One of the first pilgrims to travel to India from China, Hiuen-Tsiang was a monk whose journeys brought him in close contact with India's flourishing Buddhist culture, giving him a deep understanding of the political, social, and economic scenarios of the country. Translated in the mid-nineteenth century by Samuel Beal, this gripping account of a scholar's journeys takes us across seventeen years of travel-through the Gobi desert, to the ancient monasteries...