Consider the following foreign travellers and arrange them in ascending chronological order :
1. I-Tsing
2. Al-Biruni
3. Huentsang (Hiuen Tsang)
4. Fahyan (Fa-Hien)
Select the correct answer from the

Question

Consider the following foreign travellers and arrange them in ascending chronological order :
1. I-Tsing
2. Al-Biruni
3. Huentsang (Hiuen Tsang)
4. Fahyan (Fa-Hien)
Select the correct answer from the codes given below :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — B, 4, 3, 1, 2, that is Fahyan (Fa-Hien) → Huentsang (Hiuen Tsang) → I-Tsing → Al-Biruni. Take them in turn. Fa-Hien, or Faxian, is the earliest: he left China in 399 CE, travelled overland across Central Asia, and was in India in roughly 405–411 during the reign of Chandragupta II of the Guptas, returning by sea through Sri Lanka and reaching China in 414. Hiuen Tsang, or Xuanzang, left China in 629, was in India from about 630 to 644 and returned in 645, so his stay falls squarely in the reign of Harshavardhana of Kanauj; he studied at Nalanda under Shilabhadra. I-Tsing, or Yijing, is the third: he set out in 671, went by sea through Srivijaya rather than overland, spent about ten years at Nalanda and returned to China in 695. Al-Biruni is last by a wide margin and is the odd one out of the four in more than date — he was not a Chinese Buddhist pilgrim but a Khwarazmian scholar (born 973, died about 1050) writing in Arabic, carried to Ghazni when Mahmud annexed Khwarazm in 1017, who came to India with Mahmud of Ghazni's campaigns from about 1017 and completed his study of the country, Tahqiq-ma-li'l-Hind (also called Kitab-ul-Hind or Tarikh al-Hind), around 1030. So the order is fifth century, seventh century, late seventh century, early eleventh century — 4, 3, 1, 2, which is option (b). There is a one-move route as well. Fa-Hien is the earliest of the four and Al-Biruni the latest, and only one code in the set begins with 4 or ends with 2 — option (b) does both. Fixing either end alone eliminates the other three. On spelling: the booklet prints 'Huentsang' and 'Fahyan', giving the familiar forms in brackets; the standard renderings are Hiuen Tsang (also Hsuan-tsang or Xuanzang) and Fa-Hien (also Faxian or Fa-hsien). Same travellers, different transliterations of Chinese names, and nothing in the question turns on it.

Why the other options are wrong — (a) This is simply the order in which the four names are printed in the question, which is the answer a candidate picks when he has not attempted the chronology at all. It puts I-Tsing (671–695 CE) first, Al-Biruni (about 1017–1030) second, Hiuen Tsang (630–644) third and Fa-Hien (405–411) last — an almost exact inversion, since it places the eleventh-century scholar before the seventh-century pilgrim and the fifth-century pilgrim at the end.  (c) It opens with Al-Biruni, who is the LAST of the four by about six centuries. If you remember one thing about this set, it should be that Al-Biruni is the only non-Chinese, non-Buddhist name in it and belongs to the age of Mahmud of Ghazni, therefore the eleventh century — which rules this option out on sight. It also reverses Fa-Hien and Hiuen Tsang at the tail.  (d) It places Hiuen Tsang before Fa-Hien, and Al-Biruni before I-Tsing — both wrong. Hiuen Tsang came in Harsha's reign in the seventh century, more than two hundred years after Fa-Hien's visit under Chandragupta II; and I-Tsing, who returned to China in 695, precedes Al-Biruni by more than three centuries. This is the option that catches a candidate who has learned 'Hiuen Tsang' as the most famous Chinese pilgrim and therefore assumes he was the first.

Concept: Foreign accounts are one of the main classes of source for early Indian history, and the four here span two very different traditions. Three are Chinese Buddhist pilgrims who came for the sacred sites and the texts, and each left a book: Fa-Hien's Fo-kuo-ki, the Record of Buddhist Kingdoms; Hiuen Tsang's Si-yu-ki, the Records of the Western Regions; and I-Tsing's account of Buddhist practice in India and the Malay Archipelago. The fourth, Al-Biruni, arrived with a conquering army and wrote a scholar's survey of Indian religion, philosophy, science and social order in Arabic. Their dates also mark different Indian polities — Fa-Hien saw Gupta India under Chandragupta II, Hiuen Tsang saw Harsha's north India, I-Tsing saw Nalanda at its height under the Palas' predecessors, and Al-Biruni saw the north during Mahmud of Ghazni's raids.

State PCS 2024 Q149 — History PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2024 Q149 — History PYQ with Answer