Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)This is one of the most absorbing book I have read lately. And I would say a must read for any one interested in Asia as a whole.
As an Indian who fell in love with China, Mishi's personal journey bridges the gap between two Asian giants, the respective cultures of which support much of everything else in the region. And bridging the gap she does brillantly in a beautifully written book that combines in-depth historical researches on the original journey of Xuangchang, soulful descriptions of simple everyday life moments in the foreign places visited, sobering reflections on the evolution of the world today.
The book unfold like a lyrical frescoes that falls nothing short of renacting Xuangchang's journey, albeit in a different time but pretty much in the same space. It keeps the reader turning pages from beginning to end, all the way to a most unexpected, almost disturbing, conclusion in Afghanistan a few weeks prior to 9-11.
A book I shall certainly remember for a long time.
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In the seventh century AD, the Chinese monk Xuanzang set off on an epic journey to India to study Buddhist philosophy from the Indian masters. Traveling along the Silk Road, braving brigands and blizzards, Xuanzang finally reached India, where his spiritual quest took him to Buddhist holy places and monasteries throughout the subcontinent. Fourteen hundred years later, Mishi Saran follows in Xuanzang's footsteps to the fabled oasis cities of China and Central Asia, and the Buddhist sites and now-vanished kingdoms in India, Pakistan and Afghanistan that Xuanzang wrote about. Traveling seamlessly back and forth in time between the seventh century and the twenty-first, Saran uncovers the past with consummate skill even as she brings alive the present through her vivid and engaging descriptions of people and places. A riveting mix of lively reportage, high adventure, historical inquiry and personal memoir, this delightfully written book is a path-breaking travelogue.
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