Hyecho was the lone Korean pilgrim to visit Buddha's land

Looking over the road to my homeland

Under the bright moonlight

The clouds are turning around, flying.

My country is located to the edge of northern sky.

Who would fly to my town, Silla, and deliver my words?

— Hyecho, memoir of the pilgrimage

to the five kingdoms of India

You bemoan the distance to the western frontier.

I lament the long road east…

Dangerous ravines where bandits

wander.

Even birds in flight fear the soaring cliffs.

I have never cried once in my life.

Today, I shed a torrent of tears.

— Hyecho, memoir of his pilgrimage to India

ONE had, of course, heard of, and read about, all those Chinese pilgrims/monks who came to ancient India in search of enlightenment and Buddhist scriptures — names like Fa-Hian, Hiuen Tsang, I-tsing come effortlessly to mind — but never once had the name of a pilgrim from Korea entered one’s awareness. Interestingly, however, for most of the world also it had not, at least till the early years of the 20th century when Paul Pelliot, the great French archaeologist, chanced upon a torn and frazzled manuscript while — excitedly, and with disbelieving eyes, one might add — rummaging through the great Dunhuang hoard in 1906. It was a diary, a memoir of his travels in India and other lands, by one Hyecho of Silla in Korea. The whole story has the air of a fanciful romance about it, but it is true: all of this did actually happen.

But of the Dunhuang hoard first, even if briefly. Today, the name has a great resonant ring about it — a hugely funded international Dunhuang Project is still at work — but till the year 1900, it was hardly known. An oasis city located at the very edge of the Takla Makan desert in northwestern China, on the fabled Silk Road, the place had many caves, some of them lying sealed for generations. Initially, when Paul Pelliot, and that other great archaeologist — Aurel Stein — were in the area, nothing of great value associated with it was known, but Paul Pelliot found out, close to 1906, that an abbot by the name of Wang Yuanlu held charge of one of the sealed caves and was amenable to the idea of allowing him inside to explore it. Inside he found a corner — a room if one so likes — completely stacked with ancient manuscripts.

There were, according to an estimate, some 50,000 rolls of ancient manuscripts there, written in languages that were unknown to the then Chinese. The abbot, who wanted to renovate the monastery, wanted to raise money for it, and agreed to sell some 6,000 of these to Pelliot, who eventually carried this invaluable treasure to France. There is a wonderful photograph that has survived, showing Pelliot kneeling on the floor of the cave and examining a manuscript under the light of a single burning candle. The discovery naturally created a sensation in the academic world. Today, these manuscripts, according to one available study, are scattered over 29 different museums across the world.

But that is another story, and one needs to get back to Hyecho, the Korean pilgrim, whose sole fragmented manuscript, ‘Memoir of the Pilgrimage to the Five Kingdoms of India’, was among those that Pelliot found. The opening folios of the manuscript having been lost, the whole thing had to be reconstructed in a sense. But it has been worth it, for his was certainly an uncommon career, and his journey has been described as “one of the most extraordinary journeys in history” by an expert. Born in Silla, one of the three kingdoms on the Korean peninsula, Hyecho — his Sanskrit name is believed to have been Prajnavikrama — studied esoteric Buddhism first in China under an Indian monk named Vajrabodhi, who was struck by the brilliance of his pupil whom he spoke of as “one of the six living persons who were well-trained in the five sections of the Buddhist canon”.

There he was encouraged to go to India to “acquaint himself with the language and culture of the land of the Buddha”. He set off in 723 CE. After having negotiated Vietnam, Indonesia and Burma on the way, he landed in India and headed straight for Magadha, and then moved on to Kushinagara and Varanasi, all sites intimately connected with the life and teachings of the Buddha. He journeyed further to Lumbini, now in Nepal, and Kashmir, observing, noting things down at every place, in all circumstances. In general, his account is couched against the background of the decline of Buddhism in India, but nothing was going to stop him from observing life and visiting the surviving monasteries. At one place, he writes of the “three kingdoms lying to the northeast of Kashmir”. “The country is narrow and small, and the mountains and valleys are very rugged,” he notes. “There are monasteries and monks, and the people faithfully venerate the Three Jewels.”

There are zigzags that are hard to follow in his account, but, by and large, one can travel with him to many parts. “From Kashmir I again entered the mountains,” he writes. “After eight days’ journey, I arrived at the country of Kapisha. This country is under the authority of the king of Gandhara… The dress, language, and food of this place are mostly similar to Tokharistan, though there are small differences. Whether man or woman, all wear cotton shirts, trousers, and boots. There is no distinction of dress between men and women. The men cut their beards and hair, but the women keep their hair. The products of this land include camels, mules, sheep, horses, asses, cotton cloth, grapes, barley, wheat, and saffron.” Again: “There are many monasteries and monks. The common people compete in constructing monasteries and supporting the Three Jewels. At present, the curly hair (ushnisha) and the relic bones of the Buddha are to be seen in the monastery. The king, the officials, and the common people daily worship these relics.”

There is far more than this in Hyecho’s account, of course. But one knows that his journey was long. He travelled from India to Afghanistan and Persia, and the Arab lands, and then over the Pamirs, he got back to China. Six years had passed, and loneliness overtook him for he was not part of a caravan, no companion was by his side. “I lament the long road east…” is how he recorded his inner feelings. “I have never cried once in my life/Today, I shed a torrent of tears.”