Lalji Shravak

Honourable

Dharma Masters, scholars, ladies and gentlemen:

We feel grateful and honored to come to China attending the Third International Conference on Xuanzang and discuss the great contribution of the Great Master Xuanzang with scholars from all over the world. Let me on behalf of all foreign scholars at present express our deep respect to the holder/organizers of this conference and hope to get the perfect success of the conference.

Xuanzang is a Chinese respected monk and the friendly ambassador of Chinese people. He is a household in India, there is a text about Xuanzang's deeds in the textbook of elemental school. So, Indian people are very familiar with him.

Xuanzang visited India in the middle age. His travel was not only a pilgrimage of visiting Indian Buddhist holy sites, but also a quest for Buddhist scriptures and truthful knowledge of Buddhism. Xuanzang once visited many respected monks during staying in India. He learned from Great Masters from all sorts of sects, thought deeply and got rich achievements. He had gained respects from Indian monks.

Xuanzang took Indian Buddhism and its culture back to China and translated many Indian Buddhist scriptures in Sanskrit into Chinese, that made Indian Buddhist thoughts known by more Chinese people and Sino-Indian religious and cultural exchange deepened further. These all are valuable works.

Xuanzang also contributed to the Indian Historical survey. He wrote the book Da Tang Xi Yu Ji (Records of the Western Land in the Tang dynasty) after coming back to China, which records the information of different parts of India in detail. Depending on Xuanzang's work, modern Indian archaeologists had made many discoveries. Xuanzang contributed to the Indian History a lot, therefore Indian people have been thinking of him.

There has been friendly contact between India and China for two thousands years, in which Buddhism is the most important link which connected these two counties. The Buddhist thought that India supplied for Chinese people become one most influential aspect of spirit and faith of Chinese people. This year is being celebrated as the year of Indo-China friendship when variety of rich activities have been held in both counties, commemorating Xuanzang which is the common wish of people from both countries is one of these activities. I hope the friendship between India and China will continue forever and will make more contributions to the world peace and the economic and cultural development through this activity.   

Thanks for all!

(Lalji Shravak, Research Scientist of Department of Foreign Languages, Banaras Hindu University)