How Xuanzang's journey united two ancient cultures
Chinese monk Xuanzang, who travelled between China and India, is one of history's most well-known figures. His remarkable journey altered the intellectual and spiritual landscape of South and East Asia and laid the foundation for two of India's first and most enduring cultural bridges to China: cultural. Outside the orbit of religious endeavour, Xuanzang excelled in a variety of arenas: philosophy, translation, diplomacy, ethnography, and cultural ambassadorship. His travels and research united two ancient cultures long lost to the passage of time, in a bond of respect and understanding that is felt in modern debates regarding global politics and mass culture.
It was the conviction of Xuanzang himself, rather than the imprimatur of an empire, that determined him to walk this path. Bypassing treacherous mountains, deserts, and war-torn kingdoms, he made the journey away from China in secret around 627 CE, openly defying the early travel proscriptions laid down by the Tang dynasty. His reputation as a scholar and seeker of truth was established before he reached India.
He was received in India with the respect due an honoured guest, not a foreigner. Scholarship, diplomacy, and dialogue were characteristics of his long sojourn, which took almost a decade and a half. Buddhist ruler Harsha Vardhana, who controlled most of northern India, was one of his most significant sponsors. He visited royal courts and took part in vigorous intellectual discussions with scholars of various traditions like Buddhism, Hinduism and Jainism.
What made Xuanzang different from other travellers was the fact that he was both a monk and a diplomat. To cross the cultures, he drew upon the deep knowledge he had of the philosophical traditions both of Confucianism and Buddhism. He was not merely an observer but an interlocutor of cultures. He gave the Indian subcontinent a human face to Chinese readers and rulers through the fact that he was there, and through the extensive writings he produced upon coming to China. Even in the modern age of official diplomatic missions and international organisations, that level of intercultural mediation is exceptional.
Generations of Central Asian and Chinese pilgrims were enthralled with the travels of Xuanzang to India, which held more than personal importance. He gave a spiritual and intellectual map to the pilgrims for generations to follow with his long, descriptive, arduous sojourn. Symbolic of the chivalric quest for knowledge and truth, the risky undertaking of the journey was undertaken in an age both physically hazardous for travel, as well as politically.
Chinese scholars and monks, such as Yijing (635-713), were inspired by Xuanzang's journey and travelled to Southeast Asia as well as to India.
Their paths came to be culturally well-trodden roads that provided the conduit for the transmission of the scriptures, ideas, and religious practices as he traversed Central Asia, Afghanistan, and the Gangetic plain.
In addition to that, his travel account, Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, was a handbook not just for monks but for kings, mapmakers, and historians. Outside the walls of Chinese monasteries, the vivid accounts of Indian towns, temples, customs, weather, languages, and people gave India a living presence. Contemporary archaeological research has been influenced by this book, which remains the most complete description of 7th-century India.
By any standards of historical importance, the return of Xuanzang to China in 645 with over 600 Sanskrit manuscripts was a colossal success. Rather than accumulating information, he succeeded in transforming it. He first collaborated with Chinese scholars and monks over the next two decades to translate seventy-five of the works into Chinese. The subject matter spanned topics from logic and metaphysics to grammar and medicine. Chinese Buddhism, in particular the Faxiang school that he also founded, was profoundly shaped by the translations he made of core Mahayana Buddhist scriptures such as the Yogācārabhūmi Śāstra and the scriptures of the Prajñāpāramitā.
Xuanzang's translations gained significance even in India, a fact often overlooked. Ironically, the Chinese versions, saved by him and others, formed the basis for reconstructing or recovering these works in India and beyond. His actions then helped avoid the likely loss of a common heritage.
In addition, the translations of Xuanzang provided a standard against which other scholarship was measured, so thorough and accurate were they. To ensure that biased interpretations common in cross-cultural translations were avoided, he included commentaries and glossaries with the primary works on many occasions. Comparative philosophy, which is what we know today, had in Xuanzang an early ancestor.
Xuanzang's travelogues and personal accounts depict the tolerant, pluralistic nature of ancient India in a way that scholarly knowledge cannot fully capture. He travelled through many kingdoms with their specific language, faith, and conventions, but he was taken in with open doors and high regard by nearly all of them. His accounts always portray the hospitableness of the ancient people, which is the exact opposite of the most commonly given picture of ancient countries being isolated and intolerable today.
Among India's numerous ethnic groups, he noted, religious debates took place peacefully in public squares. Intellectual diversity was not just tolerated but cherished, and monarchs supported a variety of religious establishments. The university at Nālandā, where for several years he had studied, was a classic expression of this cosmopolitan ethos. With the facility for accommodating a significant number of students from Asia and foreign professors, Nālandā became a centre of global intellectual exchange and religious dialogue.
This openness to foreign knowledge and traditions exemplifies India's cultural identity: a nation welcoming the 'other' as enrichment, not threat. That the welcome Xuanzang received was so enthusiastic that he was integrated seamlessly into Indian intellectual circles is proof of the subcontinent's inherent hospitality and curiosity.
The life of Xuanzang is a template for how cultural diplomacy at its finest might function. He was not an emissary of state power nor an agent of empire, but a seeker, a mediator, a bridge-builder. During the prevailing atmosphere of cultural misunderstanding and geopolitical unease today between India and China, the memory of Xuanzang demonstrates the power of respectful dialogue in fostering strong intellectual and spiritual bonds.
Prof Siddharth Singh is vice chancellor, Nava Nalanda Mahavihara.
The Week