![]() ![]() Not yet 30 years old, he resolved to find the writings at their source, in India, and embarked on a journey along the Silk Roads in defiance of imperial order not to leave the empire. In his studies, Xuanzang acquired both a knowledge of the Indian languages of early Buddhism and also a skepticism of many of the translations that had rendered these texts into Chinese. Eventually, he found his way to the new capital, Chang’an, amid the tumult of a new dynasty. Wriggins describes how Xuanzang was born in Henan late in the Sui dynasty and began a life as a monk in his brother’s monastery in Luoyang. There are many accounts of Xuanzang’s life, but the most popularly accessible one is Sally Hovey Wriggins’s Xuanzang’s Silk Road Journey. Mostly Buddhist texts written in Sanskrit, they were the lure that had brought Xuanzang out of China to India, seeking the roots of the religious tradition that had been growing in China for many centuries, and to which Xuanzang had devoted himself since boyhood. The centerpiece of his belongings, though, was nearly 700 books and manuscripts. Seven statues of the Buddha were included too, made of sandalwood, silver, and gold, up to four feet tall. Chief among these were relics of the Buddha himself: more than 100 pellets of the Buddha’s flesh, as well as bones. ![]() ![]() Xuanzang, a Buddhist monk, covered some 10,000 miles on foot and horseback, from China to India, and passed through parts of what are today Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Nepal.Īlong with his memories and stories of more than a decade on the road, Xuanzang brought with him a treasury of art and literature, as well as holy relics. ![]() The spectacular welcome was a fitting conclusion for what is one of the most remarkable journeys undertaken in any era. ![]()
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