Ultimate Journey, 2001

Richard Bernstein's Ultimate Journey retraces the path of Hsuan Tsang crossing Asia in search of enlightenment

Updated on:

24 Jul 2014, 6:30 pm

1 min read

n the seventh century a Chinese monk named Hsuan Tsang wanted answers to questions which, the Buddhist texts told him, could only be found in the distant, mythical land now called India. Fourteen centuries later, a bored, restless, middle-aged

New York Times

&nbspbook critic named Richard Bernstein needed to find some answers of his own.

Fascinated by Hsuan Tsang&rsquos story, he retraced the monk&rsquos journey, visited Lumbini and Sarnath, saw the imposing ruins of Nalanda&rsquos great Buddhist university and, in Bodhgaya &mdash where the Buddha found enlightenment and Bernstein struggled with the rigorous metaphysics of the Diamond Sutra &mdash spotted banners reading &ldquoCoca-Cola Welcomes His Holiness The Dalai Lama&rdquo.

The monk took home ideas about the attainment of serenity that would affect China profoundly, and Bernstein a reverence for the Buddhist civilisation of the seventh century&mdashand also notes for a travel book that, for me, ranks with Robert Byron&rsquos 1937 classic Road to Oxiana.

Ultimate Journey, 2001

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