Xuanzang

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Xuanzang - Wall painting in the Dunhuang Cave , China 9th century.
Statue of Xuanzang - Great Wild Goose Pagoda , Xi'an China
Xuanzang - Kamakura Period , Tokyo National Museum

Xuanzang ( Chinese  玄奘 , Pinyin Xuánzàng , W.-G. Hsüan-tsang ; Japanese 玄奘 三 蔵 Genjō Sanzō ; * 602 other sources 600 or 603 in Luòzhōu 洛州 - today: Yanshi ; † in Yízhōu 宜州 - today : Tongchuan 664 ) was a Buddhist pilgrim monk Tangzeit from China, 629 - 45 , the silk road traveled and India.

He came from Henan , born at the time of the Wendi emperor of the Sui dynasty as Chén Yī ( 陳 禕  /  陈 祎 ); his original family name was Chen . At 13 he became a monk, but after a few years he was traveling across the country. In 629 , despite an imperial ban on foreign travel, he left China to study Buddhism in India, the country of origin , following the example of an earlier pilgrim monk named Faxian ( Dongjin , traveled 399 to 412 ) .

His path led him along the Silk Road ( Kumul / Hami , Samarkand , Balch and on the way back Khotan ). Xuanzang toured India from 630 to 643 , spending the last eight years mainly in the Harsha Empire. He studied in Nalanda for a long time and took part in a major religious dispute in 643 as a representative of Mahayana Buddhism.

With twenty horses, 657 Buddhist texts and 150 relics, he made his way back to China. In 645 he arrived back in Chang'an . The Tang emperor Taizong supported him financially, so that Xuanzang could translate 74 sacred scriptures from Sanskrit into Chinese, including Nyāyamukha ( 649 ) and Nyāyapraveśa ( 647 ), which contributed significantly to the spread of Buddhism in China . His Chengweishi Lun ( 成 唯識 論  /  成 唯识 论 , Chéngwéishí Lùn ; Sanskrit विज्ञप्तिमात्रतासिद्धि, Vijñāptimātratāsiddhi ; English Discourse on the Perfection of Consciousness-only ) became under the Japanese name Jōyuishiki-ron the main text of the Japanese Hossō, which emerged from the Faxiang-Zong -shū .

Itinerary of the Xuanzang on the Indian subcontinent

Furthermore, Xuanzang left a travelogue under the title Notes on the Western Territories from the Great Tang Dynasty ( 大唐 西域 記  /  大唐 西域 记 , Dà Táng Xīyùjì ), which today gives a deeper insight into India at that time. His writings were kept in the Great Wild Goose Pagoda in Chang'an, and he himself became the main character in the classic Chinese novel The Pilgrimage to the West .

literature

  • Samuel Beal : The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang. Translated from the Chinese of Shaman (monk) Hwui Li by Samuel Beal. London. 1911. Reprint Munshiram Manoharlal, New Delhi. 1973. Internet Archive (PDF 14.3 MB)
  • Beal, Samuel (1884). Si-Yu-Ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, by Hiuen Tsiang . 2 vols. Translated by Samuel Beal. London. 1884. Reprint: Delhi. Oriental Books Reprint Corporation. 1969. Volume 1 , Volume2
  • A biography of the Tripitaka master of the great Ci'en Monastery of the great Tang dynasty / translated from the Chinese of Sramana Huili and Shi Yancong by Li Rongxi. Berkeley, Calif., Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1995. (that is: Hui-li. Ta T'ang Ta tz'u en ssu San-tsang-fa-shih chuan. English.)
  • Grousset, René : The Journey to the West - Or how Hsüan-tsang brought Buddhism to China. Diederichs, Cologne 2003, ISBN 3-89631-423-8
  • Thomas Watters: On Yuan Chwang's [Hiuen Tsiang‛s] Travels in India 629-645 AD , London, Royal Asiatic Society, 1904-1905 Volume 1 Volume 2 Internet Archive
  • Zhang Lisheng: The Chronological Life of the Master Xuan Zang . Peking, Religious Culture Publishing House, 2000 (Chinese / English chronology of his life).
  • Sen, T. (2006). The Travel Records of Chinese Pilgrims Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing, Education About Asia 11 (3), 24-33
  • Weerawardane, Prasani (2009). Journey to the West: Dusty Roads, Stormy Seas and Transcendence, Biblioasia 5 (2), 14-18

swell

  • Xuanzang's life and work / [Hui-li (慧 立); Yan-cong (彦 悰)]. Edited by Alexander Leonhard Mayer and Klaus Röhrborn. - Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. - 24 cm. - ( Publications of the Societas Uralo-Altaica  ; Vol. 34). - Original title: Da-Tang-daci'ensi-Sanzang-fashi-zhuan (大 唐大慈 恩 寺 三藏 法師 傳). - Partly zugl .: Tübingen, Univ., Diss.AL Mayer, 1989
    • Part 1: Xuanzang, translator and saint / by Alexander Leonhard Mayer. - 1992. - 388 pages - ISBN 3-447-03134-4
    • Part 2: Cien biography. - 7. / Transl. And commented by Alexander Leonhard Mayer. - 1991. - VIII, 213 pp. - ISBN 3-447-03135-2
    • Part 3: The Old Turkish Xuanzang Biography. - 7. / After the manuscripts of Leningrad, Paris and Peking as well as after the transcript by Annemarie v. Gabain ed., Trans. and commented by Klaus Röhrborn. - 1991. --265 pp. - ISBN 3-447-03144-1
    • Part 4: Cien biography. - 8. / Transl. And commented by Uwe Frankenhauser. - 1995. - 186 pp. - ISBN 3-447-03726-1
    • Part 5: The Old Turkish Xuanzang Biography. - 8. / After the ms. By Paris, Peking and St. Petersburg as well as after the transcript by Annemarie v. Gabain ed., Trans. and commented by Klaus Röhrborn. - 1996. - 272 pp. - ISBN 3-447-03727-X
    • Part 6: Cien biography. - 6. / Transl. And commented by Alexander Leonhard Mayer. - 2000. - 112 pp. - ISBN 3-447-04378-4
    • Part 7: The Old Turkish Xuanzang Biography. - 3. / After the ms. By Paris, Peking and St. Petersburg as well as after the transcript by Annemarie v. Gabain ed., Trans. and commented by Mehmet Ölmez and Klaus Röhrborn. - 2001. - VII, 188 pp. - ISBN 3-447-04393-8
    • Part 8: Lexical investigations into the Uighur Xuanzang biography / by Ablet Semet. - 2005. - VIII, 239 pp.; 24 cm. - Zugl .: Göttingen, Univ., Diss., 2003. - ISBN 3-447-05199-X

Web links

Commons : 玄奘  - album with pictures, videos and audio files
Wikisource: Xuanzhang  - Sources and full texts (Chinese)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ after Alexander Cunningham : The Ancient Geography of India. (1871)
personal data
SURNAME Xuanzang
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 玄奘 (Chinese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese Buddhist pilgrim monk
DATE OF BIRTH uncertain: 602
DATE OF DEATH 664