Xuanzang’s Pilgrimage to India

Also called: Journey of Xuanzang

The Tang monk Xuanzang defied a travel ban and set out for India in 629; after studying at Nalanda he returned to Chang’an in 645 with some 650 scriptures and left the travel account Great Tang Records on the Western Regions.

Troubled by contradictions among Chinese translations of the sutras, Xuanzang slipped out of Chang’an in 629 to find the originals, travelling by way of Gaochang (Turfan), the Western Turkic lands north of the Tian Shan and Samarkand, then crossing the Hindu Kush into India. At the monastery of Nalanda he studied Yogacara under Silabhadra, toured much of India and was received by King Harsha, who had united the north.

In 645 he returned to Chang’an with some 650 texts and images and was welcomed by Taizong. He spent the rest of his life translating 75 works in 1,335 scrolls, and his dictated Great Tang Records on the Western Regions remains a precious source on the geography and customs of 7th-century Central Asia and India. His journey inspired the Ming novel Journey to the West. The Silla monk Woncheuk studied under him in Chang’an and became a master of Yogacara, and later the Silla monk Hyecho also made a pilgrimage to India.