Why Chinese monks went to India
As Buddhism spread to China, Chinese monks and lay followers faced practical problems. The scriptures they had were translations, often incomplete, and questions about monastic rules and doctrine were hard to settle. Some monks decided to travel to the land of the Buddha to find texts, study with teachers and visit the places of his life. Several travelled over the centuries, and a few left written accounts. Two are especially famous: Faxian, who travelled around 399 to 412 CE, and Xuanzang, who left China in the late 620s and returned in 645 CE. Exact dates are approximate for Faxian and slightly debated for the start of Xuanzang’s journey.
Faxian
Faxian was a Chinese monk who set out, already in later life, with a group of companions to obtain copies of the monastic rules. He travelled overland through Central Asia and the northwest of the subcontinent, visited sites in the Ganges plain, and spent time in Pataliputra. He then went to Sri Lanka and returned by sea, with a difficult crossing.
His account, often called a record of Buddhist kingdoms, is brief and fairly plain. It describes monasteries, relics, festivals and the state of Buddhism in the lands he passed through, along with customs of the countries. It is useful partly because it is early. He saw Buddhism in a period when it was still active in much of India, including at sites associated with the Buddha’s life.
Xuanzang
Xuanzang, who lived in the 7th century CE, travelled in the era of the Tang dynasty. He left China without full official permission, according to the usual account, and went through Central Asia and Gandhara into India, staying for many years. He studied at Nalanda, where he is recorded as having studied under a leading teacher; Xuanzang at Nalanda is one of the best-known episodes of his journey. He visited places across the subcontinent, collected hundreds of manuscripts and returned to China, where he spent the rest of his life organising teams that translated texts.
His account of the western regions is much longer and more detailed than Faxian’s. It describes distances, local histories, legends, monasteries, stupas and the number of monks in each place. A separate biography, written by disciples, adds to the picture. Xuanzang’s name is also linked to later fiction: the Ming-dynasty novel Journey to the West is a fantastical retelling, loosely inspired by his journey, and should not be treated as history.
What the accounts record
- Sites of the Buddha’s life. Both monks describe Lumbini, Bodh Gaya, Sarnath and Kushinagar, along with Sravasti and Rajgir. They often record local legends, so some details reflect belief rather than fact.
- State of the monasteries. They report both flourishing communities and abandoned ruins, which helps date the decline of some places.
- Monuments. Pillars and stupas associated with Ashoka are mentioned, which supports other evidence.
- Social context. Accounts of kings, trade routes, languages and customs.
Both monks wrote from their own perspective: they were devout, they relied on local informants, and they sometimes repeated stories they had been told without testing them. Distances and directions can be unclear, and translations differ.
Why archaeologists use them
In the 19th century, European and Indian scholars used Xuanzang’s descriptions to look for lost Buddhist sites. His directions and distances helped to identify places such as Kushinagar, Sravasti and the ruins at Nalanda, where he described the monastery and its teachers. In some cases, such as the debated identification of Kushinagar, the accounts were still interpreted differently, and excavation and inscriptions were needed to confirm or revise the matches.
The records therefore work as clues, not proof. They describe what the writers saw or were told, which is valuable especially for places where other written sources are scarce.
Other travellers and pilgrim monks
Faxian and Xuanzang are the best known, but not the only Chinese pilgrim monks. Others, including Yijing, travelled by sea in the later 7th century and described monastic life in India and Southeast Asia. Korean and Central Asian monks also made the journey. Together they show that pilgrimage to India was a long-running tradition long before modern tourism.
Anyone retracing these journeys today should rely on current guidance. Many routes cross regions where conditions, borders and access change; check government travel advice.