Chasing the Monk's Shadow: A Journey in the Footsteps of Xuanzang
Saran, Mishi
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PRODUCT DETAILS
Book ID : 27798
ISBN-10 : 0-670-05823-8 / 0670058238
Place
of Publication :
Delhi
Year
of Publication :
2005
Edition : (First Indian Edition)
Language : English
x, 446p., Bib., Index, 23 cm.
CONTENTS
CONTENTS:- 1. The Road to India; 2. Journey to the West; 3. City of the Flying Horse; 4. The Jade Gates; 5. River of Sand; 6. Fire city; 7. Twin Convents; 8. White Water; 9. Heavenly Mountains; 10. Perpetual Snows; 11. Nine Lepioshkas; 12. Sogdiana; 13. River of Gold; 14. Crossing the River; 15. Locking the Sea in a Box; 16. Unhappy Valleys; 17. Sikander and Porus; 18. Kingdom enclosed by Peaks; 19. Tree Nymphs; 20. Too many Women; 21. Holy Confluence; 22. Schism in the Sangha; 23. Sarkari Intezam; 24. Wrong kind of Love; 25. Labour Pains; 26. Fatal Mushrooms; 27. Deer park; 28. Buddhist Ivy League; 29. Vulture's peak; 30. Peepul Leaf and Perfect Wisdom; 31. Land of the Eastern Light; 32. Reunited; 33. Flower Mountain; 34. Ocean's Edge; 35. Hidden Buddhas; 36. Stone Elephants; 37. Hill of Rishis; 38. Limbp; 39. Pure Land; 40. City of Dressed Stone; 41. Mound of the King; 42. Lotus city; 43. Silk road Graffiti; 44. Listening Post; 45. Inshallah; 46. Sacrifice Country; 47. Sad Secrets; 48. Flea in Your Clothes; 49. Tooti-Phooti Afghanistan; 50. Afterwards.
DESCRIPTION
In the seventh century AD, the Chinese monk Xuanzang (earlier spelt as Hiuen Tsang or Hsuan Tsang) set off on an epic journey to India to study Buddhist philosophy from the Indian masters. Travelling along the silk road, through the desolate wastes of the Gobi desert and the icy passes of Central Asia, braving brigands and blizzards, Xuanzang finally reached India, where his spiritual quest took him to Buddhist holy places and inonasteries throughout the subcontinent. By the time he returned to China eighteen years later, carrying with him nearly 600 scriptures which he translated from Sanskrit into Chinese, Xuanzang had covered an astonishing 10,000 miles. He also left a detailed record of his journey, which remains a valuable source of historical information on the regions he traversed.
Fourteen hundred years later, Mishi Saran follows in Xuanzang's footsteps to the fabled oasis cities of Ching and Central Asia, and the Buddhist sites and now-vanished kingdoms in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan that Xuanzang wrote about. Traveling seamlessly back and forth in time between the seventh century and the twenty-first, Saran uncovers the past with consummate skill even as she brings alive the present through her vivid and engaging descriptions of people and places. Her gripping chronicle includes an extraordinary eyewitness account of Kabul under the Taliban regime, just one month before 9/11. Running parallel to the account of her travels is the moving story of the author's inner journey towards a new understanding of her roots and her identity.
