Xuanzang: West From Chang'an

Xuanzang, born in 602 near Luoyang, became a monk young and studied in Chang'an and Chengdu. The more he read, the more contradictions he found between the Chinese versions of the Buddhist texts, and he decided to go to India, the cradle of Buddhism, to find the originals. The Tang emperor, Taizong, had forbidden travel abroad. In 629, most sources say, Xuanzang defied the ban, left the capital Chang'an and headed west along the Gansu corridor towards the deserts.

Location precision: The point of departure isn't recorded; the pin marks Xi'an, the site of Tang Chang'an.

Beyond the Jade Gate, after a desert crossing in which, his biography says, he nearly died of thirst, he reached the oasis kingdom of Gaochang near Turpan. Its king, Qu Wentai, a Buddhist of Chinese descent, welcomed him with great enthusiasm, and in the traditional story tried to keep him as his court teacher; Xuanzang went on hunger strike until he was allowed to leave, with letters of introduction and supplies. Eleven years later a Tang army destroyed the kingdom. Its mud-brick city walls still stand in the desert.

Visitor guidance: The ruins of Gaochang lie south-east of Turpan, below the Flaming Mountains.

After crossing the Tian Shan, the steppe of the Western Turks and the Hindu Kush, whose valleys he said were "infested with gangs of brigands", he reached Bamiyan on 30 April 630. He found a flourishing Buddhist centre with more than ten monasteries and a thousand monks, and two colossal standing Buddhas, 38 and 55 metres tall, carved into the cliff and "decorated with gold and fine jewels". He also described a reclining Buddha over a thousand feet long that has never been found. The Taliban blew up the two standing statues in March 2001.

Crossing into Gandhara, the old heartland of Buddhist art, Xuanzang came to Taxila, once a great city of learning and trade. He found it in decline after the Huna invasions of the 5th century. Its remains — four successive cities and Buddhist monuments such as the Dharmarajika stupa and the Jaulian monastery — were rediscovered by British archaeologists in the 19th century, partly by following Xuanzang's descriptions, and are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Location precision: The ruins spread over several sites; the pin marks the Dharmarajika stupa.

Visitor guidance: The Taxila Museum, with one of the finest collections of Gandharan sculpture, is the best starting point for the sites.

From Taxila he went north into Kashmir, a land, he wrote, of cold climate and calm air, with over 100 monasteries and more than 5,000 monks, many of them learned in the whole Buddhist canon. He stayed for two years, studying the philosophical treatises with Kashmiri masters before setting off south-east across the plains of northern India, visiting the places associated with the Buddha's life on the way to Magadha.

Location precision: The monasteries he stayed in aren't identified; the pin marks Srinagar in the Kashmir valley.

At last he reached Nalanda, in today's Bihar, the greatest Buddhist university of its age, where several thousand monks studied. He became the student of its abbot, Śīlabhadra, learning logic, grammar, Sanskrit and the Yogācāra philosophy that he would carry back to China, and described the place lovingly: blue lotus pools, red kanaka flowers, shady mango groves. He spent about two years there in all, between long journeys around India. Nalanda was burned around 1200; its excavated ruins are a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Visitor guidance: The ruins, the Archaeological Museum and the Xuanzang Memorial Hall are all in Nalanda, near Rajgir.

His fame reached the emperor Harsha, ruler of northern India, who invited him to his capital Kanyakubja (Kannauj). There Harsha held a great religious festival with a life-sized golden Buddha, attended by kings and thousands of monks. He then went with the emperor to Prayag, where Harsha gave away his riches to the poor at a great assembly held every five years. Laden with gifts, Xuanzang began the long journey home over the mountains, by way of Khotan.

Location precision: The pin marks Kannauj, on the site of Harsha's capital.

Xuanzang reached Chang'an in the first month of 645, sixteen years after he had left, and a great procession greeted him. Emperor Taizong forgave the illegal journey, asked him to write his travel record and offered him office, which he refused. He spent the rest of his life translating, and in 652 oversaw the building of a pagoda at the Daci'en Temple to keep the texts and images he had brought from India. He died in 664. Rebuilt several times, the Giant Wild Goose Pagoda is now Xi'an's landmark.

Visitor guidance: The pagoda stands in the Daci'en Temple in southern Xi'an; a statue of Xuanzang stands in the square to the south.