Biography Of The Tripitaka Master, By Xuanzang

In 629, Xuanzang, a highly educated Buddhist monk from China, made a religious pilgrimage to India, the homeland of Buddhism, in hopes of augmenting his understandings of the faith and reconciling some of the issues he had encountered regarding Buddhist practices in China. Hoping to find the teachers and the sacred texts that would answer his questions, enrich Buddhist practice in China, and resolve the many disputes that had created serious divisions within the Buddhist community of his own country, Xuanzang dedicated himself to the long journey and examination of Buddhist practice in India, making note of his accounts in Record of the Western Region during the 7th century C.E. On his visit to India, Xuanzang was quite impressed and

In A Biography of the Tripitaka Master, writer Huili depicts Xuanzang’s emotional encounter as he worshipped the Bodhi tree and the image of the Buddha attaining enlightenment. As Huili writes, “After having looked at the image with deep sincerity, he prostrated himself before it and deplored adly, saying with self-reproach, ‘I do not know where I was born in the course of transmigration at the time when the Buddha attained enlightenment. [...] It makes me think that my karmic hindrances must have been very heavy!’” These lines vividly portray the intense emotional and religious experience Xuanzang narrated during his time in India. His visit to the Bodhi tree made a deep impression on him, provoking his own self-questioning and awareness as to where he was in the process of his own life and where he stood within the Buddhist belief system. Evidently, this experience had a profound impact on him, and fueled his desire to reconcile and gain deeper insight and understanding on parts of the faith that were unclear or unknown to him. It causes him to make an introspective analysis of his own life, illustrating that this experience evidently impressed and surprised in him in that it made him inspect and analyze his own spiritual, emotional, and religious place in the Buddhist