Making sense of the other: reading and contextualising Xuanzang's representation of India

Deeg, Max ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5703-2976 2025. Making sense of the other: reading and contextualising Xuanzang's representation of India. Gonshorek, Korinna, Pouget, Marco, Schäfer, Luis and Wagner, Bastian Jürgen, eds. Connected Philology: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Transcultural Encounters, de Gruyter, pp. 133-149. (10.1515/9783111432861-006)

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Abstract

This chapter focuses, as a kind of scholarly self-reflection, on the reading of the interpretation of Indian culture and society by the Chinese monk and traveller Xuanzang (600 or 602–664) in his Record of the Western Regions of the Great Tang(Datang-Xiyu-ji). Xuanzang was not only a prolific translator of Indian Buddhist texts into Chinese but also a skilful “translator” of Indian culture for his Chinese audience. The chapter addresses the hermeneutical “double bottom” which philologists and his-torians have to take into account when reading and analysing historical sources which represent cultures that are foreign to both the original author and the modern academic. I argue that a meaningful approach to such texts is only possible when the interpretative agenda of the “Urtext” (or the “author”) when “describing” the “other” is reconstructed through means of a careful philological reading – not only of the text but also of its dual context, which, in the case of Xuanzang, is both Chinese and In-dian. After reflecting on some of the methodological and philological issues when translating and contextualising the text, I will discuss selected examples from the second chapter of the Record. I argue that a careful reading – applying both tradi-tional philology and a cultural studies approach – will lead to a deeper understanding of the text, its complex structure of meaning, its intentionality and possible impact and reception beyond the usually assumed “descriptive” or documentary dimension.

Item Type:	Book Section
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Schools > History, Archaeology and Religion
Publisher:	de Gruyter
ISBN:	9783111366753
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	2 December 2025
Last Modified:	02 Dec 2025 12:16
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/182756

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