ABSTRACT
Yi Jing, whose name was Zhang Wenming before he became a Buddhist monk, came from either what is now Shandong Province or Hebei Province. At the age of fifteen, he wanted to go westwards in search of enlightenment. In 671 CE, at the age of thirty-five, Yi Jing went by sea from Guangzhou to India. There he studied Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism for ten years. Twenty-five years later, having travelled extensively, he returned to Luoyang, bringing with him over four hundred volumes of Sanskrit sutras, vinayas and satraps. Yi Jing translated sixty-one volumes, in two hundred and thirty-nine fascicles. He was also the first to transmit the precepts of Tibetan Buddhism. In addition to his translations, Yi Jing wrote the Biographies of Eminent Tang Dynasty Monks in the Western Regions, in two volumes, and A Record of the Buddhist Religions as Practised in India and the Malay Archipelago, in four volumes.
