan` have to recommand such works to the self-teaching students? The author found that he would have been under the following purposes:
(1) Through the outlining of these works, he demonstrates his vesatility in different academic fields.
(2) Through the outlining of these works, some- times he inserts opinions to comment the past as a way of satirizing the present. As he has been trapped in the Japanese occupied Peking during the Sino-Japanese War，he protests his patriotism through his work in that period.
(3) Through the outlining of these works, he critises the error that committed by the Ssu-k'u `Ch'uan-shu` Tsung-mu T'i-yao (四庫全書總目提要 or 'An Outline to the Classified Books in Four Main Fields Edited under the Imperial Decreed of the Ch'ing Dynasty') as a way of challenging the later. As the above-mentioned 'An Outline to the Classified Books...' is an authorized and influental academic work in the bibliographical field，the late Professor Challenges its authority by pointing out each error that it committed when outlining some certain Buddhist scriptures. In this situation，some
