When Xuanying died he had only finished 25 chapters of the dictionary, but in 807 another Tang monk named Huilin (慧琳) compiled an enlarged 100-chapter version bearing the same title.

[1] 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.

In 712, Emperor Xuanzong of Tang ordered a team of scholars to compile the catalog Yiqie Daojing yinyi 一切道經音義 "Titles and Meanings of all the Daoist Canon".

[14] The (664) Dà Táng nèidiǎn lù 大唐内典錄 "Records of Internal Classics in the Tang Dynasty" describes his interaction with Emperor Taizong of Tang, Xuan Ying, a Master in the Temple of Da Ci'en Temple, was summoned several times by the Emperor to collect and sort Buddhist scriptures and phonetically notate and semantically interpret characters from them.

[17] 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.

[10] This material was compiled in so-called yinyi 音義 "pronunciation and meaning" lexicons, specialized dictionaries that give phonetic and semantic information.

Another example was the (987) Xu yiqiejing yinyi 續一切経音義 "Extended Pronunciation and Meaning in the Complete Buddhist Canon" by the Liao dynasty monk Xilin希麟.

The characters used in the text form are limited to the defining vocabulary of the glossary, similar to the modern lexicographical method of the (1978) Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.

[22] The most renowned of all translator monks was Xuanzang, who started on a pilgrimage to India in 629 and returned to the Tang capital Chang'an in 645 with foreign missionaries and sacred Buddhist texts.

[9] He assembled 454 sutras from Mahayana, Śrāvakayāna, Vinaya, and Shastra traditions, collected and explained their difficult Chinese characters, probably as a primer for members of Xuanzang's translation team.

[14] Xuanying's scholarship utilized the unprecedented advances in philological studies that resulted from the Chinese interest in reading and translating Sanskrit.

[26] For the format and style of the Yiqiejing yinyi, Xuanying followed the example of Lu Deming's (583) Jingdian Shiwen exegetical dictionary of the Confucian Thirteen Classics.

The basic structure of each Yiqiejing yinyi definition is to give: any variant renderings of the headword, the pronunciation of rare or difficult characters, Chinese translation and comments, and, optionally, the corrected transcription of the Sanskrit.

[10] The entry for jiǎokuài < Middle Chinese kæwX-kwajH 狡獪 "crafty; joke; play" exemplifies Xuanying's detailed glosses.

[10] While Xuanying does not mention the (601) Qieyun rime dictionary, which uses different fanqie character "spellings" from the Yiqiejing yinyi, the similarity between the phonological systems of the two works indicates that they were based on the same Chinese dialect.

[30] Xuanying's Yiqiejing yinyi made more detailed and specific semantic explanations than earlier dictionaries, "no judgements would be given before rigorous textual research had been carried out and meticulous comments added".

For the collation of Yiqiejing yinyi entries, Xuanying followed Lu Deming's Jingdian shiwen arrangement by provenance in individual scripture.

[32] The Yiqiejing yinyi is not strictly a bilingual dictionary in the modern meaning of containing headwords in Sanskrit or other Buddhist-language scripts and Chinese translation equivalents.

[22] In any case, the Yiqiejing yinyi, which compiled non-Chinese loanwords and defined them in Chinese, is the "first Buddhist dictionary of its kind and the first, albeit crude, attempt at bilingual lexicography".

[33] Xing Guang calls it a "valuable work for modern scholars" owing to the high quality of Xuanying's editing and scholarship.