He was a veritable second-generation official, but he became a monk at a young age, full of talent, but he was devoted to Buddhism.
At the age of 27, he set out from the Eastern Tuda Tang Dynasty to the Western Heavens to collect the scriptures, and after 17 years, he hiked 50,000 miles alone and finally retrieved the true scriptures. He translated 75 scriptures, totaling more than 1 million words, and he dictated the Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty, which made important contributions to the history of India and the countries of the Western Regions.
People revered him as Master Xuanzang
Pay attention to this account, today we will talk about how the real history of Xuanzang embarked on the road of learning the scriptures from the Western Heavens, and what was the final outcome?
What is the impression of the Tang monks who have seen "Journey to the West" on the Tang monks inside? Perhaps many people have in their minds the weak appearance of wearing a red robe, riding a white horse with a Buddha bead hanging from their neck, and being taken away by a monster at every turn and waiting for the rescue of their apprentices. But the historical Xuanzang was a real tough guy who hiked 50,000 miles and finally carried the True Scriptures from India.
The prototype of the Tang monk in "Journey to the West" is Master Xuanzang, a famous Buddhist master of the Tang Dynasty. Unlike the orphan Jiang Liu'er in "Journey to the West" who was rescued by the monks because of an accident along the river, the actual Master Xuanzang, surnamed Chen, was born in Luozhou's Zhenshi County, and was the second generation of officials of the Eight Classics of Zheng'er.
The Tang Dynasty was an era of openness and tolerance, during the Reign of Emperor Taizong of Tang Buddhism prevailed, and Buddhist culture penetrated deeply into people's lives. In this environment, the status of monks is also much higher than that of ordinary people. If you want to become a monk, you also need a certain nepotism to shave smoothly. During such a period of reverence for Buddhism, Chen Yi was born into a family of officials and eunuchs, which provided favorable conditions for his later monasticism. Perhaps under the influence of the general environment, Chen Yi's father was particularly buddhist, and even did not even want to pursue a career in order to devote himself to Buddhism. Probably influenced by family learning, Chen Yi was 13 years old and was ordained at the Pure Land Temple in Luoyang, with the legal name Xuanzang.
Xuanzang had been studying Buddhism since he was a child, and what made him willing to give up the comfortable status quo and have the idea of going to the Western Heavens to learn the scriptures? In fact, Xuanzang followed his master not only to study buddhism, but also to study the Great and Small Sutras and the Southern and Northern Schools of Thought, as well as the doctrines of the Various Schools of Thought. Later, when studying and studying the Buddhism of the North and the South, he found that there were differences between the two, and many places could not be integrated, and the differences were huge, and he was puzzled. At that time, an Indian businessman said that there was better Buddhism in India, so he vowed to go west to seek the Dharma, and wanted to directly explore the original texts in order to unify the differences in Buddhist thought at that time.
Unlike the "Journey to the West" in the "Journey to the West", Xuanzang's historical desire to go to the West to learn the scriptures was not supported by the ruler Li Shimin at that time, and Li Shimin added some resistance to his westward journey after li shimin knew about it, and did not give Xuanzang a pass.
Customs clearance documents are equivalent to the current visa, what should Xuanzang do if he does not obtain a visa? Did you just give up? It is impossible to give up, and without passing the customs, he chose to smuggle. Yes, Xuanzang's first stop on his westward journey was to smuggle out among the refugees. A burden and a horse began his 17-year life of budget travel.
After successfully smuggling out of the country, the real hell mode is activated
Eight hundred miles long, ancient mountains and rivers
There are no birds, no beasts underneath, and no aquatic weeds.
A man crossing the Gobi Desert, it is difficult to imagine how he found his way out of the desert in that era without GPS positioning. Xuanzang was not a Tang monk in Journey to the West, and without the help of his miraculous disciples, he was just an ordinary person who would die due to lack of water. What sustains his westward journey? It was his determination to seek the real answer, and it was also with a spirit of death that he finally arrived at the Buddhist holy place at that time, Nalanda, after four years, and successfully worshiped under the holy monks and monks.
Unconsciously Xuanzang studied in India for 11 years, in these 11 years Xuanzang studied all the way to the advanced, from ordinary monks to the first senior monk in India, he only spent ten years, during which he also preached and publicized Buddhism in the highest Buddhist institution in India. When you return to China, you can say that you have a lot of rewards, a bag and a horse when you come, and several large bags of sacks of books when you return. Therefore, the real Master Xuanzang in history is not a monk who is weak and needs to be protected and saved by his disciples in "Journey to the West", but a real tough man and a real scholar who carries back the True Scriptures alone!
In the 19th year of Zhenguan, Xuanzang finally returned to Chang'an, the Tang Dynasty. Of course, at this time, his heart was uneasy, don't forget that he was smuggled out of the country at that time, after many years, I don't know if the imperial court will hold him responsible. Fortunately, in the end, the emperor summoned him and did not pursue the matter too much. At that time, Emperor Taizong of Tang was in Luoyang, preparing to go on an expedition to Goryeo, and just when he knew that Xuanzang had returned, he asked Xuanzang to come to see him.
He found that Xuanzang was very talkative, he knew the geography, history, and national conditions of the countries in the Western Regions very well, and he was an emperor who cherished talents, so he tried his best to persuade Xuanzang to return to the world and serve as an official and auxiliary government in the dprk. Xuanzang was devoted to the Buddha, he did not want to be contaminated with these mundane things, not to mention that he still had important things to do, and he wanted to translate the classics he brought back into Chinese characters, so he politely rejected Tang Taizong.
Emperor Taizong of Tang retreated to the second place and asked Xuanzang to accompany him on the Eastern Expedition to Goryeo, but Xuanzang again refused him on the grounds that his family was not allowed to watch the soldiers fighting. Tang Taizong was rejected twice in succession and could not hang on to his face, so he also directly rejected Xuanzang's request to translate Buddhist scriptures at the Shaolin Temple.
It was impossible for Xuanzang to translate buddhist scriptures and propagate Buddhism with peace of mind, although Buddhism was prevalent at that time, but Tang Taizong Li Shimin did not necessarily believe in Buddhism much, buddhism in the eyes of the rulers was just a existence that ruled the country and managed the people. Xuanzang's propaganda of Buddhism more or less touched on some of the interests of the ruling class. Therefore, it is unrealistic for Xuanzang to want to detach himself from the Dharma of political propaganda. Xuanzang also knew that he needed the financial and human support of the government to propagate the Dharma, so he made a compromise with the imperial power, and he asked the government to send officers and soldiers to guard the door, on the grounds that there would be many people to watch at that time, and the number of onlookers was too large, and he was worried that the translation of the scriptures would be interfered with. In fact, he knew that Emperor Taizong had doubts about him, and if he sent someone to guard the door, he could reassure Emperor Taizong, and he was willing to make concessions. Not only that, when he first began to translate Buddhist scriptures, he agreed to Emperor Taizong's request for the first time, and inexplicably completed the "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty", which has more than 100,000 words, and finally became the guide for the Tang Dynasty to rule the Western Regions.
These measures also gave his translation career some guarantees, and after many years of bondage, Tang Taizong's attitude towards Xuanzang and Buddhism also improved in the last years of his life, and once Xuanzang showed Tang Taizong the "Treatise on the Land of Yogis" that he was translating, and Li Shimin repeatedly praised chen after reading it, and also reflected on his previous critical attitude toward Buddhism. The elderly Emperor Taizong had a good attitude of admitting his mistakes and directly gave Xuanzang a robe that was simply a city, in order to show his attention to Xuanzang.
In the end, Emperor Taizong still did not survive and died. It is reasonable to say that the death of Tang Taizong was helpful to Xuanzang's translation career, because the new emperor Li Zhi and Xuanzang were quite close, and the new emperor should vigorously support Buddhism. However, reality gave Xuanzang a blow, and it turned out that Li Zhi, who was still the crown prince at the time, walked around xuanzang frequently, only because Tang Taizong believed in Buddhism in his later years and in order to please his father, he and Xuanzang were close to each other. Li Zhi believed in Taoism and pursued immortality. This was a bit of a blow to Xuanzang, and it was difficult for Tang Taizong to support Buddhism, and it was not long before Tang Taizong went to the Western Paradise World, leaving him alone to face the new emperor who firmly believed in Taoism.
After Tang Gaozong succeeded to the throne, he directly tore off his disguise and indirectly attacked Xuanzang's cause of translating and publicizing Buddhism, Xuanzang was also a wise man, who knew that he could not confront Tang Gaozong head-on and curry favor with Gaozong through various performances, but the effect was very small, and Tang Gaozong still did not want to see Xuanzang.
In the first year of Lin De, Xuanzang passed away. When he went to India alone to collect sutras, after returning to China, he compromised with the imperial power several times for the cause of Buddhism and the translation of Buddhist scriptures, just to obtain funding, which was also a huge psychological struggle for Xuanzang, who was devoted to Buddhism. After Xuanzang's death, the imperial court only expressed the cost of the funeral, and the funeral did not show up as a court official, and Xuanzang's tower did not have a tower inscription, let alone ask celebrities to write inscriptions, which was different from the treatment of those senior monks in the early Tang Dynasty. Not only that, but after a gap of 5 years, his grave was dug up again by Emperor Gaozong of Tang.
It turned out that Xuanzang was initially buried in Bailuyuan and later reburied in Shaolingyuan. According to some historical sources, it is explained that tang Gaozong saw Xuanzang White Pagoda on the White Deer Plain in the Chang'an City Palace, and was touched by jing, and could not help but feel sad from his heart, so he decided to reburiage Xuanzang. This statement is actually a bit far-fetched, Xuanzang did not want to see him before he died, otherwise Xuanzang's funeral would not have been without the configuration that a high monk should have, and even the rebury would not have any special ceremony. It should be known that since ancient times, the cultural atmosphere of being buried in the soil has always been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and it is a taboo thing to change the burial. Emperor Gaozong of Tang wanted to rebury Xuanzang in Shaolingyuan, but many people disagreed, especially Xuanzang's followers, who vigorously resisted this. However, resistance was useless, and in the end Xuanzang was reburied in Shaolingyuan.
Just when he was reburied, Tang Gaozong had a new idea, he himself believed in Taoism, he knew that the monks in Taoism had the ability to dissolve corpses, he thought that Xuanzang was a generation of high monks, so how much of his cultivation was there? After 5 years, is his body still intact? With such curiosity, Emperor Gaozong directly asked people to open the coffin in order to satisfy his curiosity. According to the Buddhist disciples, "the disciples mourn and mourn."
A generation of Buddhist masters, in the end, ended up in such a fate, it is inevitable that people will sigh. Xuanzang became a monk at a young age, studied Buddhism, and resolutely went west alone in his youth to seek the true answer in his heart, and returned to his hometown after 17 years of wandering. He spent his entire life translating 75 sutras and making great contributions to the cause of Buddhism in China. His "Records of the Western Regions of the Tang Dynasty" records the 110 countries he personally experienced, including the mountains, rivers, geography, customs, etc. of 28 countries, which is the guide for the Tang Dynasty to rule the Western Regions. He was praised by later generations as an outstanding envoy of Cultural Exchanges between China and foreign countries, and was praised by Lu Xun as "the backbone of the Chinese nation". His deeds of fearlessly traveling west alone to learn the scriptures have been passed down to this day, and his influence has reached as far as Japan, South Korea and even the world, and now his spirit and ideas are common wealth in China and even the world.