The Buddhist Maritime Silk Road

5. Buddhist Expansion in a Great Circle
 
The history of contact between these two major regions of China and India was not limited to cargo and economic gain. Along those corridors that defined the mapping of the systems of interaction, culture, religious practice and belief came along with merchants. If we map Buddhist expansion over time and place, it can be roughly described as a “circle.” I have called it The Great Circle of Buddhism. In many ways, the Circle functions as a “rim” that marks the outer regions where the Buddhist tradition was found. I was inspired to think of the Buddhist world as a circle by the diary of an eighth-century Korean monk, Hyecho, who made his way from Korea down the coastline of China, through the islands and coastal ports of the southern seas until he arrived in India. There, he chose to continue his journey through Inner Asia back to China. It is important to consider that this monk knew that he could go down to the seaport in Korea and travel by ship to India. He had knowledge of the Great Circle and was able to follow its rim. His diary, probably recopied by a scribe at Dunhuang caves in Western China, was eventually placed in the famous cache of documents found in Cave 17 and there it was preserved. Paul Pelliot, the French sinologist found it in the early years of the twentieth century during his visit to Dunhuang. He made it known to the world and Korea. Since Hyecho stayed in China until his death and never returned to his homeland, knowledge of him in Korea was lost until his travel record was uncovered on the distant rim of his Great Circle journey, centuries after his lifetime.