Both the stone image statue of Xuanzang preserved in Xingjiao monastery of Xi’an of China and his anonymous portrait in Japan mean much more than the objects themselves.This paper considers the images of Xingjiaoseng(Itinerant Monk) as the predecessor of the images of Xuanzang on the basis that Xuanzang’s successful pilgrimage to India to seek scriptures and a large group of western preachers’ pouring into China from India to disseminate the Dharma inspired the common people to acknowledge Xingjiaoseng(Itinerant Monk),which resulted in the production of his images in large quantities by the end of the Tang and the Song dynasties when the images looked more Han monks than Hu monks as they did at the early stage,and then were falsely translated into the image of Xuanzang.Further more,it has been studied that the image of Xuanzang in Japan is likely to be a monk who is an Esoteric Buddhist.The author bases his studies on the historical texts aiming at a comprehensive knowledge about the images.
