Tripitaka T'ang Xuan Zang

Legend has it that at the age of just 6 years old Xuan Zang shaved his own head and began his monastic career. At the age of 20 he was already a fully ordained monk. However, Xuan Zang was not satisfied with the translations of Buddhist texts that were available to him as they were full of discrepancies. He began having a recurrent dream telling him to go to India. In preparation for his journey, Xuan Zang moved to Chang'an (Xi'an) to study Sanskrit and Tocharian, a language used in the Tarim Basin. At the time, the T'ang Dynasty and the Gokturks were at war and travel was forbidden. He managed to persuade some Buddhist guards at the gate of Yumen to let him through. So began an epic journey that took 19 years to complete. Xuan Zang passed through 130 kingdoms in all and braved the dangers of highway criminals and wild animals in search of the true doctrine. His journey has been so celebrated in China that it has taken on mythological proportions. The Chinese epic 'Journey to the West,' written in the 17th Century, is a fictional retelling of his journey and incorporates several Indian Deities. For example, the Goddess of Compassion Guan Yin who helps Xuan Zang during his travels was originally the Indian Deity Avalokiteshvara. Similarly, the monkey king Sun Wu'kung is modeled after Hanuman, the monkey-god of India. Not only did Xuan Zang make the exhaustive journey to India, but many of the texts and stories that he brought back from India were gradually fused into his fictional biography.