Fascinated by Hsuan Tsang&rsquos story, he retraced the monk&rsquos journey, visited Lumbini and Sarnath, saw the imposing ruins of Nalanda&rsquos great Buddhist university and, in Bodhgaya &mdash where the Buddha found enlightenment and Bernstein struggled with the rigorous metaphysics of the Diamond Sutra &mdash spotted banners reading &ldquoCoca-Cola Welcomes His Holiness The Dalai Lama&rdquo. 

The monk took home ideas about the attainment of serenity that would affect China profoundly, and Bernstein a reverence for the Buddhist civilisation of the seventh century&mdashand also notes for a travel book that, for me, ranks with Robert Byron&rsquos 1937 classic Road to Oxiana.