I saw a netizen asking: Did Master Xuanzang copy all the scriptures he brought back from India alone?
This question can be answered from two dimensions: first, the historical conditions at the time; second, Xuanzang's experience in the Western Regions.
Let’s look at the historical conditions first. Xuanzang lived probably from 599 to 664 AD. Why do we say roughly? This is because the year of Xuanzang’s birth cannot be confirmed. There are many debates in the academic circles about the specific year of Master Xuanzang’s birth, which we will not discuss here for now. The reason why I want to mention the year of Master Xuanzang’s birth and death is because the emergence of the two major carriers of cultural communication, namely printing and papermaking, coincides with the time when Master Xuanzang lived.
printing technology, we now all use movable type printing , this technology appeared in Song Dynasty . Engraving printing appeared in the Tang Monk Dynasty. For example, the world's earliest engraving printing "Diamond Sutra" was produced during the Tang Dynasty (currently preserved in Japan), but this technology appeared in the middle and late Tang Dynasty. From this, we can know that in the era when Master Xuanzang lived, there was no such convenient cultural communication method as printing.
That is to say, Master Xuanzang's scriptures can only be "handwritten" and cannot appear in "printed version".
However, papermaking, one of the four great inventions in ancient China, appeared relatively early. Papermaking appeared as far back as the Western Han Dynasty, but the technology at that time was relatively poor. By the time of the Eastern Han Dynasty, in AD 105, Cai Lun was in Luoyang, the capital of the Eastern Han Dynasty. He summarized the experience of his predecessors and improved the papermaking technology. He used bark, hemp heads, rags, old fishing nets, etc. as raw materials to make paper. It has greatly improved the quality and production efficiency of paper, expanded the source of paper raw materials, reduced the cost of paper, opened up prospects for paper to replace bamboo, and created favorable conditions for the spread of culture. This has played an immeasurable role in the spread and inheritance of Chinese civilization.
However, due to the speed of the spread of ancient civilization, papermaking had been introduced to India in the Tang Dynasty at the latest. For example, when Master Yijing lived in India from 671 to 695 AD, Master Xuanzang died at this time. Later, he saw the emergence of paper in India. But the emergence of paper in India does not mean that paper has become the mainstream of Indian recording civilization. At least when Master Xuanzang was in India, India still used Baye for recording most of the time.
Therefore, judging from the historical conditions in which Master Xuanzang lived, the era he lived in did not have the concept of "book" in our modern sense, and the same is true for scriptures. This determines that the scriptures that Master Xuanzang brought back to China must be manuscripts. There is no doubt about this.
Judging from Master Xuanzang’s experience in the Western Regions, Xuanzang eventually brought a total of 657 scriptures back to China. Perhaps when I talk about 657 scriptures, it is difficult for everyone to have a substantive feeling. For comparison, after Xuanzang returned to China, he spent 19 years organizing a translation studio to translate scriptures day and night, translating a total of 75 scriptures. Of course, copying and translation cannot be equated, but we can imagine how voluminous the 657 scriptures are. Copying them by one person, especially in the Tang Dynasty, was a task that one person could not complete.
For example, when Xuanzang went to India and passed through the Kingdom of Kashimila, he stayed there for two years. Kashimila has a special status in the history of Buddhism. This place is the place where the fourth gathering in the history of Buddhism was held, that is, the gathering of King Kanisaka. With such a Buddhist history, it is natural that Kashimila has a rich collection of sutras, and this was the purpose of Xuanzang's stay. At that time, the king of Kashimila Kingdom also admired Xuanzang very much. He saw that Xuanzang came all the way to seek Dharma and study, but there were no scriptures to read, so the king specially sent Master Xuanzang to have twenty calligraphers to copy for him. Scripture.
It can be seen from this that Xuanzang could not have copied so many Buddhist scriptures alone.There are probably several sources for the scriptures that Xuanzang brought home: First, it cannot be ruled out that a few of them were copied by himself. For example, when he stayed in Kashimila, it cannot be ruled out that Master Xuanzang himself also participated in the scriptures. Second, Xuanzang collected them from various places when he traveled in the Western Regions; third, they were given to him by Nalanda Temple, the destination where Emperor Xuanzang requested to learn; fourth, Xuanzang organized people to copy them. of scripture.
gives another example. When Xuanzang returned to Khotan, he stayed in Khotan for several months. Why did Master Xuanzang stay so long? One of the reasons is that Xuanzang took advantage of his stay in Khotan to send people to Kucha and Shule to copy scriptures. Then why did Xuanzang send people to make up copies? The reason is that Master Xuanzang's boat capsized and fell into the water when passing through the Xindu River on his way back to China. This plot is also the source of the story "Tongtian River" in "Journey to the West". Master Xuanzang lost fifty yuan in this fall. Buddhist scriptures.
From these two dimensions, the scriptures that Master Xuanzang brought back to China must have been handwritten manuscripts, but it is impossible to say that Master Xuanzang copied them back alone. But no matter how Master Xuanzang obtained the scriptures, some of the scriptures that Master Xuanzang brought back to China have become an integral part of our culture.
Stills from CCTV's "The Road to Xuanzang"
