幾百年以來，出版書籍在東亞佛教文化占據著主要地位，以做為佛法的容器與聖靈的物質而受到尊重，出版佛經也被視為是一種功德。但是，就佛經的語言與文風而言，並非未經專門教育者所能馬上了解的。因此佛經之外，有解釋、標章、演講等教育文獻傳播著。在許多中國佛教徒的學佛背景中，初學或入門書籍是發揮相當重要角色的一種教育書籍。從十九世紀以來有幾十種出版，如今在書店書架還看得到。此類的書籍讓有興趣的人利用易於獲取的方式而學佛，也不用馬上多花費時間或加入個人的承諾。本文以三位佛學入門書籍的作者為中心，他們在相當不同的歷史狀況中生活，貢獻的書籍也很不同：楊文會（1937-1911）—「太平天國之亂」之後復興佛經出版事業，並撰寫《佛教初學課本》；丁福保（1874-1952）—編輯了部帙龐大的《佛學大辭典》，也是八種佛學入門書籍的編者；聖嚴法師（1930-2009）—所著入門書籍在英文世界是最受歡迎的作品之一。本論文所要證明的是佛學入門書籍其實比其基本性質更加複雜而具有研究意義。它們代表從多元的傳統中凝聚出一種穩定而易了解的體系的結晶，也是作者教學方法的一種文獻體現。入門書是佛教出版文化的一個獨特類別，其作用一方面是重新編寫歷史，同時又將其顯示給新一代的信徒及修行者。

Printed books have occupied a central place in East Asian Buddhist culture for centuries, venerated as vessels of the dharma and as sacred objects in their own right. Indeed the act of publishing sūtra texts was often portrayed as generating immeasurable amounts of merit. Yet the language and style of the scriptures is not one that is immediately accessible without specialized instruction, and thus commentaries, discourses, lectures and other didactic devices proliferated alongside the sūtra texts. One genre of didactic text that has played a crucial role in the personal religious histories of many Chinese Buddhists is the introductory text or book for beginners (chuxue 初學 or rumen 入門). Dozens of such texts were produced from the late nineteenth century onwards, and continue to occupy bookstore shelves today. Books of this type enable the curious to learn about Buddhist teachings in an easily-accessible format, without the need for an immediate investment of time or personal commitment. This presentation will focus on three authors of such Buddhist introductory texts, each of whom lived in very different historical circumstances and thus produced markedly different types of books: Yang Wenhui 楊文會 (1837-1911), who resurrected Buddhist publishing in the decades following the Taiping Rebellion and who wrote Textbook for Beginning Buddhism 佛教初學課本;Ding Fubao 丁福保 (1874-1952), the editor of the massive Great Dictionary of Buddhism 佛學大辭典 as well as a series of eight introductions to Buddhism; and Master Shengyen 聖嚴法師 (1930- 2009), whose books are some of the most popular introductory texts to Buddhism in the English-reading world. The major argument of this article is that introductory texts are much more complex and significant than their elementary nature might suggest. They represent distillations of a multitude of traditions into a stable and accessible framework, and serve as textual embodiments of the authors’ pedagogical methods. Books for beginners constitute a unique category of Buddhist print culture, one which sought both to rewrite the past and to re-represent it for the next generation of believers and practitioners.