Chronicles of the Eastern Journey

On the eighth day of the fourth month in the twenty-fourth year of King Zhao of Zhou, strange signs appeared in the sky. The Grand Historian Su You made a divination and said, “A sage will be born in the west. A thousand years from now, his teachings will reach China.” That same year, Siddhartha, crown prince of King Suddhodana of Kapilavastu in India, was born. He later renounced the throne, became a monk, attained perfect enlightenment, and was known as the Buddha. He preached for forty-nine years and guided countless people. His teachings came to be known as Buddhism, rooted in compassion, guided by wisdom, and directed toward liberation. After the Buddha's passing, his teachings gradually spread to the countries of the Western Regions. During the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han, Huo Qubing campaigned against the Xiongnu and captured a golden statue used by the King of Xiutu for worshipping Heaven. It was placed in Ganquan Palace and was probably the first Buddhist statue to enter China. At the time, however, people merely worshipped it as a deity, without understanding its meaning. In the first year of the Yuanshou era under Emperor Ai, Yicun, an envoy from the Yuezhi, came to court and orally transmitted the Sutra of the Buddha to Jing Lu, a disciple of the Imperial Academy. This is the earliest recorded instance of Buddhist scriptures entering China, though they did not yet spread widely. For a thousand years, the faint sound of Sanskrit prayers came from the shifting sands of the Western Regions, crossing the Pamirs and the desert until it finally became the morning bells and evening drums of the Central Plains. It was a spiritual journey in the history of Chinese civilization. From the white horse bearing scriptures to Xuanzang's journey west, from Kumarajiva's translation hall to Huineng's Chan monastery, the seeds of Buddhism took root, sprouted, blossomed, and bore fruit in the soil of our land. This was made possible by the aspirations of emperors and ministers to protect the Dharma, the self-sacrifice of eminent monks seeking the truth, and the lamps of faith kindled before the Buddha by ordinary people. This is an epic of civilizations meeting and merging. When faith crosses a thousand mountains and rivers, what it ultimately changes is the human heart. Taking this as its starting point, this work recounts the spread of Buddhism eastward, preserving its story for posterity.