Tang Sanzang

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 WukongThe registry held the disciple and not the master, which is the reverse of the way the book is organised.Reference treatment of Sun Wukong as one of the three disciples who accompany Xuanzang on the journey west. (secondary)
• guide of: Zhu BajieReference treatment of Zhu Bajie as one of Xuanzang's three disciples. (secondary)
• guide of: Sha WujingReference treatment of Sha Wujing as one of Xuanzang's three disciples. (secondary)

Sources

• Tang Sanzang is the Buddhist monk of the Xiyouji, reincarnation of Golden Cicada, sent to fetch the sutras from Tianzhu, who travels with Sun Wukong, Zhu Bajie, Sha Wujing and a dragon-prince horse.: Reference treatments of Tang Sanzang and of the Journey to the West. (secondary)