Abstract Ranked among 'the best three travelogues' in world literature,Japanese monk Ennin's work The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law was completed in 847,or the 14th year of Seung Toowa.About 220 years later,in the fifth year of Xi'ning period of the Song Dynasty (1072),the book was brought to China by Jojin,Ennin's offspring,and was directly presented to the Song court.This was the prelude to the spread of the book in China.Jojin gave a detailed description of this in his diary The Record of a Pilgrimage to the Tiantai and Wutai Mountains .Since the title The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law had never appeared in previous literature,Jojin's diary was probably the earliest record of the book.The original text of The Record of a Pilgrimage to China in Search of the Law was lost,and the old manuscript,copied by Kanetane in 1291 and stored in the Wisdom-seeing Room of the East Temple of Japan,is the earliest and the only existing record in Japan,while its Chinese version introduced by Jojin is the earliest manuscript recorded in history.
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