India and China:

from past brotherhood to future partnership

(Talk at Freie Universität, Berlin, on June 1^st, 2004)

Tan Chung

Some time around 1957, Chairman Mao Zedong startled his hosts in the Indian Embassy, Beijing, by his after-dinner witty talk that "every Chinese wished to reincarnate in India after death." There are two historical dimensions of this episode. One, as Mao disclosed to the modern world, a myth called guixi (literally "return to the west") is a Chinese social reproduction, viz. people consoling those whose near and dear has passed away with a sincere wish: "May the deceased return to the Western Heaven." Today, this sincere wish still survives in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, India, in places where Chinese diaspora have settled around the world, and even in the Chinese countryside where traditions diehard. This wish was reproduced in China for nearly two thousand years by Buddhists who used to call India xitian (western heaven) or zhongtian ("central heaven," i.e., Madhyadesa or present Bihar), and their own motherland dongtu (eastern land). So, our fierce revolutionary Mao was the messenger of a precious information from the sedimentation of Chinese civilization, which has such a soft corner for the neighboring civilization of India. The other dimension of the episode is that Mr. R. K. Nehru, the well informed Indian diplomat—then Indian Ambassador to China—who was also the nephew of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was not aware of such a Chinese wish at all.

To me, the episode epitomizes the romantic story between two great civilizations, a somewhat one-sided love affair—Chinese civilization with profound affection for India while the Indian civilization almost not aware of it. There are some exceptions, however. Let me cite an observation:

This quote is from the first speech of the first Indian Nobel laureate (who also is the first non-white to receive the prize), Rabindranath Tagore, delivered in Shanghai, in April 1924, just after his arrival in China. Tagore was making a serious statement that "India claimed China as brothers" many centuries ago. Liang Qichao, the famous modern reformer of China, welcomed Tagore later in Beijing. In his public speech, Liang compared Tagore's visit with the historic arrival of ancient Indian monk, Kasyapa Matanga, at Luoyang in 67 AD, and that of another great Indian monk, Kumarajiva, in Chang’an in 382 AD (Liang Qichao quanji /Collected works of Liang Qichao, 1999, 4256). Here, Tagore and Liang have helped construct a new epistemology of India-China contacts in the past. Several tens of great Indian monk-scholars went to China to help create the India-China brotherhood. Today, this brotherhood is vividly exhibited at famous tourist sites such as Baimasi (Monastery of White Horses) near Luoyang where two former Indian Prime Ministers, Narasimha Rao and A.B. Vajpayee visited. Tourists can see the graveyard of Kasyapa Matanga, the memorial of an Indian pioneer of this India-China inter-civilizational fraternity.

Liang Qichao's public speech was, later, translated into English and used by Tagore as "Introduction" in his Talks in China. This "Introduction" contains a paragraph, I quote:

Having said these words, Liang began to itemize "what we have received." He first made three main points: (1) "India taught us to embrace the idea of absolute freedom," (2) "India also taught us the idea of absolute love," and (3) India "brought us invaluable assistance in the field of literature and art." Then, he enumerated what he called "minor gifts" in music, architecture, painting, sculpture, drama, poetry and fiction, astronomy and calendar, medicine, alphabet, literary style, education method, and social organization (Das, 1999, 18-23). Tagore, in his speech at Hangzhou, anticipated Liang's sentiments (that were expressed later in Beijing after Tagore's arrival there) by saying:

The "gift" mentioned by both Liang and Tagore was nothing else but Buddhism. Buddhism has warmed Chinese to the abstract image of India—xitian (western heaven) or tianzhu (heavenly India). Tagore deeply understood the psyche of "the people of East" which is Eros, not Thanatos, to borrow the Freudian psychoanalysis.

As an expert on Chinese culture, Liang Qichao's observations quoted above set the tone for further investigation by scholars of India-China relationship. I have tried my hand in such an investigation albeit not very thoroughly. I think we can view this "gift" as a kind of system integration, i.e. fusing the quintessential Indian and Chinese cultural elements in the fields of politics, economy, philosophy, culture, geography and environment to reproduce a higher culture in China. Thus, we can describe the "gift" as "Sino-Indic ratna/jewels".

The first ramification of this fusion was the integration of the Indian "temple culture" into the Chinese "palace culture." By "palace culture" I mean the mediating scale of China serving exclusively the enrichment and expansion of the magnificence and grandeur of the imperial palace. India, on the contrary, mediated the geographical scale in the same manner by revolving not around the king's residences, but around the religious shrines—I call it "temple culture." Today, international tourists are flocking China to see the most magnificent monuments of Buddhism and Buddhist cave art on earth. Even Indian Buddhists go to the sacred mountains on Chinese soil to pay homage to four great legendary Indian culture heroes—Avalokitesvara, Manjusri, Samantabhatra, and Ksitigarbha.

 Another ramification of the Sino-Indic fusion is Tang Emperor Taizong's (who was the chief architect of Tang Dynasty) arrogating to himself the Buddhist legendary title of suvarna-cakravartin (in Chinese, jinlunwang).  His reign may be regarded as the greatest cakravartin regime in world history. This input of quintessential cakravartin governmentality created a strong ruler making wise decisions and caring for people's welfare. This enabled tens of millions of skilful Chinese to produce agricultural goods and handicrafts like silk, tea, and porcelain. They, along with Indian products (like cotton fabrics, jewels, perfumes and spices), were known in Europe as "the luxury of the East." There has been a theory that it was this "Eastern luxury" that had stimulated the Italians to revolt against antiquated European tradition, hence the awakening of the Renaissance. Today, like the Tang Dynasty twelve centuries ago, China is once again having a powerful government making wise decisions, leading hundreds of millions of skilful hands to produce consumer goods for the entire world. And the country is, once again, attracting great numbers of foreign traders and investors from all over the globe. This historical parallel reminds us what the Sino-Indic ratna/jewel had contributed to the vibrancy of China in the past.

Another ramification of the Sino-Indic fusion was a historical rage created in China by the Vimalakirti legend. As a lay man without renouncing the world, Vimalakirti achieved a status of higher enlightenment than the Bodhisattvas—the highest goal of the Mahayana Buddhist practice. This role model seems to have been created specially for China, relaxing Buddhist taboos, allowing "rich living and high thinking," thus enabling the materialistic Chinese ruling elite to pursue spiritual enlightenment. Three great Tang poets personified this Vimalakirti role model. Wang Wei, whose other name was Wang Mojie, had christened himself "Wang Vimalakirti" because his two personal names made "Weimojie", transliteration of "Vimalakirti". Li Bai not only styled himself Qinglian jushi (Chinese name for Nilotpala upasaka/lay Buddhist titled blue lotus"), but explained the meaning of his title in a poem that he was the reincarnation of jinsu rulai (golden millet Buddha)—a symbol of Vimalakirti. The third poet was Bai Juyi who consciously worshipped Vimalakirti, and entitled himself as both Letian jushi/devananda upasaka/"lay Buddhist who is a happy inmate of Heaven" and Xiangshan jushi/gandhamadana upasaka/"lay Buddhist of sacred incense mountain." These three great poets led many others to fuse poetic inspiration with Buddhist enlightenment, hence poetry became a process of canchan (practicing dhyana) in Chinese literary vogue, giving rise to Chan/Zen culture. Later Chinese intellectuals embracing this Vimalakirti role model included Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming, the twin masters of the so-called Neo-Confucianism.

Like Marxism, Confucianism has been an ever-developing and ever-transforming cultural system. The system of Confucianism was first established by Mencius, the disciple of Confucius' grandson. Then, the ruling elite under Han Emperor Wu developed it into what is described as "state Confucianism." Tang Emperor Taizong I have alluded to earlier further mediated the system through his courtier, Kong Yinda, the famous annotator of the classics. The definition of tianzi, the legitimizing title of a Chinese emperor, was defined by Kong as futian mudi, ziyang xiamin (tian/Heaven as father, di/earth as mother, the downtrodden people to be fostered as children). This was a great twist meant to exonerate Emperor Taizong from his sins for violating the Confucian norms by killing his elder brother, the Crown Prince, and forcing his imperial father to abdicate the throne in favor of himself. The Neo-Confucianists led by Zhu Xi and Wang Yangming further bent Confucian theories to internalize Buddhist ideas. Zhu Xi championed the school called Lixue, and I suspect the word li was translating Sanskrit yukti. Wang Yangming championed the Xinxue school highlighting the bodhicitta of the Buddhist discourse—hence it is not out of order to regard Xinxue as the Bodhicitta School.

The contribution of Indian concepts, symbols and imagery to Chinese literature is well known.  When the French Revolutionary slogans of "liberty" and "equality" spread overseas, Chinese intellectuals found them already enshrined in the Buddhist literature—ziyou for liberty, and pingdeng for equality. As a matter of fact, in Chinese, Lord Buddha is also designated pingdengwang, sounding like the "Maharaja of Equality." Here is a refutation of Engels' claim that the notion of equality first appeared in Christianity. Many other Chinese terms translating modern Western terminology are of Buddhist/Indian origin, like jiefang for "liberation", juewu for "revolutionary consciousness", lilun for "theory", zhihui for "wisdom," etc.  In other words, the Sino-Indic fusion had already prepared Chinese mind to absorb and digest modern culture from the Western Hemisphere.

The benevolent Indian influence enriched Chinese literature and culture, creating a garden of "hundred blooms" enchanted by exotic imaginations, styles, and genres in addition to explorations of word power. The popularization of Buddhism in China opened the gates of reading, writing and learning to the masses whereas they had been exclusive preserves of a few families earlier. The effect of this open-door revolution created the rage for information, knowledge, literary pursuits and storytelling in China, involving even the un-lettered masses that, in turn, created a powerful oral literary tradition. Chinese literature is the first to create novels.

I don't have time to go through all the details. Suffice it to mention the example of the powerful symbol of Chinese dragon that has internalized the Indian myths of nâga. While dragon was only a beast that pulled carriages and supplied meat in popular Chinese belief (testified to by Wang Heng of Han Dynasty), now it is the symbol of power, royalty, vibrancy, and prosperity—after internalizing these cultural assets from the Indian nâgarâja (in Chinese, longwang/dragon-king). While China's native belief never allowed mixing human identity with other creatures, today on both shores of the Taiwan Strait, people sing out and believe in "we are the descendants of dragon" (longde chuanren)—incorporating the Indian belief of transmigration.

To analyze in depth, the two civilizational brothers, India and China, have developed a "back-to-back" mode of "social integration" within and also a "back-to-back" international relationship. They seem to be aware of the danger of "face-to-face" social integration based on the suspicion of aggressive individualism with an incurable propensity of impinging on each other. While the solution of Western civilization is to introduce checks and balances in human relationship, India and China have tried a spiritual solution.  The Chinese solution is to reverse the egocentric human vision kan (seeing) into xing (introspection), and using fanxing as a corrective mechanism to the defective, devious and destructive "face-to-face" human relationship. The Indian solution (which is also adopted by China) is the conversion of âtma (ego/individual self) into paramâtma (self hallowed by the bounty of God's blessings)—creating Chinese concepts of xiaowo (microcosmic self) and dawo (macrocosmic self). Under the influence of Buddhism, China has voluntarily joined India in a cultural revolution of dharmâgraha (truth-clinging) replacing âtmâgraha (egocentrism).

The year 2004 marks the golden jubilee of the enunciation of Panchashila, the Five Principles of Coexistence, which was fathered jointly in 1954 by two eminent prime ministers, Jawaharlal Nehru of India and Zhou Enlai of China. The Sanskrit name of this guideline for international relationship is taken from the Buddhist canon, originally meant for good conduct of Buddhist devotees. Nehru and Zhou have created it as international norms guaranteeing good conduct among modern nations. The essence of Panchashila is mutual respect, non-aggression and non-interference, as well as win-win. It sums up the very noble relationship between Indian and Chinese civilizations for generations. I conceive it as the extension of the "back-to-back" norms within India and China to the international field.  These India-China "back-to-back" relations helped the two great civilizations avert the "face-to-face" relations among ancient civilizations of Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Greeks, Romans and Persians who had bent on destroying each other in the last three thousand years.

The lofty Himalaya helps create the India-China "back-to-back" relationship in two ways. First, it is a buffer, blocking any malicious and avaricious glance when Indians and Chinese looked at each other in the past. Second, it inspires noble feelings, and is the major source of inspiration of devapura"—the Indian concept of paradise. China has not only adopted devapura (translating it into Chinese as tiantang), but also shared with India the idealism of Sumeru (in Chinese Xumishan) which is the cultural replication of Himalaya. Unfortunately, British colonialism had played a mischief in demolishing the Himalayan buffer by creating a MacMahan Line on the map. The newly independent Indian government and the new regime of the People's Republic of China were unaware of the historical mischief, and came to blows over the border dispute in 1962. The Cold War and the Sino-Soviet rift were also instrumental for such an unfortunate clash between the two trans-Himalayan brothers.

But, the enduring affection of the past India-China brotherhood could absorb the initial clash. India declared war on China but continued to maintain diplomatic ties with China, and the Indian ambassador to UN continued to champion for China's seat in the Security Council in 1963. I might, with your permission, narrate a famous incident. In December 1962, just after the war was over, Prime Minister Nehru went to preside over the convocation of Visva-Bharati University. A large crowd of international reporters gathered to hear Nehru to condemn China since his idealism, reputation, as well as his mental and physical health had suffered greatly because of the unexpected war. Seeing my father, Prof. Tan Yun-shan, Dean of Cheena-Bhavana (China House) of the university, sitting in the audience, Nehru pointedly mentioned him as a symbol of India-China friendship, and reiterated that India was not at war with Chinese people, and the "greatness of China.”

All this means that no force on earth, nor any unexpected happenings, can turn back the India-China "back-to-back" relationship. In other words, Panchashila is deeply rooted in India-China relationship in future years. This guarantees that both countries would not cast any malicious and avaricious glance at each other, let alone falling into the trap of "fault line war" that the Harvard professor, Samuel Huntington, has prepared for them. (In his book, The Clash of Civilizations, Huntington has even set the date of 2010 for "The United States, Europe, Russia, and India" to fight the global war with "China, Japan and most of Islam".)

Moreover, both India and China are facing serious challenges from globalization launched by the Western world. Taking India for instance, she is under the pincer attack of globalization. India was never a poor country in all accounts left behind by foreign visitors, from ancient Chinese Buddhist pilgrims to pre-modern European Christian missionaries. In other words, "poverty" in India is the creation of British colonialism and post-colonial Western globalization. Also, India had always been a country of religious toleration. Till today there is the practice in Punjab of having one child embracing Sikhism and another Hinduism in the same family echoing the age-old tradition of inter-conversion between Hinduism and Islam. The genesis of the sickening Hindu-Muslim hatred and conflict raging in India today must be traced to the moment of intrusion and domination of Western civilization over the sub-continent. While Europe, the motherland of "divide and rule", is now cured of this fatal malaise, India has to recover from this poisonous European heritage. Similarly, China is facing the daunting task of providing 1/5 of humanity with decent living and social insurance. India and China are the modern twins of (a) colossal population, and (b) gigantic joint-family of ethnic and cultural multiplicity. Both have had a long tradition of bounded-globalization (globalizing within civilizational boundaries) without any ambition of "outsourcing" national power and energy offshore. This all the more guarantees their maintaining Panchashila relationship into the future.

My father's close association with Nehru and Indira Gandhi (an ex-student of Visva-Bharati), both Indian prime ministers, enabled me to gain some insight into India-China relations. Twice when my father went to the Parliament House to meet the PM, I was also present. In 1960, I saw Nehru expressed his unease with the "big argument with Chinese leaders" as he described the border dispute in front of my father. In 1970, I witnessed Indira Gandhi's inquisitiveness trying to get confirmed from my father (who was also a schoolmate of Mao Zedong) that Mao was sincere when he had said to Indian Charge d'Affaires, Brajesh Mishra, "Let us be friends again." Later, Mr. I.K. Gujral, confirmed in a seminar that the Soviet Union was panicky when they got wind of Mrs. Gandhi's intention to normalize relations with China, and sent Kosygin to New Delhi to stop it. It was only after the Soviet Union had relaxed her relations with China that Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, could visit Beijing to break the stalemate in 1988. It was during that visit that Sonia Gandhi has started her long-standing friendship with China.

Last year, the now outgoing Indian Prime Minister, A.B. Vajpayee, initiated a joint move, in Beijing, that both the governments would settle the border dispute by political will steering clear from the legalistic arguments. This border dispute is practically put aside when the two countries are strengthening mutual contacts and cooperation because (a) it is a historical legacy, and (b) it is virtually impossible to guard the border most of which lies beyond the altitudinal limit for living beings. Two other obstacles between the two governments, viz. China's friendship with Pakistan, and the refugee government of Dalai Lama in India, have also ceased to be major irritants. Informed sources reveal an internal speech made by Chinese Chairman, Hu Jintao, recently, singling out India, Russia and Japan as three key states that would provide opportunities and challenges for China, and would create problems for China if not handled with care. The Indian government's accent on befriending and cooperating with China was set by Vajpayee's 2003 China visit, and would surely become more pronounced by the new Indian regime led by Sonia Gandhi and Manmohan Singh.

Several years ago, when Ambassador Rangachari was Joint Secretary in charge of East Asia in the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, he addressed a meeting of Indian and Chinese business representatives saying what was most wanting in developing bilateral relations between India and China was the "vested interests"—people who had strong economic interests at stake. Today, such "vested interests" are emerging in India, pushing bilateral trade to unprecedented record. There are bright prospects of India and China, including Taiwan, forging a partnership in ventures of computer hardware and software. This prospect was specially pronounced in Shanghai in June 2003 in a forum of Indian and Chinese business leaders inaugurated by Prime Minister Vajpayee. He reiterated both in Beijing and Shanghai the Indian desire to transcend India-China bilateral relations to a global vision, uniting one third of humanity. A prospect of India-China partnership ("friendship and cooperation") in creating a better world order was reflected both in the Joint Declaration signed by him and his Chinese counterpart, Wen Jiabao, and the pronouncements of leaders of both countries during his China visit. It is expected that when the Chinese Premier visits India in the near future another round of enthusiastic enunciation of India-China partnership will be voiced while economic contacts, collaboration, trade and investment are surging forward quietly in a routine manner. Let us hope for the best.