A seventh-century Chinese monk’s record of the Buddhist lands of Central Asia and India
What the Work Is
The Si-yu-ki, known in English as the Records of the Western Regions, is a travel book written in Classical Chinese by the seventh-century Buddhist monk, scholar, and translator Xuanzang. It records the journey he undertook to the Indian subcontinent between roughly 629 and 645 CE, and it was composed after his return to China at the encouragement of Emperor Taizong of Tang, who urged him to set down an account of his travels. Its principal subjects are the Western Regions and Buddhism.
What the Book Is About
At its core the work is a geographical and cultural record of the lands Xuanzang passed through on his way to and from India, and of the Buddhist world he found there. His journey had a scholarly motive: concerned by the incomplete and misinterpreted state of the Buddhist texts that had reached China, and by the competing theories preserved in variant Chinese translations, he sought original untranslated Sanskrit texts from India to help resolve these problems. The travelogue is the written product of that search, describing the kingdoms, monasteries, monuments, and Buddhist communities he encountered along the route.
Key Ideas and Themes
A central theme of the work is the state of Buddhism across the regions Xuanzang visited, and in particular the distinction between the Mahayana and Hinayana traditions. He notes repeatedly which school prevailed in a given country, recording, for instance, that the kingdom of Agni had more than ten monasteries of the Sarvastivada school of Hinayana Buddhism, and that the country of Kuchi likewise followed the Sarvastivada school. He describes the eighteen sects of Buddhism standing against one another, debating their various viewpoints as vehemently as crashing waves, sharing a common goal yet studying different subjects and arguing sharply, each with its own rules for monks. He also records a graded system of monastic privilege, in which monks unable to expound a single text performed routine duties, while those who could expound more texts received progressively better rooms, attendants, lay servants, elephants for travel, and a security retinue.
The work is equally concerned with the physical and cultural character of India. Xuanzang presents India as a vast country of some ninety thousand li in circuit, containing seventy kingdoms, bounded by sea on three sides and snow mountains to the north, rich and moist, with productive cultivation and luxuriant vegetation. He describes its customs of measurement, its seasons, its villages and cities with square walls and winding narrow streets, its brick-built towns and thatched cottages, and the social rule by which butchers, fishermen, executioners, and scavengers were not permitted to live inside the cities. He notes that children began school at age seven, learning the five knowledges—grammar; technical skills including arts, mechanics, yin-yang, and the calendar; medicine; logic; and inner knowledge together with the theory of cause and effect. He also records the Indian alphabet of forty-seven letters and the diversity of languages spoken.
A further theme is the geography and religious landscape of Central Asia. Xuanzang describes the kingdom of Bamiyana, with its colossal standing Buddha carved from rock some one hundred and forty feet tall and decorated with gems, a copper Buddha over a hundred feet tall cast in separate parts and joined together, and a reclining Buddha entering Parinirvana over one thousand feet long. He describes the country of Kapishi, where the Mahayana tradition had come into vogue, with over a hundred monasteries and more than six thousand monks, alongside more than ten Deva temples whose worshippers went about naked and smeared dust over their bodies. He records the citizens’ fond recollection of King Kanishka of Gandhara, and mentions four stupas built in the area by King Ashoka.
The work also carries a strong strand of legend and the miraculous. Xuanzang recounts a dragon race and a region where water dragons metamorphose into horses to mate and create dragon-horses, and into men to mate with women and create dragon-men who could run as fast as the dragon-horses. He describes ferocious dragons troubling travellers in the Pamir passes, supernatural monsters, fishes, and dragons living in a great lake, glowing rock footprints of the Buddha, a stupa preserving the Buddha’s eyeball as large as a crabapple and brilliant and transparent throughout, and a white stone Buddha idol that worked miracles and frequently emitted light. He tells of a dark cave where dangerous beings lived, into which he went, reciting a sutra so that they became Buddhists. He also records meeting a Brahmana said to be seven hundred years old, with two associates each over a hundred, who had mastered all the Vedas and the Madhyamika sastra and with whom he stayed for a month to study.
The work preserves notable observations on Indian learning and its monuments. Xuanzang identifies Salatura as the birthplace of the sage Pāṇini, author of a treatise on sound-knowledge, and describes how the text was transmitted orally from teacher to pupil, making the Brahmanas of that city great scholars of wide knowledge, with an image of Pāṇini installed in his reverence. In Gandhara he names the ancient sages and authors of Indic sastras, including Narayanadeva, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Dharmatrata, Monaratha, and Parshva, and describes a four-hundred-foot stupa built by Emperor Kanishka with a diameter of nearly two thousand feet and a twenty-five-layer wheel on top. He also records the persecution under King Mahirakula, whose anger at being refused a learned Buddhist teacher led him to destroy monasteries and stupas, an act that triggered war with the king of Magadha.
Structure and Approach
The work is organised geographically, following the course of Xuanzang’s journey. It presents India in fascicles separate from those for Central Asia, and it proceeds kingdom by kingdom, describing each region’s monasteries, monks, schools of Buddhism, monuments, and local customs in turn. Xuanzang does not call the subcontinent India but uses a phonetic equivalent, rendered variously as Tianzhu, Shengdu, or Xiandou, with more recent scholarship suggesting the closest pronunciation of the seventh-century term would be Indu. The narrative moves from Central Asian kingdoms such as Agni and Kuchi, across the Pamir range, into Bactra and Bamiyana, and then into the Indian and South Asian regions, including Lampa, Nagarahara, Gandhara, Udayana, Kashmira, and many others. At points the travelogue rushes through the names of many countries, stating that more details are provided in the return part of the journey.
The work is a mix of the implausible, the hearsay, and the firsthand account. Xuanzang did not write his own biography or travelogue; rather, he recited it to his fellow monks after his return from India, and three of his immediate collaborators wrote his biography, leaving three versions with variant details. Selections from the travelogue are used, and disputed, as a terminus ante quem of 645 for events, names, and texts he mentions.
Significance and Influence
The Records of the Western Regions is a notable source both about Xuanzang himself and for scholarship on seventh-century India and Central Asia. In turn, the text provided the inspiration for the novel Journey to the West, written by Wu Cheng’en during the Ming dynasty, around nine centuries after Xuanzang’s death.
Xuanzang records that the country of Takka lies south of Kashmira, extending from the Indus river on its west to the Vipasha river on its east, and that it produced abundant quantities of non-sticky rice and wheat, as well as gold, brass, iron, and other metals. Its people did not believe in Buddhism and prayed in several hundred deva temples, and only ten Buddhist monasteries remained there, though there had been many more before, destroyed a few hundred years earlier during the rule of King Mahirakula. Mahirakula acted in anger because, when he asked the monasteries in his domain for a Buddhist teacher to teach him Buddhism, the Buddhists did not send him any learned scholar. His cruel deed triggered the king of Magadha to go to war with him; Mahirakula was defeated and forgiven, but returned to power by assassinating the king of Kashmira and Gandhara. Xuanzang recites the hearsay stories he heard about Mahirakula’s continued cruelty and destruction of 1600 stupas and monasteries. Xuanzang then describes the surviving monasteries in Sagala with hundreds of Buddhist monks, along with its three colossal stupas, each over 200 feet tall, two of them built by Ashoka.
Xuanzang visited the country of Chinabhukti next, which he states got its name because a region west of the Yellow river was a vassal state of Emperor Kanishka; from there, during Kanishka’s reign, peaches and pears plantations were imported into Chinabhukti, northern India. Further northeast, he visited a Buddhist monastery of the Sarvastivada school with 300 monks, and describes another colossal stupa over 200 feet tall built by Emperor Ashoka. Near this, states Xuanzang, are numerous small stupas and large Buddhist caves, and around this monastery in the Himalayan hills are “hundreds and thousands of stupas, built so closely together than their shadows touch one another” (Li Rongxi translation). From there, he visited Jalamdhara, which grows non-sticky rice and cereals, and whose forests are luxuriant.
The Memorial of Pāṇini
To the northeast of Varsha country, states Xuanzang, there is a lofty mountain with a bluish stone image of Bhimadevi, the wife of Mahesvara. It is a great site of pilgrimage, where Indians from very far come with prayers. At the foot of this mountain is another temple for Mahesvara where ceremonies are performed by naked heretics who smear ash on their body. About 30 li (about 12 kilometers in 7th-century) southeast from these temples is Salatura, which, says Xuanzang, was the birthplace of Rishi Pāṇini and the author of the “Sabda-vidya-sastra” (Sound-knowledge-studies). Inspired by Mahesvara, this Rishi set out to “make inquiries into the way of learning” (Li Rongxi translation); he thoroughly studied all written and spoken language, words in ancient and his times, then created a treatise of one thousand stanzas. The heretics (Hindus) transmit this text orally from teacher to pupil, and it is this that makes the Brahmanas of this city “great scholars of high talent with knowledge of wide scope”. They have an image of Pāṇini installed in reverence of him in this city of Salatura.
Kingdoms of Udayana and Kashmira
Heading north towards Kashmir, Xuanzang arrived in the city of Pushkalavati, with many holy Buddhist sites, and worshipped at these “great stupas and big monasteries”. Thereafter he reached the country of Udayana, through which flowed the Subhavastu river (now called Swat river). It had 1400 monasteries of five early Buddhist schools (of 18 sub-traditions) – Sarvastivada, Mahāsāṃghika, Kasyapiya, Mahisasaka and Dharmagupta. These schools became unpopular as the later form of Mahayana prospered, and according to Xuanzang these monasteries of early Buddhist schools are desolate and attract few monks. He then reached the city of Hi-lo and Manglaur. In all these places, he mentions how the Buddha lived there in one of his previous lives (Jataka legends) and illustrated compassion-strength through his actions. There is a Buddhist temple northeast of Manglaur with the Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva image, one noted for “its miraculous manifestations”. Crossing another 1000 li, he reached Darada valley – the old capital of Udayana – with a 100 feet golden wood statue of Maitreya Bodhisattva. This statue, states his travelogue, was built by an artist who went three times into heaven to see how he looks and then carve the realistic image of him on earth.
Xuanzang arrived in Taxila after crossing a river with “poisonous dragons and evil animals”. There he visited a major Buddhist monastery of the Sautrantika school. From there, after covering some 2200 li, he passed through the country of Simhapura (Kalabagh), of Urasa (now Hazara), and then into Kashmira. He was received by the king and numerous monks from the Jayendra monastery. Kashmira is a land with a very cold climate, often calm without any wind; the region has lakes and grows plenty of flowers and fruit, saffron and medicinal herbs. Kashmira has over 100 monasteries and more than 5000 monks, and its residents revere four large stupas that were built in ancient times by Ashoka. Emperor Kanishka too built many Buddhist monasteries here; he also had treatises with 960,000 words written on copper plates and had them stored in a newly built great stupa. The Kashmira region has numerous monks well versed in the Tripitaka, states Xuanzang, and he stayed in Kashmira for two years and studied the treatises with them.
Robbery and Rescue
Xuanzang describes many events where he is helped by both Buddhists and non-Buddhists. For example, he describes leaving the city of Sakala and Narasimha, then passing with his companions through the Great Palasha forest. They get robbed and are walked towards some dry pond to be killed. A monk and he slip away; they hurry towards a village, and near it they meet a Brahmana who is tilling his land. They tell him that robbers attacked them and their companions. The Brahmin goes to the village and beats a drum and blows a conch; about 80 men gather, and together they proceed to rescue the companions of Xuanzang. While other rescued companions of his wail about the loss of all their property, Xuanzang reminds them that they should all be happy to be alive and not worry about the loss of property. The villagers help his companions and him by hosting them before they resume their journey. Yet elsewhere, Xuanzang also recites the implausible tale of meeting a Brahmana who was 700 years old and had two associates, each over 100 years old, who had mastered all of the Vedas and the Buddhist Madhyamika sastra. He calls them heretics (non-Buddhists). These heretics help him and his companions get new garments and food. He stayed with this implausibly old Brahmana for a month, and studied the Madhyamika sastra with him.
Names and Early Life
Common names used for Xuanzang include Xuanzang, Tang Dynasty Tripiṭaka Master, Tripiṭaka Master Xuanzang, Great Master Xuanzang, and Tang Dynasty Monk. Another form of his official style was “Yuanzang”, written 元奘, and it is this form that accounts for such variants as Yuan Chang, Yuan Chwang, and Yuen Chwang. Tang Monk (Tang Seng) is also transliterated Thang Seng. Another of Xuanzang’s standard aliases is Sanzang Fashi, literally “Sanzang Dharma (or Law) Teacher”, 法 being a Chinese translation for Sanskrit “Dharma” or Pali/Prakrit Dhamma, the implied meaning being “Buddhism”. “Sanzang” is the Chinese term for the Buddhist canon, or Tripiṭaka (“Three Baskets”), and in some English-language fiction and English translations of Journey to the West, Xuanzang is addressed as “Tripitaka.”
Xuanzang was born Chen Hui (or Chen Yi) on 6 April 602 CE in Chenhe Village, Goushi Town, Luozhou, near present-day Luoyang, Henan. His family was noted for its erudition for generations, and Xuanzang was the youngest of four children. His ancestor was Chen Shi (104–186), a minister of the Eastern Han dynasty. His great-grandfather Chen Qin served as the prefect of Shangdang during the Eastern Wei; his grandfather Chen Kang was a professor in the Taixue (Imperial Academy) during the Northern Qi; his father Chen Hui served as the magistrate of Jiangling County during the Sui dynasty. According to traditional biographies, Xuanzang displayed a superb intelligence and earnestness, studied with his father, and amazed him by his careful observance of filial piety after one such study about that topic. His elder brother was already a monk in a Buddhist monastery, and inspired, at a young age, Xuanzang expressed interest in becoming a Buddhist monk like his brother. After the death of his father in 611, he lived with his older brother Chen Su, later known as Zhangjie, for five years at Jingtu Monastery in Luoyang, supported by the Sui state; during this time he studied Mahayana as well as various early Buddhist schools. In 618, the Sui Dynasty collapsed and Xuanzang and his brother fled to Chang’an, which had been proclaimed as the capital of the Tang dynasty, and thence 300 miles southward to Chengdu, Sichuan. Here the two brothers spent two or three years in further study in the monastery of Kong Hui, including the Abhidharma-kośa Śāstra; the abbot Zheng Shanguo allowed Xuanzang to study these advanced subjects though he was young. Taking the monastic name Xuanzang, he was fully ordained as a monk in 622, at the age of twenty. The myriad contradictions and discrepancies in the Chinese translations at that time prompted Xuanzang to decide to go to India and study in the cradle of Buddhism.
Dates of the Pilgrimage
Xuanzang started his pilgrimage to India in either 627 or 629 CE, according to two East Asian versions. The 627 CE version is found in Guang hongming ji from Daoxun and is also in Japanese and Korean texts; the 629 CE version is found in Chinese and western versions. This confusion, though merely of two years, is of significance to western history. The date when Xuanzang’s pilgrimage started is not resolved in any of the texts that Xuanzang himself wrote. Further, he did not write his own biography or travelogue; rather he recited it to his fellow monks after his return from India, and three of his immediate collaborators wrote his biography, leaving three versions with variant details. All three of these versions begin his pilgrimage in 629 CE. Yet one version by Huili states that Xuanzang met Yabghu Qaghan, someone who died in 628 CE according to Persian and Turkish records. If this detail in Xuanzang’s biography and Persian-Turkish records are true, then Xuanzang must have left before Qaghan’s death, or in 627 CE. In other words, some of the details in the surviving versions of Xuanzang’s biography were invented or a paleographic confusion introduced an error, or the Persian-Turkish records are unreliable. The Japanese version is based on 8th to 10th-century translations of texts that ultimately came from Xuanzang’s monastery, which unfortunately has added to the confusion. Most sources state that Xuanzang started his pilgrimage in 629 CE.
The Kingdom of Agni
In 630 CE, he arrived in the kingdom of Agni (Yanqi, in a place called Turpan). Here he met the king, a Buddhist, along with his uncle Jnanachandra and precept Mokshagupta, who tried to persuade him to quit his journey and teach them Buddhist knowledge. He declined, and they equipped him further for his travels with letters of introduction and valuables to serve as funds. Xuanzang observed that the country of Agni had more than ten monasteries following the Sarvastivada school of Hinayana Buddhism, with two thousand monks who ate “three kinds of pure meat” with other foods, rather than vegetarian food only that would be consistent with Mahayana Buddhist teachings. Therefore, the Buddhists in this country had stagnated in their Buddhist teachings.
The Kingdom of Kuchi and Beyond
Moving further westward, Xuanzang met about two thousand Turkic robbers on horses. The robbers began fighting with each other on how to fairly divide the loot; after the loot had thus been lost, they dispersed. Xuanzang thereafter reached the country of Kuchi. This country of 1000 li by 600 li had over one hundred monasteries with five thousand monks following the Sarvastivada school of Hinayana Buddhism, and studying its texts in “original Indian language”. Xuanzang writes of a dragon race and a region where water dragons metamorphose into horses to mate and create dragon-horses, also into men and mating with women nearby, creating dragon-men who could run as fast as the dragon-horses; these were men who will have massacred an entire city, leaving the place deserted.
Further west he passed Aksu before turning northwest to cross the Tian Shan and then Tokmak on its northwest. He met the great Khagan of the Göktürks. After a feast, Xuanzang continued west then southwest to Tashkent, capital of modern Uzbekistan. Xuanzang describes more monasteries, such as the Eastern Cakuri monastery and Ascarya monastery, with Buddha’s footprints and Buddha idols. According to Xuanzang’s accounts, mystical light emanated from Buddha’s footprints on “fast days”. In the country of Baluka, the Sarvastivada school of Hinayana Buddhism was in vogue. He crossed the countries of Samarkand, Mimohe, Kaputana, Kusanika, Bukhara, Betik, Horismika and Tukhara. These had cities near rivers or lakes, then vast regions with no inhabitants, little water or grass. He describes warring factions of Turk chieftains in control, with “illness and pestilence” rampant.
From here, he crossed a desert, icy valleys and the Pamir range (which link Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Uparisyena and the Himalaya mountain ranges). Here, observed Xuanzang, the wind is cold and “blows with a piercing vehemence” (Li Rongxi translation). Ferocious dragons live here and trouble the travellers, particularly those who wear “reddish brown” color clothes. Thereafter, he crossed past a salty sea, one narrow from north to south and long from east to west, he calls the Great Pure Lake. He describes supernatural monsters, fishes and dragons living in this lake. The Xuanzang travelogues then rush through the names of many countries, stating that more details are provided in the return part of his journey, as he crosses into the country of Bactra (modern Balkh). He adds that the Hinayana Buddhist schools were followed in all these regions.
In the capital of the country of Bactra, states Xuanzang, is a monastery with a Buddha’s idol decorated with jewels and its halls studded with rare precious substances. The Buddhist monastery also has an image of Vaishravana deity as its guardian. The monastery and the capital attract repeated raids from the Turk chieftains who seek to loot these precious jewels. This monastery has a large bathing pot that looks dazzlingly brilliant and has a Buddha’s tooth relic and Buddha’s broom made of “kasa grass”. Outside is a vihara built ages ago, and many stupas to honor the arhats (Buddhist saints).
Bamiyana and Kapishi
South of Bactra is the country of Kacik, then the Great Snow Mountains with valleys “infested with gangs of brigands” (Li Rongxi translation). Crossing this pass, thereafter is the country of Bamiyana (a part of modern Afghanistan). There, states his travelogue, is a colossal statue of standing Buddha, carved from a rock in the mountains, some one hundred and forty feet tall and decorated with gems. This valley has Buddhist monasteries, and also a colossal copper statue of the Buddha that is over a hundred foot tall; he was told that it was cast in separate parts and then joined up together. To the east of a monastery in the Bamiyana valley was a Reclining Buddha entering Parinirvana that was over one thousand foot long. The people and the king of this valley serve the Buddhist monks, records Xuanzang.
Heading east and crossing the Black range, Xuanzang describes the country of Kapishi, where the Mahayana tradition of Buddhism had come in vogue. It had over 100 monasteries with stupas. More than 6000 monks, mostly Mahayana, studied here. Along with these Buddhist monasteries, states his travelogue, there were over ten Deva temples (Hindu) with “heretical believers who go about naked and smear dust over their bodies”, translates Li Rongxi. Furthermore, in the same capital region, there is a Hinayana monastery with 300 monks at the northern foothills. The citizens of this country, adds Xuanzang, fondly recall “King Kanishka of Gandhara” (2nd-century CE, Kushan Empire). To its east are the “City of Svetavat temple” and the Aruna Mountain known for its frequent avalanches. His travelogue then describes several popular legends about a Naga king. He also describes miraculous events from a Buddhist stupa, such as raging flames bursting out of them leaving behind a stream of pearls. The citizens here, states Xuanzang, worship pieces of Buddha’s remains that were brought here in more ancient times. He mentions four stupas built in this area by king Ashoka.
Entering India
To Xuanzang, he entered India as he crossed the Black range and entered the country of Lampa. His travelogue presents India in fascicles separate from those for Central Asia. He, however, does not call it India, but the phonetic equivalent of what previously has been variously interpreted as “Tianzhu” or “Shengdu” or “Xiandou”. More recent scholarship suggests the closest pronunciation of the 7th-century term in his travelogues would be “Indu”. Xuanzang states that India is a vast country over ninety thousand li in circuit, with seventy kingdoms, sea on three sides and snow mountains to its north. It is a land that is rich and moist, cultivation productive, vegetation luxuriant. He adds that it has its own ancient customs, such as measuring its distance as “yojana”, equal to forty li, but varying between thirty and sixteen depending on the source. They divide day and night into kala, and substances into various divisions, all the way to a fineness that they call indivisible and emptiness. The country has three seasons: hot, cold, rainy according to some Buddhists; while others say it is four: three months each of spring, summer, monsoon, and autumn.
The kingdoms of India have numerous villages and cities. Their towns and cities have square walls, streets are winding and narrow, with shops lined along these roads. Wine is sold in shops on the side streets. Those whose profession is butchering, fishing, executioners, scavengers (people that kill living beings and deal with products derived from them) are not allowed to live inside the cities. The cities are built from bricks, while homes are either made mostly from bricks or from “wattled bamboo or wood”. Cottages are thatched with straw and grass. The residents of India clean their floor and then smear it with a preparation of cow dung, followed by decorating it with flowers, unlike Chinese homes. Their children go to school at age seven, where they begin learning a number of treatises of the five knowledges – first grammar, second technical skills which he states includes arts, mechanics, yin-yang and the calendar, third medicine, fourth being logic, and fifth field of knowledge taught is inner knowledge along with theory of cause and effect.
After further similar introduction covering the diverse aspects of the Indian culture he observed, including fashion, hair styles, preference for being barefoot, ritual washing their hands after releasing bodily waste, cleaning teeth by chewing special tree twigs, taking baths before going to their temples, worshipping in their temples, their alphabet that contains forty seven letters, the diversity of languages spoken, how harmonious and elegant they sound when they speak their languages, Xuanzang presents the various kingdoms of India. Xuanzang includes a section on the differences between the Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhist communities. There are eighteen sects in Buddhism, according to Xuanzang. They stand against each other, debate “various viewpoints, as vehemently as crashing waves”. Though they share the same goal, they study different subjects and use sharp words to argue. Each Buddhist sect has different set of rules and regulations for their monks. The monks who cannot expound a single text must do the routine monastic duties (cleaning monastery and such). Those who can expound one Buddhist text flawlessly is exempt from such duties. Those who can recite two texts get better quality rooms. Monks who can expound three Buddhist texts get attendants to serve them, while the few monks who can expound all four are provided with lay servants. Expounders of five texts have elephants for travel, while six texts entitles them to security retinue.
Lampa, Nagarahara, and Gandhara
Xuanzang describes Lampaka (modern Laghman, near the source of Kabul river) as the territory of north India, one whose circuit is more than 1000 li and where all monasteries studied Mahayana Buddhism. They have tens of Deva temples (Hindu) which heretics (non-Buddhists) frequent. To its southeast is the country of Nagarahara (modern Nangarhar), with many Buddhist monasteries and five Deva temples; the number of monks here, however, are few. The stupas are deserted and in a dilapidated condition. The local Buddhists believe that the Buddha taught here while flying in the air, because were he to walk here, it caused many earthquakes. Nagarahara has a 300 feet high stupa built by Ashoka, with marvellous sculptures; Xuanzang paid homage by circling it. Both Lampaka and Nagarahara countries were independent with their own kings, but they have become a vassal of the Buddhist Kingdom of Kapisa found near Bamiyana.
The monasteries in these kingdoms are splendid, with four corner towers and halls with three tiers. They have strange looking figures at the joints, rafters, eaves and roof beams. The Indians paint the walls, doors and windows with colors and pictures. People prefer to have homes that look simple from outside, but are much decorated inside. They construct their homes in such a way that they open towards the east. Xuanzang also describes implausible events such as glowing rock footprints of Buddha, dragons, tales of Naga, a stupa in which is preserved the Buddha’s eyeball as “large as a crabapple” and that is “brilliant and transparent” throughout, a white stone Buddha idol that worked miracles and “frequently emitted light”. The travelogue states that Xuanzang went into a dark cave here where dangerous beings lived, recited Srimaladevi Simhanadasutra, and they became Buddhists. Thereafter they all burnt incense and worshipped the Buddha with flowers.
Some five hundred li (~200 kilometer in 7th-century) to the southeast is the country of Gandhara – which some historic Chinese texts phonetically transcribed as Qiantuowei. On its east, it is bordered by the Indus river, and its capital is Purusapura. This is the land of ancient sages and authors of Indic sastras, and they include Narayanadeva, Asanga, Vasubandhu, Dharmatrata, Monaratha and Parshva. To the southeast of Purusapura city is a 400-foot-high stupa built by Emperor Kanishka, one with nearly 2000 feet in diameter and a 25 layer wheel on the top. There is a large monastery near it. Gandhara has numerous holy Buddhist sites, and Xuanzang visited and worshipped all of them. He calls the stupas and the Buddha images in this region as “magnificent” and made with “perfect craftmanship”.
