Mid-to-late Táng monk-philologist, the most consequential Chinese Buddhist lexicographer of the pre-modern period. Lay surname Péi 裴, native of Shūlèguó 疏勒國 (Kashgar in the Western Regions). Born 737 CE; died at Xīmíngsì 西明寺 in Cháng’ān in Yuánhé 元和 15 = 820 CE, at age 84.
Originally trained in the Confucian arts, he turned to Buddhism in his “weak-cap year” (around twenty) and took Bù-kōng 不空 (Amoghavajra, 705–774) — the great Esoteric (mì 密) tripiṭaka of the mid-Táng court — as his teacher. He combined inner mastery of the Esoteric mì-zàng with outer mastery of Confucian jīng-xué and zì-xué (lexicography), and developed deep expertise in Sanskrit śabda-vidyā (shēng-míng 聲明) and Chinese xùn-gǔ.
His monumental work is the Yīqiè jīng yīnyì 一切經音義 (KR6s0013, T2128) — the Huìlín yīnyì — a one-hundred-juan canon-wide phonological-semantic glossary of about 600,000 characters, composed over the period Jiànzhōng 4 (783) – Yuánhé 2 (807). The work substantially incorporates earlier yīnyì compilations (Xuányìng’s KR6s0010, Huìyuàn’s KR6s0011/KR6s0012, the lost works of Yúngōng and Guō Tàiyuán). It is universally regarded as the single most important Chinese-Buddhist philological work and is one of the principal canonical sources for Middle Chinese phonology, drawn on by every modern reconstruction of Tang Mandarin from Karlgren onward. The work was presented for inclusion in the imperial canon in Dàzhōng 5 = 851, three decades after his death, by the senior Xīmíngsì officials Míngxiù, Qìyuán, and Xuáncè.
He also produced two short Esoteric ritual works: the one-juan Xīnjí yùxiàng yíguǐ 新集浴像儀軌 (a ritual on bathing the buddha-image) and the one-juan Jiànlì màntúluó jí jiǎnzé dìfǎ 建立曼荼羅及揀擇地法 (mandala-construction and site-selection).
Source: DILA Buddhist Person Authority A001729; Sòng gāosēng zhuàn 宋高僧傳, j. 5; Gù Qízhī’s 840 preface to the Yīqiè jīng yīnyì (T54n2128_p0311); Yínián lù 疑年錄: 138; Fóguāng dà cídiǎn p. 6045.