Xuanzang

Also known as Tang San Zang Fa Shi · Chen Yi · Xuanzang Fashi · Tang Seng · Sanzang Fashi

Xuanzang, born Chen Yi in Goushi in Luozhou, became a monk as a boy at the Jingtu monastery in Luoyang. Troubled by conflicting readings of the scriptures, he resolved to find the originals in India, and according to his biography by Huili he left without permission in 629 (some sources say 627), crossing Gaochang and the Western Regions to the monastery of Nalanda, where he studied the *Yogacarabhumi* under Silabhadra. He returned to Chang'an in 645 with 657 Sanskrit texts, and Emperor Taizong set him to head translation teams at the Hongfu and later the Great Ci'en monasteries. He dictated the *Great Tang Record of the Western Regions* (*Da Tang xiyu ji*), twelve chapters on more than a hundred countries, to his disciple Bianji and in all translated 75 works in 1,335 scrolls. He died at the Yuhua monastery in early 664 and was later reburied in a pagoda at the Xingjiao monastery. The Ming novel *Journey to the West* (*Xiyou ji*) is built on his pilgrimage.