The Women's Kingdom in the Journey to the West novel is likely to have been inspired be the legend of the Amazons as told by Herodotus. So, this really opens up the possibility of a crossover between Wonder Woman and Sun Wukong.
Sorry to pop the bubble, but most of the Chinese people are atheist. They do not hold any relations with the things of the past and the culture as most of it was destroyed in the cultural revolution.
@@zzzcorny9636 so, anything to back your claim? China has more than 1b people and according to your statement, more than half of them are atheist. Let’s round the number to exact 1b and you still claimed more than 500 MILLIONS people are atheist, I have never seen any study that cover that much people before. Except the government itself which in this case, I don’t believe they will share!
It's always interesting to see how different cultures influenced each other in these pre-modern times. I am not Buddhist myself, but I was fascinated to learn that Heracles became associated with the deity Vajrapani through the Greco-Buddhists in India (just imagine if Sun Wukong battled him!) It's a shame today's international relations so often have to be defined by border conflict and trade wars.
India is a place of knowledge, both spiritual and intellectual. At that time they already have well developed, complex rules of grammar, linguistics and logic. Venerable Master Xuan Tsang uses Sanskrit to wrote those triumphant treaties. He would debate anyone in Sanskrit. A task that is most difficult if not nearly impossible as someone also need to have deep understanding of both schools of Buddhism.
Being from Assam, Huanzang is incredibly important for history of my state. The earliest documented history from my region comes from his writing. Assam's earlier history is still unclear. Most of it is mythical. Also called Hiun Tsang, he had visited Assam as the guest of Bhaskarvarman. It is his writing that gave us a peek into how rich the region was.
A lot of our history remains lost. Many documents were burned through wars and invasions. It's sad honestly. How much we don't know about our own land.
@@hagongda123 india has no record of him at all. India has no interest for history just religion. So we have to learn most of our ancient history from foreign sources. Hieun Tsang is the name we used for Xuanzang based on an older transliteration scheme- wade giles I think
The situation was complicated, Gaochang died of a heart attack while Xuangzang was in India. Then a Tang Dynasty General took advantage of the situation and annexed the Turfan Basin. Xuangzang could not fulfill the promise given the circumstances.
The king of Gaochang, Qu Wentai, died in 640 when Xuanzang was still in India. He had a heart attack on hearing of general Hou Junji of the Tang Dynasty leading a conquest army towards the Turfan basin where his kingdom was. It's debatable whether Hou was ordered to annex Gaochang but with its king dead that's what he did. Anyway, Xuanzhang didn't "ghost" the poor guy. If anything, literally the exact opposite happened.
Xuanzang didn't ghost the king! Pls dont smear the good name of this great monk! If i'm not mistaken, the king died and his country was annexed by the time xuanzang returned to fulfill his promise
I came across this channel a few days ago and found I have learned so much. Absolutely love it. One can certainly appreciate so much more the places where they visit (after the Covid crisis is over) after they know the history and culture better. I see this channel as giving us the basic information so that we can go do more research on the topics. Well done!
My wife and I enjoyed these videos. She grew up on the old Chinese epic series (dubbed in Viet) and loves anything related to the Monkey King. We also joke about how your animated host pretty much looks just like our younger son. Keep up the great work.
Crazy how close China and India are, yet what an epic journey it took for people before planes, widespread commercial seafaring, or jungle roads through Southeast Asia. The two countries are neighbors, yet separated by a humongous mountain range to the southwest, an impenetrable jungle to the south, and thousands of miles of northern deserts, mountains, and steppe country along the Silk Road.
Really excellent video about the second half of Xuanzang's journey, full of interesting and little known facts! I am especially fascinated by the fact that some archaeologists used Xuanzang's writings to locate lost artefacts in India. Would you be able to share which source that info came from? Or which sites were excavated using Xuanzang's writings? I would like to research a little deeper on the topic.
Sure. Link below. It's mentioned that the Kanishka stupa was discovered by D.B. Spooner with the help of Xuanzang's accounts. www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/02666030.2012.725582?src=recsys&journalCode=rsas20
You really have an awesome channel. Really breaks down the complicated parts into very understandable points. Since it appears to be primarily about Asian...Chinese history, I'm curious how you would narrate/illustrate these complex stories: 1. Spring and Autumn period - from the Quanrong invasion to the Partition of Jin. 2. Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period 3. More stories from the Northern and Southern Dynasties...I know you touched on some but it's really fascinating era. 4. Rise of the Manchus - how Qing Dynasty started 5. More historical Vietnamese stories - also quite complex than people give credit for. 6. More stories from Maritime Southeast Asia like in Philippines/Malaysia/Indonesia, etc.
13:17 “…the king of Gochang? Apparently Xuanzang ghosted him and never went back to spend that three years he promised.” The TRAVELS OF XUANZANG (629-645 CE) site says this: “Unfortunately however, at Hwo, Xuanzang learnt about the death of the king of Kao-chang and gave up on going there.” Also, Xuanzang was unsure of how he would be received back in China, since he had broken the emperor’s decree in leaving. In Khotan, at the western edge of the Chinese empire, he “sent a messenger to King Taizong to explain on his behalf why he had secretly left the empire and ask for forgiveness for defying the law.” Eight months later, Xuanzang received a reply. Not only had the king forgiven him but he invited him to Chang’an, the capital city, with all the relics and manuscripts he brought from India. Xuanzang received a hero’s welcome on returning to Chang’an, with crowds of Buddhist monks and nuns turning out to greet him, and, of course, an audience with the king.
Thank you! I was rather surprised why Xuanzang didn’t return to that kingdom. Not only did the king financed the entire travel which made it possible in the first place, the two also made a promise, as a Buddhist, it would really weird for Xuanzang not to honor his promise to his patron. Thank you for putting my mind at ease!
hi, have you guys done any videos on the kingdom of champa yet? i'm cham myself, but raised in the us and i dont see much about my culture, and i'd be interested in learning more if possible :,)
Great video. The novel Journey To The West is not only about Xuan Zhang seeking Buddhist scriptures in India. The author intent was more of a satire about the corrupt society and evil behavior of those in power at that time.
I just found ur channel today, its marvelous for me to study chinese history. Im chinese indonesian,but i know little my ancestral chinese history. Before ur channel, i am a nerd for german history (u know facist, heil thing history, i even join german reenactors for that) But now i want open my mind for new history. Maybe start from my ancestral history, chinese history.
The most hilarious part is than Xuanzang may be the reason Wukong is a thing. Xuanzang was one of many monks who went to India and wrote about the local deities at times. I wouldnt be surprised if he talked about the Hindu Monkey God Hanuman. In essence, he came back to China, where the mention of Hanuman probably was the reason why Sun Wukong was associated with Xuanzang. Wukong probably had influence from Hanuman and other Indian Monkeys via Buddhist texts, and from other Chinese Monkeys from folklore from around the place. The character probably culminated in Fujian province, where there were many monkey legends from the Tang Dynasty, and also the fact that there were Indian traders in Quanzhuo,. Also, there were some Shaolin training schools or some mini monasteries in Fujian, which influenced the martial and staff-fighting aspects. There was probably either a mention of Hanuman, a monkey from Buddhist literature, or some other reference that got Sun Wukong added.
@@thetruthseeker5448 Hahaha Yes Chinese did long long before it became fashionable, Yup the Chinese Silk Road. Reminds me of very old Japanese NHK TV series, Silk Road, it was academic!
Yeah there's a Korean monk Hyecho, almost a century after monk Xuanzang, who traveled to India in 723 starting from Silla to Tang and eventually to eastern India by ocean route and travelling throughout most of India (starting from the east to south, central, north, and finally west India), going as far west as the eastern territories of the Umayyad Caliphate. He then turned back east from there and went on land through central Asia, going through the Turks and Tibet before finally reaching the western lands of Tang (Dunhuang), where he rested before finishing the last leg of his journey to the capital of Tang, Chang'an. He settled down and lived in the vicinity of Chang'an in Tang, never to return to Silla.
After reading a lot about Monkey King abilities since Black Myth was introduced, I have notice that a lot of Marvel heroes have similar abilities as Monkey King, from flying on a cloud with a red cape to shape-shifting. The thing is that when monkey king use his fiery eyes, he get slightly burn. It look more realistic, but when Cyclop from X-men use his fire beams, it could cut through building and vehicle without burning out his eye balls. Now I know that sounds so bs and unrealistic lol. Speaking of mutants. It's basically other word for demons. Wukong and his companions was demonic that helped human to fight other demons. Then we have the Wukong ride, the flying cicada, a cloud that pretty much function as his personal jet vs Green Goblin in Spiderman, Silver Surfer from the Fantastic Four and the hovering board from Back to the future. Marvel Comics/Founded 1939, New York, NY Journey to the West. Earliest known edition of the book from the 16th century Author Wu Cheng'en Publication date c. 1592 (print) Here are some Wukong cool abilities that I didn't know much about until now. Abilities 72 Bian/"72 Transformations": Allows him to shapeshift into almost any form-however, he is never able to transform his tail. He can also transform each of the 84,000 hairs on his body into another form, animate or inanimate, and often bites the hairs into pieces to create even more copies. Bi Huo Jue/"Fire Avoidance Charm": Allows him to survive fire. Bi Shui Jue/"Water Avoidance Charm": Allows him to survive deep water; however, he is unable to fight while using this ability. Body Freezing Spell: Allows him to immobilize enemies. Huǒyǎn-jīnjīng(火眼金睛)/"fiery-eyes golden-gaze": Allows him to identify evil no matter what form it takes; however, it also causes smoke to sting his eyes. Wùkōng acquired this ability after Lao Tzu traps Wùkōng in his cauldron for 49 days, attempting to distill him as punishment. Jie Suo Fa/"Lock-Breaking Spell": Allows him to point a finger or his staff and open any lock. Jīndǒuyún/"cloud-somersault" or “cloud trapeze”: Allows him to cover 108,000 li (54,000 km, 33,554 mi) in a single leap. Protective Circle: Allows him to erect an impassible barrier by drawing a circle on the ground with his staff. Shen Wai Shen Fa/"Body Outside of Body": Specifically refers to his ability to transform his hairs into fighting clones of himself. Summoning: Allows him to summon local deities. Wind: Allows him to summon strong winds and storms. Wukong Abilities mythology.wikia.org/wiki/Sūn_Wùkōng More about Wukong mythopedia.com/chinese-mythology/gods/sun-wukong/ Journey to the West en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_to_the_West The writer for Wukong was way ahead of it time. Now I remember Wukong is a stone monkey and he can transformed into one, just the The thing from fantastic four. He can also turn into a giant ape. You can compare that to Ant man, the hulk and Caesar from Planet of the apes for being the first talking monkey. Wolverine has facial feature as Wukong and both able to sniff out their enemy scents. Wukong can control winds and storms, just like Storm from X-men.
As Thais, I have to say that because of him we knew exactly where our city-state Tolopoti /Dvaravati (ทวารวดี) is. It's located in btw old Myanmar and Khmer Kingdoms or current central Thailand - Chaophraya Basin.
The Japanese Noh play "prince of Lanling" could be regarded as a reference of Ancient Chinese music at most. Because Noh play had already been Japanized after 1000 years. Nowadays, the researching of Ancient Tang music mostly rely on Xi'an Drum Music.
I'm curious why most of India does not believe in Buddhism nowadays, while Buddhism is quite popular in East Asian cultural spheres like china and japan.
This is one quality video ! Keep up the good work, i'm rooting for more Eastern history, rise and fall of the Song, Jurchen Jin and the famed Iron pagoda cavalry, Great Mongol empire through your narative .
There should be an anime of this where Tang Sanzang is the anime protagonist and he has a harem of demons chasing after him. Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy are there protecting their master from that harem throughout the journey.
From my room in Bangkok I can see a tall pagoda which is a temple to Guanyin. It's a beautiful place filled with statues, but off the tourist-trekked path. A new monorail line that opened this year which runs near to it, so perhaps that will change.
Xuanzhang's travels took 17 years. He stopped at various learning centers to learn the language and the sutras. But since Pali was the most important Buddhist language at the time, he might have had travelled to India with some knowledge of Pali.
@@CoolHistoryBros He traveled with a large entourage that stayed with him from Gaochang onwards, which most likely had a few translators. Gaochang was a Han-dominated kingdom that used Chinese as its administrative language. Its last king and Xuanzang's patron was Qu Wentai, a Han nobleman. Xuanzang probably didn't have any need to speak anything but Chinese until he got to Nalanda.
Cool story, bro! 😁 Excellent writing, narration, and production values. It’s great hearing Asian history related to us by someone with your cultural experience and scholarship. For example, as a westerner who hasn’t studied Chinese language, trying to pronounce pinyin is a major fail (while romaji rolls off the western tongue much more naturally), and it’s nice to hear Chinese names and other words properly pronounced in your videos. Sub’d!
Can you make more videos on Chinese accounts of ancient and pre modern India ? For example, it would be interesting to know what Song China thought of the Chola-Srivijaya wars, Ming Chinese accounts of the Vijayanagara Empire and Hussain Shahi dynasty, the Yuan and Delhi Sultanate exchanges as well as the Qing accounts of the Mughal Empire.
This is wonderful information bro! I like it! It seems the historical Xuanzang was more interesting than the fictional Sanzang. They should made a movie about his adventures.
That happens. US historians refer to Alex de Tocqueville’s _Democracy in America_ for insights regarding the US in the early 19th century. 當局者迷，旁觀者清 (A spectator sees more than a player in the heat of a game.)
Because historically subcontinental people did not keep records of their own unlike the Chinese. The only nation in the region who kept records similar to China is Sri Lanka; Mahawamsa, Chulawamsa, Deepawama and they all related to geo politics, nothing but. Chinese also kept excellent records on natural phenomena too which runs for millennia. When I was studying Buddhism as a major at college I too had to refer to Chinese documents even though Buddhism originated in the Subcontinent. Most of the Japanese Buddhist scholars [one in particular which I cant remember his name] always values and praise the clarity of Chinese historical documents, including travel. Still Sri Lanka seek help from records of ancient traveling Buddhist monks to clarify the validity of their own, and one example been Fa Heian/Fashian/Faxian, a well known traveling Buddhist monk of ancient times. They all were written down by a known Chinese author, not third party
Indian Empires never saw it necessary to record historical accounts for some reason. The history that was recorded was either destroyed or withered away since paper wasn't mass produced in India until the 1400s. Indian historians have to rely on rock inscriptions as well as foreign accounts which were normally biased or distorted. However, India has very good records of its history from the 1000s onwards.
there is some problems in 7:23, 1-Babylon did not exist in that time really at least officially 2-Babylon is in southern to middle Iraq where you did show is Azerbaijan and Armenia and in that time middle Caucasia was indeed the kingdom of Armenia 3-Babylon is in west but he said Folin is in northwest I believe, so he means somewhere in Caucasia and it is really acceptable too because of what you said about Themyscira which was in west of Armenia
@ZebraZ Western interest in Hinduism and later Buddhism spiked in the mid-19th century. Curiosity, orientalism, a myriad of factors contributed to it. Whist it's a good thing in itself which enabled scholars to look back at these religions with the latest academic tools, people did it in the contemporary fashion - i.e. in an imperialist and colonialist way. Numerous "expeditions" were contracted by academic institutions to retrieve "materials" for study, with little regard to what happened to people on the ground at the destinations. That's why you get a load of artifacts in American and European museums today.
Indian here. The names Hindu India Sindh all comes from the name Sindhu. Sindhu is the Indian name of the river Indus. India was first used by the Greeks of Alexander, meaning country of the Indus. Hindu was the name given to the religion practiced by the people of Indus. People of India called the country Bharat and the religion Sanatan Dharma as mentioned by you. A video on the spread of Buddhism & martial arts from India to China would be great. Thanks.
King of Gaochang had already died 3 years before Xuanzang coming back to Changan. On learning this sad news, Xuanzang decided to go by a roundabout route to avoid Gaochang on his way back to Changan.
I m a malaysian chinese, my religion is buddhist.I think u hv over- rated India regarding buddhism. U hv totally disregard chinese contribution to buddhism. In my view, buddhim can be divided into tibetian and zen buddhism(chinese buddishim).In my mother tongue(hokkien) is called zen , think in mandarin
In fact , i can say that zen buddhism is part of taoism bcos zen is deeply influenced by taoism. The main core aspect of zen & toaism is one hv to recognise & live in the present moment.Unlike the tibetan , who beleive to be buddhist one hv to be a monk. The journey to the west is a zen buddhist religious classic which show that lord buddha tai seng can also be a buddha even though he is not a monk. Actually the ancient chinese has nothing to learn from india buddhism bcos the concept is already known to the taoism , thousands of years before .As a chinese buddhist I totally disagreed with buddhism that is practised by the tibetan.Can u imagine a temple hv thousand monks Can u imagine a country where the whole population is monk.Now u understand the problem with tibetan buddhism
@@tehbeng3614 there's also another version of Buddhism in the thailand/myanmar regions, monks are allowed to consume meat there too...but one think will never change, Buddhism originated from india...the buddha attained nirvana under the bhodi tree there.
@@lyhthegreat In the taoist temple, we also hv lord buddha gautama, & we chinese buddhist prayed to him as a god.In fact the tibetan buddhism (including Thailand & burma ) do not beleive in god.So can u see the difference between chinese buddhism & tibetan buddhism. In malaysia, the 3 most popular buddha r lord buddha kuan yin, lord buddha tai seng & lord buddha ji kong. ( including lord buddha gautama ). All these buddha are treated as god. For your infor, lord buddha gautama is not the first person to attain nirvana. In taoism, there r also toaist attain what we call immortal through toaist meditation.In the taoist concept of internal energy is more complicated than the indian yoga.The india yoga is more simple bcos if u look at indian traditional medicine is very under developed compared with taoist trditional medicine which focus solely on energy.
You have merit [truth values] in your comment. Yes I have to agree. Even though the Chines Buddhsim and Chan/Zen they all slightly differ from the 'Indian' version and can stand alone as ''Chinese Buddhism'' and also no questions amongst the Buddhist community too.
Interesting. After I heard you talked about Xuan Zhang was a consultant for Emperor Taizong for something. I wonder what's that? Is it something I heard from Ms.Zhao's channel? She was talking about Emperor Taizong experienced traveling into the underworld that could have been the reason why he encouraged Xuan Zhang to traveled to Nalanda university in ancient India. How did emperor Taizong travel to the underworld then came back to the empire? It'd also be very interesting but not surprising. I bet. Lots of people in that period of time could do such a thing and Emperor Taizong. He was the one with the great knowledge other than his ability to dealed with empire administration and warfare. He had that one great knowledge. I guess. As same as you mentioned about Silabadra at Nalanda university. How can he know beforehand there would be Chinese Buddhist monk came to study Buddhist manuscript then take some of them back to ancient china? I'd say. Silabadra couldn't wait for someone if he hadn't known beforehand. Could he? Big fan of your work here.
@@CoolHistoryBros Oh I see. Ms.Zhao mentioned. Emperor Taizong was in "journey to the west". I assumed that's the real journey of Xuan Zang but she refered to the novel. Thanks CJ. ❤️ ❤️ ❤️
@@CoolHistoryBros It is still amazing that he commanded those languages within a few years. In ancient times, there was no access to language textbooks and I can imagine even the people who shared the same language may have drastically different accents. It was just unbelievable. He's a true legend.
You forgot Tibet as a major Mahayana nation, who remains a bastion of Mahayana in modern times, while Buddhism was mingled with Shinto in Japan and was banned for a generation in China, remaining in decline there. In Korea, Christianity has begun to overshadow Mahayana.
@@orkkojit you dont read history. Shoshanko killed harshas elder brother rajjabardhan. Shoshanko king of gour of bengal were on the road of establishing another great empire for bengalies. Bengal was the land of plenty for ages.
Most Famous Chinese in "Indian History", 99.99% of indians dont even know him, and the ones who do only know him very recently like 2-3 years ago because of their exposure to internet
6:21 this type of sacrifices were condemned throughout our traditions, and now it is completely shunned and banned. In past, these were condemned to the extent that it was called ways of the evil. Here also, it were the bandits who wanted to commit it.
