SAM Talks

Saturday University—Asia Crossings: Travel Accounts Through Asia’s History The Politics of Pilgrimage: Xuanzang and His Meetings with Indian Kings, Tansen Sen February 23, 2013 9:30–11 am Stimson Auditorium

Tansen Sen, Associate Professor of Asian History, The City University of New York

During the 7th century, the Chinese Buddhist monk, Xuanzang, made a 16-year pilgrimage to India and back to obtain Buddhist texts for translation. His travel accounts, and a biography of him, are a vivid record of Tang dynasty travel in Central Asia and India, and of relationships with foreign rulers.

Other lectures in this series:
Feb. 16: China and India are One: An Indian Soldier's Travelogue of Beijing in 1890–1901
Feb 23: The Politics of Pilgrimage: Xuanzang and His Meetings with Indian Kings
March 2: How and Why did Mount Emei in China Become a “Buddhist Mountain?”
March 9: Ibn-Sina and the Flow of Medical Information Across Asia
March 16: Ming China Goes Abroad: The Zheng He Voyages of the 15th Century
March 23: Morocco to Mecca, Malaya and More: The Fourteenth Century Travels of Ibn Battuta
March 30: Women on the Road: Pilgrims, Puppeteers, and Prostitutes from 11th to 14th Century Japan
April 6: Pathways to Bliss: Reinventing Buddhist Pilgrimage in Andhra Pradesh
April 13: Gentility on the Move: Travelogues and Fictions of Foreign Travel by Chinese Women, Circa 1900

Members: $5.00
Adults: $10.00

SAM member series: $43
Nonmember series: $86