XUANZANG (602-664)
The monk Xuanzang is considered the model of the traveling monk and is indisputably the paragon of translators of Indian Buddhist texts into Chinese.
After acquiring a certain notoriety in China from his youth, he left for India to deepen his knowledge of Buddhism and returned about sixteen years later, bringing back 657 works loaded onto twenty horses. In the capital, leading a team, he translated some 75 of these works covering nearly 1,400 scrolls.
The Journey
Born into a family of scholars and officials in Henan province, Chen Hui was given the name Xuanzang. Having entered religious life in Luoyang, where he followed his older brother, Xuanzang astonished others with his knowledge and attitude. He was immediately passionate about doctrinal texts, particularly those of the epistemological school and more specifically the Compendium of the Mahayana by Asanga (4th century). During the troubled period at the end of the Sui dynasty, Xuanzang went to Sichuan where he received full ordination at the age of 20. He was then steeped in the texts of the Abhidharma and Yoga, knew the sutras, and mastered the discipline, which together with the doctrinal texts constitute the Three Baskets. It is often under this name, Tripitaka (Three Baskets), that Xuanzang is referred to. Having gone to the capital, Chang'an, he questioned the differences in the interpretation of texts and believed that only in India could he find answers to his questions, particularly regarding the theory of knowledge developed in the Treatise on the Stages of Yoga Practice or Yogacara bhumi sastra, a compendium that had been partially translated into Chinese and subsequently lost. Xuanzang would find a complete version in India, which he translated upon his return in one hundred chapters. This is the Yuqie shidi lun, of which a few dozen fragmentary manuscripts were found in a cave in Dunhuang. These are mostly 9th-century copies, made in Dunhuang itself or in the region, at a time when this text enjoyed real success thanks to the commentary made by a local monk who was himself a translator from Tibetan to Chinese and Chinese to Tibetan. Among the various manuscript fragments preserved at the BnF in Paris, one can note the Chinese Pelliot manuscript 2856, which contains the end of chapter 5 and the beginning of chapter 6.
Determined to leave, Xuanzang secretly departed China, ignoring the refusal he had been given. His journey, which he began in 629, would last sixteen years. The adventures of his journey are known to us primarily through his long biography written by two of his disciples a few years after his death, Huili and Yancong. This work, titled Da Tang Da Ci'en si sanzang fashi zhuan, was translated into French by Stanislas Julien in 1853 under the title History of the Life of Hiouen-thsang and His Travels in India from the Year 629 to 645, and then into English shortly after by Samuel Beal in 1888. The information it provides is particularly precious regarding Indian Buddhism as well as the hero's experiences; it is also of primary importance regarding the translation work carried out by Xuanzang upon his return. Only the part relating to the traveler's youth and journey was translated (five chapters out of ten) by Julien and Beal.
During his journey, Xuanzang traveled through Central Asia and India not as an ordinary pilgrim, but already as a recognized master. Received with respect by the rulers of the kingdoms and cities he crossed, he was also welcomed by scholar monks to whom he sometimes gave instruction or with whom he was led to debate. He resided for quite a long time at Nalanda and perfected his knowledge of the main treatises of the Abhidharma, after which he hoped to go to the island of Ceylon. The disorders prevailing there made him give up the idea, and from the Tamil country, he reached Middle India and the western coast. The return journey took him through the Kapisa Valley, then across the Pamirs, reaching Kashgar, Khotan, and Dunhuang before reaching the capital. He was received there with full honors by the emperor himself in 645.
The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions
From his entire adventure outside China, Xuanzang produced an exemplary book, the Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, Xiyu ji. It was at the request of Emperor Taizong (reigned 627-649) that the Record was written. Xuanzang signed it only as a translator, undoubtedly because he had translated many anecdotes and parables within it, and he was assisted by a disciple, the monk Bianji, who likely handled the editing work. The work, presented to the emperor in 646, comprises twelve chapters and evokes more or less extensively 144 countries of Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent. Preserved in the Buddhist canon along with historical works, such as the History of the Life of Xuanzang, only a few fragmentary manuscripts from the Tang era remain, namely three extracts from the first three chapters discovered in Dunhuang. Two are kept at the British Library in London (S. 2659 and 958), the third at the National Library; it is the Chinese Pelliot manuscript 3814, which includes the end of the second chapter dealing with Gandhara. The entire text was translated into French by Stanislas Julien under the title Memoires sur les contrees occidentales, as well as into English by Beal, and more recently by Li Rongxi. The immense impact of Xuanzang's journey made the character the model for Chinese Buddhist pilgrims. An image of a traveler carrying a pack loaded with manuscript scrolls on his back apparently circulated widely in the 8th-10th centuries and probably later. About ten different copies were found, including two on silk and others on paper. Two of these images are kept in the Pelliot collection of the BnF (Chinese Pelliot 4518.39 and 4029). It was believed for a time that this traveler could be identified as Xuanzang, although his long-nosed features suggest a Westerner and Xuanzang brought back palm leaves rather than scrolls. This idea probably came from the fact that fairly similar images were known concerning another character who was identified as Xuanzang. One of them was later engraved on stone and stamped profusely.