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CHINA REPORT 48 : 1&2 (2012): 89–113SAGE Publications Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/Singapore/Washington DCDOI: 10.1177/000944551104800205

‘Show Me the Land Where the Buddha Dwelled…’ Xuanzang’s ‘Record of the Western Regions’ (Xiyu ji ): A Misunderstood Text?∗

Max Deeg Cardiff University, Wales, UK

This article fi rst traces the reception history of Xuanzang’s ‘Record of the Western Regions’ (Xiyu ji). It shows how the text was translated and used by Western scholars in the nineteenth century and used as a source for the positivist discovery of India’s Buddhist past, how it became romanticised and ‘spiritualised’, as it were, through popularisation. This seems to have parallels in East Asian history and in the modern reception in Asia. The problem with all these attempts of interpretation lies in a decontextualisation of the text, and the last part of the article attempts to show on the basis of three case studies how the Xiyu ji should be read in a broader and—I would claim—deeper contextualising way.

Keywords: Xuanzang, Xiyu ji, travelogue, China, India

∗ I feel honoured by and grateful to the editor of the present volume, Prof. Tansen Sen for being given the opportunity to contribute to a volume dedicated to the memory of Prof. Ji Xianlin, whom I unfortunately never had the chance to meet personally, but whose work I encountered at an early stage of my interest in the Chinese ‘pilgrims’. I hope that this article, at least symbolically, allows me to pay back the debt—in German I would use the term ‘Bringschuld’—which I owe him for having made use of his edition of the Xiyu ji. This article is a modifi ed version of a talk that I gave at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University in November 2010, during a sabbatical there, and it is my pleasure to thank the director, Prof. Francis Xavier Clooney, the colleagues—especially my kalyan.amitras Charles Stang and James Robson—the members of staff, the co-residents at the centre, and—last but not least—the audience of my talk for supporting me and stimulating me to write and think over the present piece of work. Certainly not for the last time, but once again, my thanks go to my colleague James Hegarty at Cardiff University for his painstaking correction of my English.

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EPILOGUE

Kennst du das Land, wo die Zitronen blühn,Im dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn,Ein sanfter Wind vom blauen Himmel weht,Die Myrte still und hoch der Lorbeer steht,Kennst du es wohl? Dahin! DahinMöcht’ ich mit dir, o mein Gelieber, ziehn!

...

Kennst du den Berg und seinen Wolkensteg?Das Maultier sucht im Nebel seinen Weg,In Höhlen wohnt der Drachen alte Brut,Es stürzt der Fels und über ihn die Flut:Kennst du ihn wohl? Dahin! DahinGeht unser Weg; o Vater, laß uns ziehn!1

These are the fi rst and third verses of the famous song, which the little girl Mignon, who had been abducted from her home in Italy and taken across the alps to Barbarian Germany, sings, in Italian, at the beginning of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Third Book, First Chapter). This book, started in the 1770s and published in 1795–96, belongs to the genre of late eighteenth-century Bildungsroman (‘novels of formation’), which has, as its main feature, the description of the self-development and self-realisation of the central protagonist. The poem expresses the archetypical German longing for the Mediterranean and for, in particular, the classi-cal realm of Italy. It has been put to music by Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann and Liszt (and others). It is, indeed, the quintessence of the German romanticisation of the land beyond the Alps; an Italy which is neither historically nor existentially real,

1 Goethe (1977: 234); English translation in: Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship and Travels, translated by Thomas Carlyle, London: Chapman and Hall, 1858, Vol. 1, 119:

Know’st thou the land where citron-apples bloom,And oranges like gold in leafy gloom,A gentle wind from deep blue heaven blows,The myrtle thick, and high the laurel grows?Know’st thou it then? ‘Tis there! ‘tis there,O my true lov’d one, thou with me must go!…

Know’st thou the hill, the bridge that hangs on cloud?The mules in mist grope o’er the torrent loud,In caves lie coil’d the dragon’s ancient brood,The grag leaps down and over it the fl ood:Know’st thou it then? ‘Tis there! ‘tis There,Our way runs; O my father, wilt thou go?’

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but imagined as a land of times gone past, and blessed by its classical antique culture and its bucolic landscape.

Let me now juxtapose this poem with one written by Murray A. Potter, a once graduate, and assistant professor, of ‘Romance Languages’ at Harvard University.2 It will hopefully become clear that I have chosen the German poeta laureatus’ verses as an opening to my article for more than nostalgic reasons:

Across the Gobi’s plains of burning sandThey crept unmindful of the stifl ing air.Until at length they saw the temples fairAnd thronging marts of stately Samarcand.Not there they stopped; but on their little bandPursued its way o’er the wind-swept passes vareAnd Pamir’s icy heights; their only care,To reach at last the long-sought promised land.

And now beneath the sacred Bo-tree’s shade,By fragrant wind of Magadha caressed,They humbly bowed themselves, and ever prayedThat, like their noble teacher, Buddha blessed,When death their bodies to oblivion laid,They too might gain Nirvana’s endless rest.

This poem, entitled ‘The Chinese Buddhist Pilgrims’, is quoted from an address by the Harvard Sanskrit professor, Charles Rockwell Lanman (1850–1941), and was, according to Lanman, originally ‘a college exercise in English by one of my Pali stu-dents’ (Lanman 1896: cxxxvi). For what I will say subsequently, it may be of interest to quote Lanman’s introductory remarks to this poem in full, in which he, as many others before and after him, highlights the importance of foreign sources, and especially those I will be dealing with here, for the study of the Indian past:

Of all the eminent ancient foreign visitors to India, the Chinese pilgrims seem to me to have the most peculiar claim to our sympathy and admiration. The Greeks came for gain and conquest. Not so the bold yet gentle followers of the great and gentle Buddha. (Lanman 1896: cxxxvi)

2 Potter had a wide range of interest, stretching from Sanskrit and Persian to Romanesque Renaissance literature. He graduated from Harvard in 1895, received both his MA in 1897 and his Ph.D in 1899 at Harvard; the published Ph.D thesis was a comparative study of the father–son confl ict in Iranian and other Indo-European literature (Potter 1902). He died at an early age in 1915, and some of his studies on the Renaissance (Petrarch) were published posthumously in 1917.

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INTRODUCTION: THE PROBLEM OF THE CHINESE ‘PILGRIMS’ AND THEIR TEXTS

What I wanted to point out by quoting Goethe’s and Potter’s poems is, of course, the parallel between the projection of an ideal, or rather idealised, sacred landscape and the perilous journey to it across threatening mountain passes, which was clear in both the German novel and the vision of a young American poet-scholar of the late nineteenth century. In the latter case, this is achieved by invoking the so-called Chinese Buddhist ‘pilgrims’, the most famous of them being: Faxian (travelled 398–412), Xuanzang (603 [?]–664, travelled 629–645) and Yijing (travelled in India 675–685). I could even go a step further and say that the poem refers, in fact, to only one of them: the most idealised and romanticised one, Xuanzang.

The decontextualised and idealised reading of the records left to us by these men has led, I would argue, to a sustained misreading and misinterpretation of them. They are treated, erroneously, as sources for objective, yet timeless, historical know-ledge; a quarry, as it were, from which anyone can break, and take, any stone that they need. In short, not enough thought has been given to their original historical settings, intentions and meanings and this article will seek to address this lacuna.

I will divide my article, which will concentrate on Xuanzang, into three parts: in part one, I will briefl y describe the reception history (German: ‘Rezeptionsgeschichte’) of Xuanzang in Western scholarship and literature; in part two, I will briefl y comment on the reception of Xuanzang in Asia; and, in part three, I will take up, after my rather deconstructive approach in parts one and two, the rectifi cation of the reading and interpretation of Xuanzang’s ‘Records’.

READING XUANZANG AND EXPLORING BUDDHIST HISTORY

No text, in fact, has fi red the imagination concerning Buddhist India more than the description of the ‘Western Regions’, the Da Tang Xiyu Ji (henceforth XJ), written by Xuanzang in the fi rst year after his return to China, in 645, and sub-mitted to the court in the year 646. The reception history of Xuanzang’s justly famous text begins with the assumed reaction of the second Tang emperor Taizong (r. 626–649) for whom, and on whose order, the text was originally written, and ends, if only for now, with modern scholarly interpretations and a range of publications by non-specialists and travellers (see Wriggins 1996).

It is well known that in the nineteenth century, when sinology or Chinese studies began as an academic undertaking, the XJ and the other, aforementioned, Chinese Buddhist travelogues attracted the attention of the fi rst Western sinologists more than other aspects of Chinese culture and literature. Starting with the French translation of Faxian’s Gaoseng Faxian zhuan , ‘Biography of the Eminent Monk

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Faxian’, from the beginning of the fi fth century by Abel Rémusat, posthumously published in 1836 (Rémusat 1836), the relevant texts were translated in the course of a few decades, ending with Takakusu Junjiro’s translation of Yijing’s description of Indian monasticism into English in 1896. Xuanzang’s travelogue was translated by Stanislas Julien, Abel Rémusat’s successor to the sinology chair in Paris, between 1857 and 1858 (Julien 1857–58). Julien claims in the foreword of his translation that it was the famous German ‘Universalgelehrte’ Alexander von Humboldt who had asked him to translate the text as one of the key Orientalist desiderata of the period.3

It was, by and large, these translations that fi nally led British archaeologists to the discovery of, and to sometimes fruitless searches for, long-forgotten Buddhist sites in India.4 It was mainly in this context that the XJ was established as a trustworthy source on Buddhist India, not only for the early seventh century, but also as something of a ‘timeless’ resource for the study of the religions of the South Asian subcontinent.

It was the work of the British archaeologist and colonel, and later general, Alexander Cunningham, who literally swept the landscape of northern India in search of Buddhist antiquities. With Julien’s translation of the XJ as a Cicerone in his hand, his approach, of using the XJ as the starting point for archaeological enquiry, became codifi ed as the paradigmatic model of British colonial archaeology in India.5 Cunningham, in this way, also provided the basis for the, overall rather positivist, interpretation of the XJ. This approach took almost everything in the text to be his-torically real and true. Cunningham, and after him many others, never really raised any doubt as to the origin and purpose of the information contained in the XJ. This was chiefl y because of Cunningham’s assumption of ‘the great extent and complete-ness of [Xuanzang’s] Indian travels’, which, in his view, had ‘never been surpassed’ (Cunningham 1871: xxi f.). This view fi nds its echoes, to a greater or lesser extent, in textual and archaeological practice since then. However, there were some early criti-cal voices: for instance, Thomas Watters suggested that Xuanzang ‘was not a good observer, a careful investigator, or a satisfactory recorder, and consequently he left very much untold, which he would have done well to tell’. He further suggested that Xuanzang actually ‘[cared] little for other things and [wanted] to know only Buddha and Buddhism’ (Watters 1904–05: 15).

As we know, Cunningham did not only constitute an example for archaeologists and art historians working in South Asia, but was also followed in method and approach by the famous explorers of Chinese Turkestan (today’s Xinjiang ): Marc Aurel Stein, the Germans, Albrecht Grünwedel and Albert LeCoq. In fact, it was only the

3 Julien (1857: vi): ‘A la sollicitation pressante de mon illustre ami, M. le baron Alex. de Humboldt, j’avais d’abord ébauché la traduction du commencement du Si-yu-ki, ...’

4 See Leoshko (2003) and Singh (2004). On a popular history of these discoveries, see Allen (2003).5 See Cunningham (1871a, 1871b). On Cunningham and his use of Xuanzang, see Leoshko (2003: 42

ff.) and Trautmann and Sinopoli (2002: 495–501).

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French scholar Paul Pelliot who was more critical in his reception of the XJ. This is almost certainly because of his sinological background and his direct access to the primary texts.6

The fi rst English translation of the XJ, which served, and still serves, as the main reference for anglophone Buddhologists, was that by the British navy doctor Samuel Beal.7 Beal’s translation is full of inaccuracies and he is the subject of trenchant criticism by the much more knowledgeable Thomas Watters in his commentary on the XJ (Watters 1904–05). The latter work is often quoted as a translation, although it only contains, besides its valuable commentary, a paraphrase of the Chinese text. Considering the heavy use and considerable importance of Xuanzang’s text, it is astonishing that no real work has been done on the XJ by Western scholars since that of Watters.

One could argue that all the interpretations and the usage of Xuanzang by nineteenth-century historians, philologists and archaeologists were inspired by a romanticised historicism, which was paradoxically decontextualised in order to create an unchanging sacred (Buddhist) landscape of India. It did not really matter if one was talking about the Buddha and his lifetime, about the period of Asoka or the later historical periods of the Guptas or Xuanzang’s Hars.avardhana; if Xuanzang had to say something about something, someone or somewhere, it was to be taken at face value.

XUANZANG—MODEL-EXPLORER AND SPIRITUAL SEARCHER

The label ‘model-explorer and spiritual searcher’ captures a perspective on Xuanzang that has had a strong impact on the popular reception of the XJ. In particular, in the last few decades, Xuanzang’s great work has become a topic of interest to modern authors, who often choose to write about their own personal life experiences in rela-tion to the XJ. I will only briefl y introduce some of these works, and I am sure that the list could be extended.

There is, for instance, a book written by the Chinese, UK-based, author Sun Shuyun, Ten Thousand Miles without a Cloud. An Epic Journey (Sun 2004), which is a report of ‘One woman’s search for her roots’. Xuanzang and his travel to the ‘Western Regions’ provide Sun with a blueprint for the analysis of her own biography as a person searching for her Chinese-Buddhist identity; she presents her interpretation of Xuanzang and his story with the authority of a native Chinese.

6 See Dabbs (1963), especially 117–43, and a more popular description of these discoveries in Hopkirk (1980).

7 Beal (1884). This translation was recently complemented by Li Rongxi’s translation in the Bukkyo-Dendo-kyokai translation series (Li 1996).

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A similar book based on Xuanzang’s travels is Richard Bernstein’s ‘Ultimate Journey.…’.8 For the American Bernstein re-staging Xuanzang’s journey—to walk ‘in the footsteps of Xuanzang’, as the French sinologist René Grousset’s famous book on Xuanzang and his travels puts it—was obviously a personal challenge, and, on this basis, he transforms Xuanzang’s journey into a metaphysical quest, bringing together, rather vaguely, the pilgrim and the Yogacara-philosopher Xuanzang:

… Hsuan Tsang wanted to shatter the illusory façade of the world of appearances and penetrate the diamond-hard innermost heart of Reality itself. When he returned to China he wrote, at the express demand of the emperor, about the countries he had visited on his journey, the emperor’s purpose being to collect information of potential use in formulating China’s military and foreign policies. But while the monk performed the task for his emperor, his concern was with an India that for him stood as the source of supreme wisdom. He went there to achieve the exalted understanding, what he saw as the Ultimate Truth, that alone permits us to achieve the purpose of Buddhism, which is the cessation of otherwise inevitable and inescapable suffering. (Bernstein 2001: 5)

Needless to say, none of these ‘ultimate’ goals are found on the surface of the pages of the XJ, but these words show, very clearly, how Xuanzang has already been trans-ported to the realm of Western imagination, which is primarily concerned with what Buddhism should be all about.

Another quite influential recent book might also be mentioned here: Sally Wriggins’ Xuanzang: A Buddhist Pilgrim on the Silk Road (Wriggins 1996). Although this book is not an autobiographical travelogue, but it is, rather, a historical account of Xuanzang’s journey; Wriggin’s motivation is not so different from the two authors I have already dealt with. In his foreword, the sinologist Mote says that ‘by describing for the reader the features of the life and of the physical setting that made the most vivid impressions on her, she re-creates what Xuanzang had seen in those places fourteen hundred years ago’ (Wriggins 1996: xi). Wriggins herself states that she ‘sought to rediscover Xuanzang as a person of deep religious feeling with a powerful mind, a man of adventure with a strong personality and a gift for friendship’ (Wriggins 1996: xix). These statements clearly refl ect the, aforementioned, positivist view of Xuanzang and show that it is being combined, once again, with an emphasis on personal experience and romanticism; by following Xuanzang’s footsteps, the author makes it clear that she thinks that she has, in the XJ, a reliable guide to Central Asia and India, and to the Buddhism of the seventh century. She also demonstrates her romantic approach

8 Bernstein (2001). See a similar agenda like Bernstein’s and Sun’s in Mishi Saran’s re-enactment of Xuanzang’s journey (Saran 2005). On a Buddhist pilgrimage travelogue, see also Sucitto and Scott (2006), where the Chinese pilgrims are, however, not explicitly mentioned as motivators for the journey.

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to Xuanzang; she believes she will discover the ‘real man’ behind the writing. This is despite the fact that the texts to which the author has access are the late nineteenth century translations of the XJ and the ‘Life’ by Samuel Beal!

Wriggins’ approach highlights a common feature of all the books so far mentioned, and also of scholarly trends in the use of information from, and around, Xuanzang: They all make no distinction between the two main sources on the Chinese monk, the XJ and the so-called ‘Life’. It is not so much the XJ, which is a text that, though unwieldy, is full of biographical and narrative information, which is the main source for these authors, but the so-called ‘Life’ with the long Chinese title Da Tang Ci’en si sanzang fashi zhuan , ‘Biography of the Tripit.aka-dharma-master of the Cien-monastery of the Great Tang’ (Life).9 This biography of Xuanzang, written by his disciple Huili (active 629–665), gives a complete account of the life of the famous master in 10 fascicles: the fi rst fi ve covering his youth and travels to India, and the last fi ve dealing with the ‘career’ of Xuanzang as a translator and infl uential adviser to the emperor after his return from India until his death.

ASIAN IMAGES AND PROJECTIONS OF XUANZANG

Huili’s biography was very infl uential in China, Central Asia and in Japan. The Central Asian Uighurs, for instance, chose to translate the ‘Life’ over the XJ.10 In more general terms, the ‘Life’ has had a great deal of impact on the reception of the XJ. This is because its narrative style was projected upon the, rather different, and far more descriptive, form of the XJ. In this way, the XJ was placed within the sphere of individual experience, and, consequently, was read as a ‘personal’ travelogue. Such an approach ignores the, very real, differences between the two texts, which Julien had already recognised when he explained that he chose to translate the ‘Life’ before the XJ because:

it seems to me more animated and more attractive than the heavy and serious presentation of the XJ, in which, strangely enough, one does not see, other than on one occasion, the great and impressive fi gure of the traveller.11

9 Already noticed by Waley (1952: 11). An example of scholarly use of the texts in this way is found in the relevant passages in Mayer’s monograph on Xuanzang (Mayer 1992).

10 At least not even a fragment of an Uighur XJ translation has survived, as I was informed by Prof. Peter Zieme, Berlin. A number of publications have been produced on the Uighur ‘Life’ in the series Uralo-Altaica and elsewhere.

11 Julien (1857: viii): ‘… [il] me semblait plus animé et plus attachant que la rédaction grave et sévère du Si-yu-ki, où, chose étrange, on ne voit apparaître qu’une seule fois la grande et imposante fi gure du voyageur.’

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Despite this, the XJ has itself exerted some infl uence on early East Asian ideas of ‘Western Regions’, and especially of South Asia. Most Chinese offi cial histories,12 at least from the Tang period onwards, depend, for their sections on ‘Western Regions’, to a greater or lesser extent, on the information found in Xuanzang’s great work. They sometimes even quote complete passages from the XJ.

In early Chinese Modernity, the ‘Real Tripit.aka’ Xuanzang—as Arthur Waley has described him in a narration of the monk’s life that was written, once again, according to the XJ and the ‘Life’—was superseded by Wu Cheng’en 13 and his Ming-period novel, the Xiyou ji , the ‘Records of the Travels to the West’, which was written in the sixteenth century. A lot of ink has been spilled concerning the historical development and the sources of this novel and its relation to the ‘Real Tripit.aka’.14 It will suffi ce here to say that we encounter, in this composition, a completely different Xuanzang—called sanzang fashi , dharma-master Tripit.aka—who, in a way, is made effeminate and superseded, by his powerful companions, the monkey Sun Wukong , the pig Zhu Bajie and Sha Wujing and their fi ghts against demons and other supernatural creatures.

With the modernisation of Buddhism in China, just as in other ‘Buddhist’ countries, a certain ‘historicisation’ of Buddhism in general, and of Xuanzang in particular, took place and, although the popularity of the, more colourful, Xiyou ji did not fade away, there was a stronger interest in the historical Xuanzang and his activities. In particu-lar, there was a strong interest in Xuanzang as a translator, and also as a champion of the dharma. The scholarly oriented Fagu shan community in Taiwan, for instance, has dedicated a whole project and a comprehensive webpage to the cultural hero Xuanzang. In Taibei, there is now even a Xuanzang-University (Xuanzang daxue

).It was in the relationship between late imperial and independent India and

Republican China that Xuanzang assumed an interesting role: as an icon of a ‘cul-tural bond’ that was invoked every once a while when political circumstances were in favour of it. In such a context, Xuanzang and his travels were, and still are, adroitly transformed into a monument to the shared cultural heritage of both nations—in order to underline the friendship between the two countries. This is, selecting only one, amongst many, example, clearly expressed by the Chinese-born Tan Chung (∗1929),15 in his foreword to Devahuti’s book on Xuanzang: ‘… I, …, am endeared

12 On the complex production of the Tang historiographical collections still, see the ‘classic’ book by Twitchett (2002).

13 There are, besides Arthur Waley’s well-known paraphrase of the original ‘Monkey’ (Waley 1943), two complete translations into English: Yu (1977–83) and Jenner (1993).

14 See Dudbridge (1970) and the relevant articles by Yu (2009).15 Tan Chung, a retired professor of Jawarhal Nehru University in Delhi, is the son of Hunan-born

Tan Yunshan (1898–1983), the founding director of the China-Institute (Cına bhavana) of Visvabharatı University, Santiniketan. Tan Chung (1999) edited a volume dedicated to his father’s memory with contributions of the Who-Is-Who of Sino-Indian relations (with an address by the former Indian president K.R. Narayanan, a foreword by Kapila Vatsyayana and a preface by Ji Xianlin).

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to Hsüan-tsang (…), because not only is he an inspiration to me, he is also … an icon that symbolizes a “cultural envoy” or “people’s ambassador”.’16

In this way, a real cult developed around the fi gure of the famous traveller and translator. This was the case not only in the past, but also in modern contexts of nation-building and international relations: The offi cial donation of Xuanzang relics by the People’s Republic of China, which was then still represented by the fourteenth Dalai Lama, to Jawaharlal Nehru in Nalanda, in the year 1956, on the occasion of the 2500th anniversary of the Buddha, known as Buddha-jayantı , must certainly represent one of the highlights of Xuanzang’s posthumous ‘career’. The relics were subsequently enshrined in the monastic university of Nalanda.

Many more Xuanzang relics are to be found, or are claimed as such, in China, in the Ci’en si in Xi’an, where Xuanzang resided for a long period of time, as well as in other places. Even the Japanese could not resist taking relics from China during World War II: These were enshrined in the Genjo sanzonin garan of the Yakushi ji in Nara, built in 1991 and embellished with wall paintings of Xuanzang’s travels by the famous Japanese painter Hirayama Ikuo , whose work has always been inspired by Xuanzang. According to the plate in front of the shrine, the relics were ‘discovered’ in 1942 by the Imperial Army near, or in, Nanjing and were brought to Japan in 1944, where they fi rst were housed in the Jion ji

, in Iwatsukiku , Saitama-prefecture ( Saitama-ken).In Japan, the reception of Xuanzang was closely connected to his sectarian import-

ance for early Japanese Buddhism. While the textual and philosophical school that was established by Xuanzang’s translations and his exegesis of Yogacara texts was rather short lived in China, it had a strong impact on the transmission history of Buddhism from Tang China to Japan. The school became one of the eight ‘sects’ in the old capital of Nara, the Hosso shu , and Xuanzang, or Genjo in Japanese, became its patriarch.

In Japan it was, once again, much more the ‘Life’ than the XJ that attracted, and lent substance to, the developing ‘cult of the saint Xuanzang’. The ‘Life’ was also the basis for a pictorial representation of our famous Buddhist monk in the medieval emakimono style, the Genjo sanzo-e .17 It is interesting to note that the compositional symmetry of the ‘Life’, which divides the biography of the master into two, almost equal, halves, is subordinated in the pictorial narrative to the motif of the journeying of Xuanzang.

16 Devahuti (2001: xvii). See also, from a mere Indian viewpoint, in the Publisher’s Note of the Indian reprint of Watters: ‘To Yuan Chwang goes the gratitude of all Indians as well as Indian historians.’

17 Komatsu (1990) and Minamoto (1962). On the Western ‘search’ for pictorial representations of Xuanzang, see Mair (1984), and on the Asian art–historical development, Wong (2002). On how Xuanzang has infl uenced early modern Japanese Buddhologists and Buddhists on their search of the ‘real’ Buddha in India, see Jaffe (2004).

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Xuanzang’s travels also had a strong impact on the medieval and modern Japanese imagination and world view. We know that the famous monk Myoe (1173–1232) (Morrell 1982: 183; Tanabe 1992: 66–73) was inspired by young Sudhana’s travel, as told in the Gan.d.avyuha-sutra, but he was also most certainly infl uenced, in a more direct and practical fashion, by Xuanzang’s example. Indeed, Myoe wanted to under-take a journey to India not once, but twice, until he was convinced by the local deity of Kasuga that this was not necessary (because India could be visualised perfectly well in Japan). This idea did not prevent Japanese Buddhists focusing their imagination of the Buddhist world, with an emphasis on India, into maps completely based on Xuanzang’s descriptions.

As was the case in the Chinese reception history, the various Japanese imaginations and projections of Xuanzang, from the Meiji period to today, would be a topic worth a whole book in itself and I do not even dare to touch upon it here. As an oblique indication of Xuanzang’s enduring popularity, I will mention in passing the best-selling Genjo Sanzo , which was published as part of a series of Japanese manga called Saiyuki , ‘Record of the Ultimate Journey’—which puns on the homonymous title of the aforementioned Ming novel in Japanese, Saiyu ki

,—by Kazuya Minekura , in which a penitent, but somewhat freaky, young priest tries to retrieve Holy Scriptures (seiten ) stolen from his master.

It was, however, not only East Asian visions of the ‘Western Regions’ that were heavily infl uenced by Xuanzang’s travelogue. The XJ, as a whole or in parts, was prob-ably known to the Tibetans as early as the Imperial Period (seventh–eighth centuries). Chinese fragments of the text have been found in Dunhuang, which was occupied by the Tibetans (Huber 2008: 386, note 20). As Toni Huber has shown in his recent book The Holy Land Reborn: Pilgrimage & the Tibetan Reinvention of Buddhist India, the impact of the XJ is already attested in a twelfth-century account of a pilgrim-age to India by the eleventh-century fi gure Rwa Lo tsa ba.18 In the fi rst half of the eighteenth century, one Mgon po skyabs, the author of a ‘History of Buddhism in China’,19 compiled, in Tibetan, a ‘summarized version’ (Huber 2008: 384, note 56) of the XJ under the title ‘Register of the plan of the land India (from) the Great Dynasty of the Thang’ (Chen po thang gur dus kyi rgya gar zhing gi bkod pa’i kar chag).20 An early nineteenth-century description of India, the ‘Pure Mirror of the Vessel of the Essential Explanation of the Wide (Plain) [i.e. India] of Great Jambudvıpa’ (’Dzam gling chen po’i rgyas bshad snod bcud kun gsal me long) by (the Btsan pa No man han) ’Jam dpal Chos kyu Tstan ’dzin ’Phrin las (1789–1838),21 is also heavily

18 In Rwa Ye shes Seng ge’s Mthu stobs dbang phyug rje btsun rwa lo tsa ba’i rnam par thar pa kun khyab snyan pa’i rgna sgral (Huber 2008: 64 ff., 386, note 21).

19 Rgya nag chos ‘byung, ‘Rise of the Dharma on the Black Plain [i.e.: China]’, published 1736: see Huber (2008: 384, note 46).

20 For a facsimile edition of the Tibetan text and an introduction, see Otani Daigaku (1988). See also the recently published print version.

21 For different editions and titles, see Huber (2008: 440, s.v. BTS1 and BTS

2).

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dependent on the XJ (see Huber 2008: 56). Indeed, Tibetan pilgrims to Buddhist sites in India inspired Rudyard Kipling to create, in his novel Kim, the Tibetan Lama, Teshoo, who wants to visit the place where young Siddhartha’s arrow created a fountain of youth. The novel even contains a passage where the curator of the museum in Lahore—in ‘real life’ Kipling’s father, John Lockwood Kipling—shows the Lama a translation of the XJ in order to prove that all these places exist and can be found in situ.22

In all these cases, the data taken from the XJ is treated rather freely, with passages left out, reduced, added to, etc., but, as far as I am aware, there was never a blending of the XJ and the ‘Life’ in pre-modern Asian cultural contexts. This was defi nitely the product of the positivist historical approach of the nineteenth and twentieth century.

Building on our survey of the reception of both the XJ and the ‘Life’, it appears that an important caveat for the reading and use of both texts is to keep in mind their original purpose and context: the XJ was a report written on behalf of the Tang emperor Taizong, while the ‘Life’ was a biography written by a disciple of the master in a quite different political climate and on behalf of a Buddhist readership.23

A NEW INTERPRETATIVE APPROACH: THREE EXAMPLES

After the previous ‘deconstructive campaign’ against modern scholars’, writers’ and the public’s use of the XJ and its author, the crucial question remains: what constitutes an adequate interpretation of the text? As I have already pointed out, the problem of the XJ interpretation was, and is, that the text is not approached in terms of its original context, which is, of course, the early Tang period. My hermeneutic presupposition is, thus, that we fi rst of all come to an understanding of this original context of compo-sition and then, and only then, do we approach the text as a source for Indian history or, more precisely, for the history of Buddhism (and, in particular, the period of the Pus.pabhuti ruler, Hars.a Sıladitya).

I would like to discuss three examples from the XJ that highlight three different aspects of the text: the fi rst one explores the XJ as a source on India in general, the second one as an educational text and the third one addresses political dimensions.

22 Kipling (1901: 13): ‘[The Lama] had heard of the travels of the Chinese pilgrims, Fa-Hiouen and Hwen-Tsiang, and was anxious to know if there was any translation of their record. He drew in his breath as he turned helplessly over the pages of Beal and Stanislas Julien. “T’is all here. A treasure locked.” Then he composed himself reverently to listen to fragments hastily rendered into Urdu. For the fi rst time he heard of the labours of European scholars, who by the help of these and a hundred other documents have identifi ed the Holy Places of Buddhism. Then he was shown a mighty map, spotted and traced with yellow. The brown fi nger followed the Curator’s pencil from point to point. Here was Kapilavastu, here the Middle Kingdom, and here Mahabodhi, the Mecca of Buddhism; and here was Kusinagara, sad place of the Holy One’s death.’

23 See Deeg (2009a). Indeed, the ‘Life’ was composed in the context of earlier hagiographical Buddhist tradition in China, although it was, admittedly, the fi rst of its kind to be dedicated to one individual only.

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The fi rst passage I have chosen is from the fourth chapter (juan ) in the XJ in which Xuanzang, having described Mathura, proceeds to Sthanesvara (Satanishifaluo

/∗sat-tha-nεjh-çip-buat-la, modern Thanesar). I have selected this passage because it is one of the few in the XJ that is not specifi cally concerned with Buddhism. On the contrary, after a very unfl attering description of the degenerate state of the region and its population (the heretics having overrun the place: with only three monasteries left with about 700 monks all studying the Small Vehicle, the Xiaosheng

, or Hınayana), Xuanzang provides the following story:

The area in a perimeter of two hundred miles around the great capital is called ‘Land of Merit’ by the people of the region. It is heard in the old records that formerly the kingdoms of the Five Indias were divisively ruled by two kings (who) invaded each other’s territories, and their weapons were never at rest. The two rulers consulted each other and wanted to arrange a battle in order to decide over victory and defeat and to bring about peace for (their) people. (But) the whole population resented (the battle) and nobody followed the order of the rulers. (One of ) the kings thought (that) it is diffi cult to plan the start (of an undertaking) with the common people,24 (but) that a god25 could move (his) subjects, (and that the god’s) power could achieve success. At that time there was a brahmacarin, with basic wisdom (but) highly talented, (whom the king) secretly presented with a bundle of silk and ordered (him) to enter the harem26 (in order to) create a book (which) was enshrined in holes in a rock. After many years the trees grew bulky (over it). The king, (sitting) on his throne, told (his) offi cials: ‘I have occupied the great throne on the basis of no virtues and with shame, (until) the lord of the gods27 has enlightened (me by) a dream (in which he) grants me a spiritual book28 (which) at the present is stored in a certain ridge on a certain mountain.’ Then (he) gave order to look for (it), (and they) found the book beneath a mountain forest.29 All the offi cials offered congratulations, the people were delighted, and (the fi nd) was announced far and near (in order) to let everybody know (about it). Its general content was: ‘Lo! (The circle) of life and death is infi nite, (and) fl ows endlessly.

24 Zhongshuzhe nan yu lushi ye : this is a clear refl ex to a passage in the legalist Shangjun shu , ‘The Book of Lord Shang’, attributed to Shang Yang (d. 338 BC):

, (‘One cannot start an undertaking with the people, but one can be pleased about a success with them.’)

25 Shen : Xuanzang deliberately does not use the term tian . This clearly is connected to the agenda of discrediting the Bhagavadgıta, to which this legend refers, and its origin as a fake of a Brahmin.

26 Houting : lit. ‘rear court’; I translate the term in its specifi c meaning because of the context which is meant to describe the undertaking as a very frivolous one.

27 Tiandi in a Chinese context would be the ‘Lord of Heaven’, but here refers to an Indian deity.28 Lingshu .29 Shanlin also has the connotation of a hermitage.

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The living beings are drowned (in it) and cannot escape from it. We, by unusual means,30 redeem (you) from suffering. (What) is nowadays in the parameter of two hundred miles of the great city was, in the period of the ancient rulers, a land of welfare.31 For a very long period of time the memory (of all this) was blocked and extinguished, living beings did not realise and therefore were immersed in an ocean of suffering. (They) are drowned and (cannot) be rescued—so what can (one) say? You sentient beings (who) are (now) facing the enemy and will fall in battle will be reborn among human beings; (and even if you) kill a lot of innocent people (you will still) receive the happiness of heaven. As obedient grand-children and pious sons (you) will serve (your) ancestors, walk over this land and collect infi nite merit. (If ) with few effort (you can earn) a lot of merit—why (then) give up (such) benefi t? As soon as (one) loses the human body (one is reborn) on the three paths (and) in the void. Therefore each living being has the duty to perform (religious) practice.’ Thereupon people went into battle and faced death unfl inchingly. The king then recruited the bravest (men), and when the two kingdoms fought each other the corpses piled up like wild grass.32 Until today (their) remains are spread over the fi elds. (And) since this (happened) in ancient times the human skeletons are very large,33 (and it) was transmitted as the custom of the kingdom as being called ‘Field of Merit’.34

Now anybody familiar with Indian literature and lore will recognise some familiar elements in this story: The place name given here, ‘Field of Merit’, is fudi , Skt. pun. yaks.etra (or pun. yabhumi). In the light of the plot this clearly refers to the dharmaks.etra of the Mahabharata. It is, in a quite abridged and reduced kind, the basic plot of the great epic Mahabharata, the great battle between the Kauravas and the

30 Qimo also more pejoratively meaning ‘cunning trick’.31 Fuli zhi di is a clear reference to the earlier fudi , ‘land (or fi eld) of merit’.32 Ru mang : this is a metaphor already found in the Zuozhuan on the fi rst year of Duke Ai

(Ai-gong, yuannian ): (‘Although Chu has no virtues, (it) still does not execute its people, while Wu is exhausted by fi ghting every day, the bones exposed to the sun (are scattered) like wild grass, but still no virtue is seen there.’).

33 This refers to the Buddhist idea that people in a degenerating era (kalpa) constantly grow smaller.34 T.890c.16ff.; Ji et al. (1985: 389f.):

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Pan.d. avas, here reduced to two unnamed hostile kings, and, in more specifi c terms, a distorted presentation of the most famous part of the epic, the Bhagavadgıta, in which Kr.s.n.a, the incarnated god Vis.n.u and charioteer of one of the leaders of the Kauravas, Arjuna, has to convince his master that it is his duty as a warrior (ks.atriya) to fi ght in spite of his inner individual resistance against the killing of his relatives, the Pan.d. avas. Recording the Buddhist version of the origin of the Bhagavadgıta at this place certainly was not done by chance. The rulers of the Pus.yabhuti dynasty to which Hars.avardhana belonged still nurtured a dynastic memory of their former central territory, and the references to the Mahabharata in Hars.a’s inscriptions indicate that there was a dynastic link to the epic and its context. What we have here is, as it seems, the only direct Buddhist reference to the epic or to parts of it. It seems that Xuanzang relates here an anti-Brahminical, polemical, Buddhist account of the fake and wholly concocted origin of the Gıta, claiming that it was created by a corrupt Brahmin, on the order of a king, so as to manipulate his people into fi ghting in an upcoming war! Xuanzang here obviously gives us a glimpse into a genre of literature, of interreligious polemic, which has completely disappeared in the abyss of the Indian past.

My next example highlights, as a kind of contrast, the importance of, not the Indian, but the Chinese context in which the XJ was written. Xuanzang very often intentionally and consciously chooses motifs and legends so as to, as I have labelled it elsewhere, ‘educate the emperor’ or to speak to a wider imperial context. This is particularly true of those stories which have as their central protagonists famous Buddhist kings, such as Ajatasatru, Asoka, Kanis.ka or Sı laditya Hars.avardhana, the ruler of the north Indian empire when Xuanzang was there. The specifi c function of these ‘royal narratives’ is underlined by the fact that they are mostly absent from the ‘Life’, a text mainly written for a pious Buddhist readership. My next example is thus one of these royal stories, and more specifi cally the tragic story of Asoka’s son, Kun.ala, whose eyes were gouged out because he was accused of having had a sexual relationship with his step-mother35—a motif which has attracted modern Indian fi lm-makers [Veer Kunal (Hindi), 1925, directed by Manilal Joshi; Ashok Kumar (Tamil), 1941, directed by Rajachandra Shekhar] and writers as well (Kunal [Hindi], 1941, by Sohan Lal Dvivedi). The story in the XJ runs as follows:

The crown-prince was born by the legitimate queen, beautiful and elegant in appearance, (already) manifesting kindness and humanity in (his) early years. The legitimate queen died, and the stepmother was arrogant and licentious, pursued her fatuousness, and urged the crown-prince to intimacy. The crown-prince wept and

35 For the Sanskrit version, see Strong (1983: 275ff.). For a general reception history of the Asoka legend, see Deeg (2009b). The story of Kun. ala was well known in China through the two translations of the Asokavadana into Chinese made between T.2042 and 2043, and even a single text on the legend only, the Ayu wang xi huaimu yinyuan jing (‘Sutra of the karmic cause of the destroyed eyes of King Asoka’s son’, T.2045), translated by Dharmanandi(n)/Tanmonanti (end of fourth century).

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refused the request, retreated and declined (to commit) the offense. (When) the stepmother saw (that he) disobeyed (she) became very angry, waited (until) the king took a break and stated calmly: ‘Well, Taks.asila is (one of your) kingdom’s essential territories. Whom if not your own son or younger brother can (you) entrust with it? The crown-prince is well known for (his) humanity and piety. People critizise (you) presently because (you) hold (him) in esteem as a wise person.’ The more the king listened to (her) explanation the more he was pleased by the treacherous plot; then he gave orders to the crown-prince and admonished him: ‘I hold (this) heritage of continuous dynastic succession; however, (I) fear to loose (it) and to be unworthy of (our) former kings’ (legacy). Taks.asila is a strategic region in (our) kingdom, and I now give you the order to make it a stronghold (to protect) this kingdom. The kingdom’s affairs are extremely important, the feelings of the people are tricky, honesty comes and goes, (and) there is loss of the foundation. All orders will be authenticated by the sign of my teeth. When the sign has been from my mouth,36 how could it be false (then)?’ Thereupon the crown-prince followed the order and came to the stronghold; although a long time had passed by, the stepmother was still full of anger, (and she) issued a royal order, sealed with purple ink, waited until the king was asleep (and then) secretly (used his) teeth to produce the sign, dispatched an express messenger to deliver a letter of accusation. (After the) ministers had read it kneeling, they looked at each other without a clue. The crown-prince asked them: ‘Why (are you) in grief?’ They said: ‘There is an order from the great king (in which) the crown-prince is accused, (and in which he gives an order) to gouge out both his eyes and to expel him into the mountain valleys, leaving both (you) and your wife to your fate. (However), although there is this order (now), it is not yet a reliable one. You should ask for another (meeting with the king), your face towards (him) and hands behind the back,37 and await your punishment.’ The crown-prince said: ‘(My) father has ordered (my) death—how (can I) decline his (order)? The sign of (his) teeth is there as a seal (which) proves (that the order) is not false!’ He ordered a can.d. ala to gouge out his eyes. (And) when (he) had lost his eyesight he begged for money (in order) to survive, wandered around (until he) came to the capital of (his) father. His wife told (him): ‘This is the city of the king. But alas—(we) are suffering hard from cold and hunger. Before (you) were the crown-prince, now (you are) a beggar. (I) wish that (you would) be heard and could explain again (in respect to) the former accusation!’ Then, by a scheme, (they) entered the king’s inner stable, and in the last half of the night they wept with the cool breeze, cried continuously and sang sadly to the sound of a harp. (When) the king (who) stayed in a high building heard this delicate song (whose) lyrics

36 That is, showing the print of the teeth.37 Mianfu traditionally is a term for submission, already found in the Zuozhuan , eighteenth

year of Ranggong ; Sima Zhen (on Shiji ) explains it as follows: (‘Mian fu is (when one) ties the hands (behind) the back and looks straight in front of oneself.’)

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were resenting and grieving and, bewildered, asked: ‘The voice of the song (accom-panied by) the harp sounds like my son. Why has he come now to this place?’ And (he) asked (the servant) of the inner stable: ‘Who is singing the long and lamenting (melody)?’ Thereupon he sent for the blind man to report the meaning (of this), (and when) the king saw the crown-prince he asked, fi lled with sorrow: ‘Who has done you (so much) harm (that you) have fallen in (such) misery? (My) beloved son has become blind, (and I) have not even known of it; (now) my subjects are counting in myriads—how (will he be able) to perceive them (then)? Oh heaven, oh heaven! How could (our) virtue decline (in such way)?’ The crown-prince wept with grief, apologised and answered: ‘It is really through (my) impious (behavior) that I have neglected my duties towards (your) divine (majesty); on such and such date (I) received (your) kind order. There was no reason to dismiss (the order), and I did not dare to evade the responsibility.’ The king knew in his heart that the stepmother had acted illegally, and immediately, without investigating, punished (her). At that time, in the monastery of the bodhi-tree, there was the great arhat Ghos.a (…), (with) the four (kinds of ) eloquence (developed), without fetters, fully endowed with the three (kinds) of knowledge. The king sent (his) blind son (to him in order) to report this matter, to ask for his compassion and to let (him) regain (his) eyesight. When the arhat had accepted the request of the king, he at the same day issued an order to the people of the kingdom (saying): ‘Tomorrow I want to preach the fi ne dharma, (and) people should bring a vessel (when they) come to hear the dharma and fi ll it with (their) tears.’ Thereupon women and men were summoned in huge numbers from near and afar. Then the arhat preached the twelvefold causal nexus of cause and effect, (so that) all those who heard the dharma could not help but be moved by sorrow, and thereby the vessels brought (by the people) were fi lled with (their) dropping tears. After (he) had preached the dharma, all tears were collected and put into a golden tray, (and the arhat) made a vow: ‘All that I have preached is the supreme truth of the Buddhas. If this truth is not true (and my) preaching is false, then so be it; (but) if this is not the case then (I), with all these tears, will wash the eyes of this blind (man), that the eyes will see again, and perceive as clearly as before.’ After he had uttered these words, he washed the eyes with the tears and thereby the eyes could see again. So the king charged those ministers to interrogate all the government offi cials, (who then) were either dismissed from offi ce, were sent away, were moved (to other places), or were killed, and (a lot) of high-standing dignitaries moved away to the Snow Mountains and into the northeastern desert.38

38 T.2087.885a.5ff.; Ji et al. (1985: 307ff.):

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The following can be nothing more than a hypothesis, but one has to ask oneself why Xuanzang reports this legend in such detail, when it was easily available in trans-lations and could have simply been hinted at (as in many other cases in the XJ). It seems to be that whenever a legend is given in detail a special message is involved for the primary reader of the text, the emperor. Now, in the year 646, when the XJ was fi nished, Taizong’s son and crown prince, the later emperor Gaozong , had, more than likely, already a rather intimate relationship with his father’s young consort, the notorious Wu Zhao or Wu Zetian . There were, at the very least, specula-tions about such an illicit affair.39 The detailed account of the legend of Kun. ala and Asoka’s queen, Tis.yaraks.ita, seems to have been meant as a clear warning to all three people involved in the parallel Chinese context: for the father and emperor Taizong there was tacit encouragement not to react to rumours, and to the suspected lovers a dire warning to not commit adultery (or at least to desist from it).

My last example is intended to demonstrate the dimension of the XJ that is concerned with foreign affairs. I myself have long suspected that the text was partly composed as a source of information for the Tang ‘intelligence services’—Xuanzang might then be seen as something like the James Bond of the early seventh century. Indeed, I have tried to demonstrate that this is a fruitful way of conceiving of

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39 See Quan Tangwen 199: :

(‘Denouncement of Lady Wu through Li Jing (xuan): Lady Wu, (who) falsely ascended the throne was not of an amiable character and really was of humble origin. Formerly she served as a lower concubine of Taizong (when she) had already entered court service as a palace maid, and when (the emperor) was old (she) had a licentious relationship with the crown-prince. She hid herself in the previous emperor’s private (chambers), plotted (against) the cherished (ladies) of the harem, and entered the (imperial) chamber with the intention [to create] envy and hate.’). See also Twitchett and Wechsler (1979: 246) and Guisso (1978: 16, 211, note 62).

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Xuanzang’s ‘mission’ elsewhere (Deeg 2009a).40 Reading the text of the XJ it is striking that Xuanzang does not describe all the places on his way from Xi’an to the northern rim of the Taklamakan desert, but starts his report with the region which was of the greatest strategic interest for the Tang empire at the time of his return; he is also more precise and detailed in his description of Central Asian regions than of India proper, precisely because these regions lay in within the circle of infl uence or interest of the expanding Tang empire. This, however, would refl ect only a passive engagement of Xuanzang in imperial foreign policy.

There seems, however, to be evidence of a more active interest and involvement by the Buddhist traveller in suggesting to his emperor the suitability of Indian rulers as possible allies. All the passages about the north Indian king Hars.a—and these and the one discussed later are the only ones in the XJ where Xuanzang himself acts in the whole text—seem to describe the Indian ruler as an ideal king, who has a high opinion of the Tang empire and its ruler. There is another passage in the XJ where Xuanzang seems to suggest a political alliance more directly. In fascicle 10, he describes his encounter with the king of Kamarupa, today’s Assam, Bhaskaravarma(n) Kumara:

King Kumara said: ‘Although (I) am without any talent, (I) always admire (those who) are highly learned, are famous, cultivated and held in esteem, (therefore I) have dared to send for (you).’ (Xuanzang) said: ‘(I) am lacking in abilities and am of narrow wisdom, (so that I) feel ashamed (that you should) have heard (of me).’ King Kumara said: ‘Excellent! (That you) admire the dharma and are fond of learn-ing, (that you) look at your body as a fl oating (entity), overcoming great perils, travelled far to foreign regions, this (must) be because of the civilizing infl uence of (your king), (according to which) it is the custom of the kingdom to esteem learning. Nowadays the kingdoms of all India are praising the “Music of the King of Qin’s Breaking the Battle-Lines”41 of the kingdom of Mahacına,42 (which I) have already heard long ago—could this now be the home-kingdom of the bhadanta?’ (Xuanzang) said: ‘So it is. This song praises the virtues of our ruler.’ Kumara said: ‘(I) was unaware that the bhadanta was a man from this kingdom, (but I) have always admired the cultivation (of it) and have since long looked towards the East. The path through mountains and across rivers is blocked, and there is no way to go there.’ (Xuanzang) said: ‘The sacred virtues of our great ruler reaches out far, (his) rightuous infl uence spreads wide to foreign regions (with their) different customs, (and) many already pay tribute to (his) court and have given allegiance (to him).’ King Kumara said: ‘(His) cover and support are thus, and (my) heart longs for pay-ing tribute (to him). Now king Sıladitya is in the kingdom of Kajan. gira and wants to set up a great donation (festival), to venerate and to plant merit and wisdom,

40 On Chinese border policy under the Sui and the Tang dynasty in general, see Pan (1997).41 Qinwang pochen yue : see following note 45.42 Mohezhina / ∗ma-xa-tçih-na’.

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and all the learned s raman.as and brahman.as of India will be summoned (there) without exception. (He) has sent a messenger and invited (me), (and I) would like you to go with (me).’ (They) then went there.43

As already emphasised, this passage has an important position in the text insofar as it is one of the two occasions where Xuanzang acts as an individual in the XJ—the other one being his meeting with king Hars.a described in fascicle fi ve but chrono-logically taking place after his encounter with Kumara. Both kings refer, by quoting the ‘Music of the Prince of Qin’s Breaking the Battle-Lines’,44 to emperor Taizong’s, the former Li Shimin’s and Prince of Qin’s great achievement in the Tang fi ght for consolidation of their dynasty. Kumara obviously expresses an interest in a connection with the Tang empire, while Hars.a himself, later in the text, is very interested in differ-ent aspects of Tang rule in China and highly praises the Tang emperor’s rulership. By describing both conversations at length, which contrasts with the normal descriptive style of the XJ, Xuanzang seems to suggest an alliance between the Indian rulers and the Tang. Indeed, Kumara expresses an interest in such an alliance. Xuanzang plays on the fact that Taizong’s interest in him was ‘as a man with a unique knowledge of the geography, customs, products and politics of India and central Asia’ (Twitchett and Wechsler 1979: 219). This becomes even more likely when he speaks about the diffi cult, but nonetheless possible, link between the eastern part of Assam and the southwestern part of China (Siquan):

To the east of this kingdom mountain ranges are linked with each other and there is no capital city; the territory links with the southwestern Yi(-tribes),45 and therefore the people are from a similar stock as the Manliao(-tribes).46 (If one) thoroughfully interrogates the locals (they say that one) can reach the southwestern

43 T.2087.927b.14ff.; Ji et al. (1985: 797f.): “” “ ” “

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44 This music was allegedly composed by members of the army after Li Shimin’s victory over Liu Wuzhou in 620, but choreographed and brought to performance at the court in 633 and later (Gimm 1966: 214ff., note 7; Wilhelm and Knechtges 1987: 9f.). It refl ects the emperor’s self-stylisation as a brave but just warrior, and mentioning that this was exactly the image known abroad was well calculated to be received with gratitude on behalf of the emperor. Although this piece was played at court since Taizong’s ascension to the throne, the real ‘career’ of this music was the inscenation through Taizong in 633.

45 Xi’nan yi : the barbarian minorities in the southern part of Gansu , the western part of Sichuan , and the southern parts of Yunnan and Guizhou .

46 ; in 669 Manliao tribes were translocated from Sichuan to Guangdong (Eberhard 1942: 238).

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territory of Shu in a journey of two months. Although mountains and rivers are dangerous and impenetrable, the foul atmosphere of the high mountains, the poisonous snakes (and) the poisonous plants do even more harm. Herds of violent elephants are rampant in the southeast of the kingdom; therefore the war elephants in this kingdom are particularly numerous.47

Xuanzang indirectly seems to give the emperor motives for an alliance with king Kumara. His mentioning of the southwestern Yi tribes must have been a reminder that this area was not yet under the full control of the Tang and that heckling the barbar-ian tribes there from two sides could solve the problem once and for all. Pointing out Kamarupa’s strategic strength, of an abundance of war elephants, was another smart move by Xuanzang of a similar type.48 In this context we should not forget that there were, during Xuanzang’s stay in India and immediately after his return, embassies going back and forth between the two empires. The most famous of these missions were certainly those of Wang Xuance between 643 and 645, 646 and 648, and in 657 (and maybe a fourth after 661), of which we unfortunately have only fragmentary records, through which we also learn about the tragic end of king Hars.a through assas-sination and an intervention by Tibetan and Nepalese troops in north India under the leadership of the Chinese envoy.49 That there was an interest in the area of east India and Burma is attested, for instance, by the respective passages in the geographical work Kuodi zhi , ‘Collected Topographical Records’, from the year 642, compiled by, or under, Li Tai , prince of Wei , the fourth son of Taizong.50 Tansen Sen also has recently highlighted, in a monograph on Sino-Indian relations in the early Tang period, the economic importance of what he calls the Yunnan–Myanmar route to India.51 I would argue that this greater region was also part of strategic delibera-tions on the Chinese side which were to collapse as a consequence of the instability of northern India after the fall of Hars.a.

47 T.2087.927c.14ff., Ji et al. (1985: 799): 6 6

48 The standard seals of the Assamese kings, including the numerous ones issued by Bhaskaravarman, show a frontal view of an elephant as their royal symbol. For the Chinese side it should be kept in mind that the preceding dynasty, the Sui, already had to fi ght against war elephants in the war against the Southeast Asian kingdom of Campa in 605 (Graff 2002: 145), and though, on this particular occasion, the outcome was positive for the Chinese troops, the military effectiveness of elephants was well known to the Chinese. Although this seems to have been an exception, the Liang dynasty, for instance, used elephants against the Western Wei in 554 (see Schafer 1967: 311, note 184).

49 See Lévi (1900) and Sen (2003: 20 ff.). It should be mentioned that according to Xuanzang’s biography the emperor used the monk’s diplomatic skills when he asked him to translate a letter to king Hars.a into Sanskrit (T.2060.455b.11ff.) which may have been given to Wang Xuance, whose earlier mission is mentioned before (454c.24ff.), for his mission to India, see Weinstein (1987: 25).

50 Unfortunately only a few juan of the original 550 are extant. On this text, see Pelliot (1904: 131).51 Sen (2003: 174–76). For more details, see Stargardt (1971). For a general overview on China’s

soutwestern border, see Backus (1981).

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CONCLUSION

What I wanted to demonstrate in this article is that Xuanzang’s XJ has been treated and used in a rather unfortunate way by scholars and writers. My intention was to point out that the text of the XJ has to be handled with more interpretative care than has been done so far. It is not good enough to misread it as a description of Central Asia and India, or to romanticise its author and the places visited by him. One has to apply a more complex hermeneutic in reading the text as a multi-layered document in order to render it full justice. To become aware of the different religious, social, political, cultural and literary aspects and dimensions of the XJ in their respec-tive contexts is a conditio sine qua non before using it in the normal positivist way as an objective source for ‘history as it was’. I would argue that such an approach will not devalue this much-cherished text, but will give it back the multifaceted effect which it had when it fi rst was laid in front of the second Tang emperor, Taizong. There can be no doubt that there was the intention to show Taizong the places where the Buddha dwelled; and it may well have created in him a rather romantic feeling of longing for them, but not until his hunger for concrete political and geographical information was assuaged.

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