On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v1.c5.25

v1.c5.25

But when the crimes and failings of T'ai Tsung are all told, they still leave him a great man and a ruler of rare excellence. His genius gave life to all his laws and institutions, and his personal influence was felt in every department of government. Nor was it until long after his death that it was found how much the good reforms he made owed to his personal presence and action. Happy in the character he bore among contemporaries, he became still greater with their successors, and there is almost a perfect unanimity of consent to count him great and good. Indeed the native panegyrists generally write of him as above all who preceded him, except those semi-mythical sovereigns who moulded man from the brute. The Chinese youth and patriots love and praise T'ai Tsung for the great feats he achieved in battle and his hard won victories which restored the country to its old splendour and supremacy. The native student praises him for the success he had in preserving the valuable literature then extant but in danger of being lost, and for the great encouragement he gave to learning. The Buddhist praises him for the patronage he extended to his religion, and the friendly interest he took in its affairs. The Taoist praises him for his exaltation of that dim personage, a reputed ancestor of the Emperor, the fore-father of Taoism. Even the western Christian joins the chorus of praise, and to him the "virtuous T'ai Tsung" is a prince nearly perfect ("Princeps omnibus fere numeris absolutus"). It was during the reign of this sovereign, in the year 636, that Christianity was first introduced into China. The Nestorian missionaries, who brought it, were allowed to settle in peace and safety at the capital. This was the boon which called forth the gratitude of the Christian historian and enhanced in his view the merits of the heathen sovereign.