Song Yun () was a Chinese Buddhist monk who was sent by the pious Buddhist Empress Hu (, ?-528 CE) of the

Northern Wei Dynasty Wei (), known in historiography as the Northern Wei (), Tuoba Wei (), Yuan Wei () and Later Wei (), was founded by the Tuoba (Tabgach) clan of the Xianbei. The first of the Northern dynasties, it ruled northern China from 386 to 535 during the ...

with other monastic companions including Hui Zheng, Fa Li and Zheng (or Wang) Fouze, to northwestern India to search for

Buddhist texts Buddhist texts are those religious texts which belong to the Buddhist tradition. The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha. The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts a ...

. They left the Wei capital

Luoyang Luoyang is a city located in the confluence area of Luo River (Henan), Luo River and Yellow River in the west of Henan province. Governed as a prefecture-level city, it borders the provincial capital of Zhengzhou to the east, Pingdingshan to the ...

, on foot in 518 and returned in the winter of 522 with 170 Buddhist scriptures.

The Voyage

Song Yun, who was originally from

Dunhuang Dunhuang () is a county-level city in Northwestern Gansu Province, Western China. According to the 2010 Chinese census, the city has a population of 186,027, though 2019 estimates put the city's population at about 191,800. Dunhuang was a major ...

, and one of his companions, Hui Zheng, both wrote accounts of their journey, but they have since disappeared. Song Yun took the

Qinghai Qinghai (; alternately romanized as Tsinghai, Ch'inghai), also known as Kokonor, is a landlocked province in the northwest of the People's Republic of China. It is the fourth largest province of China by area and has the third smallest po ...

Route via

Xining Xining (; ), alternatively known as Sining, is the capital of Qinghai province in western China and the largest city on the Tibetan Plateau. The city was a commercial hub along the Northern Silk Road's Hexi Corridor for over 2000 years, and wa ...

, past

Qinghai Lake Qinghai Lake or Ch'inghai Lake, also known by other names, is the largest lake in China. Located in an endorheic basin in Qinghai Province, to which it gave its name, Qinghai Lake is classified as an alkaline salt lake. The lake has fluctuat ...

and through the

Qaidam The Qaidam, Tsaidam, or Chaidamu Basin is a hyperarid basin that occupies a large part of Haixi Prefecture in Qinghai Province, China. The basin covers an area of approximately , one-fourth of which is covered by saline lakes and playas. Aroun ...

depression, probably joining the main Southern Silk Route near

Shanshan Shanshan (; ug, پىچان, Pichan, Piqan) was a kingdom located at the north-eastern end of the Taklamakan Desert near the great, but now mostly dry, salt lake known as Lop Nur. The kingdom was originally an independent city-state, known in t ...

Loulan Loulan, also called Krorän or Kroraina ( zh, s=, t=, p=Lóulán <

Eastern Han Chinese

''lo-lɑn'' <

. The route at the time was under the control of the

Tuyuhun Tuyuhun (; LHC: *''tʰɑʔ-jok-guənʔ''; Wade-Giles: ''T'u-yühun''), also known as Henan () and Azha (; ), was a dynastic kingdom established by the nomadic peoples related to the Xianbei in the Qilian Mountains and upper Yellow River valley ...

(Tibetan: ' Azha) people. Fortunately, much valuable information about their journey has been preserved in the ''Loyang Jielanji'' of Yang Xianzhi and other texts. There are some minor discrepancies among the surviving sources as to the exact dates of the journey and the names of the people who made the trip together, but

Édouard Chavannes Émmanuel-Édouard Chavannes (5 October 1865 – 29 January 1918) was a French sinologist and expert on Chinese history and religion, and is best known for his translations of major segments of Sima Qian's ''Records of the Grand Historian' ...

believes it is possible to work out the itinerary with some confidence. Mihirakula portrait

:"Hui Zheng nd the otherswere sent in the 11th day of the second month of the second Zhengui year (518); he and his companions arrived in Karghalik on the 29th day of the 7th month of the 2nd Zhengui year (519); in the second ten days of the ninth month, they met the king of the

Hephthalites The Hephthalites ( xbc, ηβοδαλο, translit= Ebodalo), sometimes called the White Huns (also known as the White Hunas, in Iranian as the ''Spet Xyon'' and in Sanskrit as the ''Sveta-huna''), were a people who lived in Central Asia during th ...

; at the beginning of the 11th month, they arrived in Bosi or Boji (southwest of

Wakhan Wakhan, or "the Wakhan" (also spelt Vakhan; Persian and ps, واخان, ''Vâxân'' and ''Wāxān'' respectively; tg, Вахон, ''Vaxon''), is a rugged, mountainous part of the Pamir, Hindu Kush and Karakoram regions of Afghanistan. Wakhan ...

); in the second ten days of this same month, they entered

Chitral Chitral ( khw, , lit=field, translit=ćhitrār; ur, , translit=ćitrāl) is situated on the Chitral River in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. It serves as the capital of the Chitral District and before that as the capital of Chitral ...

and at the beginning of the 12th month they entered

Udyana (also: ''Uḍḍiyāna'', ''Uḍḍāyāna'' or ''Udyāna'', Sanskrit: ओड्डियान, उड्डियान, उड्डायान, उद्यान; , , mn, Үржин ''urkhin''), was a small region in early medieval India, ...

. Then, during the second ten days of the fourth month of the first Chengkuang year (520), they arrived in

Gandhara Gandhāra is the name of an ancient region located in the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent, more precisely in present-day north-west Pakistan and parts of south-east Afghanistan. The region centered around the Peshawar Vall ...

. They stayed two years in Udyana and Gandhara until returning at the beginning of the third Chengkuang year (522), (and not the second year as one reads in the Account)." According to legend, they returned through the

Congling The Pamir Mountains are a mountain range between Central Asia and Pakistan. It is located at a junction with other notable mountains, namely the Tian Shan, Karakoram, Kunlun, Hindu Kush and the Himalaya mountain ranges. They are among the world' ...

(or "Onion") Mountains where Song Yun met the celebrated Damo or

Bodhidharma Bodhidharma was a semi-legendary Buddhist monk who lived during the 5th or 6th century CE. He is traditionally credited as the transmitter of Chan Buddhism to China, and regarded as its first Chinese patriarch. According to a 17th century apo ...

who had died recently at

. They seem to have travelled to India along the difficult southern branch of the

Silk Routes The Silk Road () was a network of Eurasian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over 6,400 kilometers (4,000 miles), it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and reli ...

from Dunhuang to Yutian (Khotan) along the edge of the

Taklamakan The Taklimakan or Taklamakan Desert (; zh, s=塔克拉玛干沙漠, p=Tǎkèlāmǎgān Shāmò, Xiao'erjing: , dng, Такәламаган Шамә; ug, تەكلىماكان قۇملۇقى, Täklimakan qumluqi; also spelled Taklimakan and Te ...

Desert, to the north of the

Mountains, and then, like

Fa Xian Faxian (法顯 ; 337 CE – c. 422 CE), also referred to as Fa-Hien, Fa-hsien and Sehi, was a Chinese Buddhist monk and translator who traveled by foot from China to India to acquire Buddhist texts. Starting his arduous journey about age 60, he ...

had done previously, crossed the mountains. After passing through Wakhan, they met with the King of the

, who had taken over the lands previously controlled by the

Yuezhi The Yuezhi (;) were an ancient people first described in Chinese histories as nomadic pastoralists living in an arid grassland area in the western part of the modern Chinese province of Gansu, during the 1st millennium BC. After a major defeat ...

and had recently conquered Gandhara. He was apparently on tour at the time near the entrance to the

Wakhan Corridor The Wakhan Corridor ( ps, واخان دهلېز, translit=wāxān dahléz, fa, دالان واخان, translit=dâlân vâxân) is a narrow strip of territory in Badakhshan Province of Afghanistan, extending to Xinjiang in China and separatin ...

and not at his capital city Badiyan (Bâdhaghìs) which was near modern

Herat Herāt (; Persian: ) is an oasis city and the third-largest city of Afghanistan. In 2020, it had an estimated population of 574,276, and serves as the capital of Herat Province, situated south of the Paropamisus Mountains (''Selseleh-ye Safēd ...

in western Afghanistan. The king, who had control over more than forty kingdoms, prostrated twice and received an Imperial edict from the Northern Wei Dynasty on his knees. Song Yun and his companions then travelled through

and met the kings of the

Swat Valley Swat District (, ps, سوات ولسوالۍ, ) is a district in the Malakand Division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. With a population of 2,309,570 per the 2017 national census, Swat is the 15th-largest district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa prov ...

or Udyana.

Footnotes

References

* * - Total pages: 379-441
Read on JStor
.

External links

* "A Lesser Known Route: the Qinghai Route.

{{DEFAULTSORT:Song, Yun Northern and Southern dynasties translators Sanskrit–Chinese translators Northern Wei Buddhist monks Year of death unknown People from Jiuquan Writers from Gansu Ancient history of Afghanistan Ancient history of Pakistan Year of birth unknown Northern Wei writers 6th-century Chinese translators

The Voyage

See also

Footnotes

References

External links