Hiuen Tsang (also Xuanzang, Hsuan Tsang) was the celebrated Chinese traveler who visited India in Ancient Times. He has been described therefore as the “Prince of Pilgrims.”
His visit to India was an important event of the reign of Harshavardhana. India is much indebted to this Chinese traveller for the valuable accounts he left behind with many details of political, religious, economic, social conditions of those days.
The biography of Hiuen Tsang, written by another Chinese, is also another valuable source for Indian history.
Hiuen Tsang was born in China in A.D. He became a Buddhist monk at the age of twenty. He longed for knowing more and more of Buddhism to satisfy his spiritual hunger. But without a visit to India, he knew his desire for learning would remain unfulfilled. When he was about 30, he secretly left China for an adventurous journey towards India. He traveled trough rough, rocky and rugged mountainous region to reach India.
During his stay in India, he visited various places of northern and southern India. In India, he wanted to visit all the sacred places connected with the life of Buddha, as well as to learn of Buddhism through study. During his travel he c
Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang): The Chinese Buddhist Traveller to India
Xuanzang, world-famous for his sixteen-year pilgrimage to India and career as a translator of Buddhist scriptures, is one of the most illustrious figures in the history of scholastic Chinese Buddhism.
Born of a family possessing erudition for generations in Yanshi prefecture of Henan province, Xuanzang, whose lay name was Chenhui, was the youngest of four children. His great-grandfather was an official serving as a prefect, his grand-father was appointed as Professor in the National College at the capital, and his father was a Confucianist of the rigid conservative type who gave up office and withdrew into seclusion to escape the political turmoil that gripped China at that time. According to traditional biographies, Xuanzang displayed a precocious intelligence and seriousness, amazing his father by his careful observance of the Confucian rituals at the age of eight. Along with his brothers and sister, he received an early education from his father, who instructed him in classical works on filial piety and several other canonical treatises of orthodox Confucianism.
After the death of Xuanzang’s father in , his o
Hsuan-tsang ( A.D.) [玄奘]
As a translator, Hsuan-tsang who was regarded as second only to Kumarajiva, had great influence on later Buddhist thought and development. He translated more scriptures than any of the other translators.
Unlike many other great translators, Hsuan-tsang was a local Chinese. He was born in a family of scholars near Loyang. His grandfather had been a National Preceptor. His father was an officer in government, who was reluctant to work for the new king, thus resigned and retired. Then his family became poor.
Hsuan-tsang&#;s elder brother left home to become a monk, who was popular for his lectures on the sutras. Hsuan-tsang was also brought to the temple to receive ordination in order to secure a living basically.
However, Hsuan-tsang became interested in the sutras and by the age of 11, he was able to read Vimalakirti Sutra, the Lotus Sutra, etc. easily. He was very diligent in studying sutras. By the age of 15, he was well known beyond Loyang.
Because of the famine, Hsuan-tsang and his brother moved to Szechuan Province, where he studied the philosophical theories of Hinayana Buddhism. When he learned all he could, he had a strong desire to sear
Xuanzang (Hsüan-tsang) (—)
Xuanzang, world-famous for his sixteen-year pilgrimage to India and career as a translator of Buddhist scriptures, is one of the most illustrious figures in the history of scholastic Chinese Buddhism. Born into a scholarly family at the outset of the Tang (T&#;ang) Dynasty, he enjoyed a classical Confucian education. Under the influence of his elder brother, a Buddhist monk, however, he developed a keen interest in Buddhist subjects and soon became a monk himself at the age of thirteen. Upon his return to Chang&#;an in , Xuanzang brought back with him a great number of Sanskrit texts, of which he was able to translate only a small portion during the remainder of his lifetime. In addition to his translations of the most essential Mahayana scriptures, Xuanzang authored the Da tang xi yu ji (Ta-T&#;ang Hsi-yu-chi or Records of the Western Regions of the Great T&#;ang Dynasty) with the aid of Bianji (Bian-chi). It is through Xuanzang and his chief disciple Kuiji (K&#;uei-chi) () that the Faxiang (Fa-hsiang or Yogacara/Consciousness-only) School was initiated in China. In order to honor the famous Buddhist scholar, the Tang Emperor Gaozong (Ga
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