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Tang Xuanzang - Famous Priest of the Tang Dynasty

   

    Xuanzang, born in 600 A.D, was a famous priest of the Tang Dynasty of China and a great translator of Buddhist scriptures. He is also called Sangzang Priest or Tang Priest by the general public.
    Xuanzang departed from the capital Chang'an to India to fetch scriptures when he was 28 years old. After trials and tribulations, he arrived at India, where he made intensive study on Buddhism, and, finally, returned to Chang'an with Mahayana (Dacheng) and Hinayana (Xiaocheng) Buddhist classics. After this, he specially organized a group of people in the Hongfu Temple and Daci'en Temple to translate scriptures, and a great deal of Buddhist classics was translated in 19 years. As Xuanzang had a high culture of Buddhism, these translated scriptures are regarded as creditable and truthful to original ones. Translators of later dynasties regarded him as one of the four most famous scripture translators in the Buddhist history of China. Thanks to Xuanzang's translated scriptures and propaganda, Chang'an became the center of Buddhism around the world, while Japanese and Korean monks came to Chang'an and became the diciples of Xuanzang, who then spread China's Buddhism to the whole world.
Traveling Records of the Western Regions in Great Tang Dynasty, which was written by other people according to Xuanzang's dictation, is an important book to study ancient history and geography of India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh and other countries in middle Asia.
    The Tang Priest who went to the west to fetch scriptures-the monk in Journey to the West, a famous ancient work of China, was a literary image which takes Tang Xuanzang as the prototype.