Yuan Chwang

Xuanzang
A portrait of Xuanzang
Religion	Buddhism
School	East Asian Yogācāra
Personal
Born	c. 602 Luoyang, Henan, China
Died	664 (aged 62) Tongchuan, Shaanxi, China
Religious career
Students	Kuiji

Xuanzang (pronounced [ɕɥɛ̌ntsâŋ]; Chinese: 玄奘; Wade–Giles: Hsüan-tsang), fl. c. 602–664, was a Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveller, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang dynasty. Born in what is now Henan province around 602, from boyhood he took to reading religious books, including the Chinese classics and the writings of ancient sages.

While residing in the city of Luoyang (in Henan - Central China), Xuanzang was ordained as a śrāmaṇera (novice monk) at the age of thirteen. Due to the political and social unrest caused by the fall of the Sui dynasty, he went to Chengdu in Sichuan, where he was ordained as a bhikṣu (full monk) at the age of twenty. He later travelled throughout China in search of sacred books of Buddhism. At length, he came to Chang'an, then under the peaceful rule of Emperor Taizong of Tang, where Xuanzang developed the desire to visit India. He knew about Faxian's visit to India and, like him, was concerned about the incomplete and misinterpreted nature of the Buddhist texts that had reached China.

He became famous for his seventeen-year overland journey to India, which is recorded in detail in the classic Chinese text Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, which in turn provided the inspiration for the novel Journey to the West written by Wu Cheng'en during the Ming dynasty, around nine centuries after Xuanzang's death.