Introducing Yijing: A Tang Dynasty Scripture Translator

Yijing (635–713) was a Tang dynasty monk, scripture translator, and traveler. His lay surname was Zhang, and he was from Qizhou—present-day Licheng in Shandong—though some accounts place his origins in Fanyang, in the southwest of modern Beijing. In 671, the second year of the Xianheng era under Emperor Gaozong, he set out for India by sea to seek the Dharma. The journey lasted more than twenty years and took him through some thirty countries. He returned with roughly four hundred Sanskrit texts spanning sūtra, vinaya, and śāstra. From then on, he devoted himself to translation work.

Yijing's translations include the Golden Light Sūtra of the Supreme King, the Great Peacock Dhāraṇī Sūtra, the Sūtra on Royal Dharma Spoken by the Buddha for Prince Śrīgarbha, the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, and the Treatise on the Lotus Sūtra—in all, fifty-six works of sūtra, vinaya, and treatise, totaling two hundred and twenty-nine fascicles.

Yijing also produced a new translation of the eighty-fascicle Avataṃsaka Sūtra. Although it was credited to Śikṣānanda, the translation was in fact completed by Yijing. The elegance of his rendering was such that it immediately supplanted the earlier Eastern Jin translation by Buddhabhadra and became the standard text of the Avataṃsaka. His own writings—the Record of the Inner Dharma Practices Sent Home from the Southern Sea and the Memoirs of Eminent Monks Who Sought the Dharma in the Western Regions during the Great Tang—describe the flourishing of pilgrimages to India in the early Tang, the routes linking China and India, and the religious and social life of the period. They remain essential sources for the history and geography of the era.