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There is Hsuan-tsang, the studious, well born Buddhist monk who, fortified by a dream, passed beyond the Great Wall in 629 A. D., set out across the grim Gobi, finding his way by the bones and droppings of camels.

The first known mention of it seems to be that by Hsuan-Tsang, at a time when apparently it had already passed its meridian, and was the head of one of the small states into which the empire of the White Huns had broken up.

The Central-Asian shrines visited by Buddhist pilgrims from China on their way to India, Fa-hsien in the fifth and Hsuan-tsang in the seventh century, are now appropriated to Islam.