Chapter 7: Gandhara in The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions

Xuanzang’s Travel Notes

In the 7th century, the Tang monk Xuanzang set out on his legendary pilgrimage to India, braving deserts, mountains, and rivers in search of the roots of Buddhism. His record, The Great Tang Records on the Western Regions, remains one of the most valuable sources for studying Gandhara.

In his text, Xuanzang describes Gandhara as follows:

“The country of Gandhara extends over 3,000 li. Narrow in the east and west, wide in the north and south. The land is fertile, producing grains and fruits. The climate is mild, and the people prosperous.”

For Xuanzang, Gandhara was not a desolate frontier but a flourishing Buddhist land.

 

Through the Eyes of a Traveler

Xuanzang recorded Buddhist monuments he visited:

• “To the southeast of the city is a stupa, where the Buddha once preached.”
• “There is a stupa, several hundred feet high, built where the gods made offerings after the Buddha’s enlightenment.”

Through his eyes, we see Gandhara 1,300 years ago: towering stupas, sacred relics, monks expounding the Dharma.

If you walk today into the Taxila Museum in Pakistan, you will encounter what Xuanzang once saw — narrative reliefs of the Buddha’s life, donor figures, and Maitreya statues. They are the visual footnotes to his written account.

 

Dialogue Between History and Archaeology

• Xuanzang: left textual testimony of Gandhara’s Buddhist landscape.
• Archaeology: uncovered stupa bases and cave paintings in Peshawar and the Swat Valley.
• Museums: allow us to stand face-to-face with the treasures he described.

It is a dialogue across centuries.

 

The Great Tang Records is both a travelogue and an art-historical document. It links textual descriptions with archaeological discoveries, letting us “see” Gandhara through a traveler’s eyes.

 

Thus, Gandhara is not just a historical term — it was a living Buddhist land, vividly observed and faithfully recorded.