The New Study On "the Biography Of Monk Xuan Zang Of Da Cien Temple"

Master Xuan Zang is the eminent Buddhism monk in Chinese history, who has made outstanding contribution in Buddhism translation and the cultural exchanges between china and India. The research on Master Xuan Zang has become an important task and hot topic in recent hundred years and a large number of academic achievements have obtained in this area. Great achievements have been clearly recognized while the weakness could not be ignored, particularly the research on his biography is not mature enough."The Biography of Monk Xuan Zang of Da Cien Temple", which is the most detailed and important biography about Master Xuan Zang's life story, is the crucial source material in studying Master Xuan Zang as well as Chinese and Indian Buddhism in Tang Dynasty. Therefore, comparatively more detailed research on "The Biography of Monk Xuan Zang of Da Cien Temple", which has become the immediate concern for the academe, is the core of this article. This research not only covers Xuan Zang's life story and his contribution in the history, but also contributes a great deal to the research on the geography, history, religion, social custom and traffic of central Asia and Middle Ages India.The author illustrates a new investigation and analysis to this research, proposing new point of view under supervisor's instruction. Three innovation points are proposed in this article: first of all, it challenges the mainstream academic points, proposing new point of views which are different from the tradition ones; second, it questions the authenticity and accuracy of this biography, giving serious exploration and research; third, it questions the newest research results and the problems about the character, including the analysis about the academic significance, the author, the concerned character's duty, the textual research of the age as well as the emending of the collation and punctuations.The paper is altogether divided into seven sections:First section is the comparison between "On Xuan Zang's Travels in India" and "The Biography of Monk Xuan Zang of Da Cien Temple" in content and historical status. Through the difference of the two books, the author affirms their unique value in historical research. Through full and accurate analysis and induction, it not only reconstructs the history of central Asia and Indian history, but also shows the social and historical situation of various countries by verifying Xuan Zang's route. Also, it locates Indian historical age and contains detailed research on Xuan Zang's life, which affirms his great contribution to the history. The second section is the textual research about the author of the first five volumes and the latter's five volumes of the biography. Aiming at the wrong viewpoints which are quite commonly accepted in academe, the author proposes different viewpoints, correcting the point that "the first five volume are mainly written by Hui li, while the latter five volumes are not written by Yan Cong", which states the reason of the misunderstanding.The third part is the credibility about Lv Cai. It shows that the debate between Lv Cai and Hui li is not fair enough and it is possible that part of the content is not true. At the front part of this chapter, Lv Cai's status of "Shang yao feng yu" is challenged. After that, the fact is obvious that not all the content of the biography is true.The fourth section is the textual research about the inaccuracy of the officials that are recorded in the biography, especially on Lv Cai, Du Zhenglun, Li Yifu, Zhu Suiliang, Yu Zhining etc.The fifth section is the textual research on the errors of the era that are recorded in the biography. First of all, the contradiction of the era and the reasons are illustrated. After that, the research is on the starting date of Xuan Zang and the last date in his life based on the latest research result. At last, the author summarizes the result of previous studies and proposes different viewpoints on the use of historical data.The sixth section is the discussion about the errors and carelessness existed in the biography that are published by China Publishing House and the author's own viewpoints are proposed in this part.Last section is the conclusion part, including three main points. First, it's an extremely important biography with unique value as "On Xuan Zang's Travels in India". Second, the biography with complex origin and circulation is possibly distorted and has a great deal of errors and misunderstandings on content, office and age etc. Third, although the "biography" which is published by China Publishing House has contributed a lot on many aspects, errors and misunderstandings still can not be ignored.Certainly, due to time constraint, the present paper still has some kind of deficiencies and needs to be repaired and improved.