Last Edited: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 12:57 PM -0500 /  Last Updated: Wednesday, September 17, 2008 12:57 PM -0500

Though I had noticed Prof. Tan (and Mrs. Tan) a couple of times before during seminars and talks by visiting scholars at the South Asia Dept. of the University of Chicago, I really took note of him only during the workshop (May 15-16, 2004) on "The Peculiarities of Indian Democracy," where he repeatedly intervened from the floor with feeling about his profound appreciation of the Indian ethos. I was particularly struck by his response when the topic was broached of the internment of the Chinese community in India during the border war of 1962. When the Indian speaker ventured a comparison with the internment of Japanese in USA during the Second World War, Prof. Tan could not restrain himself from pointing out the inaptness of the comparison, with his first-hand recollections that the (so-called) 'internees' had been rather treated as 'house-guests' (with all the positive connotations that the term has in the Indian cultural context), and recounted the story about Nehru cited in my first post to the Abhinavagupta forum about his father and himself (Jun 24, 2004 ). Prof. Tan is still an active missionary in the strengthening of Sino-Indian relations and the presentation of shared Asian values to audiences in America and Europe.

Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China: Twenty Centuries of Civilizational Interaction and Vibrations, Volume III Part 6 of History of Science, Philosophy and culture in Indian Civilization (Center for Studies in Civilizations). These extracts have been made available here with the kind permission of Prof. D.P. Chattopadhyaya, who is the General Editor of the whole PHISPC series.

Third Giri Deshingkar Memorial Lecture (22 December 2004) at India International Centre, New Delhi; under the auspices of the Institute of Chinese Studies.