Tang Sanzang
Chinese · mortal · tang · mortal
He is also a real person: the monk Xuanzang went to India in the seventh century, came back with the sutras, and wrote an account of the journey that is still a primary source for the history of Central Asia. The novel of nine hundred years later turns him into a helpless, weeping, frequently captured passenger whose three demonic disciples do all the work, which is one of the great transformations in world literature — a scholar's travelogue rewritten as a comic epic in which the scholar is the least capable person present. The record carries both the monk and the character, because the tradition does.
Domains
- pilgrimage
- monasticism
Relations
- guide of: Sun Wukong
- guide of: Zhu Bajie
- guide of: Sha Wujing
Sources
- Reference treatments of Tang Sanzang and of the Journey to the West.