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The Moving Sands, also known as the Flowing Sands (Liúshā (流沙), "flowing-sand", or "quicksand"), is an important feature in the mythological geography of Chinese literature, including novels and poetry over a course of over two millennia from the Warring States to early Han dynasty era poetry of the Chuci onward to the present. In his poem "Li Sao", author Qu Yuan describes an aerial crossing of the Moving (or Flowing) Sands on a shamanic spiritual Journey to Kunlun. "Moving Sands forms one of the obstacles the fictional version of the monk Xuanzang and companions must cross over on their mission to fetch the Buddhist scriptures from India and return them to Tang China. In this story, Xuanzang recruits the former sand demon and eater-of-humans Sha Wujing who is living in Moving Sands as his third disciple. Sometimes the Moving (or Flowing) Sands seem to depict drifting dunes or desert, sometimes a sand or quicksand-like river, in which case, in Chinese, it would be (Liúshā-hé (流沙河, "flowing-sand river", or "quicksand-river").