Tang Xuanzang’s Westward Travels

Tang Xuanzang’s Westward Travels
Unknown artist
Rubbing 20th century
Ink on paper
2000.01.91
Anonymous Gift

The pilgrim monk Xuanzang was traditionally represented in several different ways. In the center, he holds a fly whisk and a cane and wears clothing suitable for a long-distance journey on foot. Other elements point to him not only as a pilgrim, but also as a ritual master: his necklace of skulls and the incense burner hanging from his pack of scrolls. In the rubbing on the right, Xuanzang rides a white horse, referencing the steed made famous in the novel Journey to the West. Although they represent different aspects of his life, together these images emphasize Xuanzang’s role as transmitter of knowledge between India, China, and beyond. (Mapping Mobility: Chinese Objects from the University Art Gallery Collection) 

Pilgrimage and Knowledge Transmission

Beginning in 629 CE, the Buddhist pilgrim-monk Xuanzang undertook a sixteen-year-long, ten-thousand-mile journey from Chang’an (modern Xi’an), China, to Nalanda in India. Xuanzang’s travels were inestimably important for the spread of Buddhism across Asia. They have been romanticized over the centuries, as in the classic novel Journey to the West, a bridging of history and mythology reflected in these images. Xuanzang’s translations of Buddhist sutras from Sanskrit into Chinese and the sacred objects he carried earned him renown in both China and in India. Xuanzang is commemorated in a modern mural within Pitt’s own Indian Nationality Room, exemplifying the monk’s impact far from his native time and place. Much like the transmission of knowledge that Xuanzang mobilized, rubbings enable the copy and dissemination of Chinese culture and history. They are created by pressing wet sheets of paper onto the surface of carved stone and applying ink so that the original carving—as well as any damage sustained over time—remains white. The three rubbings displayed here were all produced in Xi’an, home to the Forest of Steles, a major repository for the Chinese lithic arts.