This episode we kick off a series of episodes following the famous monk Xuanzang, aka the Tripitaka Master of the Law, Sanzang Fashi. Known in Japanese as Genjo, and founder of the Faxiang school of Yogacara Buddhism, also known as the Hosso school, it was brought back to the archipelago by students who studied with the master at his temple north of the Tang capital of Chang'an. He was particularly famous for his travels across the Silk Road to India and back--a trip that would last 16 years and result in him bringing back numerous copies of sutras from the land of the Buddha, kicking off a massive translation work. It also would see his recollections recorded as the Record of the Western Regions, which, along with his biography based on the stories he told those working with him, give us some of the best contemporary information of the various places along the Silk Road in the 7th century.

Part 1 focuses on Xuanzang's journey out of the Tang empire, braving the desert, and somehow, against the odds, making it to the country of Gaochang.

For more, check out the blogpost page: https://sengokudaimyo.com/podcast/episode-120

Rough Transcript:

Welcome to Sengoku Daimyo’s Chronicles of Japan. My name is Joshua, and this is Episode 120: Journey to the West, Part 1

The monks from far off Yamato were enthralled. They had journeyed across the waves on a foreign vessel, traversed a greater distance than they probably thought possible growing up in the archipelago, and had finally arrived at the capital of the Great Tang Empire, Chang’an. They had then been sent north, to a temple where they met others from Yamato.

They had come to study the Law, the Dharma, with some of the most famous teachers of the Tang dynasty, and there were few more famous than the Tripitaka Master Genjou himself. Everyone in the monastery knew his story—he had traveled all the way to India, the birthplace of the Buddha, and returned with copies of the sutras in Sanskrit, which he and the other monks were translating.

In between sessions of meditation, sutra readings, and various lectures, the students would gather round the feet of the master as he recounted his journeys. The stories themselves were fantastic stories, telling of far off cities and people. There were stories of bandits, and meetings with kings. The students must have thought about how it mirrored what they, themselves, had gone through—their own Journey to the West.

Last episode we talked about Tukara and what that mysterious placename might mean—and where it could be referring to. For that we traveled all the way to the end of the Silk Road. In this episode and continuing into the next, we are going to travel that same road with a different perspective, as we take a look at one of the most famous travelers of the Silk Road: the monk Xuanzang, or Genjou in Japanese. And as I hinted at in the introduction, if you’re at all familiar with the famous Journey to the West, well, this and the following episodes will explore the actual history behind that story, and how intertwined it is with the history of the archipelago.

For those who don’t know, Xuanzang was a monk, born Chen Hui near present-day Luoyang in Henan. He is known by many names, but one of his most famous comes from the title “Sanzang Fashi”, aka “Tripitaka Master of the Law”, from which we get the simplified name in some English sources of just “Tripitaka”. Sanzang, or “Tripitaka”, literally translates to “Three baskets” or “Three storehouses”, referring to the Buddhist canon. It is quite fitting, given Xuanzang’s incredibly famous Journey to the Western Regions and, eventually, to India, where he journeyed to obtain the most accurate version of the Buddhist scriptures to ensure that they had the most accurate versions. On his journey, Xuanzang apparently took detailed records of the trip, and his “Records of the Western Regions” provides a lot of what we know of the towns and cultures that existed there back in the 7th century – even if not all of it was experienced firsthand and may have come through translators and second or third-hand sources. In addition, Xuanzang’s biography and travelogue add a lot more information to his journey, even if they weren’t necessarily written by him, but instead by his fellow monks based on his recitations to them combined with various records that they had access to at the time. As such, it isn’t always the most reliable, but it is still highly detailed and informative.

Xuanzang would return to China and teach for many years, translating the works that he had brought back, and founding a new school of Yogachara Buddhism, known as Faxiang in Chinese, but “Hossou” in Japan. The Hossou school was particularly popular in the 8th and 9th centuries, having been transmitted by Yamato students who had actually studied at the feet of the venerable teacher. These included the monk Doushou, who travelled over to the continent in 653. In 658, there are two others who came over, named Chitatsu and Chiitsu. They had travelled to the Tang court in the 7th month of that year, where they are said to have received instruction from none other than Xuanzang himself. If this indeed was in 658, it would have been only 6 years before Xuanzang’s death.

Their journey had almost not happened. The year previous, in 657, envoys were sent to Silla to ask that state to escort Chitatsu to the Tang court, along with Hashibito no Muraji no Mimumaya and Yozami no Muraji no Wakugo, but Silla refused. They must have relented, however, as they apparently were escorting at least the monks a year or so later.

Chitatsu and Chiitsu would eventually return to Yamato, as would Doushou. Doushou is also said to have been introduced to a student of the second patriarch of the Chan, or Zen school as well. He would return to teach at Gango-ji, the later incarnation of Asukadera, spreading the Hossou teachings from master Xuanzang.

In fact, Xuanzang’s impact would be felt across Asia, and much of the Buddhist world. He would continue to be known in Japan and in the area of China, Korea, and beyond. Japanese translations of his journeys were made between the 8th and 10th centuries from texts that had come from Xuanzang’s own monastery.

Nine centuries after his death, during the Ming Dynasty, Xuanzang would be further immortalized in a wildly popular novel: Journey to the West.

The “Journey to the West” is an incredibly fantastical retelling of Xuanzang’s story. In it, Xuanzang is sent on his task by none other than the Buddha himself, who also provides three flawed traveling companions. There is Zhu Bajie, aka “Piggy”—a half human half pig who is known for his gluttony and lust. Then there is Sha Wujing, aka “Sandy”—a man with a red beard and blue skin who lived in a river of quicksand. Despite a rather frightful backstory, he was often the straight man in the story. And then there is the famous Sun Wukong, aka “Monkey”, the most famous of the three and often more famous than Xuanzang himself. In fact, one of the most famous English versions of the story is just called “Monkey”, an abridged telling of the story in English by Arthur Waley in 1942.

“Journey to the West” is perhaps the most popular novel in all of Asia. It has spawned countless retellings, including numerous movies and tv series. The character of “Monkey” has further spun off into all sorts of media. Of course, his addition was all part of the novel, but nonetheless, that novel had an historical basis, which is where we really want to explore. Because for all of the magic and fantasy of the Ming novel, the real story is almost as fascinating without it.

We are told that Xuanzang was born as Chen Hui—or possibly Chen Yi—on the 6th of April in 602 CE in Chenliu, near present-day Luoyang. Growing up, he was fascinated by religious books. He joined the Jingtu monastery and at the age of thirteen he was ordained as a novice monk. However, he lived in rather “interesting times”, and as the Sui dynasty fell, he fled the chaos to Chengdu, in Sichuan, where he was fully ordained by the age of 20.

Xuanzang was inspired reading about the 4th century monk Faxian, whom we mentioned back in Episode 84. Faxian had visited India and brought back many of the earliest scriptures to be widely translated into Chinese. However, Xuanzang was concerned, as Faxian had been, that the knowledge of the Chinese Buddhist establishment was still incomplete. There were still works that they knew about but didn’t have, and there were competing Buddhist theories in different translations of the texts. He thought that if he could go find untranslated versions of the texts then he could resolve some of the issues and further build out the corpus of Buddhist knowledge.

Around the age 25 or 27, he began his journey. The exact date is either 627 or 629, based on the version that one reads. That has some importance for the events that his story tells, as some of the individuals whom he is said to have met are said to have died by 627 CE, meaning that either the dates of the journey are wrong or the dates we have in other sources are wrong. As you can imagine, that’s rather important for an accurate history, but not so much for our purposes, as I think that we can still trust the broad brush strokes which paint an image of what the Silk Road was like at the time.

For context, back in Yamato, this was around the time that Kashikiya Hime—aka Suik...