Review of Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud
First Book by Sun Shuyun Takes the Reader From China to India
Jun 6, 2009
The first book from author and documentary film-maker Sun Shuyun, Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud is many things – personal memoir, travel book, cultural history and meditation on the nature of Buddhism and what it means to be Chinese. Sun Shuyun follows in the footsteps of the seventh-century monk Xuanzang, who defied his emperor to journey to India in search of the sacred writings of Buddhism.
Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud
The seed for Sun’s journey was planted in her youth. Caught up in the maelstrom of the Cultural Revolution, when the old ways and religious modes of thought were constantly under attack, she remembers the calm, indomitable spirit of her Buddhist grandmother. A woman whose life had been far from easy – complete with bound feet, prolonged widowhood and ongoing derision of her beliefs – she was the bedrock of Sun’s childhood, as grandmothers so often are.
It was her grandmother who introduced Sun to the captivating tale of the Monkey King, who accompanied an ineffectual monk on an epic trek to the Western Regions. It was only later that Sun discovered that the monk was not so ineffectual, and that his journey had profound influences, not just on China, but on India as well.
In the Footsteps of the Monk Xuanzang
It was in the seventh century that the monk Xuanzang, suspecting major deficiencies in the Buddhism currently at large in China, set off on his 18-year trek to India, the homeland of Buddhism, in search of the sutras, or sacred writings, of the religion. He followed the Silk Road west from Xi’an, braving bandits, storms and imperious royal demands, all the way to the Indian state of Bihar, where the Buddha achieved enlightenment. His writings were so detailed they enabled later scholars and adventurer-archaeologists to fill in an entire period of Indian history that had previously been lost.
His writings also act as a guide for Sun Shuyun, whose own journey was not without its difficulties. Some things have not changed in the intervening centuries – the lands through which Xuanzang travelled remain physically daunting and politically troubled. From the western Chinese region of Xinjiang through Central Asia to Pakistan and India, international politics have kept the area in turmoil.
Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud is a sensitively written account of a personal journey of discovery. Sun ends the book on a moving note, standing by her grandmother’s grave, buoyed by a feeling of greater understanding but with a note of regret for what can’t be undone.
Sun Shuyun, Ten Thousand Miles Without A Cloud (Harper Perennial, 2004), 464 pages, ISBN: 9780007129744.
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