This journey will take us to some of the oldest and most revered Buddhist sites in China, including early Chan (Zen) monasteries. Over sixteen days, we will travel from Beijing to the Dunhuang Caves in the desert of Gansu province in the far north, where Buddhism first reached China from India along the Silk Road. We will explore Kumbum, one of the largest Tibetan monasteries in north-west China; the ancient Imperial capital of Xian; the renowned shrines and statues of the Longmen Grottoes; and the sacred mountain of Wutaishan, covered with temples and hermitages that date back hundreds of years and are still active today.
For many centuries these sites have served not only as places of meditation and study, but as important centres of pilgrimage, attracting Buddhists from all over Asia. To honor the spirit of those former pilgrims, at each place we will spend time in silent reflection as well as learning about the historical, religious and philosophical roots of Chinese Buddhism.
In Beijing, we shall visit the Forbidden City, a massive imperial palace once home to China’s emperors and the geographic center of this endless metropolis. The gates were shut to all but the royal household and their entourage of eunuchs and concubines for 600 years until, in 1924, a powerful warlord gave the last emperor just three hours to leave.
Mogao caves in Dunhuang, the Terracotta army and the Wild Goose Pagoda in Xian, the Longmen grottoes, Wutaishan besides the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, the Summer Palace, and the Great Wall of China in and around Beijing are all UNESCO world heritage sites.
Our pilgrimage will allow us to witness what remains of the ancient culture of China, while also experiencing the highly modernised and dynamic country that China has become today.
Stephen and Martine visited some of these sites during a pilgrimage to China in 1985 after they left their monastery in Korea. Shantum was part of Thich Nhat Hanh’s delegation in 1999, which went to many of the surviving Chan monasteries. Shantum also visited many of these sites in 1982 soon after his brother, Vikram Seth, then a student at Nanjing University, had written his travelogue From Heaven Lake on his overland journey from China to India. We shall be accompanied throughout our trip by excellent local guides, who will be able to share with you their own impressions of the changes that have occurred over the past thirty-five years.
In the Footsteps of the Ancestors will appeal to anyone with an interest in Buddhist philosophy, history, meditation and art, who seeks to experience first-hand the sites that gave birth to China’s unique synthesis of Taoist, Confucian and Buddhist traditions.
You can extend the journey by three days to visit important sites in and around Beijing including the Great Wall of China.
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