We all know that in the Journey to the West, the lines of the sand monk are relatively small, and the repetition rate is very high, nothing more than "master brother, the master was caught by the monster", or "the second master brother, the master was captured by the monster", and the closest to the high repetition rate of the sand monk's lines should be the Tang monk, and the sentence that the Tang monk often said was "The poor monk came from the Eastern Tang Dynasty, wanted to go to the western heavens to pray to the Buddha, plead...".
Usually, after tang monks finished saying this sentence, whether it was fasting, staying overnight, or even asking for seals to pass customs clearance, it was particularly good, because at that time, the influence and deterrent power of the Tang Dynasty had spread to a very wide area, and if Tang Monk wanted to pass customs, he would take out the customs clearance document given by Li Shimin, that is, the letter of introduction, which would be better.
Then, some people may wonder what Tang Taizong wrote on the customs clearance document for Tang Monk, and why did those small countries on the way see Wen Mu and turn to Tang Monk Bi Gong bi respectfully?
Regarding the content of the customs clearance document, it is recorded in the original work of "Journey to the West":
It can be seen from this that the content of the customs clearance document is mainly to introduce the personal situation of the Tang monks, as well as the reasons why Tang Taizong sent the Tang monks to the west to learn the scriptures, and warned the country to see the customs clearance documents stamped and released. Moreover, as the royal brother of Tang Taizong, Tang Monk's status is also particularly noble, and ordinary small countries are sluggish and may not be able to afford to suffer.
In one passage, we were deeply impressed, when the Tang monk passed by the daughter country of Western Liang, because of his handsome face, plus when the Tang monk took out the customs clearance document to show the king of the daughter country, the king of the daughter country therefore knew that the Tang monk was still the royal brother of the Tang Emperor, which was really a match made in heaven, so he was bent on leaving the Tang monk behind, but unfortunately, the Tang monk was not here, and he walked away in sorrow.
In the end, after the 5 Tang monks and apprentices finally cultivated the right results after 9981 difficulties, after being named the Buddha of Merit and Virtue, the Buddha of Fighting Victory, the Messenger of the Pure Altar, the Golden Arhat, and the Eight Heavenly Dragons, several people returned to Chang'an with the scriptures, and of course, there were important customs clearance texts.
After arriving in Chang'an, Tang Monk presented the Customs Clearance Document for Tang Taizong to browse, and Tang Taizong saw that the Wenmu was stamped with the Baoxiang National Seal, the Wuji National Seal, the Che Chi National Seal, the Western Liang Queen Seal, the Sacrifice National Seal, the Zhu Zi National Seal, the Lion Camel National Seal, the Bhikkhu National Seal, the Extinction French Seal, and the Fengxian County Seal, the Yuhua Prefecture Seal, the Jinping Fu Seal, and so on.
The story of Journey to the West is basically over here, in general, in the famous works, the content on the customs clearance text is still very formal, and it is also in line with the identity of the Tang monk's royal brother and the image of justice, and at the same time, the customs clearance text, in the Tang monk's westward journey to learn the scriptures, really played an important role.
However, although the novel is not all made up out of thin air, in some key events, it is indeed easy to make people have a wrong perception, and the customs clearance document about the Tang monk is one of them.
In the long river of history, the real Tang Dynasty period, Xuanzang, that is, we often call the Tang monk, his lay family name is Chen Yi, born in a family of officials and eunuchs, from a young age to follow his father to learn the "Filial Piety Classic", grew up under the influence of the second brother Chen Su, at the age of 13 in Luoyang Pure Land Temple ordained.
Later, from 618 to 626, Xuanzang has been immersed in the study of various sutras such as the Theory of Becoming Reality, the Nirvana Sutra, the Miscellaneous Mind Theory, etc. Although the progress is rapid and the achievements are obvious, but at that time, the two schools of regentship and earth theory had their own words on the Fa, and in the case of contradictions and reconciliation, Xuanzang planned to go to India to seek the will of maitreya theorists to help those who encountered difficulties in the suspension of the Dharma, hoping that the Dharma of the Indian ordination masters would help people answer their questions.
Therefore, in 627, Xuanzang wrote to Emperor Taizong of Tang, hoping that Li Shimin would allow him to travel west to seek the True Scriptures, but unexpectedly, the Tang Dynasty at that time no longer attached importance to Buddhism, so it did not approve Xuanzang's request to travel west. However, Xuanzang had already made up his mind to "risk the Charter and go privately to Tianzhu". In the end, the twenty-nine-year-old Xuanzang traveled west without approval.
After that, the experience is similar to the Journey to the West, all of which are trekking through mountains and rivers, after many hardships, finally arrived at nalanda Temple in India, and then studied various scriptures in India, and finally returned from study, bringing back 150 Buddha relics, 7 Buddha statues, and 657 jinglun for the Tang Dynasty, of which Xuanzang dictated by the disciple Debater and monk to complete the world-famous "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty", which provided experience for the development of Buddhism in the Tang Dynasty at that time and the study of the Western Regions, even today there is still research reference value.
However, we can also see from this that because Xuanzang did not obtain Tang Taizong's permission before he set out to travel west, there was no such thing as Tang Taizong giving Tang Monk a pass of wenmu in the official history.