1 00:00:13,847 --> 00:00:15,439 In westernmost China 2 00:00:15,582 --> 00:00:19,814 lie 100,000 square miles of desert and misery. 3 00:00:21,154 --> 00:00:23,418 Once cities thrived here, 4 00:00:23,556 --> 00:00:27,458 oases enriched by China's fabled Silk Road, 5 00:00:28,261 --> 00:00:31,492 until war and the desert did them in. 6 00:00:32,565 --> 00:00:37,025 It's a wasteland so cruel its name itself is a warning 7 00:00:37,704 --> 00:00:42,732 'Taklimakan' means those who go in don't come out. 8 00:00:47,080 --> 00:00:50,607 Two courageous men entered the Taklimakan 9 00:00:50,750 --> 00:00:55,278 one in search of truth, the other, treasure. 10 00:00:56,756 --> 00:01:00,590 Both battled for their lives against the haunted desert 11 00:01:03,463 --> 00:01:04,828 and in the grip of death 12 00:01:04,964 --> 00:01:08,229 found treasures that would change the world. 13 00:01:50,477 --> 00:01:53,708 Budapest, Hungary, 1872. 14 00:01:54,781 --> 00:01:58,945 A studious 10 year old explores a map of Central Asia. 15 00:02:00,286 --> 00:02:02,117 Fascinated by the exotic East, 16 00:02:02,255 --> 00:02:05,247 young Aurel Stein follows the path of his hero, 17 00:02:05,391 --> 00:02:07,291 Alexander the Great. 18 00:02:10,029 --> 00:02:12,293 The first world's conqueror marched his armies 19 00:02:12,432 --> 00:02:15,560 from the Mediterranean all the way to India. 20 00:02:16,870 --> 00:02:20,966 The land where Alexander's conquest ended captivated the boy. 21 00:02:21,641 --> 00:02:23,734 Much of the region where east meets west 22 00:02:23,877 --> 00:02:27,643 was so wild and remote it had never been mapped. 23 00:02:28,314 --> 00:02:33,308 Here treasures from a secret past surely lay hidden in sands. 24 00:02:34,354 --> 00:02:37,983 The shy young scholar's obsession surprised no one. 25 00:02:39,058 --> 00:02:43,961 So lost in ideas was the boy that his own family considered him boring. 26 00:02:45,498 --> 00:02:47,193 What no one could guess 27 00:02:47,333 --> 00:02:50,632 how firmly this region and habit of solitude 28 00:02:50,770 --> 00:02:53,568 would shape Aurel Stein's life. 29 00:02:57,710 --> 00:03:00,338 And how alone, for years at a time, 30 00:03:00,413 --> 00:03:03,678 he would take on some of the most daring archeological explorations 31 00:03:03,816 --> 00:03:05,875 of the 20th century. 32 00:03:07,353 --> 00:03:10,322 His favorite place was this place called Mohan Marg, 33 00:03:10,456 --> 00:03:14,256 which was a field up in ashmir in the mountains 34 00:03:14,394 --> 00:03:17,261 that was only free from snow in the summer. 35 00:03:17,397 --> 00:03:21,959 And he would go up there with some texts and sit and write 36 00:03:22,101 --> 00:03:22,897 all day long. 37 00:03:23,036 --> 00:03:26,870 I think at one point he wrote 200 pages in 20 days, 38 00:03:27,006 --> 00:03:33,241 so he didn't see to need to be with people, but he needed letters. 39 00:03:40,853 --> 00:03:44,050 25 August 1891. 40 00:03:44,190 --> 00:03:47,421 The tribal people who pasture their flocks in the high valleys 41 00:03:47,560 --> 00:03:50,188 gave me a real serenade. 42 00:03:50,330 --> 00:03:55,495 Some of the songs were very melodic and reminded me of Hungarian songs. 43 00:03:57,704 --> 00:03:58,636 You have to be solitary 44 00:03:58,771 --> 00:04:00,363 because the thing is about exploration 45 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:01,930 is you've got to be at peace with yourself. 46 00:04:02,075 --> 00:04:04,009 You've got to be content with your own company 47 00:04:04,143 --> 00:04:05,906 in order to do something like that. 48 00:04:06,045 --> 00:04:08,377 You couldn't sit doing what Aurel Stein did 49 00:04:08,514 --> 00:04:12,974 sitting in the middle of a vast windswept desert for months on end, 50 00:04:13,119 --> 00:04:15,610 with nobody to speak to in the English language 51 00:04:15,755 --> 00:04:17,416 except for your dog, 52 00:04:18,124 --> 00:04:20,092 but you're not going to get an answer from a dog. 53 00:04:23,363 --> 00:04:25,763 Stein's boyhood obsession with Central Asia 54 00:04:25,898 --> 00:04:29,425 flowered at universities in Austria and England. 55 00:04:30,336 --> 00:04:31,701 He studied ancient languages 56 00:04:31,838 --> 00:04:34,966 to understand the ruins he'd one day explore 57 00:04:35,108 --> 00:04:38,737 and translate documents pulled from the ground. 58 00:04:40,880 --> 00:04:45,476 A Ph. D. In oriental languages was Stein's ticket to Asia. 59 00:04:47,487 --> 00:04:50,718 He landed a position with the British government in Pakistan, 60 00:04:50,857 --> 00:04:53,485 which was then part of British India. 61 00:04:54,560 --> 00:04:57,552 His home base for the rest of his life would be Lahore 62 00:04:57,697 --> 00:04:59,130 in India's Punjab, 63 00:04:59,265 --> 00:05:01,961 the farthest point reached by Alexander the Great 64 00:05:02,101 --> 00:05:04,661 in his bid to conquer the world. 65 00:05:07,307 --> 00:05:08,638 At the Lahore Museum, 66 00:05:08,775 --> 00:05:13,007 Stein discovered the artistic legacy of Alexander's conquests. 67 00:05:13,680 --> 00:05:17,480 Images of the Buddha with a decidedly Grecian look. 68 00:05:20,753 --> 00:05:24,154 How far east, he wondered, did his legacy reach? 69 00:05:26,526 --> 00:05:28,790 It was a question Stein would pursue 70 00:05:28,928 --> 00:05:32,455 all the way to China's Taklimakan desert. 71 00:05:36,969 --> 00:05:41,531 Aurel Stein was interested in the connection between civilizations. 72 00:05:41,674 --> 00:05:46,008 He was fascinated by the remnants of Greek influence in Pakistan, 73 00:05:46,145 --> 00:05:48,340 and that he felt there was a connection 74 00:05:48,481 --> 00:05:51,917 between that and the art in the Taklimakan desert. 75 00:05:56,422 --> 00:06:00,017 Before Stein came here, he was well prepared. 76 00:06:02,528 --> 00:06:07,932 He had very special training in ancient languages, such as Sanskrit. 77 00:06:13,005 --> 00:06:17,169 At the time, Sanskrit is an incredibly hot field. 78 00:06:17,310 --> 00:06:20,404 I mean, people are so excited by the idea that 79 00:06:20,546 --> 00:06:23,674 Sanskrit and Latin and Greek, they're all in the European languages. 80 00:06:23,816 --> 00:06:27,513 So, today, I think, when people study Sanskrit it seems so archaic, 81 00:06:27,653 --> 00:06:32,352 but for Stein it was computer science 82 00:06:32,492 --> 00:06:35,256 it was the computer science of the 19th century. 83 00:06:37,196 --> 00:06:40,654 Armed with Sanskrit, Stein got practical field experience 84 00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:43,633 around colonial India with the British Army. 85 00:06:48,341 --> 00:06:52,437 Stein accompanied army maneuvers as regimental map maker. 86 00:06:54,046 --> 00:06:57,106 He had done a year of military service in Hungary 87 00:06:57,250 --> 00:06:59,616 and he learned how to survey, 88 00:06:59,752 --> 00:07:01,720 and that proved to be crucial to everything he did 89 00:07:01,854 --> 00:07:05,915 because when he went out into Inner Asia, he made maps. 90 00:07:06,058 --> 00:07:06,786 In some cases 91 00:07:06,926 --> 00:07:09,986 his maps are still the most accurate maps we have of the region. 92 00:07:12,298 --> 00:07:15,631 In India, Stein put his scholarship to work. 93 00:07:17,003 --> 00:07:18,834 He began closely examining a book 94 00:07:18,971 --> 00:07:22,771 By a long dead Chinese monk called Xuanzang. 95 00:07:25,678 --> 00:07:29,637 Around 630 A. D., on a quest for Buddhist scripture, 96 00:07:29,782 --> 00:07:35,414 the holy man had trekked some 10,000 miles from China to India and back. 97 00:07:36,088 --> 00:07:39,615 His account of his travels called "Records of the Western Regions," 98 00:07:39,759 --> 00:07:43,889 gave Stein an authoritative guide to temples in colonial India, 99 00:07:44,030 --> 00:07:48,433 temples that had been living centers of worship in Xuanzang's time. 100 00:07:52,805 --> 00:07:56,832 When Aurel Stein was in ashmir he tested out Xuanzang 101 00:07:56,976 --> 00:08:01,640 to see whether his topographical information was correct, and it was. 102 00:08:01,781 --> 00:08:07,447 So for all three of his expeditions he had Xuanzang with him. 103 00:08:09,155 --> 00:08:12,454 The monk proved to be an infallible guide in India. 104 00:08:14,660 --> 00:08:18,187 But Xuanzang had also written about a thriving civilization 105 00:08:18,331 --> 00:08:21,027 in hina's Taklimakan desert. 106 00:08:21,601 --> 00:08:25,594 About this wasteland the modern world knew almost nothing. 107 00:08:26,839 --> 00:08:32,436 Had Xuanzang given Stein a treasure map to a lost civilization? 108 00:08:33,379 --> 00:08:38,248 And he realizes that he can go into Chinese Turkestan and discover things, 109 00:08:38,384 --> 00:08:39,817 and discover a past, 110 00:08:39,952 --> 00:08:44,013 and that's what becomes his real intellectual passion. 111 00:08:44,690 --> 00:08:47,659 And Stein makes a case to the British government in India 112 00:08:47,793 --> 00:08:51,194 that they should fund him to go out there and explore. 113 00:08:52,398 --> 00:08:56,164 And I think Stein is saying let me go to this whole region 114 00:08:56,302 --> 00:08:59,169 and I will come back and tell you what the history of it is. 115 00:09:10,316 --> 00:09:12,580 In 1900, financed by England, 116 00:09:12,718 --> 00:09:16,620 Stein headed east to seek the lost world of his dreams. 117 00:09:24,931 --> 00:09:27,798 His goal to track down the cities and civilizations 118 00:09:27,934 --> 00:09:30,164 written about by Xuanzang. 119 00:09:39,712 --> 00:09:41,703 With a crew of translators and servants, 120 00:09:41,847 --> 00:09:45,874 Stein crossed the Pamir Mountains and dropped down to ashgar. 121 00:09:46,719 --> 00:09:49,779 From there he followed the southern arm of the Silk Road, 122 00:09:49,922 --> 00:09:52,322 the ancient trade rout followed by Xuanzang 123 00:09:52,458 --> 00:09:55,950 on his return from India around 640 A. D. 124 00:09:56,696 --> 00:09:59,460 The thousand mile journey was a brutal ordeal 125 00:09:59,599 --> 00:10:03,797 from man and beast alike, and it had barely begun. 126 00:10:09,875 --> 00:10:11,342 The morning of the 7 th December. 127 00:10:11,477 --> 00:10:14,708 Starting the campaign in the desert. 128 00:10:14,847 --> 00:10:17,839 My goal: Dandan uilk. 129 00:10:19,352 --> 00:10:24,551 Most of the time Stein worked during the months of December to January, 130 00:10:24,690 --> 00:10:28,558 and that was always the driest and coldest season. 131 00:10:28,694 --> 00:10:32,721 He had to carry a huge amount of ice with him as a source of water 132 00:10:32,865 --> 00:10:35,390 so he could leave it behind at certain stations 133 00:10:35,534 --> 00:10:38,662 to ensure there was enough on the return trip. 134 00:10:41,140 --> 00:10:45,577 Also the cold and dryness are very much a threat. 135 00:10:45,711 --> 00:10:49,010 One could easily get lost and die. 136 00:10:54,887 --> 00:11:00,223 It was the most difficult terrain that anybody could go to at the time. 137 00:11:00,359 --> 00:11:03,351 I think the best modern equivalent is going to the moon. 138 00:11:08,534 --> 00:11:12,231 Now Stein's navigation skills kept his men alive, 139 00:11:15,608 --> 00:11:17,872 for he had entered the Taklimakan, 140 00:11:18,010 --> 00:11:20,672 one of the most dangerous deserts on earth. 141 00:11:25,317 --> 00:11:29,344 About this desert, the monk Xuanzang had warned: 142 00:11:30,890 --> 00:11:34,951 It is all the work of demons and evil spirits. 143 00:11:36,862 --> 00:11:43,893 When the winds rise, both man and beast become confused and forgetful. 144 00:11:44,470 --> 00:11:48,964 Sad and plaintive noise are heard, and piteous cries. 145 00:11:49,642 --> 00:11:51,735 Combined with the site of this place 146 00:11:51,877 --> 00:11:56,075 where nothing lives, man often lose their lives. 147 00:12:03,823 --> 00:12:06,951 Characteristically, Stein ignored these warnings 148 00:12:07,093 --> 00:12:10,551 and even the haunted desert's Dante esque name. 149 00:12:12,498 --> 00:12:15,092 The Chinese call it 'the Desert of Death'. 150 00:12:15,234 --> 00:12:19,933 The name Taklimakan translates as 'you go in but you do not come out.' 151 00:12:22,308 --> 00:12:24,708 The temperature of the desert is formidable. In the summer 152 00:12:24,844 --> 00:12:28,678 the temperature can reach up to 130 degrees Fahrenheit. 153 00:12:28,814 --> 00:12:29,872 It is also a winter desert, 154 00:12:30,015 --> 00:12:32,984 when Aurel Stein was excavating sites like Niya, 155 00:12:33,119 --> 00:12:35,917 he did record snow in the desert in December. 156 00:12:42,194 --> 00:12:45,721 The worst part about the desert is that the sand dunes are so high; 157 00:12:45,865 --> 00:12:48,231 in places they are 1,000 feet high. 158 00:12:48,968 --> 00:12:50,367 So it is very difficult to walk through them 159 00:12:50,503 --> 00:12:52,164 because they are soft sand. 160 00:12:56,375 --> 00:12:58,741 When you're walking through such a sea of sand 161 00:12:58,878 --> 00:13:03,247 it is very difficult to think that you might come out at the other end. 162 00:13:04,984 --> 00:13:06,781 But it is also very inspiring to walk somewhere 163 00:13:06,919 --> 00:13:10,150 where you know it is virgin sand and nobody else has walked it before. 164 00:13:13,826 --> 00:13:17,193 Yet Stein was convinced that people had walked there, 165 00:13:17,329 --> 00:13:19,627 some 1,000 years before. 166 00:13:24,336 --> 00:13:26,930 Xuanzang had written about oasis cities 167 00:13:27,072 --> 00:13:30,007 that had been thriving centers of trade and religion 168 00:13:30,142 --> 00:13:32,303 now buried somewhere in the desert. 169 00:13:37,249 --> 00:13:40,616 If Stein could find them he'd be the first to write the history 170 00:13:40,753 --> 00:13:43,586 of a vast unmapped region of Asia. 171 00:13:45,491 --> 00:13:47,584 But at what cost? 172 00:13:48,194 --> 00:13:50,662 100 miles into the Taklimakan 173 00:13:50,796 --> 00:13:54,129 the temperature plunged to 10 degrees below zero. 174 00:13:54,834 --> 00:13:59,328 Hobbled by the loose sand, men and animals grew exhausted. 175 00:14:00,673 --> 00:14:04,473 Was the monk Xuanzang guiding them to a lost city 176 00:14:05,077 --> 00:14:07,307 or a dusty grave? 177 00:14:10,382 --> 00:14:13,510 Finally, on the 11th day hope. 178 00:14:16,088 --> 00:14:20,650 Traces of a ruin natives called 'the Place of lvory Houses.' 179 00:14:24,263 --> 00:14:26,254 It was the first in a series of sites 180 00:14:26,398 --> 00:14:29,993 where Stein would find evidence that stunned even him. 181 00:14:34,473 --> 00:14:35,633 Stein excavates. 182 00:14:35,774 --> 00:14:41,974 And he finds pictures of Westerners in the middle of the desert. 183 00:14:44,483 --> 00:14:49,147 They saw pictures of angels in this region that is now a part of China. 184 00:14:51,590 --> 00:14:54,457 He also finds some Chinese written on wooden slips. 185 00:14:54,593 --> 00:14:58,324 And you could date the slips to the end of the 8th century. 186 00:14:58,464 --> 00:15:01,729 And that it was going to be possible for him to write a history 187 00:15:01,867 --> 00:15:05,860 of the different Silk Road oases by careful excavation 188 00:15:06,005 --> 00:15:08,838 and by taking all the documents that he found 189 00:15:08,974 --> 00:15:13,502 and sending them to scholars who could decipher them for him. 190 00:15:17,082 --> 00:15:20,984 For Stein the remarkable discoveries were deeply personal. 191 00:15:22,922 --> 00:15:27,256 First, the civilization that he found showed signs of ancient Greece. 192 00:15:27,393 --> 00:15:31,295 Alexander the Great's influence had penetrated China. 193 00:15:32,398 --> 00:15:36,027 Second, he'd uncovered scrolls from the monastery library 194 00:15:36,168 --> 00:15:39,194 dating from the 5th and 6th centuries. 195 00:15:41,373 --> 00:15:42,772 On his return trip from India, 196 00:15:42,908 --> 00:15:45,376 Xuanzang would probably have visited the monastery now 197 00:15:45,511 --> 00:15:47,604 buried by the desert. 198 00:15:48,580 --> 00:15:51,845 Perhaps he'd even poured over these scrolls. 199 00:15:52,651 --> 00:15:55,449 Stein must have felt how his own monastic life 200 00:15:55,587 --> 00:15:58,954 mirrored that of the solitary holy man. 201 00:16:04,263 --> 00:16:08,199 One year after he'd set out, Stein turned for home. 202 00:16:08,734 --> 00:16:13,762 With him, cases of artifacts evidence of a lost civilization. 203 00:16:16,008 --> 00:16:18,499 They would set the world of archeology on fire 204 00:16:18,644 --> 00:16:20,635 and make his name. 205 00:16:22,548 --> 00:16:26,541 But they would also give him a reputation as an archeological looter 206 00:16:27,086 --> 00:16:29,884 that would haunt him for the rest of his life. 207 00:16:31,090 --> 00:16:34,651 Stein had the approval of the Chinese government. 208 00:16:35,194 --> 00:16:38,721 But on his travel papers it didn't say he was an archeologist 209 00:16:38,864 --> 00:16:42,300 and would carry on excavations in this area. 210 00:16:48,374 --> 00:16:50,740 A British diplomat had told Stein, 211 00:16:50,876 --> 00:16:55,006 "Never tell the Chinese you're doing excavation here." 212 00:17:00,786 --> 00:17:04,745 In time, Stein's disregard for Chinese authority would catch up with him, 213 00:17:05,424 --> 00:17:08,450 but now he had more pressing concerns. 214 00:17:09,328 --> 00:17:11,592 Because of his discoveries the whole world 215 00:17:11,730 --> 00:17:14,927 knew what lay beneath the Taklimakan. 216 00:17:17,903 --> 00:17:18,927 The race is on. 217 00:17:19,071 --> 00:17:20,333 Stein goes digs in the ground, 218 00:17:20,472 --> 00:17:25,466 and then a kind of race starts to discover the lost 219 00:17:25,611 --> 00:17:27,636 languages and documents 220 00:17:27,780 --> 00:17:31,716 of this very remote region of the world. 221 00:17:31,850 --> 00:17:35,149 And it becomes, kind of, a mark of a civilized country 222 00:17:35,287 --> 00:17:37,551 to have an expedition in Central Asia. 223 00:17:40,859 --> 00:17:44,351 In 1907, a German archeologist had just returned 224 00:17:44,496 --> 00:17:47,659 from what was said to be a very profitable trip. 225 00:17:48,367 --> 00:17:52,565 A French orientalist was scheduled to enter the desert any day. 226 00:17:55,574 --> 00:17:57,201 Spurred by competition, 227 00:17:57,342 --> 00:18:00,778 Stein set out on a course chartered by Xuanzang. 228 00:18:03,115 --> 00:18:06,983 Once more his company traced the southern arm of the Silk Road. 229 00:18:10,089 --> 00:18:14,492 But this time the grueling trip gave Stein a sense of foreboding. 230 00:18:15,727 --> 00:18:17,592 He wrote to a friend: 231 00:18:18,263 --> 00:18:23,599 What a desolate wilderness, bearing everywhere the imprint of death. 232 00:18:26,171 --> 00:18:30,301 On two expeditions the desert had taken a grim toll. 233 00:18:32,778 --> 00:18:35,770 His crew had quarreled and come to blows. 234 00:18:37,049 --> 00:18:40,815 One of his most trusted assistants had tried to kill himself. 235 00:18:41,653 --> 00:18:46,147 Now, without warning, /Stein's devoted surveyor went blind. 236 00:18:47,226 --> 00:18:49,922 Finally, Stein's own health gave out. 237 00:18:50,496 --> 00:18:53,021 Malaria racked his exhausted body. 238 00:18:55,667 --> 00:18:56,463 And worse, 239 00:18:56,602 --> 00:19:00,197 the French team of explorers were somewhere in the desert. 240 00:19:09,515 --> 00:19:11,813 As he packed his new finds into crates, 241 00:19:11,950 --> 00:19:14,817 Stein was anxious about his next destination, 242 00:19:14,953 --> 00:19:17,683 a cave complex called Dunhaung 243 00:19:17,823 --> 00:19:21,122 where he hoped to find ancient Buddhist scrolls. 244 00:19:25,931 --> 00:19:31,528 It is an anxious thought, as you can imagine, 245 00:19:31,670 --> 00:19:35,037 whether I shall find the French there already. 246 00:19:36,408 --> 00:19:38,876 Crossing the Taklimakan to the north, 247 00:19:39,011 --> 00:19:43,880 Stein had the eerie experience of stumbling across his own footsteps. 248 00:19:45,184 --> 00:19:48,381 I could quite distinctly recognize my own footprints 249 00:19:48,520 --> 00:19:50,420 of seven years before. 250 00:19:50,556 --> 00:19:53,889 I could even make out those of my little fox terrier, Dash, 251 00:19:54,026 --> 00:19:56,995 the ever faithful companion of that journey. 252 00:19:58,997 --> 00:20:03,127 More shocking, was evidence of German and French expeditions. 253 00:20:03,735 --> 00:20:07,603 Where Stein carefully protected his digs by filling in them in afterwards, 254 00:20:07,739 --> 00:20:11,106 his competitors left theirs open to the elements. 255 00:20:12,477 --> 00:20:14,843 Artifacts whose value they dismissed 256 00:20:14,980 --> 00:20:18,074 were recklessly tossed aside and broken. 257 00:20:23,088 --> 00:20:26,615 Near Dunhaung, Stein recruited a new team of workers 258 00:20:26,758 --> 00:20:30,626 to explore the westernmost section of China's Great Wall. 259 00:20:31,830 --> 00:20:34,799 Of this crew Stein remarked: 260 00:20:34,933 --> 00:20:38,096 They're the craziest crew I've had led to digging. 261 00:20:38,237 --> 00:20:42,196 So turbulent and feebled by opium are they. 262 00:20:54,853 --> 00:20:59,051 Yet the discovery of Great Wall remnants revived his spirits. 263 00:21:00,292 --> 00:21:02,692 If his second expedition had ended there, 264 00:21:02,828 --> 00:21:07,265 it would have been enough to secure any archeologist's reputation. 265 00:21:09,134 --> 00:21:11,466 I feel, as I ride along the wall, 266 00:21:11,603 --> 00:21:15,630 as if I were going to inspect posts still held by the living; 267 00:21:16,341 --> 00:21:19,970 2000 years seems so brief a time. 268 00:21:22,447 --> 00:21:23,243 At the Wall, 269 00:21:23,382 --> 00:21:28,342 just days away from his greatest discovery, Stein felt at peace. 270 00:21:30,255 --> 00:21:32,655 Perhaps he through that the monk Xuanzang 271 00:21:32,791 --> 00:21:35,123 was literally guiding his journey. 272 00:21:36,428 --> 00:21:38,828 Perhaps he knew his competitors could never match 273 00:21:38,964 --> 00:21:41,558 his stamina or his scholarship. 274 00:21:43,602 --> 00:21:47,436 In any case, his devotion to the haunted desert had rewarded him 275 00:21:47,572 --> 00:21:50,200 beyond his greatest expectations. 276 00:21:51,043 --> 00:21:54,035 And still ahead, at a place called Dunhaung, 277 00:21:54,179 --> 00:21:58,377 he would find one of the astonishing ancient texts ever discovered. 278 00:22:00,419 --> 00:22:01,977 Aurel Stein heard that 279 00:22:02,120 --> 00:22:05,920 there were some very valuable documents in the Dunhaung caves, 280 00:22:06,058 --> 00:22:10,495 and he went there and he met somebody called Abbot Wong, 281 00:22:10,629 --> 00:22:13,996 who was sort of a curious moody monk, 282 00:22:14,132 --> 00:22:19,536 who had sealed up the caves so that nobody could get in. 283 00:22:19,671 --> 00:22:23,664 So when Stein finally met him, he said, you know, 284 00:22:23,809 --> 00:22:28,405 I've been following in the footsteps of Xuanzang on all my journeys. 285 00:22:28,547 --> 00:22:30,674 He's my patron saint. 286 00:22:30,816 --> 00:22:35,879 So the moody abbot sort of softened and said, "Oh?" 287 00:22:38,457 --> 00:22:42,154 The priest proved, in fact, quite as ardent an admirer 288 00:22:42,294 --> 00:22:45,058 of Xuanzang as I am. 289 00:22:45,197 --> 00:22:47,859 He proudly showed the series of painting 290 00:22:47,999 --> 00:22:52,527 representing scenes from the great pilgrim's marvelous adventures. 291 00:22:53,071 --> 00:22:55,198 The fantastic legends there depicted were just those 292 00:22:55,340 --> 00:22:57,672 which had transformed Xuanzang 293 00:22:57,809 --> 00:23:01,711 throughout China as a sort of saintly Munchausen. 294 00:23:05,384 --> 00:23:07,784 He negotiates four silver horseshoes 295 00:23:07,919 --> 00:23:10,854 for thousands and thousands of documents and scrolls, 296 00:23:10,989 --> 00:23:12,616 and Wong goes for it. 297 00:23:12,758 --> 00:23:15,886 And Stein knows that it is a really low price. 298 00:23:16,027 --> 00:23:17,187 He knows. 299 00:23:17,329 --> 00:23:21,356 He writes a letter saying I've gotten an incredibly good price, 300 00:23:21,500 --> 00:23:24,958 because one of the Sanskrit manuscripts in and of itself 301 00:23:25,103 --> 00:23:27,435 would be worth that price. 302 00:23:28,173 --> 00:23:31,609 But most of all was the apprehension that the timorous, 303 00:23:31,743 --> 00:23:32,835 shifty priest 304 00:23:32,978 --> 00:23:35,811 would be moved in a sudden fit of alarm 305 00:23:35,947 --> 00:23:38,541 or distrust to close down his shell 306 00:23:38,683 --> 00:23:42,346 before I had been able to extract any of the pearls. 307 00:23:46,458 --> 00:23:49,894 Stein was a devoted scholar and explorer. 308 00:23:50,028 --> 00:23:51,552 It was unthinkable to him 309 00:23:51,696 --> 00:23:55,427 not to be interested in the things he found in Dunhaung, 310 00:23:55,567 --> 00:24:01,062 and it is just natural for him to try any means to get what he wanted. 311 00:24:02,240 --> 00:24:05,971 He and Abbot Wong were not on the same level. 312 00:24:06,578 --> 00:24:09,604 Stein was very educated and knowledgeable, 313 00:24:09,748 --> 00:24:14,481 while Abbot Wong was relatively ignorant about what Stein was doing. 314 00:24:15,854 --> 00:24:18,846 They were just piles of waste paper to Wong. 315 00:24:18,990 --> 00:24:24,485 Like a chip of broken glass to me, to you is a diamond. 316 00:24:28,967 --> 00:24:33,631 The ancient scrolls Stein took from Dunhaung included ballads, 317 00:24:33,772 --> 00:24:39,904 stories and correspondence a portrait of a civilization in letters. 318 00:24:41,813 --> 00:24:45,544 One of the fragments has since been thought to belong to a Buddhist text, 319 00:24:45,684 --> 00:24:48,414 which Xuanzang himself is known to have translated 320 00:24:48,553 --> 00:24:52,819 between 645 and 664 AD. 321 00:24:54,726 --> 00:24:57,718 I felt quite sure that my patron saint must have passed 322 00:24:57,863 --> 00:25:00,832 within a few years of the debris covered here. 323 00:25:10,008 --> 00:25:13,273 Stein was able to get many of the documents, 324 00:25:13,411 --> 00:25:15,379 take them back to the British Museum, 325 00:25:15,514 --> 00:25:18,312 and one of them is the Diamond Sutra, 326 00:25:18,450 --> 00:25:22,318 which is the world's oldest printed book. 327 00:25:22,988 --> 00:25:27,220 It sits in the British Museum opposite the Gutenberg Bible. 328 00:25:28,093 --> 00:25:33,190 So Stein really this was the triumph of his career. 329 00:25:35,200 --> 00:25:39,466 For misleading the abbot, Stein felt no regret. 330 00:25:40,705 --> 00:25:42,673 He reasoned the scrolls he salvaged 331 00:25:42,807 --> 00:25:47,005 would have remained lost forever had he not intervened. 332 00:25:49,681 --> 00:25:52,013 You know, the easy answer to "Is Stein a thief?" 333 00:25:52,150 --> 00:25:57,019 The very PC answer is, sure, he took away antiquities from China, 334 00:25:57,155 --> 00:25:59,123 and they were never returned. 335 00:25:59,257 --> 00:26:02,283 But if you judge him by the standards of his day, 336 00:26:02,427 --> 00:26:05,419 he wasn't a thief; he was an explorer. 337 00:26:05,564 --> 00:26:08,226 He published everything he found. 338 00:26:08,733 --> 00:26:11,861 If we judge Stein or the fate of the manuscripts 339 00:26:12,003 --> 00:26:13,664 by the person who discovered them, 340 00:26:13,805 --> 00:26:18,071 if you were found by the Chinese, it's very hard for us to see you. 341 00:26:18,543 --> 00:26:20,602 You were a lucky manuscript to be discovered by Stein 342 00:26:20,745 --> 00:26:23,339 because people today can see you, they can actually see you 343 00:26:23,481 --> 00:26:24,914 on the Web. 344 00:26:26,851 --> 00:26:28,546 For his astounding discoveries, 345 00:26:28,687 --> 00:26:33,715 Stein would receive a knighthood from his adopted homeland, England. 346 00:26:33,858 --> 00:26:36,053 But the comforts and adulations of Europe 347 00:26:36,194 --> 00:26:39,095 paled against the call of the East. 348 00:26:39,664 --> 00:26:43,361 Again and again he would return to this bleak part of the world 349 00:26:43,501 --> 00:26:47,597 to try and slake his thirst from knowledge in the deserts of China. 350 00:26:48,807 --> 00:26:51,708 At 81, Stein would die as he lived 351 00:26:51,843 --> 00:26:55,677 in the saddle while exploring Afghanistan. 352 00:26:57,282 --> 00:27:01,343 But he would never again match the solitary years long struggle 353 00:27:01,486 --> 00:27:03,716 that put him on the trail of Xuanzang 354 00:27:03,855 --> 00:27:07,518 and the lost treasures of the Taklimakan. 355 00:27:19,537 --> 00:27:24,236 The Dunhaung Scrolls made archeologist Aurel Stein's reputation. 356 00:27:25,443 --> 00:27:27,604 His Chinese translator speculated that 357 00:27:27,746 --> 00:27:30,874 finding the rare Buddhist text was no accident. 358 00:27:31,016 --> 00:27:36,147 They were a gift from the monk Xuanzang sent across a sea of time. 359 00:27:38,456 --> 00:27:41,948 Xuanzang, like Stein, had risked his life not once, 360 00:27:42,093 --> 00:27:45,585 but many times for the sake of these scrolls. 361 00:27:46,431 --> 00:27:51,767 One of history's most remarkable journeys began in a world in crisis. 362 00:27:55,674 --> 00:27:57,972 China, 620 A. D. 363 00:27:59,010 --> 00:28:03,743 As the great Tang Dynasty begins, the nation convulses in violence. 364 00:28:04,449 --> 00:28:06,610 Bandits beseech cities within, 365 00:28:06,751 --> 00:28:10,152 while neighboring kingdoms assail its waters. 366 00:28:11,823 --> 00:28:15,691 China's golden age is born in blood. 367 00:28:19,597 --> 00:28:23,089 In a remote trade depot, a figure in peasant's robes, 368 00:28:23,234 --> 00:28:26,795 takes advantage of the chaos to flee China. 369 00:28:27,906 --> 00:28:32,434 He's a monk on a suicidal mission to aid Buddhism in China. 370 00:28:34,045 --> 00:28:38,379 In the crisis, the Tang emperor has forbidden foreign travel, 371 00:28:38,516 --> 00:28:41,485 but the monk has ignored the ban. 372 00:28:42,087 --> 00:28:45,921 He hopes his disguise will fool the emperor's henchman. 373 00:28:46,057 --> 00:28:50,118 But there's no disguising this monk's size. 374 00:28:52,397 --> 00:28:55,389 Xuanzang was supposed to be 7 feet tall. 375 00:28:55,533 --> 00:28:58,127 There may be some difference in the way Chinese calculate things, 376 00:28:58,269 --> 00:29:03,263 but he was very tall and he had black bright eyes. 377 00:29:03,408 --> 00:29:04,898 You know, the descriptions of him 378 00:29:05,043 --> 00:29:08,035 make him sound like some idyllic creature. 379 00:29:15,353 --> 00:29:19,653 From boyhood, Xuanzang had always been larger than life. 380 00:29:22,026 --> 00:29:26,463 By age 13 he had mastered the Buddhist texts. 381 00:29:28,333 --> 00:29:31,769 By 20, he had humbled the faith's most renounced scholars 382 00:29:31,903 --> 00:29:33,370 in debate. 383 00:29:34,839 --> 00:29:38,331 Xuanzang's virtuosity delighted the priests. 384 00:29:41,946 --> 00:29:43,641 'The shining of the sun of wisdom,' 385 00:29:43,782 --> 00:29:47,809 they had told the young monk, 'will surely depend on you.' 386 00:29:49,187 --> 00:29:51,815 In fact, Xuanzang would light the way 387 00:29:51,956 --> 00:29:55,551 for generations of Buddhists and explorers of Central Asia. 388 00:29:56,728 --> 00:29:57,820 There is no question 389 00:29:57,962 --> 00:30:01,090 about the historical judgments of Xuanzang's contribution. 390 00:30:01,232 --> 00:30:03,598 By any standards he is a hero. 391 00:30:03,735 --> 00:30:05,828 He is a hero in many ways. 392 00:30:05,970 --> 00:30:08,564 He is a very inspiring figure 393 00:30:08,706 --> 00:30:14,201 not just for people in his age, but also for people born in the world. 394 00:30:17,482 --> 00:30:22,476 At age 26, Xuanzang wasn't yet a hero, but a wanted man on 395 00:30:22,620 --> 00:30:24,485 a holy mission. 396 00:30:25,990 --> 00:30:30,950 His study of Buddhist texts had revealed grave contradictions. 397 00:30:31,863 --> 00:30:37,495 His solution to travel to India and obtain the original teachings. 398 00:30:39,103 --> 00:30:40,070 He is frustrated that 399 00:30:40,205 --> 00:30:43,800 he had multiple versions of the same text that conflict, 400 00:30:43,942 --> 00:30:47,469 and that nobody in China could reconcile the differences. 401 00:30:47,612 --> 00:30:50,274 His thirst for knowledge is so great, 402 00:30:50,415 --> 00:30:54,579 he decides the only way out of that dilemma is to go to India 403 00:30:54,719 --> 00:30:57,847 and find the original teachings. 404 00:31:01,092 --> 00:31:04,755 The devout Buddhist had another reason for the trek. 405 00:31:05,763 --> 00:31:07,822 He wanted to make the pilgrimage to India, 406 00:31:07,966 --> 00:31:10,901 the birthplace of his beloved Buddha. 407 00:31:16,507 --> 00:31:21,001 600 years before Christ, an Indian prince renounced the world 408 00:31:21,145 --> 00:31:26,515 to search for a solution of death and human suffering. 409 00:31:30,655 --> 00:31:34,216 After six years of spiritual discipline, he achieved 410 00:31:34,359 --> 00:31:36,122 supreme enlightenment 411 00:31:36,261 --> 00:31:39,719 while meditating at a place called Bodh Gaya. 412 00:31:42,433 --> 00:31:43,593 For the rest of his life, 413 00:31:43,735 --> 00:31:46,363 the gifted teacher was known as Buddha, 414 00:31:46,504 --> 00:31:49,302 which means 'the enlightened one.' 415 00:31:50,642 --> 00:31:54,373 There are four places that every believing Buddhist should go to: 416 00:31:54,512 --> 00:31:57,913 Where the Buddha was born, where he died, 417 00:31:58,049 --> 00:32:01,610 where he preached his first sermon, and where he achieved enlightenment. 418 00:32:01,753 --> 00:32:04,586 So Xuanzang was a pilgrim. 419 00:32:04,722 --> 00:32:06,519 He wanted to go to the Buddhist holy land, 420 00:32:06,658 --> 00:32:10,059 just as a Christian might want to go to Bethlehem. 421 00:32:13,264 --> 00:32:16,859 Yet the trip came with unholy risks. 422 00:32:17,969 --> 00:32:21,700 When the Chinese Emperor Taizong got wind of Xuanzang's plan, 423 00:32:21,839 --> 00:32:24,103 he ordered the monk's arrest. 424 00:32:28,780 --> 00:32:29,747 Under this threat, 425 00:32:29,881 --> 00:32:34,147 the monks accompanying Xuanzang lost their taste for the journey. 426 00:32:34,686 --> 00:32:36,813 Perhaps it was just as well. 427 00:32:36,955 --> 00:32:39,048 According to caravan traders, 428 00:32:39,190 --> 00:32:44,218 the road to India was choked with murderous bandits and wild beasts. 429 00:32:45,063 --> 00:32:51,696 And the worst threat lay just ahead the Taklimakan desert. 430 00:32:55,773 --> 00:32:59,937 Somebody called it "the abomination of desolation." 431 00:33:00,078 --> 00:33:03,605 It is a place where you go in and you don't come out. 432 00:33:03,748 --> 00:33:08,310 Even Aurel Stein talks about other deserts in Arabia 433 00:33:08,453 --> 00:33:10,819 as being tame deserts. 434 00:33:15,059 --> 00:33:19,052 By day its temperatures can reach 130 degrees Fahrenheit, 435 00:33:19,197 --> 00:33:22,724 and by night plummet to 20 below. 436 00:33:25,837 --> 00:33:29,796 According to legend, thriving cities, whose souls numbered 437 00:33:29,941 --> 00:33:30,703 in the thousands, 438 00:33:30,842 --> 00:33:35,370 had vanished in its black hurricanes, never to be seen again. 439 00:33:40,585 --> 00:33:44,544 Caravan traders warned the unworldly Xuanzang about the dangers, 440 00:33:44,689 --> 00:33:47,021 but the pilgrim replied: 441 00:33:47,759 --> 00:33:52,219 I intend to visit the holy places and seek the law. 442 00:33:53,364 --> 00:33:58,097 I will not regret if I should die on my way. 443 00:34:04,742 --> 00:34:08,576 But years of monastic study hadn't prepared Xuanzang 444 00:34:08,713 --> 00:34:11,910 for the desert's special tortures. 445 00:34:12,050 --> 00:34:15,144 Of this desolate badlands he wrote: 446 00:34:15,286 --> 00:34:20,883 There are no birds in the sky, no beasts on the ground, 447 00:34:21,025 --> 00:34:25,428 no water or vegetation anywhere. 448 00:34:29,033 --> 00:34:30,830 So he's alone. 449 00:34:30,968 --> 00:34:36,065 And he started across the desert, a couple of hundred miles it was, 450 00:34:36,207 --> 00:34:40,473 and his water bag fell down into the group. 451 00:34:43,181 --> 00:34:44,671 The water spills. 452 00:34:44,816 --> 00:34:48,877 And he travels for four and a half days with no water, 453 00:34:49,020 --> 00:34:52,581 and he is hopelessly lost. 454 00:34:54,058 --> 00:34:57,084 Now Xuanzang considered turning back, 455 00:34:57,228 --> 00:35:00,891 but he no longer knew which direction that was. 456 00:35:06,037 --> 00:35:07,470 According to his biographer, 457 00:35:07,605 --> 00:35:11,701 the monk was assailed by the desert's restless spirits. 458 00:35:13,544 --> 00:35:18,038 By day, the wind whipped up terrible sandstorms. 459 00:35:18,583 --> 00:35:22,986 By night, demons and goblins bearing torches 460 00:35:23,121 --> 00:35:26,887 are as many in number as the stars. 461 00:35:29,961 --> 00:35:34,955 The monk prayed to Buddhist guardian spirits to protect his soul. 462 00:35:44,108 --> 00:35:46,576 It was kind of what some Christian mystics 463 00:35:46,711 --> 00:35:49,009 call a dark night of the soul. 464 00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:55,084 He ran out into the unknown, he experiences terrible things. 465 00:35:55,219 --> 00:35:58,450 He has this dark night of the soul. 466 00:36:00,424 --> 00:36:05,828 This is a typical's hero's journey in the Taklimakan desert. 467 00:36:08,099 --> 00:36:11,432 In the dream a spirit called out, 468 00:36:12,203 --> 00:36:16,469 "Why are you resting when you should be marching forward to India?" 469 00:36:20,811 --> 00:36:24,247 It was the horse that seemed to take offense. 470 00:36:27,852 --> 00:36:32,289 He set off in his own direction, Xuanzang following behind. 471 00:36:40,698 --> 00:36:44,099 After four miles, the horse broke into a trot 472 00:36:44,235 --> 00:36:47,500 as a green oasis came into view. 473 00:36:50,775 --> 00:36:54,609 And this old and sickly horse, which has been recommended to him 474 00:36:54,745 --> 00:36:58,078 because it has done the trip 30 times, takes him to an oasis, 475 00:36:58,216 --> 00:37:02,175 and he falls into this pool of water and drinks and drinks. 476 00:37:04,188 --> 00:37:05,177 He was able to survive. 477 00:37:05,323 --> 00:37:09,282 He was able the find water and other food to eat. 478 00:37:09,427 --> 00:37:11,827 This must have meant a lot to him. 479 00:37:11,963 --> 00:37:17,196 I think in his mind this must be a kind of blessing from 480 00:37:17,335 --> 00:37:19,326 Buddha himself. 481 00:37:23,241 --> 00:37:27,507 The stories about people finding water in the desert are recurrent, right? 482 00:37:27,645 --> 00:37:29,772 It happens to Xuanzang; 483 00:37:29,914 --> 00:37:32,610 it happens to Sven Hedin, it happens to Aurel Stein. 484 00:37:32,750 --> 00:37:35,719 Anybody who goes into the desert runs out of water, 485 00:37:35,853 --> 00:37:38,583 and then the ones who live tells us the same story. 486 00:37:38,723 --> 00:37:40,623 The ones who die, don't tell us anything. 487 00:37:44,061 --> 00:37:49,226 Safely across the Taklimakan, Xuanzang entered the kingdom of Turfan. 488 00:37:50,701 --> 00:37:53,829 Again, he was proceeded by his reputation 489 00:37:53,971 --> 00:37:56,872 but as a holy man, not an outlaw. 490 00:37:58,743 --> 00:38:01,439 The king and queen of Turfan were overjoyed 491 00:38:01,579 --> 00:38:03,945 to have such a renowned scholar for company. 492 00:38:05,116 --> 00:38:07,812 "From the first day I heard your name," said the king, 493 00:38:07,952 --> 00:38:09,977 "I've been in a state of ecstacy. 494 00:38:10,121 --> 00:38:13,522 I couldn't keep my hands and feet still from excitement. 495 00:38:17,028 --> 00:38:21,727 But when Xuanzang told him of his mission, the king became stormy. 496 00:38:23,968 --> 00:38:27,995 He demanded the monk cease his journey and remain in Turfan. 497 00:38:30,775 --> 00:38:33,505 He wanted Xuanzang to be his resident guru. 498 00:38:33,644 --> 00:38:38,047 He wanted him to stay there and not go to the West. 499 00:38:38,816 --> 00:38:44,846 He got very angry at Xuanzang and shouted at him and said, 500 00:38:44,989 --> 00:38:47,787 You've got to stay here. I'm not going to let you go." 501 00:38:49,660 --> 00:38:52,094 Xuanzang objected. 502 00:38:52,830 --> 00:38:56,698 I came here on my way to obtaining the Great Law. 503 00:38:57,335 --> 00:39:03,706 You can imprison my flesh and bones, but you cannot rule my spirit. 504 00:39:05,142 --> 00:39:07,906 So he decided to starve himself. 505 00:39:08,045 --> 00:39:15,645 He fasted for four or five days. He didn't take water or anything. 506 00:39:17,154 --> 00:39:20,248 Each day the king brought him rich food, 507 00:39:20,391 --> 00:39:23,758 but Xuanzang wouldn't touch a morsel. 508 00:39:26,430 --> 00:39:30,594 Again he almost died, and the king of Turfan was shamed and he gave in. 509 00:39:30,735 --> 00:39:36,332 And then the king of Turfan gave him gold and silver 510 00:39:36,474 --> 00:39:38,999 and 24 letters of introduction 511 00:39:39,143 --> 00:39:42,977 to all the kings and khans all the way up to India. 512 00:39:43,114 --> 00:39:45,014 So he had protection. 513 00:39:45,149 --> 00:39:49,017 He was going to be taken care of for the rest of his journey. 514 00:39:50,855 --> 00:39:54,951 The king provides servants and horses and clothes. 515 00:39:55,092 --> 00:39:59,825 The most crucial thing the king gives him is contact with the Turks 516 00:39:59,964 --> 00:40:04,628 who control the region west of China with whom the king has allied. 517 00:40:04,769 --> 00:40:08,899 So suddenly Xuanzang has gone from this solitary march 518 00:40:09,039 --> 00:40:09,733 through the desert 519 00:40:09,874 --> 00:40:13,833 to having a retinue with him and diplomatic credentials. 520 00:40:16,280 --> 00:40:18,145 With India almost in sight, 521 00:40:18,282 --> 00:40:21,513 Xuanzang approached the fulfillment of his mission 522 00:40:21,652 --> 00:40:24,780 and the greatest trials of his life. 523 00:40:32,062 --> 00:40:36,522 By now, Xuanzang had trekked more than fifteen hundred miles. 524 00:40:37,968 --> 00:40:39,799 He had become a skillful traveler, 525 00:40:39,937 --> 00:40:42,337 falling in step with the merchants and pilgrims 526 00:40:42,473 --> 00:40:46,773 whose precious goods enriched the trade depots of western China. 527 00:40:50,781 --> 00:40:55,809 He grew into the roles of accidental diplomat and impromptu preacher. 528 00:41:00,424 --> 00:41:05,487 And throughout, the always hearty giant endured the unexpected. 529 00:41:07,264 --> 00:41:10,563 After he leaves Turfan, he doesn't have to worry about money, right? 530 00:41:10,701 --> 00:41:13,761 He's bankrolled and he has diplomatic credentials. 531 00:41:13,904 --> 00:41:16,805 But then he has the problems that beset rich travelers, 532 00:41:16,941 --> 00:41:18,465 like robbers. 533 00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:25,313 There are a bunch of robbers that are interested in clothes. 534 00:41:25,449 --> 00:41:26,074 That is interesting. 535 00:41:26,217 --> 00:41:29,516 He's robbed twice of his own clothes. 536 00:41:38,128 --> 00:41:40,153 He was not just once robbed on his journey 537 00:41:40,297 --> 00:41:42,458 he was robbed many times. 538 00:41:43,200 --> 00:41:48,467 Because of his inner strength sometimes even under great danger 539 00:41:48,606 --> 00:41:51,575 he was able to escape from those dangers. 540 00:41:55,045 --> 00:41:57,980 Finally a year after plunging into the desert 541 00:41:58,115 --> 00:42:01,414 the pilgrim set foot on Indian soil. 542 00:42:07,958 --> 00:42:11,121 He'd proved wrong all predictions of his imminent death 543 00:42:11,262 --> 00:42:14,823 and reached the country of his beloved Buddha. 544 00:42:22,306 --> 00:42:27,005 Guided by priests, he visited sacred 'stupas' or shrines, 545 00:42:27,578 --> 00:42:32,447 examining the stories painted on the walls and committing them to memory. 546 00:42:36,687 --> 00:42:41,784 Assisted by as many as 20 scribes, Xuanzang got down to business 547 00:42:41,926 --> 00:42:45,293 translating and copying Buddhist scripture. 548 00:42:46,630 --> 00:42:49,428 The most significant contribution he made 549 00:42:49,567 --> 00:42:55,631 is to translate a large amount of Indian Buddhist scripture. 550 00:42:55,773 --> 00:43:01,712 Scholars are amazed at how accurate his translations are. 551 00:43:02,413 --> 00:43:05,473 His reputation seems, by this time, to have proceeded him, 552 00:43:05,616 --> 00:43:10,553 so that when he got to a new place monks seemed to know all about him. 553 00:43:12,323 --> 00:43:14,689 It was customary for the kings, 554 00:43:14,825 --> 00:43:17,521 when he got to the border, they would come and meet him. 555 00:43:17,661 --> 00:43:20,562 They would give him a big elephant to ride on. 556 00:43:23,000 --> 00:43:25,730 Seven years passed like a dream. 557 00:43:26,570 --> 00:43:28,936 Xuanzang's celebrated knowledge carried him 558 00:43:29,073 --> 00:43:32,600 and his scribes from one monastery to the next. 559 00:43:34,345 --> 00:43:39,146 At each awaited new Buddhist texts and spirited debate. 560 00:43:40,918 --> 00:43:43,011 It was customary in many of those countries 561 00:43:43,153 --> 00:43:45,678 in northern India to have a debate. 562 00:43:45,823 --> 00:43:47,381 There are several kinds of Buddhism, 563 00:43:47,524 --> 00:43:52,587 and so an exponent of one kind would debate against another kind. 564 00:43:57,568 --> 00:44:00,969 And he studied the other guys' beliefs 565 00:44:01,105 --> 00:44:04,131 so that he knew their arguments and his arguments. 566 00:44:04,274 --> 00:44:07,539 And that may be one of the reasons that he was so good. 567 00:44:08,312 --> 00:44:12,214 Xuanzang never loses a debate with anybody, 568 00:44:12,349 --> 00:44:15,011 even if he's debating in Sanskrit 569 00:44:15,152 --> 00:44:18,315 on arcane points of Buddhist document in India. 570 00:44:18,455 --> 00:44:19,444 It's just not credible. 571 00:44:19,590 --> 00:44:25,392 Every time that he meets somebody, he bests that person in the debate. 572 00:44:32,569 --> 00:44:37,905 At last it came time for Xuanzang to fulfill his personal pilgrimage. 573 00:44:40,244 --> 00:44:44,943 He and his followers traveled by boat down the sacred Ganges River 574 00:44:45,082 --> 00:44:47,516 their destination, Bodh Gaya, 575 00:44:47,651 --> 00:44:51,348 the place of the Buddha's spiritual transformation. 576 00:44:55,225 --> 00:45:00,128 But on the river, according to his biographer, another calamity awaited. 577 00:45:01,532 --> 00:45:05,161 A whole mess of pirates came in and took his party, 578 00:45:05,302 --> 00:45:07,236 and shoved them ashore. 579 00:45:07,371 --> 00:45:11,307 They wanted a sacrifice for their god, Durga. 580 00:45:11,442 --> 00:45:14,969 They said, oh, there's that handsome fellow, he'll be just fine. 581 00:45:21,185 --> 00:45:23,551 They decided he's the perfect sacrifice. 582 00:45:23,687 --> 00:45:26,918 They tell him this, and he has a very Buddhist response 583 00:45:27,057 --> 00:45:28,490 which is he doesn't wanted to be killed, 584 00:45:28,625 --> 00:45:31,150 but if he's going to be killed, that's fine 585 00:45:31,295 --> 00:45:33,820 he wants to be allowed to meditate. 586 00:45:35,699 --> 00:45:39,863 If this cold body is suitable for sacrifice, 587 00:45:40,003 --> 00:45:43,166 then I dare not crush the offer. 588 00:45:44,141 --> 00:45:50,046 But if you kills this body of mine, I fear it will bring you misfortune. 589 00:45:52,282 --> 00:45:55,740 At that moment a tremendous gale came 590 00:45:55,886 --> 00:45:58,650 that scared the hell out of the pirates. 591 00:45:58,789 --> 00:46:01,485 And so they said, who is this man? 592 00:46:08,065 --> 00:46:09,692 He was really not afraid of death. 593 00:46:09,833 --> 00:46:12,165 He was prepared for death. 594 00:46:12,302 --> 00:46:14,429 He is not just a courageous person; 595 00:46:14,571 --> 00:46:17,665 he was also a very calm person, an intelligent person. 596 00:46:17,808 --> 00:46:22,302 Whenever he faced difficulty, he always showed this kind of calmness. 597 00:46:22,446 --> 00:46:24,505 So, of course, according to the biographer 598 00:46:24,648 --> 00:46:26,138 they threw away their weapons, 599 00:46:26,283 --> 00:46:29,309 and they became good Buddhist, so to speak. 600 00:46:29,953 --> 00:46:33,480 This is another story that follows a very fixed pattern, 601 00:46:33,624 --> 00:46:36,320 which is that a representative of the Buddha 602 00:46:36,460 --> 00:46:39,361 encounters the representatives of a given local deity, 603 00:46:39,496 --> 00:46:41,487 and the Buddha bests the local deity 604 00:46:41,632 --> 00:46:45,659 the Buddha proves that he's more powerful than the local deity. 605 00:46:45,803 --> 00:46:48,863 So, did it happen? We don't know! 606 00:46:50,240 --> 00:46:53,505 These are just stories, I think, but they're good ones. 607 00:47:00,717 --> 00:47:04,346 Finally, Xuanzang arrived at Bodh Gaya. 608 00:47:04,488 --> 00:47:07,753 Here the Buddha had achieved enlightenment. 609 00:47:09,326 --> 00:47:13,922 But for the wandering pilgrim, something very different was in store. 610 00:47:14,832 --> 00:47:18,495 Xuanzang's trials and years of devotion did not yield 611 00:47:18,635 --> 00:47:23,095 even a taste of the sublime unity experienced by the Buddha. 612 00:47:23,540 --> 00:47:26,941 Instead, under the sacred tree where the Buddha was transformed, 613 00:47:27,077 --> 00:47:31,980 Xuanzang could only weep at the frailty of his own mortal spirit. 614 00:47:32,683 --> 00:47:39,384 When Xuanzang finally got there, he knelt down and he asked himself: 615 00:47:39,523 --> 00:47:44,290 "In what cycle of life was I when the Buddha lived?" 616 00:47:45,362 --> 00:47:46,488 And then he wept. 617 00:47:46,630 --> 00:47:49,428 And there were lots of other Buddhist monks around, 618 00:47:49,566 --> 00:47:51,557 and they were all very moved by this. 619 00:47:53,503 --> 00:47:56,870 At a time when the Buddha perfected himself, 620 00:47:57,007 --> 00:48:00,340 I know not in what condition I was in, 621 00:48:00,477 --> 00:48:03,969 but in the troublesome world of birth and death. 622 00:48:07,484 --> 00:48:11,750 It's very rare for an enlightened Buddhist monk to do so, 623 00:48:11,889 --> 00:48:16,383 and he was crying almost, prostrating. 624 00:48:17,361 --> 00:48:22,389 This kind of gesture was witnessed by any visitors at the time. 625 00:48:25,602 --> 00:48:31,268 Where Xuanzang saw unworthiness, the witnesses saw breakthrough. 626 00:48:31,842 --> 00:48:35,334 The most virtuous among them bent with humility. 627 00:48:37,547 --> 00:48:38,445 This is somebody 628 00:48:38,582 --> 00:48:43,542 whose whole travel description is completely dry and factual. 629 00:48:43,687 --> 00:48:47,623 He has, for him, a very emotional experience 630 00:48:47,758 --> 00:48:53,788 bursting into tears and saying that he can never be 631 00:48:53,931 --> 00:48:55,922 as good as the Buddha. 632 00:48:57,100 --> 00:49:01,969 In a remarkable adventure, this was Xuanzang's moment of truth. 633 00:49:02,773 --> 00:49:06,937 He was perfectly humble for a Buddhist, a perfect state. 634 00:49:09,379 --> 00:49:12,280 At last he arose more determined than ever 635 00:49:12,416 --> 00:49:16,614 to pursue his destiny on the wheel of life, come what may. 636 00:49:29,700 --> 00:49:32,168 On his return trip through western China, 637 00:49:32,302 --> 00:49:36,102 Xuanzang anxiously awaited word from Emperor Taizong. 638 00:49:39,009 --> 00:49:40,636 How would he receive the monk 639 00:49:40,777 --> 00:49:45,111 who flagrantly disobeyed him half a lifetime ago? 640 00:49:52,656 --> 00:49:57,787 At Dunhaung's 'Caves of a Thousand Buddhas' Xuanzang paused, 641 00:49:57,928 --> 00:50:02,092 probably to let monks copy the scriptures he brought back from India. 642 00:50:04,935 --> 00:50:08,996 While he waited, the holy man studied three centuries of painting 643 00:50:09,139 --> 00:50:11,801 and sculpture in the cave's many rooms. 644 00:50:16,046 --> 00:50:19,447 Little did he know that a record of his own epic journey 645 00:50:19,583 --> 00:50:22,780 would someday join these sacred images. 646 00:50:27,691 --> 00:50:29,784 Eventually word would come to the pilgrim 647 00:50:29,926 --> 00:50:35,626 waiting on the lip of the Taklimakan Xuanzang was forgiven. 648 00:50:38,035 --> 00:50:41,436 The Emperor Taizong said he wanted to talk to him. 649 00:50:42,873 --> 00:50:45,501 And then, of course, he said to Xuanzang, 650 00:50:45,642 --> 00:50:48,702 "Why did you go on this trip?" 651 00:50:48,845 --> 00:50:51,245 Emperor Taizong at the very beginning 652 00:50:51,381 --> 00:50:55,317 probably had a kind of utilitarian purpose in his mind 653 00:50:55,452 --> 00:51:00,048 as he realized that someone who has spent so much time and energy 654 00:51:00,190 --> 00:51:04,058 traveling through Central Asia to India had a great knowledge 655 00:51:04,194 --> 00:51:06,219 about these regions and the region 656 00:51:06,363 --> 00:51:10,231 that he always had a great political interest in. 657 00:51:10,367 --> 00:51:11,493 Afterwards, 658 00:51:11,635 --> 00:51:16,971 they gradually developed this kind of very close personal friendship. 659 00:51:18,208 --> 00:51:22,770 The emperor invited the prodigal monk to be his foreign minister. 660 00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:26,872 But Taizong would settle instead for a book 661 00:51:27,017 --> 00:51:31,716 in which Xuanzang described each step of his remarkable journey. 662 00:51:34,191 --> 00:51:36,682 There are plenty of bookworms in the world, 663 00:51:36,827 --> 00:51:38,920 and there are lots of great trekkers, 664 00:51:39,062 --> 00:51:43,556 and there are some good diplomats, and there are some devout Buddhists, 665 00:51:43,700 --> 00:51:45,930 but he was all of them. 666 00:51:46,069 --> 00:51:49,095 And I think he was a real man for all seasons. 667 00:51:51,608 --> 00:51:56,477 The monk's last bit of uncommon good fortune was the emperor's friendship. 668 00:51:57,314 --> 00:52:01,478 It permitted Xuanzang to spend the rest of his life as he wished, 669 00:52:01,618 --> 00:52:05,782 translating the treasures he wagered his life to find.