Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) 大唐西域記 · Xuanzang · compiled by Bianji · 646 (Tang, 20th year of the Zhenguan era) · 2 passages · 112 Chinese characters · reading time 0.4 min
Da Tang Xiyu Ji (Great Tang Records on the Western Regions) Book 1 The record Xuanzang laid before Emperor Taizong of the Tang after seventeen years of walking through the Western Regions and India, a hundred and thirty-eight countries in all. It is the stuff from which Journey to the West was made, but what stands here is not monsters — it is the compass and the climate and the speech and the faith of one country after another. The road runs two hundred years after Faxian and eighty years before Hyecho.
The country of Sudulisena is fourteen or fifteen hundred li around. On the east it comes down to the Ye river. The Ye river rises on the northern plateau of the Pamirs and flows to the northwest, wide and far and muddy, rushing and swift. What the soil suits and the customs are the same as in the country of Zheshi. It has a king of its own, but it is attached to the Turks.
From here one goes northwest into a great sandy waste. There is no water or grass at all, the road runs on without end, and the borders are hard to make out. Travelers look to the great mountains and search out the bones left behind, and by these they know where to head and mark the way they have come. Going more than five hundred li, one reaches the country of Samojian.