Travels to the West of Qiu Chang Chun
The Travels to the West of Qiu Changchun was a record of the journey embarked by the Taoist monk Qiu Chuji who traveled from Shandong through Central Asia to present himself before Genghis Khan.
In 1220, on the invitation of Genghis Khan with a golden tablet, Qiu Chuji left his hometown in Shandong with nineteen disciples, and traveled north through Beijing. In June, they reached Dexing and stayed in the Longyang Taoist Temple from summer to end of winter. On February 1221, they resumed their journey. When asked by friends and disciples when to expect the master to return, the master answered "In three years, three years". On February 3, they reached Cuiping Pass, they saw the Taihang Mountains to their south. Travelling north then north east, they arrived at Gailipo salt lake. From there they went to Lake Buir, Hulunbuir, Ulan Bator, Arkhangai, Altay Mountains, Beshbalik, Dzungaria, Samarkand and arrived at Hindu Kush of Afghanistan in 1222 and presented himself before Genghis Khan.
The journey to Central Asia and back took three years, from 1220 to 1224. The record was written by a disciple Li Zhichang, who accompanied Qiu on the journey. The Travels consisted of two parts, the first part described the details of the travel to the west; the second part contains an account of Qiu's meeting with Genghis Khan and his journey back to Beijing.
The Travels was published by another disciple, Sun Xi, with a preface dated 1228. The Travels was included in Dao Zang, but was forgotten for more than five hundred years until 1795 Qing dynasty scholars Qian Daxin and Duan Yucai rediscovered it from Dao Zang in the Xuanmiao Taoist Temple in Suzhou. Qian Daxin then hand copied this work and distributed it.
Translations
The Travels was first translated into Russian by the Archimandrite of Russian Orthodox Church Pekin Eccles Mission Palladius Kafarov in 1866.In 1867, M. Pauthier translated to French an abridged version of the Travels from Wei Yuan's Illustrated Treatise on the Maritime Kingdoms.
In 1888, Dr. Emil Bretschneider, a Baltic German physician posted to the Russian Legation in Beijing, published an English translation of the Travels.
An English translation by Arthur Waley was published in 1931 as The Travels of an Alchemist - The Journey of the Taoist Ch'ang-Ch'un from China to the Hindukush at the Summons of Chingiz Khan.
A new annotated English translation by Ruth Dunnell, Stephen West, and Shao-yun Yang was published in 2023 as Daoist Master Changchun's Journey to the West: To the Court of Chinggis Qan and Back. Unlike the translations by Bretschneider and Waley, this translation includes all of Qiu Chuji's poems. Yang also produced an illustrated StoryMap supplement to the translation, accessible at https://arcg.is/1vC1Pv0