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The Life of Xuanzang is the biography of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim who travelled from Chang’an to India and back in the Zhenguan era, between 629 and 645.[1] Its Chinese title calls him the Master of the Law of the Three Baskets of the Great Ci’en monastery. This was the house in Chang’an where he later translated the scriptures he had brought back.[2]
Authorship
The first author was Huili, a monk whom the emperor had called to the Ci’en monastery as a translator under Xuanzang.[3] Huili knew the pilgrim personally.[4] He wrote the history of the journey in five books and hid the leaves in a cave. He died before he could finish it. The leaves were scattered, and only after a long search were they bought back.[5] Huili’s former disciples then gave them to Yancong, another follower of Xuanzang. Yancong put them in order and added an introduction. He corrected and enlarged the text from other documents and made it a work of ten books.[6] He published it with his annotations in 688.[4] The first five books follow the journey. The last five tell of Xuanzang’s work as a translator after his return.[7]
The Göktürks in the text
In the eighth month of the third year of Zhenguan, 629, Xuanzang was ready to set out.[2] At Gaochang the king, Qu Wentai, kept him for a time. Then he fitted him out for the road. He gave him novices, clothing against the western cold, gold and silver, silk and thirty horses. He also sent an officer of his court to escort him to the Yabgu Khan.[8] The king wrote letters for Kucha and twenty-three other states. For the khan himself he loaded two carts with five hundred rolls of silk and with fruit. In a letter he asked the khan to treat the pilgrim as kindly as he had treated the king. He also asked the khan to have the rulers of the west pass the pilgrim on with fresh horses.[9]
Two days west of Kucha the party met some two thousand Göktürk robbers on horseback. The robbers were dividing the goods of a caravan. They fell out over the shares and fought among themselves until they scattered.[10]
Beyond the mountains Xuanzang reached a great lake. He followed its shore north-west for more than five hundred li to the town of Suye. There he met the Yabgu Khan of the Göktürks, out hunting with a great force of horsemen.[11] The town is Suyab, near Tokmak on the Chu.[12] The khan wore a robe of green silk, and his hair was loose. Only a band of silk some ten feet long was wound about his brow and hung down behind. About two hundred officers in brocade robes, their hair braided, stood about him. The rest of his troops rode on camels and horses further than the eye could see. They wore furs and woollen cloth and carried lances, standards and bows.[11]
The khan asked the pilgrim to wait at his camp. Three days later he received him in a great tent adorned with golden flowers that dazzled the eye. His officers sat on long mats in two rows, in shining robes of embroidered silk, with his guards standing behind them.[11] The Göktürks, the text says, worship fire and will not sit on wood, because wood holds fire. They spread thick mats on the ground, and for the pilgrim they set an iron seat with a cushion.[13] The envoys of the Tang and of Gaochang were brought in and gave their letters and gifts. The khan examined them himself with pleasure. Wine was served with music to the khan, his officers and the envoys, and grape juice to the pilgrim.[13] Asked to teach, Xuanzang spoke of the ten precepts and of sparing life. The khan raised his hands, bowed to the ground and accepted the teaching.[14]
The khan tried to keep him, warning that India was too hot for him. The pilgrim held to his plan. The khan then found in his army a young man who had lived many years in Chang’an and knew Chinese. He gave him a title and sent him with letters as guide as far as Kapisa. He gave Xuanzang a set of vestments of red silk and fifty rolls of silk. Then he rode out with his officers to see him off.[14]
Four hundred li to the west lay the Thousand Springs, a country of pools and tall trees several hundred li across. The khan escaped the summer heat there.[15] Beyond Kesh, south of Samarkand, the road passed the Iron Gate, a narrow defile between cliffs. The text calls it the barrier of the Göktürks.[16]
Across the Oxus, at Kunduz, lived the Yabgu Khan’s eldest son, Tardu Shad, who had married a sister of the king of Gaochang. When the pilgrim arrived with the king’s letters, the princess was dead and the shad was ill.[16] The shad then married a young khatun. At the prompting of his son by an earlier marriage, she poisoned him. The princess’s son was a child, so the elder son, a tegin, made himself shad and married his stepmother. The funeral kept Xuanzang there for more than a month.[17]
Identification of the khan and date of the meeting
The Life calls the khan only the Yabgu Khan, a title rather than a name.[18] Modern accounts identify him as Tong Yabgu. The reason is that Xuanzang’s Record of the Western Regions names a Si Yabgu Khan as the son of the Yabgu Khan, and Si Yabgu was Tong Yabgu’s son.[12]
The year of the meeting is disputed. One reckoning starts from the Life’s date of departure, the eighth month of 629, and allows for the pilgrim’s long stays on the way.[19] It brings him to the khan in the first months of 630. Tong Yabgu was therefore alive in 630 and died soon after the pilgrim passed.[20] A second reckoning takes Tong Yabgu’s death in 628, as the Jiu Tangshu gives it in its notice on the Tiele. It moves the journey back, with the meeting in 627 or 628.[21]
Reliability
The Life rests on what Xuanzang told those around him. A disciple set it down, and a second hand finished it more than forty years after the pilgrim’s return. For the western Göktürks it is the fullest description of a khan’s court in the seventh century. It covers the dress, the tent, the seating, the drink and the protocol with which foreign envoys were received. It complements the Record of the Western Regions. The Record describes the lands and leaves the meeting out.[22]
The passage
遣殿中侍禦史歡信送至葉護可汗衙。
又作二十四封書，通屈支等二十四國，每一封書附大綾一疋為信。
又以綾綃五百疋、果味兩車獻葉護可汗，
並書稱：「法師者是奴弟，欲求法於婆羅門國，願可汗憐師如憐奴，仍請敕以西諸國給部落馬遞送出境。」
He sent the palace attendant censor Huan Xin to escort him to the camp of the Yabgu Khan.
He also wrote twenty-four letters to reach twenty-four countries, Quzhi and the rest, and attached to each letter a bolt of large ling silk as a token of good faith.
He also presented to the Yabgu Khan five hundred bolts of ling and xiao silk and two cartloads of fruit,
and with them a letter that said: “The Dharma Master is the younger brother of your servant. He wishes to seek the Law in the country of the Brahmans. May the Khan pity the Master as he would pity your servant, and may he be pleased to command that the countries to the west supply relay horses from their tribes to pass him on and see him out of their borders.”
自此數百里渡縛芻河，至活國，即葉護可汗長子呾度設（設者官名。）所居之地，又是高昌王妹壻。
高昌王有書至其所。比法師到，公主可賀敦已死，咀度設又病，聞法師從高昌來，又得書，與男女等嗚咽不能止。
因請曰：「弟子見師目明，願少停息。若差，自送師到婆羅門國。」
時更有一梵僧至，為誦咒，患得漸除。
其後娶可賀敦，年少，受前兒囑，因藥以殺其夫。
設既死，高昌公主男小，遂被前兒特勤篡立為設，仍妻後母。
為逢喪故，淹留月餘。
From there, after several hundred li, he crossed the Fuchu river and came to the country of Huo. It was the seat of Tardu Shad (shad is the name of an office), the eldest son of the Yabgu Khan, who was also the husband of the sister of the king of Gaochang.
The king of Gaochang had sent a letter to his place. By the time the Dharma Master arrived, the princess, the khatun, had already died, and Tardu Shad was ill as well. When he heard that the Dharma Master had come from Gaochang and received the letter, he sobbed with his sons and daughters and could not stop.
He then begged: “When I see the Master, my eyes are bright. I wish you would rest here a little. If I recover, I will see the Master to the country of the Brahmans myself.”
At that time another Indian monk arrived and recited spells for him, and the illness was gradually removed.
Afterwards he married a new khatun, who was young. At the instruction of his earlier son, she killed her husband by means of medicine.
When the shad had died, the son of the Gaochang princess was small, and so the earlier son, the tegin, usurped the place and made himself shad, and he took his stepmother to wife.
Because he had met with a mourning, he was detained for more than a month.
可汗居一大帳，帳以金華裝之，爛眩人目。
諸達官於前列長筵兩行侍坐，皆錦服赫然，餘仗衛立於後。
觀之，雖穹廬之君亦為尊美矣。
法師去帳三十餘步，可汗出帳迎拜，傳語慰問訖，入座。
突厥事火不施床，以木含火，故敬而不居，但地敷重茵而已。
仍為法師設一鐵交床，敷蓐請坐。
須臾，更引漢使及高昌使人入，通國書及信物，可汗自目之甚悅，令使者坐。
命陳酒設樂，可汗共諸臣使人飲，別索蒲萄漿奉法師。
於是恣相酬勸，窣渾鍾椀之器交錯遞傾，傑侏兜離之音鏗鏘互舉，雖蕃俗之曲，亦甚娛耳目、樂心意也。
The khan lived in a great tent adorned with golden flowers, whose glitter dazzled the eyes.
The daguan sat in attendance in two rows on long mats laid out in front, all resplendent in brocade, and the rest of the guard stood behind them.
Seeing it, one saw that even the lord of a felt tent could be dignified and splendid.
When the Dharma Master was some thirty paces from the tent, the khan came out of it to greet him with a bow. After words of greeting had been passed on, they went in and took their seats.
The Göktürks serve fire and do not put out couches, because wood holds fire. They therefore revere it and do not sit on it, and merely spread thick mats on the ground.
But for the Dharma Master they set up an iron folding seat, spread a cushion on it and invited him to sit.
Soon the Chinese envoys and the envoys of Gaochang were brought in and presented their state letters and gifts. The khan looked them over himself, was greatly pleased and bade the envoys sit.
He ordered wine to be served and music to be played. The khan drank together with his ministers and the envoys, and separately sent for grape juice to offer to the Dharma Master.
Then they pledged one another without restraint, suhun cups and bowls were emptied one after another, and outlandish notes rang out together. Although these were tunes of a foreign people, they delighted ear and eye and gladdened the mind.
少時，更有食至，皆烹鮮羔犢之質，盈積於前。
別營淨食進法師，具有餅飯、酥乳、石蜜、刺蜜、蒲萄等。
食訖，更行蒲萄漿，仍請說法。
法師因誨以十善愛養物命，及波羅蜜多解脫之業，乃舉手叩額，歡喜信受。
因留停數日，勸住曰：「師不須往印特伽國，（謂印度也。）彼地多暑，十月當此五月，觀師容貌，至彼恐銷融也。其人露黑，類無威儀，不足觀也。」
法師報曰：「今之彼，欲追尋聖跡慕求法耳。」
可汗乃令軍中訪解漢語及諸國音者，遂得年少，曾到長安數年通解漢語，即封為摩咄達官，作諸國書，令摩咄送法師到迦畢試國。
又施緋綾法服一襲，絹五十疋，與群臣送十餘里。
After a short while more food arrived, all of it freshly cooked lamb and calf, heaped up before them.
Separate pure food was prepared and offered to the Dharma Master, with cakes and rice, ghee and milk, stone honey, thorn honey, grapes and the like.
When the meal was over, grape juice was passed round again, and he was asked to preach the Dharma.
The Dharma Master then taught them the ten good deeds, the cherishing and nurturing of living things, and the works of the paramitas that lead to release. Then the khan raised his hands, touched his forehead, and received it with joy and faith.
He then kept him for several days and urged him to stay, saying: “Master, you have no need to go to the country of Yintejia (that is, India). That land is very hot, and its tenth month is like our fifth. Looking at your face, I fear that you would melt away when you got there. The people there are bare and black and mostly without dignity, and not worth looking at.”
The Dharma Master replied: “I am going there only because I wish to follow the sacred traces and seek the Law.”
The khan then ordered a search in his army for someone who understood Chinese and the speech of other countries. They found a young man who had been in Chang'an for several years and understood Chinese. He was at once given the title Moduo Daguan and wrote the letters to the other countries, and Moduo was ordered to escort the Dharma Master as far as the country of Kapisa.
He also gave him a set of Dharma robes of crimson ling silk and fifty bolts of silk, and with his ministers escorted him for more than ten li.
循海西北行五百餘里，至素葉城，逢突厥葉護可汗，方事畋遊，戎馬甚盛。
可汗身著綠綾袍，露發，以一丈許帛練裹頟後垂。
達官二百餘人皆錦袍編發，圍繞左右。
自餘軍眾皆裘毼毳毛，槊纛端弓，駝馬之騎，極目不知其表。
既與相見，可汗歡喜，云：「暫一處行，二三日當還，師且向衙所。」令達官答摩支引送安置至衙。
三日可汗方歸，引法師入。
Following the sea north-west for more than five hundred li, he came to the city of Suye, where he met the Göktürk Yabgu Khan, who was then at the hunt, with war horses in great number.
The khan wore a green ling robe. His hair was uncovered and bound at the forehead with a length of silk about one zhang long, which hung down behind.
More than two hundred daguan, all in brocade robes with braided hair, stood around him on both sides.
The rest of the troops wore furs and woollen felt and fine hair cloth. They held lances and standards and kept their bows ready, and rode camels and horses. As far as the eye could see there was no end to them.
When they had met, the khan was glad and said: “I am going to one place for a short while and will be back in two or three days. Master, go on in the meantime to my camp.” He ordered the daguan Damozhi to lead him there and see him settled at the camp.
After three days the khan came back and brought the Dharma Master in.
References
- ^ Julien 1853, lxxviii
- ^ a b c Life of Xuanzang, juan 1
- ^ Julien 1853, lxxvii
- ^ a b Chavannes 1903, p. 193
- ^ Julien 1853, lxxvii–lxxix
- ^ Julien 1853, lxxix
- ^ Beal 1911, xix
- ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 1
- ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 1
- ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
- ^ a b c Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
- ^ a b Chavannes 1903, p. 194
- ^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
- ^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
- ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
- ^ a b Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
- ^ Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
- ^ a b c d e Life of Xuanzang, juan 2
- ^ Chavannes 1903, p. 193–194
- ^ Chavannes 1903, p. 194–195
- ^ Kaiyrken 2026, p. 19–20
- ^ Beal 1911, v
Sources
- Life of Xuanzang, juan 1, 2
- Record of the Western Regions, juan 1
Literature
- Samuel Beal (trans.), The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by the Shaman Hwui Li (1911)
- Stanislas Julien (trans.), Histoire de la vie de Hiouen-Thsang et de ses voyages dans l'Inde (1853)
- Édouard Chavannes, Documents sur les Tou-Kiue (Turcs) occidentaux (1903)
- Tursynkhan Zakonuly Kaiyrken; Abdulvahap Kara, Xuan Zang'ın Seyahat Notlarında Batı Göktürk Kağanı Tong Yabgu'nun Devlet Adamı Portresi (2026)
Articles resting on this source 30
Bread · Culture of the Turkic Peoples · Daguan · Damozhi · Fire Worship · Gaochang · Göktürk Dress and Hair · Göktürk Weapons · Grape Wine in Central Asia · Huo · Issyk-Kul · Jade Gate · Levirate · Moduo Daguan · Old Turkic · Post and Communication · Record of the Western Regions · Seating at the Feast · Shad · Si Yabgu Khan · Steppe Diet · Tardu Shad · Tegin · The Göktürk Feast · Thousand Springs · Tong Yabgu · Turkic Songs at the Tang Court · Western Göktürk Khaganate · Xuanzang's visit to Tong Yabgu · Yabgus of Tokharistan
What links here19
- Persons
- Damozhi · Moduo Daguan · Tardu Shad
- Places
- Huo · Issyk-Kul · Jade Gate · Thousand Springs
- Institutions and Titles
- Daguan · Göktürk Dress and Hair · Göktürk Weapons · Levirate · Tegin
- Religions
- Fire Worship
- Foods
- Bread · Grape Wine in Central Asia
- Customs & Pastimes
- Seating at the Feast · The Göktürk Feast · Turkic Songs at the Tang Court
Cite this article
Yavuz, Emre-E. “Life of Xuanzang.” Turkic Atlas, revised 8 November 2026. https://turkicatlas.org/sources/life-of-xuanzang/
Last revised: 8 November 2026
