When people think of the great Chinese Buddhist pilgrims, the names of Faxian and Xuanzang usually come first. Yet another remarkable monk followed in their footsteps and expanded the geographical horizons of Buddhist travel even further.
That monk was Yijing.
Unlike many earlier pilgrims who journeyed primarily overland across the Silk Road, Yijing traveled through the maritime networks of the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia, documenting a vibrant Buddhist world that connected China, Southeast Asia, and India through trade, scholarship, and religion.
His twenty-five-year journey transformed Chinese understanding of Buddhism beyond India alone. Through his travels, translations, and writings, Yijing revealed the importance of maritime Asia in the transmission of Buddhist knowledge and preserved invaluable records of cultures, monasteries, educational centers, and religious practices that might otherwise have disappeared from history.
Today, he stands alongside Faxian and Xuanzang as one of the three greatest Buddhist pilgrims of China.
A Young Monk Inspired by Earlier Travelers
Yijing was born in 635 CE in Fanyang, near present-day Beijing, during the flourishing Tang dynasty.
His birth name was Zhang Wenming.
From an early age, he displayed a strong interest in Buddhist learning and entered monastic life at the age of fourteen. Like many educated monks of his era, Yijing encountered the accounts of earlier pilgrims who had traveled to India in search of authentic Buddhist teachings.
The journeys of Faxian and Xuanzang deeply inspired him.
Their stories demonstrated that a true understanding of Buddhism often required direct engagement with its original texts, languages, and centers of learning. Yet Yijing also recognized that Buddhism was no longer confined to India alone. By the 7th century, vast networks of Buddhist scholarship stretched across Southeast Asia and the maritime trade routes of the Indian Ocean.
He resolved to explore this broader Buddhist world himself.
Choosing the Sea Route
Unlike Xuanzang, who traveled primarily across Central Asia by land, Yijing chose a different path.
In 671 CE, supported by a private patron, he departed from Guangzhou and embarked on a sea voyage across the South China Sea.
This route was no less dangerous than the Silk Road.
Ancient maritime travel involved:
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Monsoon Winds
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Storms
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Piracy
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Disease
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Shipwrecks
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Long Periods at Sea
Yet it also connected some of the most dynamic trading and cultural centers of the medieval world.
Rather than crossing deserts and mountain ranges, Yijing sailed through a network of ports where merchants, monks, diplomats, and sailors from many civilizations exchanged goods and ideas.
His journey reveals the importance of maritime Asia long before the rise of European oceanic exploration.
Srivijaya: The Forgotten Center of Learning
One of Yijing’s most important discoveries was the Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya, centered around present-day Palembang.
When Yijing arrived there in 671 CE, he found far more than a trading port.
Srivijaya was a thriving center of Buddhist scholarship, attracting monks and students from across Asia. Its monasteries offered advanced education in Buddhist philosophy, languages, and monastic discipline.
Yijing remained there for an extended period, studying:
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Sanskrit
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Local Malay Languages
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Buddhist Doctrine
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Translation Techniques
He was so impressed by the quality of learning available that he later recommended Chinese monks spend time in Srivijaya before continuing onward to India.
This observation significantly altered Chinese perceptions of Buddhist geography. India remained the spiritual homeland of Buddhism, but Southeast Asia emerged as an essential intellectual crossroads in its own right.
Journey to India and Nalanda
After completing his studies in Srivijaya, Yijing continued westward across the Indian Ocean toward India.
Like many pilgrims before him, he sought the great Buddhist institutions that had shaped the religion for centuries.
Among these, none was more important than Nalanda Mahavihara.
Nalanda was one of the world's greatest centers of learning, attracting scholars from across Asia. There, Yijing immersed himself in advanced Buddhist studies and spent approximately eleven years:
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Studying Philosophy
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Mastering Sanskrit Texts
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Copying Manuscripts
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Observing Monastic Discipline
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Participating in Scholarly Life
His long residence at Nalanda allowed him to gain an exceptionally detailed understanding of Buddhist practice and education.
Unlike brief visitors, Yijing experienced daily life within one of the most influential intellectual communities of the medieval world.
A Scholar Dedicated to Preservation
Yijing understood that Buddhist teachings could only spread effectively if they were translated accurately.
Throughout his travels, he devoted enormous effort to collecting manuscripts and preserving knowledge.
After returning to Srivijaya around 687 CE, he began translating Sanskrit texts into Chinese on a large scale. Working for years in Southeast Asia before finally returning to China, he produced translations totaling more than a million Chinese characters.
His work focused especially on:
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Monastic Regulations
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Vinaya Traditions
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Ritual Practices
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Doctrinal Texts
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Scholastic Commentaries
His translations helped Chinese Buddhists understand not only philosophical concepts but also the practical details of monastic life as practiced in India.
This contribution was invaluable at a time when authentic Buddhist texts remained difficult to obtain.
Recording the Buddhist World
Beyond translation, Yijing became one of history’s great travel writers.
His works, particularly:
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Record of Buddhist Practices Sent Home from the Southern Sea
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Buddhist Monk’s Pilgrimage of the Tang Dynasty
provide detailed descriptions of:
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Bharat
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Southeast Asia
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Maritime Trade Routes
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Monasteries
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Educational Institutions
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Religious Customs
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Languages
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Daily Life
Unlike many earlier geographical accounts focused on political events, Yijing paid close attention to cultural and religious practices.
His writings preserve valuable information about how Buddhism functioned across different societies and regions.
For historians today, these texts offer a rare window into the interconnected world of the early medieval Indian Ocean.
The Indian Ocean as a Highway of Ideas
One of Yijing’s greatest contributions was demonstrating that Buddhism spread not only along overland Silk Road routes but also through maritime networks.
His travels reveal a world where ships carried:
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Monks
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Manuscripts
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Merchants
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Translators
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Pilgrims
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Diplomats
between China, Southeast Asia, Bharat, and beyond.
The Indian Ocean was not a barrier separating civilizations.
It was a bridge connecting them.
Yijing’s observations help modern scholars understand how ideas moved across thousands of kilometers long before modern transportation existed.
His writings illuminate a vast cultural landscape stretching from China to Indonesia and India through shared religious and intellectual exchange.
Return to China
In 695 CE, after decades abroad, Yijing finally returned to Tang China.
By then, his reputation as a scholar and pilgrim had already spread widely.
He was welcomed with high honors by:
Wu Zetian
The only woman to rule China as an emperor in her own right.
The Tang court recognized the immense value of the manuscripts, translations, and knowledge he had brought back.
For the remainder of his life, Yijing continued translating texts, teaching, and contributing to the development of Chinese Buddhism.
Preserving a Vanished World
Many of the Buddhist institutions Yijing described would later decline or disappear.
Political changes, shifting trade networks, invasions, and the eventual destruction of major centers such as Nalanda transformed the Buddhist landscape of Asia dramatically.
Because Yijing recorded these places in such detail, historians today possess precious evidence about:
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monastic life
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educational systems
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pilgrimage networks
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maritime trade routes
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cultural exchanges across Asia
His writings preserve aspects of a world that no longer exists.
One of the Three Great Pilgrims
Together with Faxian and Xuanzang, Yijing forms the trio often regarded as the Three Great Pilgrims of Chinese Buddhism.
Each contributed something unique:
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Faxian documented early Buddhist India.
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Xuanzang recorded the intellectual and political landscape of 7th-century Asia.
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Yijing illuminated the maritime Buddhist world linking China, Southeast Asia, and India.
Together, their journeys created one of the richest records of intercultural exchange in premodern history.
Why Yijing Still Matters
Today, Yijing remains significant because he expanded humanity’s understanding of how civilizations connect.
He demonstrated that knowledge travels through ports as well as roads, through oceans as well as deserts.
His journey reminds us that cultural exchange is rarely confined to a single route or region. Buddhism spread across Asia through countless networks of travelers, translators, teachers, merchants, and pilgrims, and Yijing documented those connections with extraordinary care.
More than a monk or translator, he became a witness to one of history’s great interconnected worlds.
Through his travels, scholarship, and writings, he preserved a record of the Buddhist cultures of India and Southeast Asia at their height, ensuring that future generations could still glimpse the vibrant intellectual and spiritual networks that once linked the shores of the Indian Ocean.
