It was 627 A.D. when Hsuan-Tsang, a Buddhist monk, left China under the cover of night and headed westward, to seek out original Buddhist texts and teachings. He was dissatisfied with the contradictions that he found in several schools of Buddhism extant in China at that time, and made his way across the Himalayas to India, the land where Buddhism was born.

Source: Of Caves, Art And Piety