The Told and Untold

Believed to be an eye-witnessed report by Xuanzang 玄奘 (c.602–664 CE), the Datang Xiyu ji has long been held up in the western scholarship as a handy guide for the historical geography of South Asia and a standard source for identifying archaeological sites since the pioneer archaeologist Alexander Cunningham (1814–1893). Strangely, over a century of using the Xiyu ji has generated little critical awareness among archaeologists who have too often taken the text for face values. Indeed, an examination of the text will demonstrate that not all the description from the text is firsthand, at least so for around one-fifth of the countries not visited by Xuanzang. Yet it does not mean that Xuanzang is to be blamed. The production of the Xiyu ji was more complex than that of a general travelling record, which associates the text to the genre of official geographical writing. It was brought into being in response to an expanding empire. The edited ‘itinerary’ and the incorporation of secondary sources thus pose outstanding questions for researchers who might assume that they were following the steps of the pilgrim and urge us to reconsider the current conception of and approach to this document.