A Chinese Buddhist in India In 629, Xuanzang (SCHWEN-ZAHNG) (600–664 C.E.), a highly educated Buddhist monk from China, made a long and difficult journey to India through some of the world’s most daunting deserts and mountain ranges, returning home in 645 C.E. after sixteen years abroad. His motives, like those of many other Buddhist travelers to India, were essentially religious. He wrote, “I regretted that the teachings of [Buddhism] were not complete and the scriptures deficient in my own country. . . . That was why I decided to travel to the West.”20 In India, the homeland of Buddhism, he hoped to find the teachers and the sacred texts that would answer his questions and resolve the many disputes that had created serious divisions within the Buddhist community of his own country. During a ten-year stay in India, Xuanzang visited many of the holy sites associated with the Buddha’s life and studied with leading Buddhist teachers, particularly those at Nalanda, a huge monastic complex dedicated to Buddhist scholarship (see Map 7.1 earlier in this chapter). He traveled widely within India and established a personal relationship with Harsha, the ruler of the state that then encompassed much of northern India. On his return journey to China, he carried hundreds of manuscripts, at least seven statues of the Buddha, and even some relics. Warmly greeted by the Chinese emperor, Xuanzang spent the last two decades of his life translating the texts he had collected into Chinese. He also wrote an account of his travels, known as the Record of the Western Regions, from which this selection is drawn. It conveys something of Xuanzang’s impressions of Indian civilization in the seventh century C.E.
What surprised or impressed Xuanzang on his visit to India?
What features of Indian life might seem most strange to a Chinese visitor?
How might this selection illustrate or contradict the descriptions of Indian civilization found in Chapters 3–5?
What can this document contribute to our understanding of Buddhist practice in India?
Sample Solution