"cases", ) with a master's comment on the case attached. When a prose comment was added, the genre was called ('picking up the old ones'), and when poems were used to comment, the genre was termed ('eulogizing the old ones'). Further commentaries would then be written by later figures on these initial comments, leading to quite complex and layered texts.

The style of these Song-era Zen texts was influenced by many Chinese literary conventions and the style of "literary games" (competitions involving improvised poetry). Common literary