Journey

Xuanzang — sixteen years overland (629–645)

Stops (29)

1. Chang’an / Xi’an, China · home · left 629

   Slipped out of the Tang capital against an imperial travel ban, having applied for a permit and been refused. He was twenty-seven and had already read everything available in Chinese, and had concluded that the translations contradicted one another badly enough that he would have to go and check. Being caught would have ended the journey and possibly his life.

2. Dunhuang, China · the Gobi, alone

   Past the watchtowers beyond the Jade Gate, guided and then abandoned by the man he had hired. He lost his water-bag in the desert, turned back a few miles, then turned round again rather than break his vow, and lay down to die before his horse found a well. The illegal departure hung over him the whole way out.

3. Turfan & Gaochang · Turfan, a patron

   The Buddhist king of Gaochang detained him, tried to keep him permanently, and gave way only when Xuanzang began a hunger strike. He left with letters of introduction, silk, gold and thirty horses — which is why the rest of the journey was possible at all. The king asked him to come back and lecture; he never did.

4. Kucha & the Kizil caves · Kucha and the Kizil caves

   Two months at Kucha waiting for the passes to open, in a kingdom with a hundred monasteries and five thousand monks, where he debated a local Sarvastivadin master and disagreed with him. The Kizil cave paintings around the city are the surviving evidence of the Tarim Buddhism he is describing.

5. Samarkand · Samarkand, no monks

   Over the Tian Shan — losing men to the ice on the Bedel pass — and down to Samarkand, which he found Zoroastrian, hostile to Buddhism, and with two empty monasteries in which his companions were driven off with firebrands. The king relented after meeting him, which is the pattern of the whole journey.

6. Balkh · Balkh and the Nava Vihara

   Balkh, and the great Nava Vihara — a hundred monasteries, three thousand monks, and relics of the Buddha's tooth and washing-basin displayed to him. It was the greatest Buddhist establishment in Central Asia and was destroyed within a century of his visit, so his account is most of what is known of it.

7. Bāmiyān · Bamiyan, measured

   He measured and described the two colossal Buddhas cut into the cliff, and a reclining figure a thousand feet long that has never been found. His is the fullest early account of the site, which makes it now a primary record of objects that no longer exist: the standing Buddhas were destroyed in March 2001.

8. Gandhāra · Gandhara, a ruin

   Gandhara, which he found ruined and half-abandoned, its monasteries deserted and its stupas broken. What Faxian had found flourishing two centuries earlier he found empty, and he says so plainly — a civilisation he had come partly to study already passing while he walked through it. A civilisation he had come partly to study was already passing while he walked through it, and his notices are the last substantial ones.

9. Takshashilā / Taxila · Taxila, then Kashmir

   Takshashila, and then north into Kashmir, where he spent two years reading Abhidharma with the scholars of the valley. They were the last substantial Sarvastivadin establishment anywhere, and the two years he spent with them are what made him a doctrinal authority in his own right when he got home.

10. Mathurā · Mathura

    Mathura on the Yamuna, where he counts the monasteries and the stupas of the Buddha's disciples, and records the Krishna traditions of the town alongside the Buddhist ones. That makes him a witness to both at a single date, which very few sources of any kind are. That makes him a witness to both traditions at a single date, which very few sources of any kind are.

11. Kannauj · Kanauj and the debate

    Harsha's capital. At the great assembly of 643 he was set up to defend Mahayana doctrine for eighteen days; by his own account nobody took up the challenge, and Harsha paraded him through the city. No Indian source mentions the assembly or him, which is worth remembering when reading it.

12. Prayāga / Prayagraj/ Allahabad · Prayaga, the giving away

    Harsha's five-yearly almsgiving at the confluence, where the king gave away his accumulated treasury and finally his own clothes, and borrowed a robe from his sister to go home in. It is the fullest account of Harsha's kingship that exists in any source, Indian or foreign. It is the fullest account of Harsha's kingship in any source, Indian or foreign, and the distribution was a working instrument of sovereignty rather than a gesture.

13. Shrāvastī · Shravasti, abandoned

    Where Faxian two centuries earlier had found a few monks in a half-empty Jetavana, he found the monastery abandoned altogether, with brick foundations and two Ashokan pillars standing in scrub. The two accounts read in sequence are the best evidence anywhere for the decline of Buddhism in its own heartland.

14. Sānkāshya / Sankisa · Sankasya

    Sankasya and the ladder of the descent from heaven. He measured the shrine and recorded the Ashokan elephant capital, and his distances are what allowed the site to be relocated in the nineteenth century after it had been lost for six hundred years. His distances are what allowed the site to be relocated in the nineteenth century after six hundred years of being lost, and the capital is still standing.

15. Kapilavastu (Tilaurakot) · Kapilavastu, deserted

    Kapilavastu, deserted, where he describes the pillar Ashoka raised and the tanks and the ruined walls. Alexander Cunningham used his distances and bearings to go looking for the site, which is how the whole Buddhist archaeology of north India began — with a seventh-century Chinese itinerary and a theodolite. A seventh-century Chinese itinerary and a theodolite are where Indian Buddhist archaeology actually begins.

16. Lumbinī · Lumbini

    Lumbini, and the Ashokan pillar marking the birthplace, which he describes as broken by lightning. Cunningham and then Führer worked from his measurements, and the pillar was found in 1896 exactly where he had put it, with its inscription naming the place. Cunningham and then Fuhrer worked from his measurements, and the pillar was found in 1896 exactly where he had put it, with its inscription naming the place.

17. Kushinagar · Kushinagar

    Kushinagara, the parinirvana, and the brick temple over the reclining image. He gives the dimensions of the figure and the distance from the river, and the temple standing there now was built over the foundations he described, excavated on the strength of his account. The temple standing there now was built over the foundations he described, excavated on the strength of his account and nothing else.

18. Vaishālī · Vaishali

    Vaishali, and the relic stupa of the Licchavis. He counted the ruined monasteries and recorded the Ashokan pillar and the tank, and the site was identified from his account in 1861 — one more place that exists on a modern map because he wrote down how far it was from the last one.

19. Nālandā mahāvihāra · Nalanda, five years

    Five years as a student under the aged Silabhadra, in a monastery he describes with its towers, observatories and lecture halls, where debate was constant and admission was by examination at the gate. He later taught there himself, and the admission test is described only by him. The admission examination at the gate is described only by him, and he says most applicants failed it.

20. Rājagriha / Rajgir · Rajgir

    Rajagriha, the Vulture Peak, and the cave of the first council. He also describes the bamboo grove monastery, Bimbisara's road up the hill and the hot springs, and his circuit of the five hills is substantially the one pilgrims still walk. He also describes the bamboo grove monastery, Bimbisara's road up the hill and the hot springs, and his circuit of the five hills is substantially the one pilgrims still walk.

21. Bodh Gayā / Mahābodhi Temple · Bodh Gaya

    Bodh Gaya, where he prostrated at the diamond throne and lamented being born so late to have met the Buddha. He makes that complaint more than once and it is the emotional centre of the whole account — a man who had crossed Asia to reach a place and found that the thing he wanted had happened a thousand years before.

22. Prāgjyotiṣapura / Guwahati · Kamarupa, 643

    Summoned east to the court of Bhaskaravarman on the Brahmaputra, the furthest east any of the Chinese pilgrims reached in India. He records that the king was not a Buddhist but treated the monks well, that the country was wet and forested and full of elephants, and that people there had heard of China.

23. Nāgārjunakonda · the Andhra country

    South through Odra and Kalinga into the Andhra country, where he describes the monasteries of Dhanyakataka and the debating tradition of the Krishna valley. The great Buddhist establishments of this coast were still working when he passed, and his notices are among the last before they close. The great Buddhist establishments of this coast were still working when he passed and his notices are among the last before they close.

24. Kānchī / Kānchīpuram / Kanchipuram · Kanchi, the southern limit

    Kanchipuram, the southern limit of his travels. He meant to sail for Sri Lanka and turned back on news of famine and civil war on the island. The Bodhidharma tradition later placed that monk's origin at this same city, which is the other end of the India–China route. The Bodhidharma tradition later placed that monk's origin at this same city, which is the other end of the India-China route.

25. Ajantā caves · the western Deccan

    North-west through Maharashtra, where he describes a rock-cut monastery in a horseshoe gorge with painted halls that is generally taken to be Ajanta — the only pre-modern notice of the site between its abandonment and its rediscovery by a hunting party in 1819. It is the only pre-modern notice of the site between its abandonment about 480 and its rediscovery by a tiger-shooting party in 1819.

26. Bharuch (Barygaza) · Bharuch and the coast

    Down the Gujarat coast through Bharuch, which he found a commercial town on salt and shipping with few monks in it. His account of the western seaboard is the thinnest part of the journey and the part scholars most wish were longer, because nothing else describes these ports in the seventh century.

27. Vallabhī · Valabhi

    Valabhi in Saurashtra, a Maitraka capital with a hundred monasteries and six thousand monks, which he ranks with Nalanda as a centre of learning. It was destroyed in the eighth century and almost nothing of it has been found, so his estimate is the whole basis for calling it a university at all.

28. Bahāuddin Zakariya & Rukn-e-Ālam · Multan and the Indus

    North through Sindh and Multan to the Indus crossing, where he lost a load of manuscripts in the river. He had them recopied from the monasteries he passed, and stayed months in the Punjab waiting for the replacements before he would go on. He stayed months in the Punjab waiting for the replacements before he would go on, which tells you what the manuscripts were worth to him.

29. Khotan · Khotan, the way back

    Home the way he came: over the Pamirs, through Khotan, and back along the southern rim of the Taklamakan. He waited at Khotan for the emperor's answer to a letter admitting he had left illegally and asking to be allowed home, and used the time to have the lost manuscripts copied again.