  A comprehensive study is made for the magnetic moments of octet baryons in
the method of QCD sum rules. A complete set of QCD sum rules is derived using
the external field method and generalized interpolating fields. For each
member, three sum rules are constructed from three independent tensor
structures. They are analyzed in conjunction with the corresponding mass sum
rules. The performance of each of the sum rules is examined using the criteria
of OPE convergence and ground-state dominance, along with the role of the
transitions in intermediate states. Individual contributions from the u, d and
s quarks are isolated and their implications in the underlying dynamics are
explored. Valid sum rules are identified and their predictions are obtained.
The results are compared with experiment and previous calculations.
