5. Translators and the reins of power

Abstract

In AD 629, a Chinese monk named Xuan Zang set out for India on a quest for sacred texts. He returned with a caravan of twenty-two horses bearing Buddhist treasures and spent the last twenty years of his life in the “Great Wild Goose Pagoda”, in present-day Xi’an, translating the Sanskrit manuscripts into Chinese with a team of collaborators. In the twelfth century, scholars came to Spain from all over Europe seeking knowledge that had been transmitted from the Arab world. Their names tell the story: Adelard of Bath, Hermann of Dalmatia, Plato of Tivoli. Among them was Robert of Chester (or Robert of Kent), who was part of an elaborate team that translated documents on Islam and the Koran its..