Xuanzang

Turning northwest, Xuanzang crossed the towering Tian Shan mountains, a frozen ordeal of icy valleys where the wind blew with "piercing vehemence." In his travelogues, he recorded that these desolate heights were haunted by ferocious dragons that targeted travelers foolish enough to wear reddish-brown clothing. Emerging from the peaks, he met the great Khagan of the Göktürks, feast-sharing with nomadic rulers before descending into the fertile oasis cities of Tashkent, Samarkand, and Bukhara. In these regions, he traversed vast, uninhabited stretches of land where water was scarce, illness and pestilence were rampant, and rival Turkic chieftains engaged in constant warfare. Yet, interspersed among these hardships were moments of wonder: the Eastern Cakuri and Ascarya monasteries, where Buddha’s footprints were said to emanate a mystical light on fast days, and the Great Pure Lake, a narrow, salty inland sea populated by supernatural monsters and fish.

When Xuanzang finally crossed the Hindu Kush and descended into the Indian subcontinent, he spent years traveling through its sacred heartlands. His ultimate destination was Nalanda University in modern-day Bihar, the premier seat of Buddhist learning in the world. There, under the tutelage of the venerable monk Śīlabhadra, Xuanzang spent years mastering Sanskrit, studying logic, grammar, and the complex consciousness-only doctrines of Mahayana philosophy. He was no longer just a seeker; he became a celebrated debater and scholar in his own right, recognized by Indian kings and monastic assemblies.

When he finally turned back toward China seventeen years after his quiet departure, he did not travel light. He returned as the leader of a caravan of twenty packhorses laden with treasures: gold, silver, and sandalwood images of the Buddha, and, most importantly, at least 657 Sanskrit texts. His return in 645 CE was not that of a fugitive, but of a conquering hero. Emperor Taizong, recognizing the immense geopolitical value of Xuanzang's intimate knowledge of the western territories, welcomed him with open arms to the capital of Chang'an. The emperor offered him high government office, which Xuanzang declined, choosing instead to retreat to a monastery dedicated to translating the mountain of manuscripts he had brought back. At the emperor's request, he also dictated his memoirs to his fellow monks.

This text, the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, became a masterpiece of travel literature. A dense, fascinating tapestry of firsthand geographical observation, political intelligence, hearsay, and supernatural folklore, it remains one of the most vital historical sources for understanding seventh-century India and Central Asia. Scholars still debate the precise chronology of his journey—such as whether he departed in 627 or 629 CE, a discrepancy linked to historical records of the death of the Turkic Yabghu Qaghan—but the impact of his record is undisputed.

Xuanzang spent the remainder of his life in the translation bureau, working until his death in 664 CE. Though he managed to translate only 75 distinct sections of the 1,335 chapters he brought home, his precise, systematic translations of key Mahayana scriptures revolutionized Chinese Buddhism, providing a rigorous intellectual foundation that would shape East Asian thought for over a millennium.

Yet, Xuanzang’s legacy took on a second, mythological life that eventually eclipsed his historical reality. Nine centuries after his death, the Ming dynasty writer Wu Cheng’en transformed the monk’s arduous historical pilgrimage into Journey to the West, one of the greatest novels of East Asian literature. In the popular imagination, the austere, brilliant Sanskrit scholar Chen Hui was reborn as "Tripitaka," a pious, vulnerable monk escorted through supernatural dangers by a colorful retinue of disciples, chief among them the mischievous Monkey King, Sun Wukong. In this way, Xuanzang’s actual struggle against the deserts, mountains, and bandits of the Silk Road became the archetypal spiritual quest of Chinese culture. The real monk had sought to bridge two of the world's great civilizations through the silent medium of ink and Sanskrit grammar; in doing so, he walked himself out of history and straight into the realm of the eternal.