Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.31

v1.c7.31

The Sui-Tang period saw the summit of Buddhist exchanges between India and China. The coming and going of monks of both countries also reached its climax. Master Xuanzang was the most famous and most successful monk during that period. In the third year of Zhenguan (629 CE), he went from Chang’an to the West. He arrived in the highest institution of learning in central India, in the monastery of Nālandā and studied with bhadanta Śīlabhadra. He studied Yogācāra and every treatise of the greater and of the lesser vehicle. He compiled the *Hui zong lun* (*Treatise about the Teaching of the Community*) and the *Zhi e jian lun* (*Treatise about the Establishing of Wrong Views*). Because his scholarship was outstanding, he was honoured as one of the 10 most virtuous monks in the monastery. He further participated in the great religious gathering without restrictions (pañcavārṣika) in the city of Kanyakubja organised by the Indian Buddhist world. In the gathering, he debated heretics. He obtained the titles of “Divinity of the Greater Vehicle” (Mahāyānadeva) and of "divinity of deliverance" (Mokṣadeva). Meanwhile, he was requested by King Śīlāditya to translate the *Da sheng qi xin lun* (*Mahāyānaśraddhotpādaśāstra*) and the *Dao de jing* (*Canonical Text about the Way and its Power*) of Laozi from Chinese to Sanskrit. This was the first translation of Dao djing in a foreign language for transmission to India. He specially wrote the *Da Tang Xiyu ji* (*Record of the Western Regions during the Tang*), 13 volumes, about Buddhism and the historical and geographical conditions in 138 countries of India and of the Western Regions which he had crossed and about which he had information. He provided authentic basic materials for the writing of early Indian history. Later, during the colonial period in India, his work became a significant basis for conducting numerous archaeological excavations. Xuanzang studied and lived in India for 17 years and was successful in achieving his aims. Declining various offers to stay back in India, he returned to China via over the land route.