To the Five Dhyani Nations, transmitting annotations and explanations of the Jingxingji (Record of the Journey Along the Way), with annotations on the Jingxingji.

Author: (Tang) Huichao, (Tang) Du Huan (original), Zhang Yi, Zhang Yichun (annotations)
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2000-04-01
Features: Huichao traveled to India in the Tang Dynasty to seek Buddhist teachings and wrote The Journey to the Five Continents upon his return. This book records the conditions of the countries he passed through, serving as important material for studying Central Asia and India in the 8th century. The entire book is lost, with only fragments preserved in Dunhuang manuscripts. Scholars from China and abroad have conducted extensive research, and the annotators have absorbed the strengths of others while adding their own insights, providing detailed discussions on historical matters. The Journey of the Buddhist Monk was written by Du Huan, who was captured by the army of the Islamic Caliphate during the Tianbao period of the Tang Dynasty. He traveled through various regions in Central and Western Asia before returning to China and wrote this book to record his observations in the Islamic world, making it one of the earliest Chinese accounts of the Islamic world. The original book is lost, but it has been compiled from The Compendium of Treatises and supplemented with detailed annotations. Based on photographs of the original Dunhuang manuscripts, the authors have punctuated the text, added subheadings, and corrected errors in the interpretation of the original text that have accumulated over the past half-century, both in China and abroad, regarding the study of vernacular and variant characters in Dunhuang manuscripts. Additionally, the authors have utilized the latest research findings in academia on South Asia and Central Asia to supplement and correct shortcomings or inaccuracies in Fujiwara's annotations.