Central Asia, with its historical significance as part of the Great Silk Road, has always attracted the attention of the Japanese. Uzbekistan, in particular, was an important connecting country through which not only trade routes but also cultural exchanges passed. The Japanese were interested in Central Asia in the context of Buddhism, which, as we know, originated in India, but also had a significant influence in the regions of Central Asia where monks went to get sutras.
In the 7th century, the Chinese monk Xuanzang from the Tang Empire traveled through Central Asia to India in search of Buddhist sutras, visited Samarkand, Tashkent, Termez, Bamiyan, and wrote about this in his travel notes, “Journey to the Western Region.” In his notes, the Chinese monk described in detail the regions of India and Central Asia. In the 16th century, a fairy tale was written based on this book, which remained popular for a long time, in which the monk himself is one of the main characters. Much later, at the beginning of the 20th century, inspired by the example of Xuanzang, the abbot of the Honganji Buddhist temple, located in the very center of Kyoto, Count Otani Kozui, organized a number of expeditions to Central Asia and India to search for Buddhist sutras. The core of the expeditionary detachment was made up of Buddhist monks. It also included scientists, for example, the famous architect Ito Chuta. During archaeological excavations, a large number of manuscripts in Chinese, Sogdian, Gandar and other languages of the peoples of Central Asia were found. Some of these manuscripts are stored in the library of Ryukoku University, founded by the Honganji Temple in 1922, which continues archaeological research in Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to this day.
Xuanzang's journey did not leave many other remarkable people indifferent. For example, the popular Japanese artist Hirayama Ikuo, who became an honorary citizen of Tashkent and painted a picture dedicated to the origins of Buddhist teachings, "The Origin of Buddhism", based on the journey of the monk Xuanzang. Or the authoritative diplomat Baron Nishi Tokujiro, who was the first Japanese to visit the territory of today's Uzbekistan, wrote "Notes on Central Asia", which he published in 1886. Finally, the famous Japanese writer Inoue Yasushi, who visited Central Asia twice – in 1965 and 1968. Immediately after that, he published travel notes, which, in tribute to the Chinese monk, he also called “Notes on the Western Region”. You can learn more about this topic in the book-album "The Cultural Heritage of Central Asia in Japanese Museums".
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