Yijing
635 CE–713 CE · Guangzhou
635–713 CE
Yijing (635–713 CE) was a Chinese monk-pilgrim who followed the maritime route to India, by way of the Buddhist kingdom of Śrīvijaya in Sumatra. Over some twenty-five years he studied for about eleven years at Nālandā, gathered hundreds of texts, and—pausing in Śrīvijaya to work—returned to China in 695, where he led a major translation effort. His firsthand accounts of monastic practice in India and the southern seas are an important primary source for the period. His career is well documented, though the place of his birth is not securely recorded.
Did you know?
The pilgrim who took the sea route through Sumatra
Unlike the overland pilgrims, the monk Yijing sailed to India by ship, departing around 671 CE and returning around 695 CE. On the way he stopped for extended study in Srivijaya (in what is now Sumatra, Indonesia), then a thriving center of Buddhist learning, and he later advised India-bound monks to prepare there first. He spent roughly a decade at the monastic university of Nalanda and brought back close to 400 Sanskrit texts.
How we know
Yijing sailed for India c. 671 CE, studied ~10 years at Nalanda, stopped in Srivijaya (Sumatra) both ways, and returned to China in 695 CE with ~400 Sanskrit texts (Wikipedia; Encyclopedia.com; Tsadra Foundation Buddha-Nature).
Life journeyclick any stop, or use ←/→Trace on the map →
Guangzhou
What they did here
DOCUMENTED: embarked by sea (c. 671) on the maritime route to India rather than the overland one.
About Guangzhou
Guangzhou (Canton), in Guangdong province on the Pearl River, was the principal southern Chinese seaport and a gateway for Buddhism arriving by the maritime route. The Yogācāra translator Paramārtha worked and died in the city in the sixth century; the future Sixth Chan Patriarch Huineng received his full ordination at the Faxing (now Guangxiao) monastery there; and the pilgrim Yijing passed through on his sea voyages to and from India.
In Guangzhou at the same time
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Yijing’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Yijing’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Islamic world
Jewish world
Graeco-Roman world
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.