HSLTAN TSANG (HIOUEN THSANG, HIWEN T'SANG, YVAN TSANG, YUAN-CHWANG), Chinese collector of the narratives of Chinese Buddhists who travelled to India, whilst their religion flourished there, with the view of visiting the sites consecrated by the history of Sakya Muni, of studying at the great convents which then existed in India, and of collecting books, relics and other sacred objects. In relation to his travels there are two Chinese works, translated by Stanislas Julien, viz., (a) the Ta T'ang-Si-Vu-Ki, or Memoirs on Western Countries issued by the T'ang Dynasty, which was compiled under the traveller's own supervision, by order of the great emperor Tai-Tsung; and (b) a Biography of Hsivan Tsang by two of his contemporaries.
Hsuan Tsang was born in the district of Keu-Shi, near Honan Fu, about 6o5, a period at which Buddhism appears to have had a powerful influence upon a large body of educated Chinese. From childhood grave and studious, he adopted the monastic life. For some years he travelled over China, teaching and learn ing, and eventually settled for a time at the capital Chang-gan (now Si-gan-fu in Shensi), where his fame for learning became great. In August 629 he started alone for India, eluding with difficulty the strict prohibition which was in force against crossing the frontier.
The "master of the law," as his biographers call him, plunged alone into the desert of the Gobi, then known as the Sha-mo or "Sand River," between Kwa-chow and Igu (now Hami or Kamil) . At long intervals he found help from the small garrisons of the towers that dotted the desert track. After great suffering Hsuan Tsang reached Igu, the seat of a Turkish principality, and pur sued his way along the southern foot of the T'ian-shan, which he crossed by a glacier pass (vividly described) in the longitude of Lake Issyk-kul. Passing by the present Tashkent, and by Samarkand, then inhabited by fire worshippers, he reached the basin of the Upper Oxus, which had recently been the seat of the powerful dominion of the Haiathelah, Ephthalites or White Huns, known in earlier days to the Greeks as Tochari, and to Hsuan Tsang (by the same name) as Tuholo or Tukhara. His account of the many small states into which the Tukhara empire had broken up is of great interest, as many of them are identical in name and topography with the high valley states and districts on the Upper Oxus.
Passing by Bamian, where he speaks of the great idols, he crossed Hindu-Kush, and descended the valley of the Kabul river to Nagarahara (Nagara, adjoining Jalalabad) . Travelling thence to Peshawar (Purushapura), the capital of Gandhara, he made a detour, through the valley of Swat and the Dard states, to the Upper Indus, returning to Peshawar, and then crossing the Indus (Sintu) into the decayed kingdom of Taxila (Ta-cha-si-lo, Tak shasila), then subject to Kashmir. In the latter valley he spent two whole years (631-633) studying in the convents, and visiting the many monuments of his faith. In his further travels he visited Mathura (Mot'ulo, Muttra), whence he turned north to Thanesar and the upper Jumna and Ganges, returning south down the valley of the latter to Kanyakubja or Kanauj, then one of the great capitals of India. The pilgrim next entered on a circuit of the most famous sites of Buddhist and of ancient Indian his tory, such as Ajodhya, Prayag (Allahabad), Kausambhi, Sra vasti, Kapilavastu, the birth-place of Sakya, Kusinagara, his death place, Pataliputra (Patna, the Palibothra of the Greeks), Gaya, Rajagriha and Nalanda, the most famous and learned monastery and college in India, adorned by the gifts of successive kings, of the splendour of which he gives a vivid description. There he spent nearly two years in mastering Sanskrit and the Buddhist philosophy. Again, proceeding down the banks of the Ganges, he diverged eastward to Kamarupa (Assam), and then passed by the great ports of Tamralipti (Tamluk, the misplaced Tamalitis of Ptolemy), and through Orissa to Kanchipara (Conjeeveram), about 64o. Thence he went northward across the Carnatic and Maharashtra to Barakacheva (Broach of our day, Barygaza of the Greeks). After this he visited Malwa, Cutch, Surashtra (peninsular Gujarat, Syrastrene of the Greeks), Sind, Multan and Ghazni, whence he rejoined his former course in the basin of the Kabul river.
This time, however, he crossed Pamir, of which he gives a remarkable account, and passed by Kashgar, Khotan (Kustana), and the vicinity of Lop-nor across the desert to Kwa-chow, whence he had made his venturous and lonely plunge into the waste fifteen years before. He carried with him great collections of books, precious images and reliques, and was received (April 645) with public and imperial enthusiasm. The emperor T'ai Tsung desired him to commit his journey to writing, and also that he should abandon the eremitic rule and serve the state. This last he declined, and devoted himself to the compilation of his narrative and the translation of the books he had brought with him from India. The former was completed A.D. 648. In 664 Hsiian Tsang died in a convent at Chang-gan. On the ap proach of death the saint caused one of his disciples to frame a catalogue of his good works, of the books that he had trans lated or caused to be transcribed, of the sacred pictures executed at his cost, of the alms that he had given, of the living creatures that he had ransomed from death.
(H. Y.; R. K. D.)