The record of a pilgrimage to China in search of the law.
This is a 2020 reprint of a translation originally published in 1955. It has a new foreword by Valerie Hansen.
Readers interested in 8th century Buddhism, life in Tang China, and Japan will be grateful.
Ennin is a Japanese monk. He traveled to Tang China as part of a 651 – men Japanese tribute mission to the Tang emperor in AD 838. After 9 years there studying Buddhist texts and rituals he returned to Japan.
He kept a detailed diary of his journey. He wrote in classical Chinese. As to why in Chinese we are not told either in the new Foreword by Valerie Hansen or in the Preface by Edwin O Reischauer the translator.
Edwin has provided extensive and useful annotations. We are grateful. There are also 3 maps though it is not clear whether they were part of the original diary when a copy was published in Kyoto in 1291.
We are also not told what happened to the original diary. We are further not told why the Japanese sent a tribute mission. This is where I wish the new Foreword is more lengthy and more detailed. At a mere 3 and a half page, it’s way too brief, albeit useful for its scanty information.
More research is required then. According to Richard Bowring in his Introduction to The Diary of Lady Murasaki, the Japanese court decided as early as 894 to abandon the practice of sending tribute missions to China, partly because the Tang dynasty was in terminal decline. (p xii Penguin 2005 ed).
By comparison, the Tale of Genji was written in the early 11th century in an early form of Japanese by Murasaki Shikibu.
A useful book that examines the many tribute missions to Tang China and the exotic gifts delivered is The Golden Peaches of Samarkand by Edward h Schafer.