Return to the Pamir: In Search of Xuanzang and the Silk Road
Hou Yangfang
Published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House
In the field of Chinese book publishing, the "Re-Walk" series has become a popular topic. In the past five years, there have been several academic monographs in the name of "retaking the Xuanzang Road", and there is no shortage of professional scholars to write masterpieces; in the field of outdoor development, "re-walking the Xuanzang Road" has become an important selling point for those travel institutions whose main projects are "Gobi Tourism" and "Extreme Challenge"; in the field of documentaries, the theme of "Xuanzang Road" as the keyword has been a popular IP in recent years, and the top documentary teams in many countries have invested heavily in filming.
Discern the routine of "re-walking": the sources of information are mostly second- and third-hand information
The documentary basis for the modern people to "retake the road of Xuanzang" is mainly derived from the "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty" annotated by Mr. Ji Xianlin. However, most people overlook one point: even Mr. Ji Xianlin, who annotated the Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty, did not personally walk the Xuanzang Road in its entirety—including Xuanzang's journey to the west and the return to China from the east. Therefore, there is a question: is the "Xuanzang Road" appended to various academic publications today, especially the route back to the east after the westward journey, correct, and if you follow the route in the map, can you really see what Xuanzang sees? This problem is exactly what Hou Yangfang wants to solve in his book "Return to the Pamir: In Search of Xuanzang and the Silk Road".
The Pamir Plateau, known in ancient times as the "Green Ridge", passed through this place by the ancient Silk Road. However, the names of the awkward places recorded in the Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty specifically correspond to which mountain passes and which river valleys on the Pamir Plateau? What was the specific latitude and longitude of the scene that Xuanzang had witnessed in the Pamir Plateau? These questions are difficult to get accurate answers in the existing literature.
The so-called "Xuanzang Road" often taken by domestic professional scholars and outdoor sports enthusiasts is mostly limited to the ruins of Taal Monastery, Yulin Grottoes, Mohe Yan Moraine, Gaochang Ancient City, Subash Buddha Temple Ruins, Kyzyl Grottoes, Broken Leaf City Ruins, Qiros City, Bamiyan Buddha, Nalanda Temple Ruins, Ajanta Grottoes and other places along Xuanzang's westbound journey. In fact, the Pamir Plateau that Xuanzang traveled through when he returned from India to the east was rarely touched by scholars, and there is still a large space for excavation in the geographical and human research along the Pamir Plateau.
As for the accuracy of several versions of the Donggui map in the paper pile, it has not been verified. Traditional historical or historical geography research is basically a self-consistency of text logic from paper to paper. However, few scholars can go out of the study hall and return to the historical scene in person, and conduct field investigations to falsify or confirm. Therefore, including the written materials commonly used by scholars on Xuanzang's route to return to China, it is difficult to distinguish between authenticity and falsity.
With this doubt, Hou Yangfang decided to examine the Pamir Plateau himself. The preliminary work was desk accumulation: reading a large number of documents, especially the works of the Western Pamir explorers Rong Hepeng, Curzon, Sven Hedin, Stein and others from the 19th century to the early 20th century, collecting and browsing thousands of modern military maps of various countries. After making full preparations, he began his first expedition to the Pamir section of the Silk Road in April 2013, and has so far completed the entire Pamir Plateau, the Hexi Corridor, Lop Nur and other countries in Central Asia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and other countries.
In order to determine which mountain passes Xuanzang actually walked, Hou Yangfang repeatedly crossed multiple mountain passes on the Pamir Plateau at an altitude of nearly 5,000 meters, and traveled through many important river valleys and mountain passes outside the Pamir Plateau. In the course of field investigations, he discovered and pointed out the fallacies in several versions of maps and well-known documentaries that are popular today. For example, when Xuanzang arrived at Ben Rang Shero, he had already left Stone City to go down to the Green Ridge, so it had nothing to do with the Ming Tie Gai Pass. This error can only be confirmed after personal examination and comparison of the various possibilities on the Pamir Plateau.
▲ Yarth Arch baizi, a rare settlement on the Pamir Plateau. There are hot springs, a dedicated hunting area, and the signs say Marco Polo Pan Horn.
It is worth mentioning that he used the "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty" as a clue, not an argument, let alone the facts themselves, which is a great difference between this book and traditional historical geography and historiography.
The idea of studying "Donggui": accurate restoration
The current Pamir Plateau belongs to different countries, and because of the border barrier, it is difficult to accurately reconstruct the specific direction of the ancient hiking route through the Onion Ridge, including which mountain passes Xuanzang once walked, what dangers and obstacles he encountered, and what scenes he saw- these problems are usually only speculated and imagined by more or less written records.
And "imagining the scene of history" is bound to be wrong. Therefore, out of his love for the Pamir Plateau and the academic motivation of restoring the "Xuanzang Road" as truthfully as possible, Hou Yangfang decided to adopt the method of "accurate restoration" in 2013 to study Xuanzang's return to the East.
"How to prove that you've gone on field trips, you're going to leave your GPS trail. Because GPS tracks can't be faked, you also have to leave your photos and videos behind. I tell you a latitude and longitude, tell you a trajectory, just repeat it, you go to the same place, the same latitude and longitude, you will definitely see the same scenery as I took in the photo. This is called precision restoration, which can be tested repeatedly, which is the only difference between science and non-science. Today's GPS accuracy is very high, and the error is only within a few meters. This is Hou Yangfang's interpretation of "accurate restoration".
Since April 2013, on the basis of dozens of inspections of Pamir, southern Xinjiang, Lop Nur, Central Asia and South Asia, Hou Yangfang has made the world's first "accurate restoration" of the Silk Road and developed the world's first set of "Silk Road Geographic Information System".
The way out of "re-walking" research: "I see that he sees"
Hou Yangfang has visited the Pamir Plateau many times, intending to restore the historical scene to the greatest extent, as he said in the book: "What I see today, that is, what he saw in the past."
One might take it for granted that the locals who live in the Pamir Plateau, when they need to travel, now take national roads and use modern means of transport to take detours. After field investigation, Hou Yangfang definitely concluded that the former Onion Ridge, that is, today's Pamir Plateau, those inaccessible places, some sections of the ancient Silk Road, have been used for more than 1,000 years, and the migration of local people's summer pastures and winter pastures is still going back and forth in this way. Horses, donkeys and dogs are still important "means of transportation" today – as for taking the national highway, Hou Yangfang pointed out: This is impossible, the cost is too high.
At the same time, he also pointed out the shortcomings of traditional research: the restoration of traditional routes is only a list of geographical names and recorded geographical names, which can be called "paper restoration". And the "precise restoration" he employs, with the blessing of today's technological means, has become a reality: he generates a geographic information system based on the GPS positioning and trajectory of the field trip, as well as the large-scale topographic map generated by it. He discloses the trajectory of the route and the measured latitude and longitude and image of important landmarks, and can be repeatedly tested by others, and the accuracy of the restoration is within the visual range.
▲ Hou Yangfang retraced the road map of Xuanzang and the Silk Road in the Pamir Plateau
Since the geological changes of the Pamir Plateau are based on hundreds of thousands of years, the topography of the Pamir that he investigated did not change much during the historical period, and the shape of the mountain passes and river valleys did not change much, which was the premise of his restoration of Xuanzang's road to the east. Therefore, he can accurately answer the following questions: whether a certain road written in the literature can be taken, what is the road condition, how the ancients walked, what means of transportation were used, and what extreme weather was encountered...
In His book Return to the Pamir: In Search of Xuanzang and the Silk Road, Hou Yangfang sorted out Xuanzang's route back to the east: from the Afghan village of Ishkahim, and finally to Shache. The method of "returning to the historical scene" and "precise restoration" is more reliable than the paper research that scholars in the field of historical geography rely on pure documents today. This book is the first in Hou Yangfang's "Re-Walk" series, and its conclusions are refreshing, and his subsequent works are worth looking forward to.
Author: Xie Cai
Editor: Jiang Chuting
Editor-in-Charge: Zhu Zifen
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.