Zhang Wen Ming, who had become a monk at age fourteen, is an admirer of Faxian and Xuanzang, both famed monks of his childhood.
Renamed Yijing and provided with funding by an otherwise unknown benefactor named Fong, he had decided to visit the renowned Buddhist university of Nālandā, in Bihar, India, to further study Buddhism.
Traveling by a Persian boat out of Guangzhou, he arrives in the capital of the partly Buddhist kingdom of Srivijaya (today's Palembang of Sumatra) after twenty-two days, where he spends the next six months learning Sanskrit grammar and Malay language.
He reports over a thousand Buddhist monks in residence.
He goes on to record visits to the nations of Melayu and Kiteh (Kedah), and in 673 after ten days additional travel reaches the "naked kingdom" (south west of Shu).
Yijing records his impression of the "Kunlun peoples", using an ancient Chinese word for Malay peoples.
"Kunlun people have curly hair, dark bodies, bare feet and wear sarongs."
