Xuanzang
602-664 · East Asian Buddhism · Prominent
Xuanzang was a seventh-century Chinese Buddhist monk who left China without permission, walked to India, studied at the monastery of Nalanda, and came back to Chang'an seventeen years later with hundreds of Sanskrit manuscripts. He spent the rest of his life translating them, over seventy works, and founded a Chinese school teaching that what you take for a world outside you is consciousness.
Signature
The position Xuanzang is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence
- Language
- Representation
Positions on the 3 axes the sources answer
- Meaning
- leans Inherent (75 on a 0–100 scale from Constructed to Inherent)
- Ground of Being
- leans Transcendence (78 on a 0–100 scale from Immanence to Transcendence)
- Truth
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
17 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Xuanzang refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Ethics Basis
- Virtue
What is the ultimate basis of ethics? - Agency
- Non-Self
What is the nature of human agency and freedom? - Authority
- Sacred Tradition
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Language
- Representation
What is the fundamental nature of language? - Death
- Reincarnation
What happens at death? - Human Nature
- No-Self
What is human nature? - Primary Bond
- All Beings
What is your primary bond and loyalty?