Yuan Chwang or Hiuen Tsiang, the famous Chinese traveler, commands such a high seat of eminence that he is styled as one of the three mirrors that reflect Indian Buddhism in the country of his birth. To us in India too, he is no ordinary mirror, for had it not been for the records which he so diligently maintained of his visit to India during AD 629 to 645, a good part of our past, of our history, that too of one of the golden periods of this land, would have been lost in the limbo of oblivion. To Yuan Chwang goes the gratitude of all Indians as well as Indian historians. The work in which the details of Yuan Chwang’s travels in India and other countries is recorded is called Hsi-yu-shi in the original Chinese. Thomas Watters who was a distinguished Chinese scholar had spent several years in studying and researching into his great work, and here in one volume are presented the results of his study, as edited by T.W.Rhys Davids and S.W.Bushell. The work also carries as an appendix the graphic itinerary in two maps followed by Yuan Chwang, arranged for the readers by Vincent A.Smith. This work which was published in two volumes in 1904-05 by the Royal Asiatic Society, London and was for long out of print is now made available in single, handy volume. We are grateful to the Royal Asiatic Society, London, who have made this possible, by their generous permission for reprinting the work.
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