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Xuanzang

Eminent Tang Monk, Buddhist Translator and Traveler Who Journeyed West for the Scriptures

Those Who Set the World Down in Writing · Scholars & Explorers

The Westward Journey for ScripturesThe Translation of Buddhist SutrasThe Great Tang Records on the Western Regions

Who they are

Xuanzang (602–664) was an eminent Tang monk who, deeply feeling that the Buddhist scriptures then current in the Central Plains were often mistranslated and unclear in doctrine, defied the early Tang law forbidding private departure from the country and slipped across the border through great hardship, journeying west alone to India to seek the original Buddhist texts. He trekked across the Taklamakan desert and over the Pamir plateau, reaching India after several years, and at Nalanda, then the center of Buddhist scholarship, systematically studied Buddhist doctrine under Master Shilabhadra, then traveled across India visiting holy sites, at last carrying a great body of Sanskrit Buddhist original texts back to Chang’an, where he was received with honor and strongly supported by Emperor Taizong of Tang, thereafter devoting his life to the translation of Buddhist sutras, directing the translation of seventy-five works in over thirteen hundred scrolls, of exceedingly high quality and accuracy, one of the most outstanding translators of scriptures in the history of Chinese Buddhist translation. His dictated Great Tang Records on the Western Regions records in detail the geography, history, religion, and customs of over a hundred and thirty countries and regions along the way, one of the most important primary documents for the study of the history and geography of seventh-century Central and South Asia.

Primary sourcesThe Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, dictated by Xuanzang and set down by BianjiHuili and Yancong, Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great Ci’en Temple

Key stories

Slipping Across the Border, Journeying West Alone

In the early Tang the law strictly forbade the people from privately leaving the country, and Xuanzang, to seek the original Buddhist texts, resolutely set out alone in defiance of the ban, undergoing on the way the challenges of border officials, the flight of his guide, and getting lost in the desert nearly to death by thirst, sustained only by firm conviction to walk this westward road of seeking the dharma against all odds — this legendary experience, heavily fictionalized and mythologized in the later novel Journey to the West, became a household legend among the Chinese people, though the novel’s plot differs considerably from Xuanzang’s own real historical experience.

The Years of Study at Nalanda

After reaching India, Xuanzang studied Buddhist doctrine systematically for years under the aged Master Shilabhadra at Nalanda, then the highest hall of Buddhist scholarly study, winning wide respect in the Indian Buddhist scholarly world for his deep learning, and by tradition once out-argued the assembled monks in a public debate with none able to refute him, then set out to return to the Tang with over six hundred and fifty Sanskrit Buddhist original texts, which thereafter became the most important source of primary material for his life’s work of translation.

Version differences

The Ming novel Journey to the West heavily mythologized the story of Xuanzang’s westward journey, adding fictional characters such as Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie and episodes of subduing demons, at a considerable distance from Xuanzang’s own real historical experience (a solitary trek, with no supernatural companions), and this site takes the Great Tang Records and other primary documents as authoritative.

Relationships

Ally

🧭Ibn Battuta　The two, about seven hundred years apart, were both noted for the feat of cross-continental travel in search of learning

Echoes today

Below are how modern works borrow or reinterpret this name or story — not the original material. The two differ, so keep them apart.

Journey to the West and its modern adaptationsThe real historical event of Xuanzang’s westward journey for the scriptures, literarily rendered in Journey to the West, has given rise to hundreds of film, animation, and game adaptations, one of the most-recreated Chinese historical figures in modern popular culture, though the great majority of these works’ plots are fictional and must be clearly distinguished from the reliable historical record.

Appears in

The Middle Ages of Faith, Conquest, and KnowledgeXuanzang’s Westward Journey for the Scriptures

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