I entered India proper, travelling through the Punjab, crossing the Ganges and passing through the topical rainforests of Southern Nepal to Lumbini, the birthplace of the Buddha. I travelled to Patna and spent two years studying at the university at Nalanda before finally returning home to China in 645.


I have preserved in my eye witness accounts many aspects of ancient India that would have otherwise been lost to history. Keenly observing and accurately recording geographical details, architectural features, cultural practices, local histories and legends which have since proved to be of immeasurable value to modern scholars and archaeologists. These writings have led to several discoveries over the years, for example describing a great stupa, now lost, which had been built by the Buddhist monarch King Kanishka near his capital at Peshawar in the second century.


Among all [King Kanishka's] buildings one of his remarkable structures was his greatest Stupa (a place where the ashes of Buddhist priests, monks, nobles, etc. are enshrined, and a big domical structure erected on it, and it became a place of worship for the Buddhists).

"I would rather die going to the west than live by staying in the east."
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