Near the town of Suye, the Suyab of the western Göktürks, the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim Xuanzang met the khan of the western Göktürks out hunting.[1] The biography of the pilgrim calls the khan only the Yabgu Khan, 葉護可汗.[2] Modern accounts take him for Tong Yabgu.[3] The khan received Xuanzang in his great tent. He feasted him, heard him preach and sent him on to India with letters and an escort.[4] The account is the fullest description of a Göktürk court that survives. It is more detailed than the report of the Roman envoy Zemarchos half a century before.[5] The visit fell in 629, or at the beginning of 630.[6][3]

The letters from Gaochang

Xuanzang set out from China in the eighth month of the third year of Zhenguan, 629.[7] At Gaochang its king, Qu Wentai, fitted him out for the road.[8] The king gave him gold, silver, satin, horses and servants. He charged one of his censors, Huan Xin, to take him to the court of the Yabgu Khan.[8] He wrote twenty-four letters for Kucha and the other countries on the way.[8] For the khan himself he loaded two carts with five hundred pieces of satin and taffeta and with fruit.[8] In his letter the king called the pilgrim a friend of the khan’s humble servant. He asked the khan to be kind to him, and he asked that the countries of the west pass him on with relays of horses.[9] Turkic Atlas sets these letters beside the other messages of the khans under post and communication.

Beyond Kucha the pilgrim crossed the icy mountains of the Ling range and came to a great lake. He followed its shore north-west for some five hundred li to the town of Suye.[10] These distances are rough. A li is a measure of the road and not of the map. Xuanzang’s li vary between about 270 and 470 metres, so his figures do not fix a place.[11] Xuanzang’s own record of the western regions gives the town a circuit of six or seven li. It says that merchants from many countries lived there together.[12] West of it lay some dozens of towns, each under its own chief. None took orders from another, but all were subject to the Göktürks.[12]

The hunt

The pilgrim found the khan on a hunting expedition, with very fine horses.[1] The khan wore a robe of green satin. His hair was loose, bound only with a silken band some ten feet long that was wound about his head and hung down behind.[1] One rendering makes the ten feet the length of his hair.[13] About two hundred officers in brocade, with braided hair, stood around him.[1] The rest of his troops wore furs and fine woollen cloth. They carried lances, standards and bows and rode on camels and horses. The eye could not reach their end.[1]

The khan was glad to see the pilgrim.[1] He was going off for two or three days, he said. He had one of his officers, Damozhi, take the pilgrim to his camp.[1]

The court

After three days the khan returned and led the pilgrim in.[1] He lived in a great tent adorned with golden flowers that dazzled the eye.[1] His officers sat before him on long mats in two rows, in shining brocade. His guard stood behind them.[1] The biography remarks that though he was the ruler of a felt tent, his court had dignity.[1]

When Xuanzang was thirty paces from the tent, the khan came out. He greeted him with a bow and spoke to him through an interpreter.[14] The biography explains that the Göktürks worship fire and do not use wooden seats, because wood contains fire.[15] They sit on thick mats spread on the ground. For the pilgrim they brought an iron folding seat with a cushion.[2] Envoys of China and of Gaochang were then brought in with their letters and gifts. The khan looked them over himself with great pleasure.[15]

The khan ordered wine and music for a feast. He and his ministers drank with the envoys, while grape juice was offered to the pilgrim.[15] They drank to one another, filling and emptying their cups, while music of every kind sounded. The biography finds the barbarian music pleasing all the same.[15] Grape wine was an ordinary product of the Sogdian cities. According to the Sui Shu, Kang, the country of Samarkand, made much of it, and rich families laid up as much as a thousand shi.[16][17] Then boiled quarters of mutton and veal were heaped before the guests. For the pilgrim there was a separate meal of rice cakes, cream, sugar, honey and raisins.[15]

Sermon and departure

After the meal the khan asked the pilgrim to expound his teaching.[18] Xuanzang spoke of the ten precepts, of love for living things, and of the works that lead to final deliverance.[18] The khan raised his hands, prostrated himself to the ground and joyfully accepted the teaching.[18]

The pilgrim stayed several days. The khan urged him not to go to India.[18] He said that the country was very hot, its tenth month as warm as the fifth month at home, and that the pilgrim would not survive the climate.[18] He added that its people were naked and black, without decorum and not fit to look at.[18] Xuanzang answered that he wished to see the sacred traces and to seek the Law.[18]

The khan then had his army searched for a man who knew Chinese and the languages of other countries.[18] They found a young man who had lived for years in Chang’an.[18] The khan gave him the title Moduo Daguan. He had him write letters of commendation to the countries on the way and escort the pilgrim as far as Kapisa.[18] Daguan is the Chinese form of a Göktürk rank, the daguan. The khan gave Xuanzang a set of robes of red satin and fifty pieces of silk. With his officers he rode out some ten li to see him off.[18]

Four hundred li to the west the pilgrim came to the Thousand Springs, where the khan of the Göktürks came to escape the summer heat.[19][12] The herds of deer there wore bells and rings. The khan had forbidden on pain of death that any be killed.[12] Beyond the Iron Gate, at Huo, Xuanzang found the khan’s eldest son, Tardu Shad, who was married to a sister of the king of Gaochang.[20]

Date

The biography dates the pilgrim’s departure to the eighth month of the third year of Zhenguan, which is 629.[7] The English translation gives the year as 630.[21] One account dates the visit to Suyab to 629.[6] A second account allows for the pilgrim’s long stays at Liangzhou, Guazhou and Gaochang. It brings him to the khan only in the first months of 630.[3] In that case Tong Yabgu was still alive in 630, and the dating of his death to 628 must be rejected.[3] Still others keep his death in 628 and date the meeting to 627 or 628.[22]

Reliability

Xuanzang’s record names a Si Yabgu Khan as the son of the Yabgu Khan, and Si Yabgu was Tong Yabgu’s son. For this reason the khan is identified as Tong Yabgu.[3][12] Some scholars see in the biography a developed court between several cultural worlds. The court followed a precise protocol that gave each guest his place and his drink: wine for the envoys, grape juice for the Buddhist pilgrim.[5] If so, the pilgrim used the word barbarian only to distinguish the Chinese from others.[5] A khan who worshipped fire received a Buddhist teacher, heard him preach and sent him on with an interpreter who had lived in the Tang capital.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 42
  2. ^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
  3. ^ a b c d e Chavannes 1903, p. 194
  4. ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 42–44
  5. ^ a b c Yavuz 2025, p. 358
  6. ^ a b Yavuz 2025, p. 352
  7. ^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 1
  8. ^ a b c d Life of Xuanzang, juan 1; Beal 1911, p. 30
  9. ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 1; Beal 1911, p. 30–31
  10. ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 41–42
  11. ^ Herrmann 1910, p. 37–38,51–53
  12. ^ a b c d e Record of the Western Regions, juan 1
  13. ^ Yavuz 2025, p. 355
  14. ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 42–43
  15. ^ a b c d e Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 43
  16. ^ Sui Shu (Book of Sui), juan 83
  17. ^ Laufer 1919, p. 221
  18. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 44
  19. ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 44–45
  20. ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2; Beal 1911, p. 47
  21. ^ Beal 1911, p. 11
  22. ^ Kaiyrken 2026, p. 19–20

Sources

Literature

  • Samuel Beal (trans.), The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by the Shaman Hwui Li (1911)
  • Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux (1903)
  • Emre-E. Yavuz, The Gokturk Empire: 2nd Edition (2025)
  • Tursynkhan Zakonuly Kaiyrken; Abdulvahap Kara, Xuan Zang'ın Seyahat Notlarında Batı Göktürk Kağanı Tong Yabgu'nun Devlet Adamı Portresi (2026)
  • Albert Herrmann, Die alten Seidenstrassen zwischen China und Syrien. Beiträge zur alten Geographie Asiens, Bd. 1 (1910)
  • Berthold Laufer, Sino-Iranica. Chinese Contributions to the History of Civilization in Ancient Iran (1919)

Related

What links here11

Persons
Damozhi · Moduo Daguan · Tardu Shad
Battles & Events
The khan's letter to Maurice
Places
Huo · Issyk-Kul · Suyab
Institutions and Titles
Daguan · Post and Communication
Foods
Grape Wine in Central Asia
Customs & Pastimes
Seating at the Feast

Cite this article

Yavuz, Emre-E. “Xuanzang's visit to Tong Yabgu.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/events/xuanzangs-visit-to-tong-yabgu/

Last revised: 8 November 2026