Introduction
(1) THE RECORD OF THE WESTERN REGIONS
THE JOURNEY TO THE WEST is based on a true story of a Buddhist monk, Xuanzang, and his pilgrimage to India to acquire the “true scriptures.” Buddhism had entered China from India during the Han dynasty, mainly as the religion of foreign merchants. It spread amongst the Chinese population after the fall of the Han, during the so-called Period of Division, when China was in a constant state of chaos, war, and misery. “I teach suffering,” said the Buddha, “and how to escape it.” This was very different message from the statecraft of Han Confucianism or the mixture of mysticism, magic, and local religion Taoism had become, and one which found a deep response in the anarchy China had disintegrated into at that time.
Xuanzang’s youth coincided with the reunification of China under the short-lived Sui dynasty. He was a precocious child, and received a scholarship (to use the modern idiom) to study in the Pure Land Monastery. When the Sui collapsed in 618, Xuanzang fled to Chang’an, where the new Tang dynasty had been proclaimed. He moved on to Chengdu in remote Sichuan where hundreds of monks had taken refuge. He later travelled throughout the country, learning from the local monks whatever he could about their understanding of Buddhism. He discovered they differed greatly amongst themselves, and came to realise the confusion and limitations on Chinese Buddhism due to a lack of authoritative, canonical texts. The Buddhist scriptures in China had been translated at different times and places, by translators of different levels of ability and understanding of Buddhist doctrines, even translations of translations of translations through the various languages of India and Central Asia. Xuanzang could see that beyond the confusion there was great Truth, but that that Truth could only be found in the original and genuine scriptures of Buddhism. That would entail going to India to get them. He had predecessors: the monk Faxian had visited India between 399 and 414, and had left a record of his travels. Xuanzang was already aware of the various schools of Indian Buddhism, and was particularly interested in acquiring the Sanskrit text of the yoga sastra, which taught that “the outside does not exist, but the inside does. All things are mental activities only.” That was the basis of the Consciousness Only School of Buddhism, founded in China by Xuanzang. Metaphysical and abstract, it did not become a popular school, but its influence persists. One of the major Chinese philosophers of the twentieth century, Xiong Shili, attempted a fusion of the precepts of this school with Confucianism, and this has influenced several generations of students of Chinese philosophy. On the popular level, anyone who has taken a course in meditation (of any variety) over the past few decades would have heard something along the same lines.
Xuanzang was 28 when he started on his pilgrimage to India. It was a pilgrimage with a purpose, altruistic and not personal: to bring the “true scriptures” to China for the salvation of lost souls. He spent sixteen years away, travelling from what is now Xi’an through Gansu, and from there through the oasis cities around the Taklamakan desert, into Central Asia, then through what is now Afghanistan to India. After his return to China he wrote a detailed geographical description of the lands he had passed through, with notes on the peoples, their languages and beliefs. This book is called Record of the Western Regions, in Chinese Xiyuji. The Chinese title of The Monkey King’s Amazing Adventures is Xiyouji, a deliberate and direct reference to Xuanzang’s records of his travels. In the early twentieth century the Record of the Western Regions became a guidebook to many of the “foreign devils on the silk road.” Sir Aurel Stein was one of these, who convinced the curator of the secret library of Dunhuang that Xuanzang was his patron saint, thus persuading him to hand over large quantities of thousand year old manuscripts. Much in the way of Heinrich Schliemann with Homer in hand looking for Troy, Aurel Stein and the others relied on Xuanzang’s Record of the Western Regions as a guide, located long buried cities under the sands of the Taklamakan desert. Xuanzang, incidentally, visited Dunhuang on his way back to Xi’an—in fact he had been provided with an escort from Khotan, on the emperor’s orders. It is not known if the famous portrait in one of the caves is of Xuanzang, or another itinerant monk.
On his way to India, he passed through many kingdoms. In Turfan the king wanted to retain him to such a degree that he would not allow him to proceed, and only agreed after Xuanzang went on a hunger strike. The king was so impressed he provided him with an escort and provisions for the next part of the journey. He also wrote twenty-four letters of introduction to his fellow rulers of the small kingdoms of Central Asia through which Xuanzang would pass. They proceeded to the oasis of Kucha, another stop along the Silk Road, where the red haired, blue-eyed Tokharian ruler, a Buddhist, made him welcome. There he was able to debate with Hinayana Buddhists, who followed the “Lesser Vehicle” road to enlightenment, which was regarded as inferior by adherents of the Mahayana, or “Greater Vehicle,” which was the prevalent form of Buddhism in China. Such debates were to continue during Xuanzang’s travels, adding to his knowledge of the various schools of Buddhism within India itself.
During the seven days they spent crossing the Tianshan mountains, fourteen men, almost half their party, starved or were frozen to death. They went on to the camp of Yehu, the khan of the eastern Turks, where the letters of introduction from the king of Turfan were helpful. This khan also suggested that Xuanzang go no further, but eventually provided him with a Chinese speaking guide, who accompanied him as far as modern Afghanistan. He passed through Bamiyan, where he described the huge statues carved into the cliff, the same statues which were blown up by the Taliban only a few years ago. He then went to Tashkent and Samarkand, then on to Bactria, near Persia. The local ruler was Tardu, the eldest son of Yehu and the brother in law of the King of Turfan. Tardu’s wife had died, and he had married her younger sister, who immediately poisoned him. She and her lover then usurped the throne. It was here Xuanzang met Dharmasimha, who had studied Buddhism in India, and later Prajnakara, a monk from an area near Kashmir. Xuanzang was coming more and more into the Indian cultural sphere, but he yet had to physically cross the Hindukush into India itself.
When he crossed the Kabul River he was closer to places and events associated with the life of the Buddha. Buddhism was already in decline in India when Xuanzang visited, and many of the famous monasteries, once teeming with monks, were deserted and in ruins. He visited Sravasti, the site of the Great Hall where Buddha preached, Kapalivastu, where he was born and Kusinagara, where he died and was cremated. In one of the most moving passages in the book, when Xuanzang first approaches the bodhi tree, under which the Buddha had attained enlightenment, he threw himself face down and wept, wondering what sin he must have committed in a previous life to be born in Tang China and not in India during the lifetime of the Buddha himself.
For eight or nine days he could not bring himself to leave the holy tree, until some monks came from Nalanda monastery, India’s most prestigious place of Buddhist learning, to escort him there. The entire community of ten thousand monks came to greet him. He traveled throughout India, to Bengal and Orissa, and almost to Ceylon, but political turmoil there made it imprudent to visit. At one stage he was captured by pirates intending to sacrifice him, but a cyclone swept through the forest and the pirates were so scared they released him. Towards the end of his time in India, Xuanzang met the great Buddhist King Harsha, and explained his mission. Soon after this Harsha sent a delegation to Chang’an, thus establishing what we would now call diplomatic relations with China. Indian monks also urged Xuanzang to stay with them: India was the home of the Buddha, and China was such an unenlightened place it would be unlikely to attain Buddhahood there. Xuanzang explained that was precisely the point of his mission, and he made plans to return to China. During all this time in India, throughout his travels, he had been collecting scriptures and statues. It was now time to pack them up and return to China. He made elaborate preparations, and set off through terrain as difficult and dangerous as the way there. When he was crossing the mile-wide Indus River (on an elephant), his books and statues were thrown into the water by a sudden storm, and several