Buddhist Chants Journey West: Master Xuanzang’s Own Account

I am Xuanzang, from Goushi in Luoyang. My surname was Chen, and my given name was Yi. The world called me the Tripitaka Master and the Great Vehicle Deva, but from beginning to end, I was simply a seeker of the Dharma and a traveler on foot. In the third year of the Zhenguan era, I disobeyed orders and traveled west alone. I never imagined that the journey would last seventeen years, taking me through 110 countries and across 50,000 li. The scriptures in the Central Plains contradicted one another, and the masters offered a jumble of interpretations. Doubts filled my heart, and I journeyed far to Nalanda to seek the Buddha's original teachings. The journey west was a brush with death at every turn. I crossed the Moheyan desert, going four days and five nights without a drop of water and becoming lost in mirages on the shifting sands. I climbed the snowy peaks of the Ling Mountains, where most of my companions froze to death and the bones of fellow practitioners lay all around me. I was attacked by bandits and nearly died several times on the Ganges. The king of Gaochang wept as he tried to keep me with the title of national preceptor; only by refusing food to prove my resolve was I able to continue west. I saw the Hu cavalry of the Yehu Khan, and at the Dharma assembly in Kanyakubja hosted by King Harsha, I established my school through my treatises. For eighteen days, no one dared challenge me, and my name resounded throughout the Western Regions. Along the way, I lost companions and left my homeland behind. I was trapped in desperate straits time and again, but in the end I obtained the complete Dharma and found the truth I sought. In the nineteenth year of the Zhenguan era, I returned to Chang'an with the sacred scriptures and, at Emperor Taizong's command, composed Great Tang Records on the Western Regions. Beyond the pages of that book, I kept buried in my heart the fear of traveling alone, the loneliness of long nights, my wavering and resolve, and the unspoken words I still owed my departed fellow practitioners. Now, as night deepens at Yuhua Temple while I translate the scriptures, I wish to share those things I never said. There is no Sun Wukong here, no mythical tribulations, only a humble monk who traveled ten thousand li on foot and risked his life to seek the true scriptures. I am Xuanzang, and this is the true story of the journey west I made with my own feet.