On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c4.s3.10

v1.c4.s3.10

The translations made by Yuan-chuang are generally represented on the title-page as having been made by Imperial order and the title-page of the Hsi-yü-chi has the same intimation. We know also from the Life that it was at the special request of the Emperor T'ai Tsung that Yuan-chuang composed the latter treatise. So we should probably understand the passage in the Preface with which we are now concerned as intended to convey the following information. The pilgrim received Imperial orders to translate the 657 Sanskrit treatises, and to make the Ta-T'ang-Hsi-yü-chi in twelve chüan, giving his personal observation of the strange manners and customs of remote and isolated regions, their products and social arrangements, and the places to which the Chinese Calendar and the civilising influences of China reached.²