Xuanzang (Footsteps That Time Cannot Erase)

About the Book The Book Contains Information about the great monk and scholar, Venrable Xuanzang who was a rare world citizen with a great mission to propagate the sublime teachings of the Buddha. His contributions for the dissemination of Indian culture, especially the teachings of the (Buddha, will always be remembered by generations to come. This book is a small effort to provide information about the (Xuanzang Memorial Museum, which is dedicated to this great monk-scholar, who contributed in cementing the age old Indo- Chinese friendship that still continues today.

Foreword The Name of Xuanzang (Yuan-Chwang) Calls up to my mind a whole ancient world getting lost in historical mist and memory. Xuanzang and Buddhism like Emperor Ashoka the great and Buddhism are inseparable and both are so intertwined as to make the study of one almost impossible without a corresponding study of the other. Similarly, the words "Nalanda" and "ancient learning" are terms bordering on Synonym in implications and meanings.

In today's global context of 21st Century, I am deeply inclined to equate Buddhism with humanism itself. Lord Buddha's teachings as preserved in the three baskets - the Tipitaka, show to mankind the path of primacy of conquest of the "mind" over the other synchronistic duality of "matter" in mundane affairs of life. Xuanzang - a Confucianist by inheritance and early training, became an uncompromising Buddhist. At the age of twenty (his birth being in 602 CE) he was ordained as a Buddhist monk and he studied some of the great sacred books of their religion under the guidance of the learned who also entered the Buddhist order earlier, and was soon acclaimed in China as a very learned and eloquent young monk.

Preface Ancient Buddhist texts reveals that the sanctified site of Nalanda was often visited by Lord Buddha and the Great Master delivered several discourses. Sources also states that Ven. Sariputta and Moggallana, the two chief disciples of Sakyamuni also hailed from Nalanda. This land of wisdom was also later on was chosen to eventually develop and establish a Mahavihara in the 5th Century. It was during the reign of King Harshavardhana that the University reached its zenith and its fame spread around the world. Emissaries from various places came to pay tributes and scholars from a number of countries converged here to quench their thirst of Dhamma. Ven. Xuanzang was one such great monk-scholar who travelled all the way from China to Nalanda to study the Dhamma.

The main aims of his pilgrimage were to visit the sacred places connected with the Buddha, to learn and practice the Dhamma by learning all he could from anyone he met who was versed in the texts, practice, and to collect texts to take back to China. Upon returning home to China, he planned to translate the texts in order to make known what had not been known and clear away wrong views. It was a quest for truth, for the supreme law. To him, the teachings of the Buddha meant a system of progressive social thought, of significance to every living being. He gave a vivid account of his travels including Nalanda where he stayed both as a student and as a teacher in the 'Records of the Western Regions’. It was mainly on the basis of his travelogue that the present site of ancient Nalanda Mahavihara was excavated.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages