by Sun Shuyun
TWELVE
Journey’s End
ON THE EIGHTH DAY of the first month of 645, Red Bird Street in Chang’an was a sea of people. ‘All the monasteries vie with one another in preparing their best banners, tapestries, umbrellas, precious tables and palanquins. They send monks and nuns in their ceremonial robes for the occasion,’ Hui Li tells us proudly. The lavish preparations in the capital’s thoroughfare caught people’s attention, and the news spread by word of mouth: Xuanzang, the intrepid monk who had travelled to India, was coming back after eighteen years. Everyone wanted to set eyes on him.
Fearing they might crush one another in their eagerness to greet him, the authorities forbade the crowds to move. Standing still, they chanted prayers, burned incense, scattered flowers, blew conches, clashed cymbals and broke out again and again into cries of wonder and delight. Slowly the grand procession went past them, carrying Xuanzang’s collection of 657 books, relics of the Buddha, and seven gold, silver and sandalwood images. ‘It is the most splendid event since the death of the Buddha,’ Hui Li exclaimed.
Red Bird Street in those days was a grand boulevard 150 metres wide. Today it has shrunk from its river-like breadth to a mere two traffic lanes, flanked by characterless office buildings and shabby restaurants, and crammed in at the end, a makeshift market selling cheap housewares. The only reminder of its former glory is the Gate of the Red Bird itself, an impressive arch presiding anachronistically over the rush hour flow of cars, buses and bicycles. This big arch, according to my guidebook, is in fact only one of four that made up the original gateway with an even bigger fifth one in the centre. Standing there, honked at by cars, looking up at the old characters for ‘Red Bird Gate’ above the arch, I tried to put myself in Xuanzang’s frame of mind as he came through the gate and was confronted by the huge crowds.
He was probably taken aback. He did not expect the court to organize such a sumptuous welcome for him – there could not have been a greater contrast with his hurried, furtive departure eighteen years before. The emperor was away in the eastern capital Luoyang, preparing for a major campaign against Korea. But he had deputed none other than his prime minister to welcome this distinguished monk, whose reputation had grown and grown, and who might be invaluable to the realization of his grandest ambition yet. Besides, it would be a wonderful occasion to gratify his subjects, most of them devout Buddhists.
Xuanzang rode in on his white horse. He waved to the crowd, amid deafening cheers, and then looked pointedly at the officials who had made the lavish arrangements. He knew they were only there because the emperor had ordered them to attend, and deep down they were lukewarm about Buddhism. The emperor’s advisor in these matters, the Confucian scholar Fu Yi, was positively anti-Buddhist. He had made his views crystal clear in his famous memorandum when Taizong came to the throne eighteen years ago: ‘The doctrine of the Buddha is full of extravagances and absurdities. The fidelity of subjects to their prince and filial piety are duties that Buddhism does not recognize. Its disciples pass their life in idleness, making no effort whatever … By their vain dreams they induce simple souls to pursue an illusory felicity, and inspire them with scorn for our laws and for the wise teaching of the ancients.’ Fu Yi proposed that the state should force monks and nuns to marry; they would contribute to the general good by bearing children and providing manpower for the army.
Taizong did not go that far, but he had another reason for not endorsing Buddhism. ‘The Emperor Liang Wuti,’ he remarked one day, ‘preached Buddhism so successfully to his officers that they were unable to mount their horses to defend him against the rebels. Such facts speak volumes to one who is able to interpret them!’ He also believed that the imperial family was descended from Li Er, the legendary founder of Daoism, because they shared the surname Li. ‘One is bound to honour one’s ancestors and kindred,’ he said, ‘they are the roots of life. That is why I have to give the Daoists precedence.’ A monk who dared to challenge this fanciful pedigree was whipped at court and then exiled; the rest kept a grudging silence.
Nevertheless, his splendid reception gave Xuanzang a slim hope that Taizong could be persuaded to change his attitude, and even to support him in translating and propagating the sutras. When he was taken to the imperial monastery after the parade and invited to stay, he was in no mood to linger. He had a brief rest, barely enough time, as the Chinese say, to wash off the dust and grime of his journey, and set off again to see the emperor in Luoyang, seven hundred miles away.
Taizong was delighted when Xuanzang was ushered into the throne room. He had not expected the monk to come so soon. For Xuanzang it was something of a surprise to be granted an audience so quickly. He had been told the emperor was preoccupied with planning a military campaign, so he expected a long wait and a short meeting. When he was brought before Taizong, the man he had disobeyed eighteen years earlier, he was a little nervous, despite having been the guest of honour in so many royal courts.
The emperor put him at ease immediately. ‘Why did you leave without letting me know?’ he greeted him, as if asking an old friend.
‘I know that I was guilty of great presumption, and am ashamed and frightened,’ Xuanzang replied.
‘I am very glad that you went; you certainly did nothing to be ashamed of,’ Taizong told him. ‘But when I think of the huge distance you covered, all the mountains and rivers that lay between, and the differences of customs and ideas, what surprises me is that you managed to get there.’
‘I have heard that it is not far to reach the Heavenly Lake for those who can ride on a speedy wind, and it is not difficult to cross a stormy river, if one sails in a dragon-boat. Since Your Majesty ascended the throne, your virtue and benevolence have prevailed in all areas, with the wind of morality blowing to the hot countries in the south and your political influence reaching as far as beyond the Pamirs. That is why when the princes and chiefs of the barbarian tribes perceive a bird arriving from the east, borne on the wings of the clouds, they imagine that it has come from your empire, and greet it with respect. Xuanzang, whom the Celestial Power protected, could likewise come and go without difficulty.’
Xuanzang of course knew he had never had any support from the emperor until now. These were flowery words, or skilful means as the Buddhists would say, but this was how it had to be done. His eighteen-year journey and everything he had undertaken would not bear fruit unless he could persuade the emperor to support him. He wanted others to see the light as he had done. On his own he could not do even a fraction of the work. He needed a large team to translate, to check, to polish – and to transcribe: printing was still two hundred years in the future. His great predecessor Kumarajiva had hundreds of monks assisting him – prior to Xuanzang he had translated more sutras than anyone else, under the patronage of an enthusiastic ruler, Yaoxing. Xuanzang just had to find a way to convince Taizong to help him.
Accustomed to flattery as he was, Taizong was still susceptible. His ego was caressed by Xuanzang’s praise. He looked at the monk again, only one year younger than himself, softly spoken, quiet of demeanour, but breathing dignity, strength and purposefulness. He spoke of his calamities and finest hours in equally dispassionate tones, as if they had happened to someone else. But beneath the calm he could see there was an iron determination – this was a man who had risked death by defying his wishes, who had braved incredible dangers in unknown lands, who had completed a gigantic task that took eighteen years to fulfil and who had spread the influence of the Tang dynasty where his armies could not reach – and all of these on his own. This was no ordinary monk; this was a man of wisdom and accomplishment. Taizong began to feel a genuine admiration for him.
Just then officials came in to remind the emperor of his next appointment. But Taizong was engrossed in the conversation and wanted to find out more about Xuanzang’s travels. He waved his hand impatiently and sent them away. The meeting, scheduled for only a few minutes, went on for a whole day.
What was the weather like? W
ere the roads to the West difficult? What did the barbarians eat and what languages did they speak? What did their countries produce? How different were they from the Chinese? Were the peoples happy and were the rulers benevolent? Taizong interrogated him about the smallest details of the countries he had passed through.
The emperor had his reasons, which soon became clear to Xuanzang. He was no longer the young prince struggling to establish his authority after usurping the throne. The country was firmly in his grip; the old frontier town of Dunhuang had been replaced by a new one, Turfan. King Qu Wentai, who had given Xuanzang so much help, died of shock when the Chinese army took his oasis kingdom. Now the emperor’s ambition was to build the greatest empire China had ever seen, extending his influence over the vast territory of the Eurasian steppes. Nobody knew the Western Region as well as this monk; once in his service Xuanzang would be the perfect man to help him achieve his grand design. He asked Xuanzang then and there to join his government.
Xuanzang knew that Taizong loved to use talented people, no matter what their origins were. Since he had returned, he had heard nothing but praise for the emperor and stories of his enlightened rule through a group of capable, dedicated and diligent ministers. He had met most of them in Chang’an and Luoyang, and the one who impressed him most was Wei Zheng, Taizong’s chief advisor, who exemplified, more than anyone else, Taizong’s penchant for spotting talent. Originally the head of staff to the crown prince, Wei saw his indecisive master beheaded by Taizong. When he was questioned by the new emperor, he had only this to say: ‘If the heir apparent had listened to my advice long ago to get rid of you, he would have been spared his fate.’ Everyone was shocked by his impudence and thought he would lose his head too. To their amazement, Taizong asked Wei if he would consider working for him, advising him about the rights and wrongs of his policies. Such humility was rare for an emperor, as the Chinese say, ‘as difficult to find as the feather of the phoenix or the horn of the unicorn’.
It dawned on Xuanzang why he had been given such a warm welcome, and he was conscious that Taizong did not ask him a single question on Buddhism throughout their conversation. The emperor’s real interest was in the Western Region. But Xuanzang had no intention to serve in the court – he had renounced it all; he was trying to transcend such things. How could he come back to them, even for the sake of fulfilling his mission? He declined, but with his usual eloquence.
Having chosen the monastic life from infancy, and having embraced with ardour the Law of Buddha, Xuanzang has never learned the doctrine of Confucius which is the heart of the administration. If he were to relinquish the principles of the Buddha in order to follow the world, he would be like a vessel in full sail, leaving the sea to travel on solid ground; it could not possibly succeed, it would be shattered and destroyed.
Taizong was dismayed by Xuanzang’s refusal. Just when he was about to lose his temper, his brother-in-law intervened on Xuanzang’s behalf. If he could write down what he had seen and heard on his journey, the emperor would have the wealth of his information at his disposal. Xuanzang was relieved when Taizong reluctantly agreed.
So they made their agreement. Xuanzang would write the record of his journey, and Taizong would support his translation work. Xuanzang returned to Chang’an this time with his greatest concern removed from his mind. He could take in the tremendous changes in the capital since he had left it, the great achievements in Taizong’s era.
His first impression must have been of the cosmopolitan character of the capital and the number of foreigners living there – well over a quarter of a million. ‘From ancient times, we have always loved ourselves too much and despised foreigners,’ Taizong declared to his officials. ‘But I love the two equally.’ He welcomed them with open arms, and an open door. Some suspected that he had barbarian blood in him. The truth may be simpler. There is a Chinese saying, the ocean is vast because it has taken in all the rivers; Taizong was confident that foreign influence would only make Chinese culture more splendid.
The richness and diversity of this time is hard to discern today. The carefully laid-out city of old is gone, replaced by many higgledy-piggledy lanes, all enclosed by the city wall. They are quite atmospheric, though: the traditional houses have been turned into souvenir and antique shops, restaurants and teahouses, resembling a film set – all the more so because of the shopkeepers themselves, mostly old men, dressed in traditional Chinese jackets or Mao suits, who sit on stools, peering through their black-rimmed glasses at newspapers that seem to take them the whole day to read.
Fortunately, Xian has the largest number of historians of the Tang dynasty, and I found a professor from my old university who was teaching here. He brought with him Li, a young woman in the last year of her master’s degree, writing on the food and social life of the Tang. We met in a restaurant that specialized in reproducing Tang cuisine. For three hours, from the foreign origins of the food on our table to their influence on Chinese tastes, from the elaborate ways of their preparation to their medicinal value, I was given a tour of Tang culinary culture with seemingly endless courses, some of whose authenticity I doubted – turtle soup in the Tang dynasty? I did not touch it. I could not help thinking of the Buddhist custom of putting baby turtles into temple ponds as a symbol of respect for life. But I was yearning for more information about the era in which Xuanzang lived. ‘This is an appetizer,’ the professor said to me. ‘The real feast is in the museum.’
Li and I went next day to the history museum near the Big Wild Goose Pagoda. It is one of the biggest in China, with an unrivalled collection of treasures from the Qin, Han and Tang, the three main Chinese dynasties, all of which had their capitals in and around Xian in the first millennium. I saw terracotta soldiers, gilded dragons, an elaborate silver dinner service from Persia, a Roman glass vase, jade belts from Khotan, figurines of a whole chamber orchestra from Central Asia and glazed ceramic camels with their riders, perhaps fifteen of them in a string, like the old caravans. They were all from the tombs of the rich and powerful: colourful reminders of the exotic life they were so fond of and wanted to take with them into the afterlife. I said to Li that I could just begin to imagine the cosmopolitan lifestyle of the Tang.
‘Wait till you see what Xuanzang saw with his own eyes,’ Li enthused. ‘This will really make your trip worthwhile. You’re very lucky. The professor doesn’t arrange it for most people.’ We went down into the vault built to house the great Tang dynasty murals. I was hit by the chill, as if it were really a tomb. The vault was kept below freezing – but within seconds I forgot how cold it was. At the touch of a button, the first mural slid out on a rail, framed in aluminium and covered by a crimson velvet curtain.
The curtain was drawn back and my jaw fell. There was a group of men, galloping on horseback, playing polo in a field. The horses ran so fast their manes streamed out in the wind. The men raised their sticks high, their eyes fixed on the polo ball. The painting was over three metres long and part of a triptych. Its sheer size as well as the motion it depicted exuded a powerful sense of urgency and movement.
‘You must be familiar with the sport. I’ve heard it is very popular in England,’ Li said.
‘The Queen’s son and grandsons love it.’ That’s all I knew about it.
‘This mural is from the tomb of Prince Zhanghuai, one of Taizong’s grandsons.’
The polo players slid back into darkness, replaced by another panel. This one showed the imperial honour guard mounted on horseback, carrying red and black banners; others walked on foot, each one bearing a sword and a long feather. The mural is huge, the colours so alive, each face so clearly painted, the figures so present – you feel you are right there, witnessing what the emperor wanted you to see: the full panoply of the Son of Heaven. The curator pressed another button. Another mural slid out, ‘Receiving Foreign Guests’. The honour guard could have been for them; now Chinese protocol officers were working out how to arrange their stay. I noticed that the guests – one Japanes
e, one from the Byzantine empire, one with a fur hat and fur trousers from the north – looked somehow nervous, as if they were uncertain of the outcome of their visit to the powerful court.
‘China was like America is today; Chang’an was like New York. Everyone wanted to be here,’ Li explained. ‘They came from every country in Asia, as far as Syria – envoys to make alliances, merchants seeking their fortune, missionaries hoping for conversions and adventurers looking for fame.’ The Japanese were the most determined, sending shipload after shipload of students to learn every aspect of Tang culture; some of them even studied with Xuanzang. They had to wait up to six months to see the emperor, who would receive them with the most pompous formality, just as the mural showed, with the guard of honour displaying the grandeur and power of the Middle Kingdom in all its finery. The nervous envoys would bow humbly to him, and present their tributes, symbols of their submission: rice that was supposed to restore youthful vigour and prolong life, a bird that was immune to fire, rhinoceros horn that could keep the cold away, ice that would never melt, blood-sweating horses, lions or women of unmatched beauty. The emperor seldom granted their wishes, but they were always rewarded with honorary titles and gifts – often better than the ones they had brought. They returned home with a taste of Chang’an’s opulence and sophistication, the memory of the fabulous Middle Kingdom and the glory of the Tang culture. Much of what they imbibed here is preserved to this day in Japan and Korea.
