“Without Xuanzang, we would never know where the Buddha went wandering.” –Deepak Anand
For Episode 9 of the Dakini Conversations podcast (available on Youtube (with English captions and outline), Spotify, Apple, and Amazon Music) I am delighted to welcome Deepak Anand, an Indian explorer, writer, researcher and author of several books on Indian Buddhist heritage sites and Buddhist relics, and founder of a remarkable project ‘Retracing Bodhisattva Xuanzang (RBX)‘. Anand is filming and documenting important Buddhist sites along the Indo-Gangetic plains (in India and Southern Nepal) by personally retracing by foot, some of the route of the Chinese Buddhist pilgrim, 7th CE monk scholar Xuanzang’s epic and unique journey of over 10,000 miles from China to India and back. Anand’s walking pilgrimage throws fresh light on the routes and sacred places (well-known and unknown) of Buddhist events and history and creates awareness about the importance of Xuanzang in preserving the Buddhist pilgrimage legacy.
As Anand explains in the interview, due to the genocide, and almost total decimation of Buddhist heritage and sites in India as a result of the Turk- Afghan Islamist invasion from the 17th century, without Xuanzang’s extremely detailed travelogues, all the sacred Buddhist sites we know of today would just be ‘unmarked buildings and ruins for us’.
Although Anand has been working on this project since 2020, I only recently discovered his activities on his excellent website, Nalanda-Insatiable in Offering, while researching pilgrimage sites of Buddhism myself in relation to my own current and ongoing extensive pilgrimage travels around Asia. Part of the project is also to include local communities in their heritage by raising awareness within them but also using their unique local knowledge about the places themselves that have been passed on for generations.
I was astounded not only by the scale and profundity of the journey itself, but the level of original research in terms of locally sourced information and photos. Anand also lists the historical background and translations of both Xuanzang and Faxian’s texts. It was unlike anything I had seen or read in western academic scholarship, which is largely text-based.
Anand’s walk took six months going through Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and parts of southern Nepal, and ended at Nālandā in Bihar, which was Xuanzang’s final destination in his journey, covering a distance of roughly 2000 kilometres. As you can see from the stunning photos on his website, this pilgrimage was no hyper-expensive luxury spa/hotel trip with privately arranged cars and tour guides. This was Anand walking long distances, sleeping in basic rooms in temples and people’s village homes, wherever he was offered a place to stay in local villages and institutes, crossing many rivers during the monsoon season and along precarious paths and routes. Making his pilgrimage as close experientially to Xuanzang’s (and Buddha’s) footsteps as possible. Although, as he states, roads and bridges often made his journey easier than it would have been in those earlier times.
In this interview (outlined below) we discuss Anand’s background from a humble farmer’s family in the sacred Hindu and Buddhist land of Magadha surrounded by ancient Buddhist relics, the land which Anand explains really hosted the Buddha well, and where the 13th Century, Tibetan monk-scholar, Dharmasvamin (Chag Lotsawa) also visited on his trip to India between 1234 and 1236, whom Anand refers to. This is followed by a brief look at Anand’s interest in Buddhism in India and Xuanzang, inspired by the Xuanzang Memorial project hall and statue with one of the Buddha’s relics, constructed in Nālanda in 2007, and his work on reviving walking pilgrimage in India (Cetiya Cārikā). This ancient tradition is still clearly supported in India, as Anand himself was offered food and lodging by local villagers wherever he went.
We also discuss some of the highlights and challenges of his journey so far. Such as the sudden two-month COVID lockdown after he started his journey while in the sacred site of Sankissa (where Buddha is said to have descended after teaching his mother in the divine realms).
We also discuss his retracing of the ‘arduous’ and amazing journey of Buddha’s step-mother Mahaprajapati and 500 Shakyan women to meet the Buddha in Vaishali, who walked 500 km across land, through jungle, slept in the open air, with tigers and crossing monsoon rivers and rains around them and how difficult it must have been to make that trip on foot. Including an event the Nava Nalanda Mahavihara University held this year to commemorate the place, according to 7th CE monk scholar Xuanzang, where the Parinibbāna of Mahāprajāpatī Gotamī Therī took place. Anand also reminds us that Xuanzang was not only doing a pilgrimage but went to India to bring back the Buddhist texts to China.
Mapping ancient Buddhist sites and pilgrimage routes
Here are just a few of the remarkable maps that Anand researched and plotted, amending and building on the earlier versions produced by European scholars, such as Alexander Cunningham (the maps are freely downloadable from his website too).
Anand’s journey also has been made into a new documentary series called The Sublime Wanderings of the Buddha (Buddha Cārikā), which was released worldwide in February 2023 by Dharma Drum Mountain in Taiwan. The episode featuring Xuanzang is titled “Bodhgaya – The Land of Enlightenment” (菩提伽耶 — 開悟的聖地). It comes in Traditional and Simplified Chinese and English versions, with the latter two being released later this year.
In conclusion, Anand’s work is unique and unparalleled in the Buddhist research world, not only because he is the first person to map and photo-document these great Buddhist sites (including re-creating ancient Nālandā) according to Xuanzang’s instructions, but also because he walked the route himself in person, seeing them first-hand and speaking to local people. An Indian man who grew up in India in the sacred Buddhist kingdom area of Magadha bringing to life the sacred Buddhist heritage, it is sad indeed that his project has come to a halt, and he is unable to find adequate funding or even much public interest and recognition for what he is doing not only within India, but in international academic and research arenas. However, a diamond is a diamond, whether covered under dirt or polished and clean, and unlike the diamonds people pay millions of dollars for to wear, these diamonds are far more valuable and priceless indeed, not only in terms of Indian but global Buddhist heritage.
Music? Shakyamuni Buddha mantra, Teri Mitti (which Anand says was on a loop as he was walking), Tang Dynasty era Buddhist music 唐代音乐 from China: “Sumozhe”《苏莫者, and Walking in My Shoes by Depeche Mode.
Written and compiled by Adele Tomlin, 28th June 2024.
Podcast interview with outline
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:17 Biographical background: growing up in the sacred land of Indian Magadha
06:40 When an interest became a passion: discovering Xuanzang in 2007
09:01 Entire Indian Buddhist heritage lost in 10th-11th centuries and plotting the places and details of Xuanzang’s travelogue and biography
10:52 Checking and amending the work of early European scholars, such as Alexander Cunningham and Xuanzang’s account
11:49 Building on the basic maps of Cunningham and amending errors
13:06 Reviving the ancient ‘eco-friendly’ Buddhist walking pilgrimage (Cetiya Carika) and expanding the ‘Eight Great Places’ of Buddhism
15:18 The experience of walking itself and increase in pilgrimages in India
17:09 The major importance of Xuanzang: “Without Xuanzang, just nameless brick structures for us”
19:16 Mapping Xuanzang’s journey for the first time using GIS technology, 10 000 miles from China to India and back
20:12 Retracing by foot Xuanzang’s journey on the Gangetic plains
21:41 Covid lockdown after 30 days on foot: Two month break in the sacred site Sankisa
23:04 The map and trail of Xuanzang and village on top of the Sankisa shrine
25:39 Continuing on to Shravasti, lockdown in Nepal and Buddha’s first journey after awakening
27:49 Food and lodging offered freely by locals while doing the 2500 km foot journey
29:09 The ‘arduous’ journey of Mahaprajapati and the Shakyan 500 experienced first-hand: crossing rivers, sleeping ‘open sky’ during monsoon
32:27 Revitalizing the 300 km trail the women took and a documentary film
33:32 Challenges of jungle, wild elephants, tigers and snakes
35:23 Plotting the journey with Xuanzang’s detailed description and making a statue for the Mahaprajapati site
37:49 Journeys and sites of Buddha’s other main disciples
39:00 Where Buddha and Mahakashyapa practiced together: Pipphali Guha Cave and recent ritual there by Buddhists
40:46 Making it a ‘living heritage’: Future plans, books and films
41:57 First episode of film, now available in Chinese and more accurate details about Vaisakh Purnima
43:48 On foot and not a luxury hotel/spa in sight: an outstanding effort and project
Scenes on the road
Here is a very small selection of photos from Anand’s website scenes (often unknown) en route to the major Buddhist places he visited according to Xuanzang’s description (which would not have looked or been that different physically perhaps in Xuanzang’s or even Buddha’s time):
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