TL;DR โ Summary
A chance encounter with a book at New Delhi airport in 2006 set me on an unexpected path. Mishi Saran's "Chasing the Monk's Shadow" introduced me to the full story of Xuanzang โ a 7th century monk who traveled more than 10,000 miles across Asia in pursuit of knowledge, bridging cultures with faith, curiosity, and extraordinary perseverance. Over the years, my own travels through Xinjiang, Gansu, and the Buddhist landscapes of India, combined with fifteen years living in China exposed to Buddhist and Taoist thought, deepened my reverence for his journey.
Returning to the U.S. in 2018, I saw a world fracturing under polarization and division โ and found myself returning again and again to a single question: could a 7th-century monk's spirit of inquiry, empathy, and openness offer something our modern world has forgotten? Perhaps the Xuanzang Society is part of that answer โ part intellectual pursuit, part adventure, and a celebration of the curiosity and wonder that can bring people together.
I never thought an impulsive book purchase at New Delhi airport some twenty years ago would give a new direction to my present life. I was waiting to board my flight to Shanghai back in 2006 when Mishi Saran's book titled "Chasing the Monk's Shadow" with its distinctive cover of a Buddhist monk floating in the clouds caught my eye. The title was an apt metaphor to my upcoming journey through the clouds to China. Saran's book blurb describes her experience retracing the 7th century monk Xuanzang's travels from China to Central Asia and India on the Silk Road.
I had to buy it!
While growing up in India, I read about Xuanzang in my middle-school textbooks where his name was spelt Huen Tsiang, using an older Wade-Giles romanization. I only remembered him as a Buddhist traveler who visited India during the 7th century reign of Emperor Harsha. However, once I completed Saran's book, I realized Xuanzang was more than a traveler โ rather an extraordinary individual who traveled more than 10,000 miles through Asia in search of scriptures while bridging cultures.
As it turned out, I had already traveled a portion of his journey in 2005, traversing the Xinjiang and Gansu provinces. Even when equipped with modern devices such as GPS and cellphones, the experience was arduous. How difficult it must have been for a monk traveling 1,400 years ago! My respect for Xuanzang, his mission, and his persistence grew.
During my fifteen years in China, I had the opportunity to stay many times at Tongbai Gong, the ancient ancestral seat of the Southern School of Taoism, nestled in the mountains of Zhejiang Province in eastern China. I came to appreciate Taoism's profound acceptance of nature's way, its teaching that harmony arises not from forcing outcomes, but from flowing with the currents of life and meeting people and the world without judgment. Where Xuanzang pursued truth through scripture, scholarship, and an arduous physical journey across Asia, Taoism taught me that truth could also be found by simply being still, observing nature, and letting go.
Years later, I relocated back to the U.S. in 2018, enriched by my exposure to both Buddhism and Taoism that had quietly shaped how I saw the strength and fragility of human connection. Despite being more connected with instant communications, I noticed society's stark polarization. Social media, a tool intended to connect people and nations, had instead become a driver of societal divisions. Could a 7th-century monk's faith, persistence, and curiosity without judgment offer something our fractured world has forgotten? I wasn't sure at that time, but the question never left me.
While on a personal trip to China in 2026, I brought along my copy of Saran's "Chasing the Monk's Shadow" since I was going to be traveling on the home turf of Xuanzang. Instead of taking the usual bullet train, I decided to take the slow train from Shanghai to Shenzhen to savor the joy of slower travel. While crossing a river, I suddenly felt Xuanzang's spirit is indeed the inspiration our world needs. He had crossed borders, languages, and hostilities to connect people through knowledge. Amidst global belligerence and confusion, perhaps Xuanzang is the perfect guide to help us recover our sense of inquiry, empathy, and humanity.
I realized the value of Xuanzang and what he stood for, and wanted to share that knowledge with others. I found myself in conversations with Silk Road historians, Gandharan manuscript experts, and contemporary historians whose work kept circling back to Xuanzang's extraordinary reach across cultures and centuries. In 2025 I visited Thotlakonda, an ancient Buddhist hilltop monastery overlooking the Bay of Bengal, one of the great centers of early Buddhism in India, and part of the broader landscape Xuanzang traversed during his Indian sojourn. In 2026, I walked through Dharanikota in India, the ruins of ancient Dhanyakataka where Xuanzang himself stayed in 640 CE. Standing on that ground, I felt a deep spiritual resonance: this place lay not far from the town of my own birth. The circle had been waiting to close all along.
Pursuing the knowledge that Xuanzang sought, now in the 21st century, is a journey I have chosen to traverse, and like Xuanzang, to share with those along the way. And there is the pure adventure of continuing to walk the ground he once walked, where history, culture, and the indomitable spirit of Xuanzang's journey still linger in the landscape.
And so the Xuanzang Society was born: part intellectual pursuit, part adventure, and a celebration of the curiosity and wonder that can bring people together.
