A student, a monk, a teacher— known as Hiuen Tsang

How many times in school have you uttered the name — ‘Hiuen Tsang was a Chinese traveller who came to India during the reign of Harsha Vardhana”! Well, an introduction dedicated to this magnanimous personality is both an audacity, at the same time a fool’s attempt! However, Personally speaking, I was really astounded when I came to know that this personality travelled all the way to India, from China, risking his own life? I was probably in class seven when this piece of information struck my head hard. How can someone possibly on earth be such a simpleton? For learning…risking own life! But now at 25 when I am a tad bit mature I can understand what an indelible impact this man had left on the making of Oriental history! Historians rely a great deal upon his book Born into a family of scholars for generations, Hiuen Tsang, alternatively Xuanzang, received a classical Confucian educational prodigy in his youth. But his younger brother cultivated in him a keen insight of knowing about Buddhism. He converted his religion to Buddhism. Young Tsang wanted to explore the uncharted domain of Buddhism. He left for India, at the time of great Chinese political turmoil. He was denied permission to travel to India by the emperor. But, nothing could stop his insatiable hunger to gather knowledge. He travelled to the Sichuan region of China and began to decipher the intricacies of Buddhist philosophy. Finding difficulties and contractions in his understanding he made his mind resolute to travel India and decipher the fountainhead of Buddhist studies. Not being granted permission to travel to India by the then Chinese emperor— Young Tsang left Chang'an by stealth, and on his horseback crossed the Taklamakan desert, passed through Turfan, Kusha, Tashkent and Samarkand. Finally, he made an inlay to the Indian subcontinent by crossing Hindukush and reaching Kashmir in the North West of India. Huien Tsang travelled far and wide in India and made himself familiar with all the centres of Buddist learning in the subcontinent. He spent a great deal of time in Nalanda University and polished his prodigy on subjects such as Sanskrit, and Buddhism. His fame became so talked over that King Harsha Vardhana asked him to pay the royal court a visit. He was impressed by the young scholar's mastery and depth of knowledge and helped him to return to China, which began in 643, by all means possible. After spending 16 years in India, XuanZang returned to China where he was welcomed by the king by all means of pomp and glitter. The king was enthralled to witness the man’s commitment to learning— who went against all odds and reached a far fetched land to seek the truth; i.e. knowledge. He offered XuangZang a responsible post in the royal office— which the latter politely declined; proving once more his greedless commitment to purpose. XuangZang spent the rest of his life translating Buddhist scriptures. A total tally of over 600 scriptures is there which he translated and placed in more than 500 boxes. He could only translate a few scriptures that he bought with him from India, some of them are inestimable in their own merit as they are watershed documents of the Mahayana school of Buddhism. Hiuen Tsang's main interest lay in deciphering Yogacara( Vijnanadavada) school, and he with his disciple Kuiji was responsible for the formation of Weishi Consciousness in China. He encrypted all the principles of Weishi scchool into the flesh of a text called ‘Chengewishilun’, which also has commentaries by Kuijhi. In China, though this new school garnered immense popularity while the two formulators of it were alive, it dropped down in its cumulative zeal with the inexorable march of time. Fortunately, XuangZhang had his Japanese disciple Dosho, who introduced several ideas of his Guru to Japan— which altogether came to be known as Hosho school of Buddhism, now the most popular school in the country. This great monk, a lifelong student, a judge of good merit, a scathing critic breathed his last in Circa 664, aged 62 at, Xiang, China.