Late-tenth-century Liáo dynasty monk-philologist of Chóngrénsì 崇仁寺 in Yānjīng 燕京 (the Liáo southern capital, modern Beijing). Lay surname, native place, and lifedates are not preserved.
His one work — and the one for which he is universally remembered — is the ten-juan Xù yīqiè jīng yīnyì 續一切經音義 (KR6s0014, T2129), a direct continuation of Huìlín’s 慧琳 great hundred-juan Yīqiè jīng yīnyì (KR6s0013, 783–807). The continuation supplies yīnyì glosses for ca. 110 newly canon-included texts (266 juan / 25 zhì) added to the canon after the Kāiyuán shìjiào lù (730), beginning with the Dàshèng lǐqù liù bōluómìduō jīng of 788. The work was composed at the request of a court-Buddhist figure styled Wúài dàshī 無礙大師, conventionally placed at ca. 987 CE (Liáo Tǒnghé 5). It is universally cited as the Xīlín yīnyì 希麟音義.
The work is a primary witness to the Liáo canon project of the late tenth and eleventh centuries and to the late-Táng to Liáo state of Qièyùn / Guǎngyùn-tradition phonology in the Beijing region. It entered the standard East Asian canon through the Liáo–Goryeo transmission; via the Korean canon it entered the Taishō at T54 no. 2129.
The Kanripo catalog meta classifies the work as Sòng — likely reflecting its Sòng-canonical inclusion date — but DILA more accurately classifies Xīlín as a Liáo monk, since Yānjīng was Liáo territory throughout his lifetime.
Source: DILA Buddhist Person Authority A000492; Fóguāng dà cídiǎn p. 2877; auto-preface to T54n2129.