北宋贊寧奉敕纂修《宋高僧傳》，接續慧皎、道宣僧史，自認為「遐求事跡，博採碑文」，不像兩人皆拘於一隅，無法遍搜天下高僧，然而此書闕錄之多，實非僅少數一二人而已。以柳宗元為例，他是中唐古文名家，為高僧銘幽篇數堪稱唐人之冠，贊寧卻幾乎未加採用，究竟緣由何在？而柳碑算是特例嗎？本文先自柳宗元銘幽之作說起，然後比對《宋高僧傳》載錄情況，再則辨析《宋高僧傳》的體例，最後綜理出《宋高僧傳》闕錄原因，認為原因有三：第一，贊寧非僅專注於此書寫作；第二，與贊寧修史態度攸關；第三，贊寧有個人對史料的裁斷取捨。

Following imperial instructions Zan Ning, the liege of the North Song Dynasty, compiled the Song Gao Seng Zhuan (the biographies of the eminent monks in the Song Dynasty) and continued the previous works of Huijiao and Daoxuan. He believed that he had made a great effort in this book in order to "ensure the complete collection of biographies of the eminent monks". He thought that Huijiao and Daoxuan were restrained by certain perspectives and so they could not achieve a complete collection.Buddhism flourished during the Tang Dynasty and many eminent monks became very famous. Zan Ning's Song Gao Seng Zhuan has been highly appraised within academia. This extensive collection consists of 30 volumes; there are 655 monks' biographies, with four-fifths of them being from the Tang Dynasty. However, the book compiled by imperial order did not cover all eminent monks. Quite a lot of monks were missing, not just one or two. For example, Liu Zongyuan is the prominent figure of the ancient Chinese literature in the mid-Tang Dynasty period; the quantity of inscriptions he had written was the most numerous among all of the others.
Nevertheless, Zan Ning had not collected his works in this collection. Why not? Is it because Liu's inscriptions were regarded as exceptional? The study first discusses Liu's inscriptions, and makes a comparison with the collection of Song Gao Seng Zhuan; secondly it analyzes the contexts in the book. Finally, it concludes with three reasons for the incomplete collection of Song Gao Seng Zhuan: (1) Zan Ning did not put all his efforts into the collection process; (2) His writing attitude determined the collection scope; and (3) He had his own preferences regarding the historical materials.