Guangchangwu in Chinese.

Xuanzang is one of my heroes.

After the Qin dynasty, the first Imperial dynasty of China, the Han dynasty, extending roughly between -200 and 200, saw the introduction of Buddhism in China.

For Buddhism to take hold, the Sanskrit sacred texts had to be translated. That work was usually done by monks, and due to the difficulty and the length of buddhist scriptures, it was often incomplete and imperfect.

In the 7th century, Xuanzang, a young buddhist monk, was frustrated with the incoherences and competing theories of the variant translations.

At age 27, he decides to start a journey to India, mother land of Buddhism, to study the original texts.

For this, he defied his nation's ban on travel abroad, facing great danger in a 2000 km journey alone across the Taklamakan desert and central Asia mountain ranges.

Here is how he described his journey:

"The purpose of my journey is not to obtain personal
offerings. It is because I regretted, in my country,
the Buddhist doctrine was imperfect and the scriptures were
incomplete. Having many doubts, I wish to go and find out
the truth, and so I decided to travel to the West at the
risk of my life in order to seek for the teachings of
which I have not yet heard, so that the Dew of
the Mahayana sutras would have not only been sprinkled at
Kapilavastu, but the sublime truth may also be known in
the eastern country."

His trip took 17 years.

When he returned, he brought with him 600+ Sanskrit texts, with the help of a full scale caravan of 20+ horses.

He was welcomed by the emperor and offered a minister post, but he declined and devoted the rest of his life to translating the texts he brought back.

He set up a large translation office in Chang'an (present-day Xi'an), attracting students and collaborators from all over East Asia. For 20 years, until his death, he oversaw the translations of more than 1000 books of scriptures into Chinese.

He recorded his journey in a book named "Travels in the Western regions" which countains information about cultures, customs and religion of the regions he traversed.

600 years later, his story was the base for the fiction novel "Journey to the West", probably the most famous book in east Asia.

Xuanzang was a man who defied authority in his search for the truth and risked his life for what he believed in. He also built bridges between cultures. To me, he is a symbol of humility, resolve and courage.

He is the main reason I wanted to visit Xi'an.

Xuanzang oversaw the construction of the Wild Goose Pagoda, built to host and preserve the sutras he brought back.

Xuanzang's tomb, the place I wanted to visit the most in my trip.

The temple lies in a small village 1 hour away from Xi'an. No tourist buses to this place. It's a humble temple. Fitting and good to see.

The pouring rain did not help bring visitors.

I took a local bus. From the bus stop, there was still a good 30 minute walk to the temple.

That gave me the chance to walk by the depictions of Xuanzang's journey on the side of the road.

It felt a bit like a pilgrimmage.