Collectively, Xuanying's 25-chapter and Huilin's 100-chapter versions constitute the oldest surviving Chinese dictionary of Buddhist technical terminology (for instance, Púsà 菩薩 or Pútísàtuo 菩提薩埵 for Bodhisattva).

[2] The term yīnyì 音義 "pronunciation and meaning", which refers to explaining the phonology and semantics of words, originated in the exegesis of Chinese classics.

Huilin's surname was Pei 裴, and he was born in Shule 疏勒 "Kashgar" (a city-state in the Tarim Basin, present-day Kashi 喀什, Xinjiang, the westernmost city in China).

He was a monk at the Xi Ming Temple in Chang'an (present-day Xi'an, Shanxi, at the eastern terminus of the Silk Road).

He has a profound knowledge of Indian philology and exegetic studies"[13] The Chinese Dharma name Huilin 慧琳 (lit.

421-445), who was favored by Emperor Wen of Liu Song, wrote the controversial (443) Baihei lun 白黑論 "Discourse on White and Black" that expressed doubts about karmic retribution.

[12] For instance, Sanskrit nirvana is usually transcribed with the Chinese characters nièpán < Middle Chinese ngetban 涅槃,[14] but also had alternate phonetic transcriptions such as nièpánnà < ngetbannop 涅槃那, and a similarly pronounced term from Daoist internal alchemy níwán < nejhwan 泥丸 ("muddy pellet; one of the Nine Palaces in the head").

With more and more Indian and Central Asian texts being translated into Chinese, the use of Sanskrit and Middle Indo-Aryan transcriptions and technical vocabulary increased, and became progressively more difficult to comprehend.

[16] The text has two prefaces by Tang scholars, one written by the monk Gu Qizhi 顧齊之 and one by the poet Jing Fan 景審.

[8] The preface says Huilin's wordbook "is as vast as the sea, embracing numerous streams and therefore profound, and is as bright as a mirror, reflecting tirelessly the objects in the world".

Huilin's dictionary was supplemented by the (987) Xu yiqiejing yinyi 續一切経音義 "Extended Pronunciation and Meaning in the Complete Buddhist Canon", compiled by the Liao dynasty monk Xilin 希麟.

[19] Each Yiqiejing yinyi entry first gives any variant transcriptions of the headword, the fanqie pronunciation of rare or difficult characters, Chinese translation, and comments.

[11] The entry for wúfù < Middle Chinese mjubjuwH 無復 "never again" (Sanskrit apunar "not again; only once"; Muller exemplifies Huilin's use of fanqie 反切 glosses for pronunciation.

Yong and Peng call it a "huge masterpiece of notation and interpretation of the sounds and meanings of characters in Buddhist scriptures – exhaustively embracing the ancient exegetic interpretations, phonetically notating the Sanskrit classics – and it is broad in collection and rich in content".

[10] According to the Qing scholar of Buddhism Yang Shoujing 楊守敬 (1835-1915),[24] Huilin's Yiqiejing yinyi "is where philological studies reside and a diamond in the academic forest".