Learning along maritime routes
In 671 Yijing sailed from Guangzhou with a Persian shipmaster. At Srivijaya he spent six months studying Sanskrit before continuing through other ports to Tamralipti in eastern India. There he met the monk Dachengdeng and prepared for inland travel, joining merchants and relying on assistance from other monks.
Yijing describes ten years of study at Nalanda before returning to Srivijaya with manuscripts. In 689 a merchant vessel carried him back to Guangzhou while he was seeking writing supplies and copyists. He recruited Zhengu and other companions and sailed south again that year.
Translation after his return
Yijing returned to Luoyang in 695. He worked on the Avatamsaka translation associated with Shikshananda and subsequently directed translation projects of his own. The Song Biographies of Eminent Monks credits him with fifty-six works in 230 fascicles, including scriptures, treatises, and substantial Vinaya material.
The biography identifies separate tasks for reading Sanskrit, checking meaning, recording a draft, verifying doctrine, and polishing Chinese prose. Monks and court personnel contributed different skills. Translation depended on this division of labour as well as on the manuscripts brought across the sea.
Practices and travelling lives
A Record of Buddhist Practices examines seating, meals, clothing, water, and ordination. Yijing explicitly grounds its prescriptions in Mulasarvastivada discipline while acknowledging other schools.
His biographies of pilgrims preserve meetings, manuscript traces, reported journeys, and uncertain outcomes. Read together, the works document both monastic organization and the people who transported texts and learning between regions.