Xuanzang: The Solitary Pilgrim
In the first installment of what will be a two-part feature, we’re going to follow the footsteps of a Tang monk from 1,400 years ago, on his arduous journey along the Silk Road, across deserts, over mountains, until he finally arrived at the fountainhead of Buddhism in India.
For any overseas college student who wants to study China, one of the ideal texts for their first course is the 16th-century novel Journey to the West because this rousing adventure story can also be read as historical fiction, political satire, and religious allegory. Scholars worldwide have found it incredibly useful for unpacking the complexities of Chinese history, language, politics, economics, and thought.
One of the great classics of Chinese literature, the 100-chapter Journey to the West is believed to have its historical basis in the epic pilgrimage of the iconic monk Xuanzang.
Xuanzang lived across the Sui and Tang dynasties from 602 to 664 and is one of the most illustrious figures in the history of Chinese Buddhism. His journey was recorded in detail in the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, which in turn provided the inspiration for Journey to the West.
In the novel, Xuanzang travels to India to retrieve Buddhist scriptures. On his journey, he is constantly ambushed by monsters and demons who believe that by eating his flesh they can obtain immortality. He is accompanied by four powerful disciples who have been dispelled from Heaven for various misbehaviors and each has vowed to protect Xuanzang to atone for their sins.
In reality, however, Xuanzang was a solitary pilgrim, and initially, his journey was illegal. He was born to a Confucian family near Luoyang in central China’s Henan Province. After the early death of his parents, he became a monk at a local monastery when he was 13 years old. In the following years, he studied Buddhist scriptures with all the ardor of a young convert and travelled throughout China to visit Buddhist masters in order to learn the true Dharma. But he found there were many contradictions and discrepancies in the Buddhist texts available at that time, and it was difficult to get an authoritative explanation from his Chinese masters.
Then a life-changing encounter took place – his meeting with the Indian monk Prabhakaramitra, who inspired Xuanzang with stories of the great Buddhist monastery Nalanda, which was at the height of its glory at that time in distant India. So that’s where Xuanzang decided he must go to further his studies, to India – the cradle of Buddhism.
The overland route to India was the famous Silk Road, the major trade route connecting China and Eurasia. In the early Tang Dynasty, most regions of the Silk Road were under the control of an ethnic group called the Turks, and the Tang government prohibited people from going to the Western Regions, so Xuanzang’s request to leave for India was denied by the imperial court. Unable to obtain a travel permit, he managed to leave Chang’an, which is the present-day Xi’an in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, during a famine that struck the region in the year 629. That year, Chang’an was severely hit by an early frost and most crops died. To release some local pressure, the court decided to open the gate and let the people fend for themselves. Xuanzang, together with many other victims of the natural disaster, poured out of the city.
Back then, there were two routes to India, the maritime route and the land route. The sea route was underdeveloped and most people had to take the land route, which is the well-known Silk Road.
From there, he travelled along the Hexi Corridor, a 1,000 km-long accumulation plain on the Silk Road and reached Liangzhou, the present-day Wuwei in Gansu Province one month later. For another month, Xuanzang tried in vain to find an opportunity to depart, before a local Buddhist leader sent two monks to cover his “illegal emigration” from Liangzhou.
Xuanzang continued to travel by night and lay low during the day. After some time in the Gobi Desert, he arrived in Guazhou, the present-day Jiuquan in Gansu Province. Guazhou was the westernmost stronghold of the Chinese frontier at that time, where the Yumen Pass was at the western end of the Great Wall.
In Guazhou, Xuanzang faced being arrested for trying to leave the Tang-controlled region, but he was saved when the official sent to deliver the warrant turned out to be a Buddhist and tore it up.
At the same time, Xuanzang met Shi Pantuo, a Sogdian merchant, who is said to be the inspiration for the Monkey King character, a legendary mythical figure best known as one of the main characters in Journey to the West. Shi Pantuo requested to be ordained by Xuanzang and became his disciple. With his help, Xuanzang managed to cross through the Yumen Pass.
But Shi Pantuo apparently became afraid that the guards at the watchtowers would kill him if they were caught along the way. He flinched and even tried to kill Xuanzang for fear of being incriminated. He finally left Xuanzang to his own resources after extracting a promise that the monk would never tell his name.
Xuanzang was alone in the 800-mile Gobi Desert in Mohe Yanqi with an old horse by his side and the Buddha in his heart. He lost his water supply in a sandstorm and had to march five days and four nights without water, until his faithful horse found a small lake. Xuanzang finally walked out of the shadow of Lop Nur’s death and entered Yiwu, the first State in the Western Regions.
From Yiwu, Xuanzang was invited by Qu Wentai, the King of Gaochang, to teach Buddhism to the monks and people there. Gaochang is in the present-day Turpan of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. Qu Wentai was a Han Chinese and respected Buddhism. He wanted Xuanzang to stay and serve as the Buddhism preceptor, but Xuanzang was determined to carry on his journey.
Qu Wentai detained Xuanzang, but after Xuanzang began a hunger strike, the king finally relented on the grounds that Xuanzang would spend three years in his kingdom upon his return.
After remaining in Gaochang for a month more for the sake of the dharma, Xuanzang resumed his journey. The King took a vow of brotherhood with Xuanzang and provided him with a caravan of four disciples, an entourage of 25 people, 30 horses, valuables enough to support 20 years of travel expenses, and most importantly, official letters of introduction to all the kings on Xuanzang’s itinerary, including the formidable Turkish Khan whose power extended throughout Central Asia and to the very gate of India.
Xuanzang continued his westbound journey by crossing the snow-covered Pamir Plateau, which took seven days and cost nearly half of his caravan, including two of his disciples. He passed the States of Yanqi and Qiuci, and finally emerged into Central Asia near Lake Issyk-Kul.
Xuanzang met with the Turkic Khan in his capital Suyab, the present-day Tokmok of Kyrgyzstan, and obtained his permission. After a feast, Xuanzang continued southwest to Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan. From there, he crossed the desert further west to Samarkand, one of the oldest cities in Central Asia and the central point for trade across the region. Samarkand was under Persian influence and followed Zoroastrianism. Xuanzang impressed the local king with his preaching and converted him overnight.
Setting out again to the south, Xuanzang crossed a spur of the Pamir Mountains and passed through the famous Iron Gate Pass into Bactria in present-day Afghanistan. Xuanzang made his way down through Afghanistan and into Gandhara near the present-day Peshawar of Pakistan, which was once the heart of Buddhism, and from where the religion was taken into China. But by the time Xuanzang arrived, Peshawar was nothing compared to its former glory, and Buddhism there was in decline.
When Xuanzang had been on his journey for a year, he reached the Indus River, which marked his entry into India proper. He spent the next two years studying Buddhist scriptures in Kashmir. From there he sailed down the Ganges River and spent half a year in Chinabhukti, where a prince of the Han Dynasty is said to have resided.
Xuanzang continued on his journey and eventually reached the old Buddhist heartland, visiting Kapilavastu, Lumbini, Kusinara, and Sarnath, which were already a long way into decline with many deserted monasteries and few monks.
At long last in the year 633, Xuanzang reached his ultimate destination, the great monastery at Nalanda, in the present-day Bihar State in northern India. Monks at Nalanda held a grand ceremony to welcome Xuanzang. Although Buddhism was in decline everywhere else, Nalanda remained a flourishing center for Buddhist learning. Xuanzang enrolled in the Nalanda University, which was one of the earliest and most prestigious Buddhist universities in the world with over 10,000 students.
Xuanzang became the disciple of Silabhadra, the abbot of Nalanda, and spent most of the next decade studying under this venerable abbot, while he also studied Sanskrit and the Brahmana philosophy. Silabhadra restarted his lectures for Xuanzang, which continued for 15 months, causing a stir in ancient India.
Xuanzang studied five years in Nalanda, going through a variety of Buddhist classic works in Sanskrit and thoroughly studying logistics and linguistics.
Xuanzang’s four-year pilgrimage was brimming with trials and tribulations – he was held hostage, threatened, and robbed at multiple points. Many times, he was also struck by illness or a loss of spirit.
But the difficulties he had to overcome, the determination with which he fulfilled this self-appointed task, and the dedication he demonstrated to the cause of religious studies make the story of his journey not only one of great human perseverance but one of adventure.
Well, that’s the end of part one of our podcast on Xuanzang. Our theme music is by the famous film score composer Roc Chen. We want to thank our writer Lü Weitao, translator Yang Guang, and copy editor Pu Ren. And thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed it, and if you did, please tell a friend so they, too, can understand The Context.