Yijing (A.D. 635-713) was a Chinese Buddhist monk, explorer, and translator. He sailed to India and Indonesia in the late 600’s and brought many Buddhist manuscripts back to China. His name is sometimes spelled I Ching or I-tsing.
Yijing was born Zhang Wenming in Qizhou, in what is now Shandong province, in 635. He began monastic (monk) training at the age of seven. He dreamed of following the example of the Chinese monks Faxian and Xuanzang, who had traveled to India to study Buddhism and collect Buddhist texts. Yijing received support from a wealthy family to travel to the famous monastic university of Nalanda, in what is now the northeastern Indian state of Bihar.
Yijing sailed on a Persian ship from Guangzhou, in southeast China, in 671. In three weeks, the ship crossed the South China Sea and arrived at Srivijaya (now Palembang) on the island of Sumatra. Yijing spent six months in Srivijaya learning the Sanskrit language. Many of the Buddhist texts that he wanted to study were written in Sanskrit. Afterward, he visited a number of nearby kingdoms.
Yijing sailed to the east coast of India in 673, landing near what is now Kolkata. He studied Sanskrit for another year, then set out on foot for Nalanda, to the northwest. On the way, Yijing became ill. According to his account, bandits stole all his possessions, including his clothes. Yijing eventually made it to Nalanda. He spent a total of 11 years studying and traveling in India.
Yijing returned to Srivijaya in 687. He spent a number of years there translating Sanskrit scriptures into Chinese. Yijing returned to China in 695. He had been gone for nearly 25 years and claimed to have visited more than 30 countries. He received a grand welcome from Empress Wu in the city of Luoyang.
Yijing brought back hundreds of Buddhist texts to China. He already had translated many of these into Chinese. Yijing also wrote two books about his travels that contained information about the places he had visited. Yijing continued his work of translating the Buddhist texts he had collected. By the time of his death in 713, he had completed 56 works in 230 volumes. Today he is honored as one of the greatest Chinese explorers and translators.
