Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment - Hardcover

Bernstein, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0375400095 ISBN 13: 9780375400094

Publisher: Knopf, 2001

Synopsis

Richard Bernstein's story of his long journey through Asia is at once a memoir of adventurous travel and a record of cultural discovery and spiritual quest.

In the year 629, a greatly revered Chinese Buddhist monk, Hsuan Tsang, set out across Asia in search of the Buddhist Truth, to settle what he called the "perplexities of my mind." Nearly a millennium and a half later, Richard Bernstein retraces the monk's steps: from the Tang dynasty capital at Xian through ancient Silk Road oases, over forbidding mountain passes to Tashkent, Samarkand, and the Amu-Darya River, across Pakistan to the holiest cities of India—and back.

Juxtaposing his experiences with those of Hsuan Tsang, Bernstein reconstructs the hazards and glories of this long and sinuous route, comparing present and past. The monk described what he saw and experienced: landscapes, customs, and, above all, people and the variety of religious beliefs held by those he met. So does our present-day author—taking us to Buddhist cave temples, to the holy places of the Buddha's own life, to the ruins of the Gandharan civilization in Pakistan, to the university in the Ganges Valley where Hsuan Tsang studied. He too encounters extraordinary figures— among them a German monk in Bodhgaya, a down-and-out maharaja, and a supposed reincarnation of Shiva.

And he follows the path of Hsuan Tsang not only in physical but in contemplative ways, reflecting on the mysteries and paradoxes of Buddhist philosophy and on the nature of the Ultimate Truth that was Hsuan Tsang’s goal.
Ultimate Journey is a vivid, profoundly felt account of two stirring adventures—one in the past and one in the present—in pursuit of illumination.

About this title

Review:

In 629, a Chinese Buddhist monk named Hsuan Tsang left the Tang dynasty capital Chang-an (current-day Xian) and set off to India to see the principal shrines of his religion. His path was arduous, involving the passage of vast deserts and towering mountains, and the record he made of his years-long voyage served generations of travelers along the Silk Road until, finally, it was forgotten.

Richard Bernstein, a former New York Times correspondent in China (and now a book critic for that newspaper), follows Hsuan's trail in this outstanding narrative of his overland journey into the heart of Central Asia, a journey that takes him and the fortunate reader into places that few travelers are privileged to see--places, such as Kashgar and Samarkand, that have storied associations but that remain remote even in the age of CNN and fast jets. Though not without his fears and not without getting into a little trouble, Bernstein talks to just about everyone he meets along the way, pokes into little-known corners of history, and spins a wonderfully literate story of difficult travel that recalls such books as Robert Byron's Road to Oxiana and Bruce Chatwin's The Songlines. Anyone who has ever dreamed of seeing the Ganges River and the Taklimakan Desert will find much pleasure in Bernstein's pages. --Gregory McNamee

From the Back Cover:

“Wonderful.... Deserves to become a classic in its own right.”–The New York Times Book Review

“Bernstein has the ability with his lucid, penetrating prose to connect the distant past to the way we live today.”–Gay Talese

“An engaging read, a trek that rewards with its richly tapestried background and its refreshing pauses for thoughtful historical and aesthetic insight.”–Los Angeles Times

“Ultimate Journey tells many tales at once, each with admirable skill. . . . There is much to ponder in the words written on the pages of this book.” --The New York Times Book Review

About this edition

• Publisher: Knopf
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0375400095
• ISBN 13: 9780375400094
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 368