Yijing (monk)

Yijing (635–713) was a Tang-dynasty Buddhist monk, traveller and translator. He left Guangzhou by sea in 671, travelled through Srivijaya in Sumatra and reached India, where he spent about a decade studying at Nalanda. In 695, after roughly twenty-four years abroad, he returned with hundreds of Sanskrit works—not first to Chang’an, but to Luoyang, where Empress Wu Zetian received him. He led translation teams in Luoyang and later in Chang’an. From 706 he worked at Jianfu Temple in Chang’an, the complex where the Small Wild Goose Pagoda was built soon afterwards. His writings preserved detailed observations of monastic practice and the maritime routes linking China, Southeast Asia and India.