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.

One of many fact-checked wonders across eight traditions at The Spring of Wisdom.