Tan Chung Institute of Chinese Studies, India

HIMALAYA CALLING The Origins of and

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World Century

U020hc_9781938134593_tp.indd 2 5/2/15 5:14 pm Published by World Century Publishing Corporation 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601

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HIMALAYA CALLING The Origins of China and India Copyright © 2015 by World Century Publishing Corporation All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission from the publisher.

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ISBN 978-1-938134-59-3

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Dedicated to Ji Xianlin ᆓ㗑᷇ (1911–2009) Eternal Camaraderie in Chindia

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FOREWORD

It is the historian’s constant endeavour to prevent the present from colour- ing our view of the past, but not vice versa. In this attempt, he uses several tools to strive for as objective an understanding of the past as possible. Himalaya Calling is one of the more successful attempts to understand India and China through the prisms of civilization, culture and historical origins. By positing a Himalaya sphere as a geo-civilizational paradigm, Dr. Tan Chung stands in a long line of those who have seen India and China in civilizational and cultural terms — Tagore, Tan Yun-shan, Ji Xianlin, Xu Beihong, P.C. Bagchi, Amartya Sen, among others. But this work goes further than reflecting two great civilizational traditions, the links between them and creating understanding between them. The basic message of the book is that India and China share origins, have been linked through the ages, and complement each other. “Our intelligence, knowledge and scholarship actually are rooted in a past that is unified and comes from one civilization”, is the central argument of this work of deep and persuasive scholarship. This is not an easy message when the headlines and television channels focus on the ephemeral, on issues that count for less in the long duration civilizational and historical terms that Dr. Tan uses. Dr. Tan addresses those issues too, as in Chapter 4 when he discusses the India–China boundary issue. There is a fundamental truth about borders that emerges from the manner in which Dr. Tan approaches this issue. Throughout history, borders have been zones of contact, diffusion, and cultural and ethnic mingling between civilizations and cultures, as opposed to boundaries

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which are lines defining the present limits of sovereignty. As a result of this difference, boundaries reflect the present balance of power between sover- eignties while borders reflect the accumulated weight and experience of history. That is why almost no international boundary line is where it was a few centuries ago, while border zones have been relatively constant over historical time. So-called realists will criticize Dr. Tan’s approach of Indian and Chinese civilisational unity. What they ignore is that there is indeed a basis among the populace on both countries for what Dr. Tan says. In 2002 when a Buddhist temple was being consecrated in Xuanzang’s birthplace, over six thousand Chinese from all walks of life, including Communist Party members, came to the event from near and far. Many had travelled considerable distances, some had walked, and most brought their families to what became a celebration of the life of a monk who passed away a millennium ago! A younger generation in both countries is more comfortable with each other, and carry the burdens of the past lightly. This book is probably the most detailed attempt that I have seen to square the circle of reconciling India and China’s present preoccupations with their past in order to build a future, or, in other words, to unify thinking about today’s politics and yesterday’s civilizations to permit a “golden” future. Coming from someone who is uniquely placed to speak for both India and China, whose life exemplifies the best in both traditions, this book must be taken seriously for what it suggests of new ways for India and China to approach a future that is increasingly common. It is my hope that this book will tilt the balance in the minds of many more Chinese and Indians to a better understanding of our glorious past that Dr. Tan speaks of with such erudition and passion, thus doing both Dr. Tan’s homes a great service.

Shivshankar Menon New Delhi, June 2014

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PREFACE THE MEMORIED LIGHT OF COMRADESHIP

“We welcome you as a messenger of China’s great culture; you have brought to us in India the gift of spiritual sympathy which, centuries ago, united our ancient humanities. China and India shared the dawn of a great Renaissance, and even in these days of political cataclysm the memoried light of that comradeship remains”. Rabindranath Tagore: Welcome to Xu Beihong, February 1940, Santiniketan

The matrix in which the relationship between the two Asian giants, India and China, rests is one of civilizational synergies, defined by the image of indomitable souls like the ancient Chinese pilgrim to India, Xuanzang, his tattered robes rustling in the winds of the Gobi, standing in front of the ‘great ice Mountains’1 of the Himalaya, charting a course of pilgrimage, metaphysical and spiritual enquiry, contemplating the littleness of human life and the greatness of the Buddha. It is in envisioning this old glory of the proud cultures that flourished along the desert sands of Central Asia, fed by the cross-fertilization of minds from India and China that the imagination,

1 Kenneth Saunders, Epochs in Buddhist History: The Haskell Lectures 1921, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1924, p. 73.

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as Jawaharlal Nehru once noted,2 takes various shapes, as it chooses, fascinated by this long past of India–China contact, the achievements of those early pilgrims, and what they teach us for the future ‘taking shape almost before our eyes’.3 In modern times, Rabindranath Tagore epitomized most evocatively the ethos of those early pilgrims when he imparted a vision and voice to the geo-civilizational linkages between India and China. Tagore’s impact on the cultural consciousness of Asia through his ability to transcend the narrow confines of political nationalism set him apart as an early globalist. His emphasis was on interdependence rather than independence alone, and thereby, his legacy has substantive meaning for a 21st century Asia, still trying to develop a singular, cohesive identity that surmounts competitive political nationalisms, and pluralities built on ethnicity, language, or religion or on the divide between a globalized elite and the confined working classes, or the exclusivities born of gender discrimination. To Tagore, rationalism and universality, as Humayun Kabir once said, were ‘the principles of human survival, welfare and progress’ (in his Lecture on “Rabindranath Tagore”, published by the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 1962). When he spoke of an India of ‘no nations’, devoid of all politics, he basically envisioned India’s strength as stemming from its capacity for civilizational dialogue, creating the empires of the mind, an Advaita of humanity, as he said. It was a stream of consciousness that found resonance in China, too. The late Ji Xianlin, the doyen of Chinese Indologists, sounded a similar refrain when he cited ‘tian ren heyi’ — a Song Dynasty principle, meaning the unification of the universe, nature and mankind.4 It is this confluence of the human spirit that Tan Chung, the son of Tagore’s kindred spirit and associate, Tan Yun-shan, refers to when he says that Tagore’s ideal of the ‘universal human spirit’ is, in essence, identical to the Chinese ideal of ‘shijie datong’ (the world in grand

2 Jawaharlal Nehru, Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, Second Series, Vol. 2, p. 406, Foreword to K.P.S. Menon’s “Delhi-Chungking”. 3 Ibid. 4 Ji Xianlin’s “Foreword” in Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, Twenty Centuries of Civilizational Interaction and Vibrations, New Delhi: PHISPC/Centre for Studies in Civilizations, 2005, p. xiii.

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harmony).5 This is a geo-civilizational construct, removed from geo- politics or geo-strategy and imaging a certain consonance of the civilizational ideals that express the Indian and Chinese identities. It recalls the Chinese Buddhist saying ‘ni zhong you wo, wo zhong you ni ’: there is me in you, and you in me. This could conceivably also apply to Tagore’s idea of Asia, an Asia Uninterrupted. Tan Chung was presented to Tagore in 1929, at this seat of learning, when he was only two months old. He received the Indian name, ‘Asoka’ from the poet, and then returned with his mother to Malaysia where he had been born, and thence to the family home in China, where he grew up. It was only in 1955 that he returned to India, to Santiniketan, where he was reunited with his parents and younger brothers and sisters. Momentous, historic and epochal changes had taken place in both India and China in those intervening years. Tan Chung says he was born and brought up in troubled times which did not inspire personal ambition. In India, as a young man, he then discovered his life’s calling, ordained in essence both by the legacy of Gurudeva Tagore and his own father, Tan Yun-shan, to work for mutual understanding between India and China. In this latest book, as both countries commemorate the diamond year of the institution of Panchsheel, he repeatedly demonstrates that he is guided by Tagore’s vision and humanism in charting the origins of both civilization-states, India and China. The term ‘Chindia’ attributed to China and India together and coined by Jairam Ramesh, is an evocative one which fits powerfully into the intellectual lineage established by Tagore and Tan Yun-shan and carried forward by Tan Chung as a spiritual legatee of this inheritance. In fact, Dr. Tan Chung did an immeasurable lot in disseminating the concept of “Chindia” in China. He also rendered it into its only acceptable and coherent Chinese translation: ‘Zhong–Yin datong’ (literally, ‘Sino–Indian grand harmony’).

5 Tan Chung: Interview in “India–China Chronicle”, July–August 2011: “India and China should not aspire to become ‘giants’ or ‘superpowers’. They should come out of the vicious circle of rise and fall of great powers, but lead the world to the Indian ideal of vasudhaiva kutumbakam (the world as one family) and the Chinese ideal of shijie datong (the world in grand harmony).” http://www.icec-council.org/india-china/index.php?param=news/378909/65.

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Professor Ji Xianlin, was a friend of both Tan Chung and his illustrious father, Tan Yun-shan. Ji, who wrote mostly in Chinese, and copiously, about India and China–India, has not been read widely in India because of the barrier of language, but Tan Chung has worked hard to make Ji Xianlin’s name and writings known in India. In 2006, soon after I arrived in China to take up my assignment as India’s ambassador to China, I had the good fortune of accompanying the then Chinese Foreign Minister, Li Zhaoxing, to meet Ji Xianlin. Ji had been in hospital for some time and was not seeing visitors, and therefore, it was a singular privilege to have this truly memorable meeting. At the same time, I obtained from Tan Chung the precious Ji Xianlin quote that the neighbourliness between China and India was ‘tian zao di she’ — created by Heaven and constructed by Earth. What a beautiful conjunction of different worlds coming together, that quote embodies! When the Chinese Premier, Li Keqiang visited India in 2013, he wrote a goodwill commentary for The Hindu newspaper in which he quoted these memorable words of Ji Xianlin in the Chinese original of the article. Unfortunately, this important reference disappeared from the English translation carried by the newspaper. In fact, Tan Chung not only highlighted these words of Ji Xianlin for a larger public, but he also built his discourse on the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ on this compelling definition of China–India neighbourliness ‘created by Heaven and constructed by Earth’. Tan Chung has attempted, in this book, to establish this ‘singular, cohesive identity’ — that of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ — from four different dimensions that he organizes in his four chapters. In the first chapter, he has used illustrations from legend to living sentiments to show that the ‘singular, cohesive identity’ has always transcended the ‘plural and competing nationalist’ identities in India and China. The seventh section of the chapter has the title of ‘The spirit of “Vasudhaiva kutumbakam” in Chinese culture’ which makes fascinating reading. He observes: the ‘Indian adage of “Vasudhaiva kutumbakam” (the whole world is one single family) is a perfect fit for the formation of the Chinese civilization.’ Tan Chung thinks ‘there was the dynamics of boundarylessness at work which resulted in the unification, solidarity and harmony of Chinese civilization’ and ‘this dynamic of boundarylessness’ is the benign consequence of the Indian input in Chinese culture.

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In Tan Chung’s highlighting of the archaeological discoveries of Sanxingdui in Chapter 1 of this work, he draws our attention to the fact that the Sanxingdui Civilization which can be traced back to more than 3,000 years ago could belong to both ‘Chinese civilization’ and also ‘Indian civilization’. It existed at a time when the nation-state identifications of ‘China’ and ‘India’ were hardly there. It was from this Sanxingdui discovery that Tan Chung’s idea of a ‘Himalaya Sphere’ was born. This concept is closely linked to Tagore’s quest for ‘a singular, cohesive identity’ that replaces pluralities and competing nationalisms. This can be no mere utopian quest, for it recognizes the need for us to grasp a definition of our common humanity and the wealth of civilizational heritage that transcends modern, increasingly narrow definitions of nationhood and its cartographies. In the second chapter, Tan Chung has, once again (like he had done in the book India and China he co-authored with Peking University Professor Geng Yinzeng), highlighted the interesting and fascinating historical interconnectivities between the two ‘Himalaya Sphere civilization-twins’ — India and China. To illustrate these connections, Tan Chung employs the Tagorean idea of the interactive dynamics of the ‘wandering ascetic’ and ‘householder’. The reader is thus enabled to understand many historical phenomena in a new light, and to realize the inter-connective dynamics of civilization. Tan Chung’s third chapter discusses the elements of civilization and state in China–India relations from time immemorial to the present day. It is a broad sweep covering the span of a more than two thousand year- old history. I am especially drawn to the narrative of the modern period which has an almost autobiographical tone, detailing certain episodes that involve his father, Tan Yun-shan, who was a friend to the twentieth- century leaders of both India and China. Tan Chung’s analysis of China’s failure in appreciating and understanding Jawaharlal Nehru in the section ‘China’s Deficiency in Trusting Nehru’ is noteworthy. Tan Chung’s fourth and last chapter brings the discourse back to the present world with two re-emerging giants making their global presence increasingly felt on the stage of the twenty first century. This is a key section where the author defines the meaning of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ — a sphere without a visible border which is the cradle and the home of the two ‘civilizational twins’ — China and India. Both countries are set to

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follow their own destiny, a prospect first outlined by Tagore in his famous essay on Nationalism. It is here that Tan Chung while discussing the ethos of the Chinese and Indian civilizations, sees them both as ‘evolution- oriented’. There is a subtle difference between the two countries, as he notes, drawing reference from Nehru’s observation that the letter ‘r’ defines that difference. In China, therefore, it is evolution with that ‘r’ — that has drawn China to revolution, and its ‘goal-chasing’ rhythms, where as Mao Zedong once said, “ten thousand years is too long and you do not let off a single morning or evening.” In discussing the modern-day progress of India and China, Tan Chung cites numerous success stories in both countries of individuals who have brought glory to their motherlands, through entrepreneurship and inno- vation. Their examples are worthy of emulation by the youth of India and China. At the same time, the author rightly notes that the process of what he terms ‘Anglobalization’ has taken away precious attributes that define the civilizational identity of both nations. The Himalaya Sphere particularly has become prey to territorial disputes that confine and prevent the operability of a long-term vision for the bilateral relationship. The two countries have been ‘frying cold rice’ in their boundary negotiations for the most part of the last few decades. The absence of a well- articulated and coherent India policy on the part of the Chinese government creates further dissonance. Tan Chung has not shied away from discussing sensitive and complicated issues in the relationship between India and China, including the matter of Tibet. His focus on this issue is imbued with sensitivity particularly about the need for China to be more reflective and open to the possibility of India playing a helpful role in bridging the distances between the Chinese establishment in Beijing and the exiled Dalai Lama. In the world of today, there is much talk of competition versus cooperation between China and India. Perhaps, this is less imprinted on the Chinese consciousness, but this discussion definitely dominates the air waves in India. In the early days of our relationship, this talk of competition was relatively inconsequential. In the modern, as opposed to the ancient world, we are often hobbled by the barriers to mutual understanding thus created. The creation of a cooperative structure for a future Asia can only be satisfactorily addressed once our two countries resolve these

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contradictions through peaceful negotiation and dialogue. Fraternal ties between us will need a far-sighted, more imaginative approach that moves beyond definitions of centre and periphery, ‘mainland and margins’ (Patricia Uberoi) in what can be a 21st century reincarnation of the ideals of Panchsheel. Our frontier zones, particularly, need not be trouble spots for protracted contest and conflict, but those creative spaces where civilizations coalesce. Elsewhere, Tan Chung has spoken of that stage ‘When India, China and all civilization states of the world unite ...we shall have a world free from the “clash of civilizations”, terrorism and “war on terror”, conflict and war, armament race and boundary disputes. We may name that world “Visva- Bharati” — “yatra visvam bhavati ekanidam” (where the whole world meets in one nest)!’6 Recalling Tagore, again, he notes that the great poet said in China that ‘The great human societies are the creation not of profi- teers, but of dreamers’ and that the ‘dream culture’ is an Indian invention that both India and China now share.7 The revival of the Nalanda University is very much in the tradition of the Himalaya Sphere and cultural circulation that Tan Chung speaks of. The Government of India has sought to revive Nalanda as a centre of cultural exchange and scholarship between East, Southeast and South Asia. The Nalanda Mentor Group has been working to realize the vision of a truly global university, a holistic mix of the old and the new, of the past, the present and the future. It is the modern day Xuanzangs and Bodhidharmas in both our countries and indeed in the rest of Asia that this University will target — so that this ancient rendezvous comes alive once again with all its attendant relevance and meaning. Let us not forget how the halls of Nalanda resounded with the intense debates of scholars and monks defending their interpretations of the Buddhist canon– and here the India-versus-China or China-versus-India context was not a conflicted one, but one in which there was a healthy intellectual competition embellished by the space which each side gave the other. I believe

6 Tan Chung: “Unite all civilization states to live Tagore’s civilization dream”, lecture delivered at New Delhi, November 2013, on the occasion of the Centenary Celebration of the Award of the Nobel Prize to Rabindranath Tagore. 7 Ibid.

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these forefathers of ours in both countries had grasped the essence of the geo-civilizational paradigm that Tan Chung speaks of. Indeed, as I have said elsewhere, our relationship can flourish in the amrakunj — the mango grove — like the one at Santiniketan, a field of inspiration, developing in harmony with the environment around us in Asia. The amrakunj can symbolize the ideally imagined relationship between India and China. In the consolidation of Asian unity, India and China need to take a millennial view of their relations, drawing from the patterns of their early relationship, as also their current geo-political and economic attributes, so that they enable the peaceful transformation of their own societies and those of the region to a stage of more complete social and economic development and political maturity. Unfortunately, geographies have been fragmented, and as has been said, these have to be sutured. In the emphasis on centres, peripheries must not be forgotten. Territorial nationalism has often neglected people in borderlands, for instance. One has only to witness the jigsaw geography of the Himalayan borderlands and the marginalization of border peoples in state-to-state contestation over territory. We need to celebrate the margins and the diversities, much more, living the examined life, constantly seeking reassurance that Asia is one, infused with intellectual richness and moral wisdom. We must seek solutions to problems whether environmental, water security-related, or those concerning human security, in a manner that emphasizes consultation, dialogue and traditional values founded on trust and civilizational principles. At the height of India’s freedom struggle, Mahatma Gandhi longed for ‘the real friendship between China and India based not on economics and politics but on irresistible attraction’, leading to the ‘real brotherhood of man’.8 A more cosmopolitan vision of our relationship, of our identity as Asians is needed together with an emphasis on people-centred and humanistic development. The Himalaya Sphere that Tan Chung defines, together with the Indo-Pacific world, are natural integers, interlinked cultural universes.

8 Gandhi (Mahatma), Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, New Delhi: Icon Softec, 1999, p. 269.

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Let me end by returning once again to the pilgrims who charted the first pathways in India–China friendship almost two millennia ago. Enduring the winds of the Gobi that whistled through their tattered robes and overwhelmed by the vistas of the snowy Himalaya, they were spurred on only by their indomitable spirit and their search for truth and meaning. Those muffled footsteps from history, as Tagore said once, should continue to beat in our blood, so that we are constantly reminded of the smallness of the present when we contrast it with the enormous potential of a future of cooperation yet to be realized. And, in this context, Tan Chung’s stress on the Himalaya Sphere that we share as neighbours, India and China, teaches us that civilization, as Tagore observed in 1937, ‘is an ideal, (which) gives us power to fulfil our obligations.’9

Nirupama Rao Bangalore, July 2014

9 Rabindranath Tagore: Speech at the opening of Cheena Bhavana in Santiniketan in 1937.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

My life has been a journey through the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. I was carried in my parents’ arms from my birth place, Batu Pahat in Malaysia (then Malaya), to Santiniketan (Bengal, India) and presented to ‘Gurudeva’ Rabindranath Tagore when I was just two months old. Tagore gave me an Indian name ‘Asoka’ which I never printed on my name card. Little did I realize that this Tagorean gift has been there determining what I should do while I was in India (1955–1999) and even now. I consider my single- minded devotion to the friendship and understanding between China and India as predestined by the Gurudeva’s command. Without his guiding light, the book would not have come to exist. I hope this book does justice to Gurudeva’s wisdom. The book is dedicated to Professor Ji Xianlin ᄷ㕵ᵫ (1911–2009), the erstwhile doyen of China’s India studies and China’s ‘people’s ambassador’ among academicians for five decades. Many Indian ambassadors to China would pay their respects to Professor Ji on their arrival. I was fortunate to be counted as one of his friends. One of my weaknesses is to flaunt my enviable possession of Professor Ji’s personal books in my study. Those books had immense value when reference materials were hard to obtain in the early days in India. It was also through Professor Ji that I and his close associate, Professor Geng Yinzeng, became co-authors of our signature book on India and China ॄᑺϢЁ೑. But, the most important reason that I dedicate this book to Professor Ji is my taking liberty of his famous idea that China–India neighbourliness is ‘tianzao dishe ໽䗴ഄ䆒/created by Heaven and constructed by Earth’. Perhaps the concept of ‘Himalaya

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Sphere’ was what he had meant all along, but never articulated clearly. I hope that this book does justice to his vision as well. I am thankful to Ambassador Shivshankar Menon who promised to write his ‘Foreword’ to this book when he was India’s National Security Advisor. He had already anticipated a change of status, and asked me whether I would like the writer of the ‘Foreword’ to be a ‘government person’ instead of him when the book comes out. I said I only wanted it written by Shivshankar Menon and the government title was immaterial. To Ambassador Nirupama Rao I always have the greatest affection, admiration and appreciation. While my association with Shivshankar began when he was a student of Chinese language course taught by my wife and I at Delhi University nearly half a century ago, I came to know Nirupama when she was in the East Asian Division of the Ministry of External Affairs of Government of India later. From our frequent contacts for official reasons we developed a deep understanding of each other. I remember our meeting at the India National Centre in 1999. She came to talk to me, after a hiatus due to postings out of India. As if by providence, we met again in Beijing about eight years ago when I was on a short visit to Beijing, and she had just arrived as the new Indian Ambassador to China. She wrote the ‘Forewords’ for the book Tagore and China which I edited, and has kept her promise for writing the ‘Preface’ for this book. Mr. Shivshankar Menon and Ms. Nirupama Rao, both carry the title of ‘Ambassador (retired)’ with them wherever they go. They have not entered my book because of their status as diplomats, but more from the friendship and a celebration of the memorable experiences we have had. Professor Manoranjan Mohanty is a very special friend. We joined Delhi University almost at the same time — he in a campus college teaching political science, and I in the would-be Department of Chinese Studies, running the language programme. Then, he joined our Chinese language course first, and was sent by the Department for PhD studies at Berkeley. Finally, we worked as colleagues in the Department which was headed by me from 1971 to 1978. We had other colleagues, especially Giri Deshingkar and Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea, and formed a kind of close-knit camaraderie which eventually led to the formation of the Institute of Chinese Studies of India today. ‘Manu’ and I are the sole surviving members of that group. ‘Manu’ is not only one of the first to hear of ideas of the ‘Himalaya

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Acknowledgements xxi

Sphere’ a concept that gave birth two years ago, but also the first enthusiastic person to encourage me to write this book. It was about another book I have been currently editing that I got in contact with Dr. Ho Yi Kai ԩ༩ᙎ of the World Century Publishing Corporation, New Jersey. In his first letter to me, Dr. Ho evinced a keen desire to publish my writing. For that sentiment, I am very grateful. In order to facilitate those readers who are interested in the allusions of the book, I have put a large number of Chinese characters in the text. To Ms. Sandhya, my editor, at World Scientific Publishing (Parent Company of World Century Publishing) and my son, I am grateful for their correc- tions. Also, to my son, Dr. Sidhartha Tan 䈁ẉ໽, I quote the Chinese saying, ‘qing chuyu lan er shengyu lan 䴦ߎѢ㪱㗠㚰Ѣ㪱’ (indigo blue is created by blue but better than blue) for appreciation. Finally, I must thank the most important person in my life, my love, my best friend, my soul-mate, Ishu Huang 咘㓂⎥. My wife would always seem to get more attention than me in public. But, in private, she has allowed me to pour out the words in seclusion and peace, and providing the cocoon in which a writer could write unimpeded. Her collaboration and input has had an imprint on all my books. I should also mention that this book also marks the diamond jubilee of our wedding, a journey that has been a celebration of life.

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INTRODUCTION

What you are going to read in this book is not merely the musing of a single mind, but the accumulation of wisdom of two generations of a family. I regard my father, Tan Yun-shan, as the starting point. My father was a longtime associate of Rabindranath Tagore from 1927 to 1941 and was the recipient of Tagore’s inspirations which he passed on to me. Tagore’s vision was extraordinary and uncanny as his ideas have even more relevance today. My father had already been well conversant with Chinese civilization before his arrival in India. In India, he continued to absorb the refreshing wisdom and inspiration around him. He embodied a living person belonging to two countries and the thinking of two civilizations, China and India, or Chindia. I have tried to fill my father’s shoes all my life. When I was born 85 years ago, my father gave me a pet name ‘Aizhiguo ⠅Пᵰ/fruit of love’. This book is somewhat deserving of that name. It is a fruit of love for me and a gift to the readers and subsequent generations. I hope the readers will be able to see the love of not only the two countries but the world in this book.

Let Love’s lotus with its inexhaustible treasure of honey open its petals in thy light.1

1 Translated quotation of Tagore’s Bengali poem ‘Hingshay unmatta prithivi’ (Oh world full of hatred) in Uma Das Gupta, Rabindranath Tagore: My Life in My Words, New Delhi: Penguin Viking, 2006, p. 375.

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These words of Tagore’s ‘To Lord Buddha’ symbolize the tree that bears the ‘fruit of love’ of this book. Just as Tagore said, ‘Love’s lotus’ opened its petals in Buddha’s light which has led to a series of creations and events. It was the ‘Love’s lotus’ that created Santiniketan. It was the same ‘Love’s lotus’ that made Tan Yun-shan, the son of a farmer of a poor village in central China, to seek out Tagore in Singapore. It was the same ‘Love’s lotus’ that made Tagore like the young Chinese he met at Singapore and invite him to Santiniketan. It was the same ‘Love’s lotus’ that has created a Chindian family of Tans that is the essential creator of this book. I quote another poem composed by my father in 1958 with these words (my translation):

Plunging into wilderness There the white horse, I humbly emulate The saints of yesteryears. This ambition so grand In my heart’s labyrinth Is not acquainted To anyone. The Brahma’s Net Forever to be completed, Where the ancients have failed, Success is expected By people in the present. (ⱑ偀ᡩ㤦ℹܜ䋸ˈ㟇ᖗᅣᜓ᳾᳒ᅷ˗ẉ㒆ϝ㒱ᕙ䇕㓁˛ϨⳟҞҎ 㚰সҎǄ)

The poem is unusually mystic, and a little beyond my full comprehension. The two historical allusions of ‘baima tou huang ⱑ偀ᡩ㤦/the white horse plunging into wilderness’ and ‘fangang san jue ẉ㒆ϝ㒱/Brahma’s net thrice broken’ are reminders of the generation gap that prevents me from completely grasping the inspirations of the Chindian tradition my father epitomized. In the first half of the poem he declared his ‘grand ambition’ (ᅣᜓ) of emulating the ‘saints of yesteryears’ (ܜ䋸) in the exploit of ‘the white horse plunging into wilderness’ (ⱑ偀ᡩ㤦). Readers may be informed that the symbol of ‘white horse’ (ⱑ偀) combining with that of

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Introduction xxv

‘jinren 䞥Ҏ/the golden Buddha’ wraps up the entire history of the advent of Buddhism in China as Shen Quanqi ≜Վᳳ (656?–714?) rhymed:

Entering the golden Buddha image Into the dream of Han Emperor Ming, Then the advent of the white horse In the scene Of our imperial city. 䞥ҎᴹṺ䞠ˈⱑ偀ߎජЁ 2

The story of ‘the golden Buddha entering into the dream of Han Emperor Ming and the advent of the white horse in the scene of our imperial city’ is told in the early part of Chapter 2 of the book. Whenever there is the allusion of ‘white horse’ (ⱑ偀) in Chinese literature it is the unmistakable reference to China’s basking in the Buddha’s enlightenment. Moreover, the ‘white horse’ (ⱑ偀) symbol also lined up with the pilgrimage of Xuanzang ⥘༬ (602–664) to India which is well known to our Chinese and Indian readers. I find the allusion of ‘the white horse plunging into wilderness’ (ⱑ偀ᡩ㤦) not well documented but seems to be very popular among my father’s generation. It is a depiction of Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to India including the perilous journey he had undertaken. The famous Chinese novel, ‘Xiyou ji 㽓␌䆄/Pilgrimage to the west’, by Wu Cheng’en ਈᡓᘽ (1501–1582), is a fantastically imaginative dramatization of Xuanzang’s pilgrimage. It was perhaps this novel that has helped create the vogue of ‘the white horse plunging into wilderness’ (ⱑ偀ᡩ㤦) — a story of plunging into wilderness and going through perils and hardship to finally obtain the Buddha’s enlightenment. Su Manshu 㢣᳐⅞ (1884–1918), the monk-poet-painter, made two Chinese paintings with the title ‘Baima tou huang tu ⱑ偀ᡩ㤦೒/picture of the white horse plunging into wilderness’. One painting has the calligraphy of his friend, Liu San ߬ϝ, describing Su Manshu as ‘baima tou huang di’erren ⱑ偀ᡩ㤦㄀ѠҎ/the second personification of the white horse plunging into wilderness’ as

2 Shen Quanqi, ‘Feng he shengzhi tong huangtaizi you Ci’ensi yingzhi ༝੠೷ࠊৠⱛ໾ᄤ␌ ᜜ᘽᇎᑨࠊ’ (By Her Majesty’s order composing a poem echoing her joy in visiting the Ci’en Monastery with the Crown Prince).

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Su Manshu was about to have his pilgrimage to India. The readers would thus come to the same realization as I did of Tan Yun-shan’s ‘grand ambition’ in emulating Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to India. Then, there is the second half of his poem referring to his wanting to succeed what the ancients had failed, viz., to complete and perfect the thrice-broken ‘Brahma’s net’ which I am unable to explain comprehensively. In any case, I discuss all this to show to my readers that my father lived spiritually in a world in which he was inspired by Xuanzang’s pilgrimage to devote himself to a programme symbolizing the making and perfecting of the ‘Brahma’s net’ (in Chinese tradition ‘Brahma’ and ‘Buddha’ are interchangeable symbols). In such a spiritual world, my father was in the company of Tagore, Xuanzang and ancient saints to whom there was no clear identifications of ‘China’ or ‘India’, but ‘Love’s lotus’ opening its petals in Buddha’s light’. In this book, I try to plunge into my father’s spiritual world for a moment and take the readers along a guided tour. This guided tour is meant to shift the ground on which the reader stands and change the perspective. This book aims to change the whole starting point of thinking from a geopolitical to a geo-civilizational paradigm. I hope the reader is at least inspired to take a more sophisticated view of our own earth. If the reader is able to adopt this out-of-the-box thinking, then all the better. I do not know when exactly the Indian concept ‘Thrisāhasra- Mahāsāhasra-Lokadhātu’ was conceived — probably two thousand years ago. This concept was unique when formed. Its Chinese translation, ‘sanqian daqian shijie ϝग໻गϪ⬠’ (literally, ‘three thousand-great- thousand-universes’) was first mentioned in the early 5th century, if not earlier. This phrase has greatly widened the Chinese intellectual horizon. The Chinese interpretation of the term is: a ‘shijie Ϫ⬠/lokadhātu/ universe’ is the world that shares the sun and moon. Then, a thousand of such universes make a macro-universe, and a thousand macro-universes make a mega-universe, and a thousand mega-universes make an all- inclusive grand-mega-universe that is the ‘sanqian daqian shijie ϝग໻ग Ϫ⬠/Thrisāhasra-Mahāsāhasra-Lokadhātu’ — which is 1,000,000,000 solar systems (all under the blessings of the Buddha). Such an ancient Indian or Buddhist cosmological concept was not only marvellously imaginative but also prescient in its scientific foundation in astronomy.

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The main thrust of my book is to make the reader adopt such a concept when looking at the present geopolitical situation. Unfortunately, people (Indians and Chinese included) do not have such a mindset when they talk of China or India today. People do not think of the ‘Lokadhātu’, let alone ‘Thrisāhasra-Mahāsāhasra-Lokadhātu’. I have no intention to advocate the blessings of the Buddha but it is my humble contention to the reader that the use of such an ancient imagination helps in solving problems. The readers when they leaf through this book will join the ancients in thinking of China and India in terms of one entity — which I call ‘Himalaya Sphere’. It is only from the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ that people (in India and China) have lived with an unbounded cosmology. This broad-minded mindset can be rejuvenated to resolve urgent problems concerning the development of China and India today. The geo-political paradigm has already done great harm to China–India relations in our modern era, which I have highlighted in Chapter 4. I hope the reader becomes uncomfortable with the geopolitical paradigm which is the rhythm of the nation-states world Western civilization has imposed on the civilization-states of China and India. In the rhythm of the nation- states world, one nation’s ambition is another’s debacle, one nation’s blessing is another’s curse, one nation’s success is another’s failure, one nation’s happiness is another’s misery, and one nation’s richness is another’s poverty. Readers are quite familiar with such a rhythm that had ruined our two countries, China and India, for several centuries, and are ruining many countries of world continually, yesterday, today, and tomorrow. More importantly, if we allow the geopolitical paradigm to pollute our mindset and let the rhythm of the nation-states world dominate our consciousness and sub-consciousness, China and India will not live in peace and happiness. Having lived and breathed in the two countries and accumulated the input of so many relatives, friends, acquaintances, strangers, and circumstances, I have come to feel that one’s accumulated wisdom needs to be passed on to the next generations. It is this humble hope that the mistakes are not repeated and the good teachings be learnt from the experiences of the previous generations. Along our journey, there will be many readers who will find fault with this book, but before they cast the first stone of criticism, let them come with a better solution.

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It seems a coincidence that when I write these words the Vice President of India, Honorable Mr. M. Hamid Ansari, was saying similar things in his address at the commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of ‘Panchsheel’, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, in Beijing on June 28, 2014. He said, ‘Pursuit of world peace is a fundamental tenet of India’s foreign policy. It draws inspiration from our ancient civilizational value of considering the world as one family.’ He also said, ‘India and China are ancient civilizations. We are neighbours. We are strategic partners. Historically, there has been much that has bound us together, not merely through the exchange of goods and commodities but through a flourishing interchange of ideas, values and philosophies.’ He said further, ‘We need a new paradigm for global action. Our destinies are intertwined. Our quest is, should be, for a framework in which opportunities and challenges for the betterment of our societies co-exist.’3 On the same occasion, the Chinese Chairman, Xi Jinping д䖥ᑇ, also spoke of similar sentiment reiterating ‘Let the two ancient civilizations, China and India, blend together more intimately’ (䅽Ёॄϸ໻স㗕᭛ᯢ᳈㋻ᆚഄѸ㵡೼ϔ䍋).4 I feel quite encouraged that the sentiments of this book echo well with the speeches of the leaders of the two countries. This book is intended more for the lay reader but it may still be useful to the academician. It is intended to be a travelogue with random sightings of interesting events. In Chapter 1, the concept of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ is introduced. In our journey, we will sift through the evidence of historical information and archaeology along with legends and popular beliefs. There are certain times that call for poetic romanticism. By necessity, most of the account comes from Chinese sources. Hopefully, someone will find a treasure trove of Indian sources in future that may strengthen or modify the concepts introduced. The second chapter is one of my favorites. We shall encounter a little bit of fantasy, a little bit of whimsy in our discussion of the ideals and facts of reality. Those readers who are familiar with my writings will be treading on familiar ground as our journey covers the cultural affinity between China and India. What I wish to urge on the familiar reader is that they

3 vicepresidentofindia.nic.in/content.asp?id=500, accessed on July 5, 2014. 4 blog.sciencenet.cn/blog-226-807520.html, accessed on July 5, 2014.

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Introduction xxix

not skip this chapter because they will miss the evolution of my understanding of China and India. Some of the familiar historical events are viewed in a newer light. The inter-cultural interactions reveal a unique fraternity and the noble sentiments are also unparalleled elsewhere. It is this feeling of affinity that the reader needs to imbibe deeply for that is the crux of any successful development of China and India. A lot of people have not understood this important point. I have sometimes been branded an idealist because of my reiteration of the cultural affinity of the two ‘civilization twins’ of China and India. In this book, I purposely go a step further to view the state relationship between China and India from historical times to the present in Chapter 3. This reader will come to appreciate the special relations between China and India through historical times which were mainly through cultural exchange and trade and never through conquest or war. This was the reality before. Readers are welcome to compare it with the state-to-state equa- tions of other close neighbours. This reality thus warns the coming generations of not denigrating the relations into a tit-for-tat, an eye-for- an-eye, a tooth-for-a-tooth struggle. The concept of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ becomes liberating and offers a special perspective. In my fourth and last chapter, my guided-tour for readers reaches contemporary times. I could have easily lengthened it into another 400-page book, but my publisher would not allow it. Therefore, I have just highlighted a few aspects of the contemporary developments of China and India to show that some of the basic assumptions and perspectives probably are not the best way to look at things such as the stereotypes of capitalism and socialism. An important discovery of the discourse of this chapter is the Chinese term ‘xiaokang ᇣᒋ/moderate prosperity’, and ‘universal moderate prosperity’. I think this is really what both China and India want to achieve for the more-than-one-third of humanity living in both the countries. I venture to think that it was the eagerness in achieving this that has wrought the new political atmosphere in India during the Lok Sabha election 2014. The new atmosphere has also brightened the prospect of a closer partnership between the two countries. I hope that the readers join my ardent wish that China and India cooperate closely in the spirit of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ (the whole world is one single family) to lead the 2.6 billion of Chinese and Indians to the happy state of

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‘xiaokang ᇣᒋ/moderate prosperity’ when both China and India march forward into the 21st century. For the serious academic on the general tour there are also some interesting highlights. For example, Section V of my Chapter 2 is titled: ‘ “Confucianism” deserving a Chindia understanding’ which politely challenges the conventional wisdom on ‘Chinese philosophy’, categorizing China as ‘Confucianist’, while rejecting Buddhism as an integral part of Chinese philosophical thinking and denying recognition of Indian philosophical influence on Chinese civilization. I invite the serious academic to weigh in on my observation in Chapter 4, on the current development of China and India:

The biggest problem of using an Anglobalization model where the cheapest and most effi cient company wins out is the problem of destroying the very environment we live in. There are enormous consequences of every person in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ to achieve the comfort and wealth of the Western middle class. There are not enough resources in the world to give a home and a car for every person. In the hurry to achieve industrialization and urbanization, leaders of India and China seemed ignorant that the solutions for two populous nations living in an 18th century mode of production and lifestyle needed more innovative solutions than just the path of Western industrialization. I do not dispute that there is no alternative but to transform the caterpillar into a butterfl y through industrialization and usher India and China into the 21st century. My contention is that industrialization has to be responsible, has to provide green solutions, and has to fi t the realities of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

Tagore might not have approved my likening China and India’s modernization to the metamorphosis of the caterpillar into a butterfly which is a process of after-death rebirth with immense affliction and agony. He would not have approved the Chinese and Indian mode of urbanization either. When he lectured in Tsing-hua University, Beijing in May, 1924, Tagore said:

If you had acknowledged greed as your patron, at a touch, mere utility would have withered away all the beauty and the grace of your environment. Have you not seen this? In Shanghai, in Tientsin

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(Tianjin໽⋹) — huge demons of ugliness that stalk all over the world — on New York, London, Calcutta, Singapore and Hong Kong, all big with ugliness? Everything that they touch becomes dead, denuded of grace as if God’s blessing had been withdrawn. Of this your Peking (Beijing) shows no sign, but rather reveals a marvellous beauty of human association.5

I think the spirit of Tagore’s observation is still valid. The city of ‘marvellous beauty’ (Beijing) he had praised 90 years ago is also one of the worst places on earth in terms of environment ‘as if God’s blessing had been withdrawn’, and

Fog and haze What a hazardous sky! Countless beauties have put on Gauze masks below their eyes.

About this, readers will find a detailed discussion in Chapter 4. Some of the readers will be daunted by the complicated nature of the present China–India relations. However, the perspective becomes important for if one feels that the complications are too much, the task of solving them becomes more daunting. If the reader comes around to my perspective then the very notion of ‘territorial dispute’ goes away or becomes very trivial. In the context of a civilizational development the Beijing government of People’s Republic of China and Delhi government of Republic of India are just a couple of tiny toddlers when they make claims of the millennial Himalayan heights they had never administered before their founding. That there has never been a boundary line between the two ancient civilizations is common knowledge. Why should there be any boundary line between the two great civilizations? Tiny toddlers can quarrel over a line in the back yard for one moment and forget it in another. But, two billion-people civilization-states scrambling for a boundary line for decades, wasting precious resources and human lives to no avail, not at the back yard, but on the frozen peaks where no life can survive, is somewhat ridiculous.

5 Sisir Kumar Das (ed), Rabindranath Tagore: Talks in China, Calcutta: Rabindra-Bhavana Visva-Bharati, 1999, p. 64.

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Thus we bring out this book not only to mark the diamond jubilee of ‘Panchsheel’ or Five Principles of peaceful coexistence, but to bring some fresh air into the thinking of readers. It does not matter if the reader is a Singaporean, Chinese, Indian, Asian, or belong to the thinking people of the world, as long as the reader is willing to go on our journey to help strengthen peace and harmony in Asia and the world. All of you who are going to leaf through these pages are invited to live in this Himalaya dream!

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CONTENTS

Foreword vii Preface ix Acknowledgements xix Introduction xxiii

Chapter 1 The ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Lives in the Spirit of China and India 1 Chapter 2 Civilization Twins Grew Side by Side 91 Chapter 3 Civilization and State in China–India Relations 173 Chapter 4 ‘Himalaya Sphere’ into Universal Prosperity 257

Index 345 Photo Gallery 363

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CHAPTER 1

THE ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ LIVES IN THE SPIRIT OF CHINA AND INDIA

Generations have been led to believe that ‘India and China are two adjacent civilizations separated by the largely impassable Himalaya and the forbidding Tibetan plateau’.1 For years, this view has been repeatedly taught in schools and colleges. As a result the present day Indian or Chinese see each other from different worlds. This premise is mistaken and misleading. As a matter of fact, had there not been the emergence of the Himalaya and Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau 䴦㮣催ॳ there would not have been the two great civilizations known distinctly as China and India. We should say, ‘India and China are two adjacent civilizations developed under the umbrella of the towering Himalaya and the Qinghai–Tibetan plateau’. At the outset, I would like to quote an observation by the great master of both Chinese and Indian studies, Ji Xianlin ᄷ㕵ᵫ (1911–2009) (my translation).

“China and India, standing in the Asian continent, have been neighbours created by Heaven and constructed by Earth. Viewing from the entire human history, there are four great cultural systems inclusive of those of Chinese and Indian which may be described as half of the

1 The quotation is from Aromar Revi, ‘Two Countries, Diverse Systems, A Shared Future?’, in Ashok Gurung, Brian McGrath, Jianying Zha (eds), Growing Cities in a Shrinking World: The Challenges of Urbanism in India and China, New York: India China Institute, The New School and MacMillan, 2010, p. 9.

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cultural treasury of humanity. This is terriﬁ c.2” (Author’s translation from Chinese)

These words of Ji Xianlin have introduced two new perspectives to our mindset. First of all, he described the Sino–Indian neighborliness as ‘created by Heaven and constructed by Earth’. By bringing in Heaven and Earth was he saying that the two civilizations were predestined to be neighbours? In fact, about 10 years ago, when I visited Beijing I tried to see him (my friend, philosopher and guide) and clarify this point. He had moved from the Peking University campus to the special unit of the ‘301 Hospital of the Liberation Army’ where many ‘national treasures’ (೑ᅱ), i.e., people who made eminent contributions to China, were taken special care of. I failed to get an appointment to see him. But, I think, I had a clear understanding of Ji Xianlin’s mindset to safely assume that he was not ruling out the impact of human input in Sino– Indian neighborliness. I am also sure that while human efforts could succeed in tearing apart the affectionate relationship of the neighbours, no one can do so to the China–India neighbourliness — that is what the quote by Ji Xianlin meant. In this quote, Ji Xianlin highlighted the contributions of the two great civilizations of China and India to human history. He pointed out that half of the world cultural systems lies in China and India. Such a perspective fundamentally negates the over-emphasis of the influence of Western culture brought forth by many Western scholars (and some Eastern scholars). By describing the culture of China and India as ‘half of the cultural treasury of humanity’, Ji Xianlin forces us to re-examine our entire thinking.

I. ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE ୰୰偀ᢝ䲙೜偀ᢝ䲙೜’ CANNOT BE MISSED Confirmation of Ji Xianlin’s created-by-Heaven-and-constructed-by-Earth theory for Sino–Indian relationship comes from the formation and subsequent influence of the Himalaya and Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau over the neighbouring areas.

2 Ji Xianlin ᄷ㕵ᵫ, Zhong–Yin wenhua jiaoliu shi Ёॄ᭛࣪Ѹ⌕৆ (History of Sino– Indian Cultural Interaction), 1991, Beijing: Xinhua Press, p. 2.

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The ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Lives in the Spirit of China and India 3

The Creation of Himalaya and Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau The tectonic plate of the Indian sub-continent is one of the most dynamic and proactive geographical phenomena of the earth. Hundreds of millions of years ago, the ancient island, Gondwana, first split into South America, Australia and Africa, and then, the tectonic plate of India severed itself from Africa, drove away the sea (the Paleo–Tethys Ocean), and hugged the tectonic plate of China which was a part of the island of Laurasia, now Eurasia. Then, the front of the Indian plate went under the edge of the Chinese plate and created the greatest tectonic alteration of China known as ‘Ximalaya zaoshan yundong ୰偀ᢝ䲙䗴ቅ䖤ࡼ’ (Himalaya mountain construction movement) in Chinese. One can see it as an affectionate hug of the Indian tectonic plate with the Chinese tectonic plate which is still continuing. One view could be that it is indeed created-by-Heaven-and-constructed-by-Earth dynamics at work. This is a mystic interpretation but let us delve a little deeper. There are various Chinese views explaining this phenomenon. One version states that the Chinese tectonic plate lifted up from the southwestern end creating not only the Himalaya (including its elongation, the Karakorum) range, Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau and Sichuan Basin ಯᎱⲚഄ, but enhanced the levels of most of China in her western and central sectors. This created geological faults and earthquake zones all over China even as far as the coastal regions of Guangdong ᑓϰ and Fujian ⽣ᓎ, and the Xing’anling ݈ᅝኁ range near the Russian border. In addition, even the emergence of the Taiwan ৄ⑒ islands was the consequence of this ‘Chindia tectonic hug’. This is in tune with the analysis of Dr. John Whalley, a structural geologist at the Portsmouth University, U.K. When he was analyzing the severe earthquake at Wenchuan ≊Ꮁ in Sichuan province in 2008, he observed that Mount Everest and the Himalayas and the entire Tibetan Plateau were still rising because of the collision that took place 45 million years ago, between the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates. The epicentre of the earthquake lay on a fault line between the eastern border of the Tibetan Plateau and an area of sedimentary rocks.3

3 current.com/.../88952031_chinese-earthquake, accessed on August 6, 2012.

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4 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Overlooking the danger of earthquake, readers can tour southwest China and enjoy the scenic wonders created by this ‘Chindia tectonic hug’. The Zhada County in the Ngari area of Tibet features several hundred square kilometers of natural wonderland called ‘Zada tulin ᠢ䖒ೳᵫ’ (mud forest of Zhada) with soil and rocks in twisted forms creating a fantastic scenery. This is one of the manifestations of the ‘Himalayan mountain construction movement’. More than a million years ago this was the site of a lake. There is also the Ailao Mountain ઔ⠶ቅ scenic wonder in Yunnan ѥफ which is another manifestation of the same mountain construction movement. The landscape makes one feel that the terrain is torn by the mystic hand of Nature with the eastern portion abruptly lifted up from the smooth extension of the western portion. Another scenic wonder of Yunnan is Shilin ⷇ᵫ (rock forest) near Kunming which is a famous and popular tourist spot. It creates an ambience of the bottom of the sea on surface of the land. There is also a special Chinese mineral called ‘mayayu 偀䲙⥝’ (mayaite/ Maya Onyx) nicknamed the ‘Himalayan Jade’. It has a magical quality said to have been created from the underground magma 4.5 billion years ago, and been worked on and polished during the mountain construction movement. All this seems to substantiate the perspective of created-by- Heaven-and-constructed-by-Earth, although this might not have been the reason in Ji Xianlin’s mind. The upshot of the creation of the Himalaya/Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau is the appearance of a natural infrastructure for a full development of civilization on the land where China is located now. There are two special features of this infrastructure. First, the Himalaya/Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau forms the summit with an average elevation of 4,000 metres above sea-level. This plateau is home to the majority of the lofty peaks on earth. It is famously known as the ‘Roof of the World’. It expands towards the northeast to two lower spheres. The immediate lower sphere consists of mainly three plateaus: the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau ѥ䌉催ॳ, the Yellow-earth Plateau 咘ೳ催ॳ, and the Inner-Mongolian Plateau ݙ㩭স 催ॳ, in addition to the Sichuan Basin ಯᎱⲚഄ with an average elevation of 1,000–2,000 metres above sea-level. The last lower sphere extends to China’s coastal areas with an average elevation of 500 to 1,000 metres above sea-level. If viewed from the other end, the topography of China is

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The ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Lives in the Spirit of China and India 5

like a three step climb from the sea coast towards the Himalaya/Qinghai– Tibetan Plateau. The second feature of this infrastructure is the flow of the two big rivers — Yangtse ᡀᄤ∳/䭓∳ (the third longest river) and Huanghe/ Yellow River 咘⊇ (the fifth longest river on earth). They begin their journey from almost the same locality of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. Huanghe originates from the Yarra Daze peak of the mountain range of Bayanhar/ Bayankela Ꮘ买୔ᢝቅ. Yangtse originates from the Geladandong Snow Mountain of the Tangula mountain range ૤সᢝቅ. One flows southwards, and the other flows northwards, creating the base area of China. Huanghe has a total course of 5,464 km and a drainage of nearly 800,000 sq. km. Yangtse covers an east–west width of 3,219 km and north–south length of 966 km with a total drainage of 1,800,000 sq. km, without taking into account the valley of Huai River ⏂⊇. The total coverage of the Yangtse River amounts to one-fifth of the territory of China. Huanghe flows from Qinghai to eight provinces of Sichuan ಯᎱ, Gansu ⫬㙗, Ningxia ᅕ໣, Inner Mongolia ݙ㩭স, Shaanxi 䰩㽓, Shanxi ቅ㽓, Henan ⊇फ and Shandong ቅϰ mostly in the northern half of China. Yangtse flows from Qinghai to eight provinces of Sichuan, Tibet, Yunnan, Hubei ␪࣫, Hunan ␪फ, Jiangxi ∳㽓, Anhui ᅝᖑ and Jiangsu ∳㢣 in the southern half of China. Then, in the lower streams of the two rivers, they are connected together by the natural river of Huai, and the man-made Grand Canal. One can visualize this picture of most of China being irrigated by two of the earth’s five longest rivers. Only Northeast/Manchuria in the north and the five provinces of Guizhou 䌉Ꮂ, Guangxi ᑓ㽓, Guangdong, Fujian and Zhejiang ⌭∳, in addition to Xinjiang ᮄ⭚ are not encom- passed in this big-river boundary. Once again, most of China falls into the created-by-Heaven-and-constructed-by-Earth observation of Ji Xianlin. If there were no Himalaya/Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau the Indian rivers of Indus, Ganga, and Brahmaputra would not have existed. We know that both Indus and Ganga are created by the glaciers from the Himalayan range. Indus originates in the vicinity of Lake Mansarovar on the Qinghai– Tibetan Plateau which is now a fascinated destination for pious Hindus and adventurous Indian tourists, although the course of Indus is not in India now. Ganga originates in the western part of Himalaya (now in Uttarakhand). The Brahmaputra is a great river of Tibet known to the

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6 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

locals as ‘Yarlung Tsangpo’ (Chinese name ‘Yaluzangbu 䲙剕㮣Ꮧ’) flowing down to the Assam Valley, and entering the Bay of Bengal through Bangladesh as the ‘Jamuna’ river. Much water has flown down these three famous rivers with deep footprints of history and culture thanks to the created-by-Heaven-and-constructed-by-Earth ecology of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

Himalaya’s Sphere of Influence We are beginning to realize the central and pivotal position of Himalaya between China and India. If we draw a circle around the central point of Himalaya we get the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. This sphere broadly extends northwards to the Chinese provinces of Gansu ⫬㙗, Ningxia ᅕ໣, Sichuan, Yunnan ѥफ, southwards to Myanmar, Bangladesh, and India, and westwards to Afghanistan and a part of the region that people call the ‘Asia Minor’. This vast area extends Himalaya/Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau to the distant foothills and river valleys. By highlighting ‘Himalaya Sphere’ we are focussing on an area of the earth that is rich in flora and fauna, and has been most active in human and civilizational activities for a million odd years. From a layman’s perspective and without delving into the mysteries of earth science, I daresay that ‘Himalaya Sphere’ is a special area on earth most conducive to life and the birth of culture and civilization. The towering Himalayan heights, the abundant storage of ice and water, the richness of meteorological and ecological resources and the frequent drastic changes have provided a major impetus to life on our planet. We know that 40–75% of all biotic species are indigenous to the rainforests, and Himalaya Sphere has innumerable rainforests within its embrace. India, an important part of Himalaya Sphere, has forever been a rich repository of flora (of about 90,000 species) and fauna (of about 45,000 species). Almost all the major plants that grow in the northern hemisphere (frigid, temperate and tropical zones) are represented in China, a large number of them originating from the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. There is phytogeographical affinity with various species dispersing from the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ towards faraway areas of China and further towards other parts of East Asia. Meanwhile, China has always been a land of greatest diversity of

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the wildlife on earth with more than 6,000 species of vertebrates — one tenth of the world’s total. When one looks at the development of human life, one can trace many of the important developments to the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Let us examine some of the origins of the various lifestyles of the people in Asia.

Rice culture The original home of rice paddy falls in the Himalaya Sphere. Both the Chinese and Indian civilizations are pioneers of ‘Rice Culture’. There has been debate after debate about the earliest domestication of rice, but most of the findings suggest that south China (either Yangtse valley or Pearl River ⦴∳ valley) is the motherland of ‘Rice Culture’. Domestication of the wild rice, Oryza rufipogon, is more than 10,000 years old in south China, and 8,000–9,000 years old in the Gangetic plains. Rice Culture marks the first joint ‘Chindia’ step in forging the affinity of peoples in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. South China is known as ‘The land of rice and fish’ (剐㉇Пе) for ages. Both my wife and I grew up in this ‘land of rice and fish’ and we were apprehensive whether we could keep our lifestyle before we arrived in India in 1955. In the three places we lived (Santiniketan, Khadakvasla, and Delhi) for 45 years we basically maintained our lifestyle happily. However, I remember visiting Shandong ቅϰ Province (Confucius’ birth place) in the late 1940s, and discovered with surprise that ordinary people cooked rice as a special course (just like they cooked meat) while their staple food was a kind of steamed bread made of the flour of maze or millet called ‘wotou ぱ༈’ — which I found hard to digest. This made me realize the luxury of the ‘Rice Culture’ in ancient China in areas too far from the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ — that Confucius might be an outcaste to this luxurious lifestyle.

Wheat culture Wild emmer wheat was probably first domesticated about 10,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent, encompassing parts of modern-day Turkey, Israel, Lebanon, northern Iraq and northern Iran, which is a part of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. India, the second largest wheat producer today, also features one of the earliest ‘Wheat Cultures’ on earth with a history of at

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least 4,000–5,000 years as seen in the archaeological discoveries of the Harappan Civilization (in present day Pakistan). I think India exported her ‘Wheat Culture’ to China through the Silk Road making China a major wheat-producing and wheat-consuming society in the modern world. This migration of wheat supports the concept of the affinity of people within the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

Cotton culture Cotton was first cultivated in India 7,000 years ago. ‘Cotton Culture’ proudly existed in the Harappan Civilization. India has been the greatest producer of cotton textiles for many millennia. Indian cotton textiles elicited great admiration in China 2,000 years ago, and the ancient Silk Road was also known as the ‘India–China Cotton Road’. After obtaining the ‘Cotton Culture’ from India, there was a great boom in the Chinese textile industry. Today, both India and China are leading exporters of cotton textiles in the world trade, thanks to the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ affinity. There was the famous description by Xie Fangde 䇶ᵟᕫ (1226–1289) in his poem on ‘cotton’ (᳼ẝ䆫) that the ‘Min 䯑’ (Fujian ⽣ᓎ) area had the ‘Heaven’s ໽’ blessings for obtaining the skill of cotton plantation from India:

O, cotton Wonderful plantation, It’s the Heaven’s blessing For the province of Min! (௝ᷥ⾡᳼ẝ, ໽ԩ८ܿ䯑)

Hemp culture Hemp originated in Central Asia where it was cultivated as a fiber and also as a food crop. People in China have developed hemp as an important material for the textile industry for many millennia side by side with sericulture. Initially, the fiber provided popular attire. In contrast, only the very rich and privileged would wear silk fabrics. In India, because of the domination of ‘Cotton Culture’, hemp never competed with cotton for human attire, but has been mainly used as a medicine and as a stimulatory

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beverage called ‘bhang’. Hemp is also part of many Hindu rituals. After the spread of Indian ‘Cotton Culture’ in China there was a facelift in the Chinese economy and lifestyle for nearly 1,000 years thus diminishing the millennial importance of ‘Hemp Culture’.

Sericulture That China is the motherland of sericulture is undisputable. However, the Indian variety of ‘Tasar/Tussah silk’ may be as ancient as the Chinese variety of mulberry silk. The Indian Tasar silkworm, Antheraea mylitta is reared on natural oak wood plant (Arjun and Asan). Silk contributed to the charm of Shakuntalā of Indian legend (as it was an input to the enchanting power of Cleopatra). Hindu gods wore only silk. Lord Shiva is especially fond of women wearing fabrics of yellow color (‘Kauseya/ Chinese cocoon’). We shall discuss later the role played by silk in forging ties between China and India within the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. At the age of 12, I was a sericulture-kid for one season. When I joined the junior wing of Changjun Middle School 䭓䚵Ёᄺ in Lantian 㪱⬄ town in Anhua ᅝ࣪ County in Hunan ␪फ Province in 1941, I emulated my school-mates in rearing silkworms with very little cost. I bought a strip of paper full of silkworm eggs and kept it in a metal box in my pocket. In a couple of days, tiny black silkworms appeared and I put them on a mulberry leaf. They grew fast and turned white. I kept them in a paper box and fed them with mulberry leaves. Finally, they began to spin silk. I kept them on the top side of a paper box (preventing them to form cocoons) and finally produced a silk handkerchief woven by the silkworms.

Cattle-culture The Fertile Crescent is believed to be the earliest region domesticating the cow/ox about 8,000 years ago. People in China probably started their cattle-culture about 5,000 years ago. So did the people in India, as the bull features prominently in many terra-cotta seals among the Harappan artifacts. China and India are the two ancient pioneers in developing a prosperous economy combining agriculture with animal husbandry in which ‘Cattle Culture’ played a vital role.

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Pig culture China is undoubtedly one of the places, if not the place where the wild hog was first domesticated. In the archaeological discoveries of the Hongshan Culture 㑶ቅ᭛࣪ (in the present northeastern China), we see a polished jade zoomorphic deity known as ‘yuzhulong ⥝⣾啭’ (jade pig-dragon) showing the animal’s sacred status. Situated in present Liaoning 䖑ᅕ Province, Hongshan may be too far away to be included within the Himalaya Sphere. But, I consider ‘Pig Culture’ originating from the foothills of the Himalaya–Qinghai area, and later spreading towards the China–Korea border. This is based on the discovery of pig’s bones in the burials of the Yangshao Civilization ӄ䷊᭛ᯢ which is more antiquated than the Hongshan Culture. Yangshao is located in the middle stream of Huanghe and legitimately belongs to the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. ‘Pig culture’ is a distinctive Chinese culture. Today, 48–50% of the world’s live pigs are grown in China, and for Chinese consumption. In the Chinese script, the visual for ‘home’, i.e., ‘jia ᆊ’ draws a pig ‘䈩’ under the roof ‘ᅔ’ — Home, sweet home, with a pig under the roof ! In my boy- hood, I saw farmers of Hunan ␪फ living under the same roof with their dear animal companions — pigs on the ground floor and humans upstairs. Pigs were provided with sumptuous feeds and lived, indeed, like family members until they were sold to the butchers. These are some illustrations highlighting the creative vitality of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ which eventually gave birth to the two most sustainable millennial civilizations on earth — China and India.

The Immediate Ancestors of Humanity Born in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Despite the evidence of earliest human species in Africa, we do not see the growth of early civilizations in Africa. In the ‘Himalaya Sphere’, we have the discovery of the Ramapithecus 4 (the ape that had been regarded as the ancestor of man–apes) and Sivapithecus 5 (now replacing Ramapithecus as

4 The first incomplete specimens of Ramapithecus were found in Nepal on the bank of Tinau River western part of the country in 1932. 5 Its fossils were first found in India, then, also in China and Turkey.

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the ancestor of man–apes). The early development of the ‘Cultures’ (rice, wheat, cotton, hemp, silk, cattle, pig) symbolizes the early development of human activities which followed the emergence of man–apes which, in turn, followed the emergence of Ramapithecus and Sivapithecus. The ready availability of facilities and services of abundant flora and fauna were conducive to the development of early human activities within the ‘Himalaya Sphere’, especially in China and India. I remember 20 years ago, when I visited the museum of the Chuxiong Ἦ䲘 County (of Yunnan Province), it proudly claimed the locality as the ‘Homeland of the Ramapithecus’ as the fossils of this ape species excavated at Chuxiong exceeded other places on earth. This corrected a long time notion that the Chinese are only the descendants of the ‘Peking Ape-man ࣫Ҁ⤓Ҏ’. The story of the ‘Peking Ape-man’ has long lost its luster. In the 1970s, Yunnan came into the limelight when fossils of the apes that might be identified as the ancestors of humans were discovered at Kaiyuan ᓔ䖰, Lufeng ⽘Є and Yuanmou ܗ䇟 counties. Chinese anthropologists and archaeologists identified the nearest ancestors to humans in China and gave them various names according to the places where their fossils were discovered. There are names like Yuanmoupithecus ܗ䇟স⤓, Lufengpithecus ⽘Єস⤓ as well as Lufengpithecus Kaiyuansis ᓔ䖰⽘Єস⤓. This species of Lufengpithecus Kaiyuansis lived about 8–10 million years ago according to anthropological sources. According to Wu Rukang ਈ∱ᒋ (1916–2006), China’s greatest authority on man–apes, the Lufengpithecus ⽘Єস⤓ lived about 7–8 million years ago — a date that was close to the emergence of Homo-sapiens.6 More important to our discussion is the fact that the Yuanmou ܗ䇟 County is the original home to both the Yuanmoupithecus and the ‘Yuanmou yuanren ܗ䇟⤓Ҏ/the Yuanmou Ape Man’ who was a contemporary of the Hoshangabad Ape Man (discovered in central India two decades ago). Yuanmou County is probably the place where the metamorphosis of ape to humans took place. Perhaps, with additional archaeological discoveries in

6 He Yaohua ԩ㗔ढ et al. (eds), Yunnan tongshi ѥफ䗮৆ (Comprehensive history of Yunnan), 2011, Beijing: Chinese Social Sciences Press Ё೑⼒Ӯ⾥ᄺߎ⠜⼒, Vol. I, pp. 26–29.

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future, we can also speculate that Hoshangabad (a district in Madhya Pradesh) was the site where Sivapithecus gradually evolved into the ancestors of Indians. There was some controversy about the species of Yuanmoupithecus ܗ䇟স⤓. At one time, it was identified as a kind of Homo-sapiens who lived around 3–4 million years ago. The ‘Yuanmou yuanren ܗ䇟⤓Ҏ’ (the Yuanmou Ape Man) who used to be considered as the earliest of Homo- sapiens in China lived around 1.7 millions ago. When it was discovered, this species was named ‘Zhupeng nengren ネẮ㛑Ҏ’ (Homo-habilis- zhepengensis). Later studies ascertained that it did not belong to the species of Homo-sapiens, and thus was alternately given the name of ‘Hudie Zhongguo guyuan 㵈㵊Ё೑স⤓’ (Sinopithecus hudieensis) and ‘Hudie Lufeng guyuan 㵈㵊⽘Єস⤓’ (Lufengpithecus hudieensis), and its existence on earth has been fixed around 7–9 million years ago.7 There is some confusion to be clarified by future archaeological discoveries and studies. Today, the earliest human in China is the ‘Wushan yuanren Ꮏቅ⤓Ҏ/ Wushan Ape Man’ whose fossil was discovered in 1986. Wushan Ꮏቅ is within the jurisdiction of the centrally administered city of Chongqing 䞡ᑚ on the banks of the Yangtse. After more than a decade of studies, experts have ascertained that the Wushan Ape Man lived two million years ago amidst lots of wild animals including horses. International archaeological circles think that this discovery begins to cast doubt to the assertion that the earliest human is from Africa. The discovery of the Wushan Ape Man shifts the scholarly attention from Yunnan ѥफ Province to Sichuan ಯᎱ Province both irrigated by the Yangtse. The latest bright star of archaeological discovery is the Sanxingdui ϝ᯳ේ Civilization located just a couple of hours’ drive from Wushan.

The Incredible Sanxingdui ϝϝ᯳ේ᯳ේ Civilization There are two archaeological sites of the Sanxingdui ϝ᯳ේ Civilization one at Sanxingdui ϝ᯳ේ (of the Guanghan ᑓ∝ City) 40 km from Chengdu ៤䛑 City (capital city of Sichuan ಯᎱ Province) and another at

7 Ibid, Vol. I, pp. 32–33.

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Fig. 1. Depiction of Surya — the Indian Sun-God

Jinsha 䞥≭ within Chengdu City — an indication of the ancient cultural glory of Chengdu. The jewels of the exhibits are the bronze figures and masks. Visitors can easily discover that the facial features of the exhibits are distinctly not Chinese. In fact, they look quite Indian. The artifacts reveal an ancient civilization with sun-worship, which was hardly known to ancient Chinese civilization. There is a gold sheet with the design of four birds flying around the sun-deity which in my personal view is akin to a depiction of Surya (the Indian sun-god) (see Fig. 1). There is a bronze sculpture of an Indian ‘surya-chakra’ (sun-wheel). Both of these indicate a possible affinity to the Indian civilization. In the bronze sculptures there is a depiction of a shadow of a mythic bird dominating the numerous animal figures with various combinations of bird and beast characteristics. The tiger’s feet look like bird-tails, and the bird has an animal head. Considering these sculptures in the context of sun-worship, I am inclined to identify them as the great Indian legendary bird — the Garuda which is the bird of the sun. In addition, lots of elephant tusks were unearthed. More than 5,000 pieces of polished sea-shells of uniform size, which are the cowries that served as currency in ancient Indian trade and commerce, were also unearthed. If these artifacts were exhibited in the National Museum in New Delhi no one would raise an eyebrow. Given the clear-cut Indian

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Fig. 2. Alien Features of a Human Head Figure

origins, the question that arises is how were these artifacts brought from India. The primitiveness of ancient transport would have made it difficult to transport form locations far away from the Indian subcontinent. My tour to the Sanxingdui exhibition pavilions was in the company of fellow delegates of the Third International Conference of China–South Asia Cultural Forum consisting of Indian scholars including Mr. R. Sahu, the Cultural Counsellor of the Indian Embassy, Beijing. At the bronze pavilion, when we listened to the guide analyzing the alien features of a human head figure (see Fig. 2), Mr. Sahu obliged my request to stand near the exhibit, and instantly drew laughter from the crowd. The head figure looked very much like an artistic presentation of Mr. Sahu’s face. When we walked to the exhibit of ‘sun-shaped implement’ (taiyangxing qi ໾䰇ᔶ఼) which was the design of a wheel with five spokes 85 centimetres in diameter (see Fig. 3), I immediately thought it was the presentation of the ‘surya-chakra/solar wheel’ — and probably the most ancient presentation of the ‘surya-chakra’ on earth. But there was no clear official explanation to this effect. We had a young, smart and apparently knowledgeable female guide who lectured us about the piece. She anticipated that her audience would wonder why there should be spokes in a symbol of the sun. She

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Fig. 3. Sun-shaped Implement

herself had such a question in mind, but an archaeological expert had told her that the spokes of the wheel represented the ancients’ fear and resent- ment of the scorching sun. ‘Imagine how you would like to curse the scorching sun when you are stuck in the desert!’ she said. We did not attempt to exorcise her of these irrational and illogical beliefs. In the first place, Sichuan was not at any time a desert. Today’s meteorological conditions show that people in the Sichuan Basin seldom see the sun as most of the year it is cloudy. There would be absolutely no reason to imagine that people of the Sanxingdui Civilization resented the scorching sun. The most likely explanation is that of an ancient civilization that worshipped the sun. This sun worship is well recognized by Chinese archaeological circles. How, then, would people create this ‘sun- shaped implement’ to curse the sun and then spend so much treasure to make it? Obviously, the official archaeological circles have not thought of the possibility of the Sanxingdui Civilization conceiving the sun as a wheel like the ancient Indians conceived it. There has been evidence later that the Indian ‘chakra/wheel’ analogy of the sun and moon were absorbed into Chinese literature after the spread of Buddhism. Somebody should have told the Sanxingdui guide and her teacher that the phrase

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‘yilun hongri ϔ䕂㑶᮹’ (a wheel of red sun) is a favourite metaphor in the modern Chinese literature and has Indian roots. Sun God worship could have been there in China during early times. The name ‘Yandi ♢Ᏹ’ who is one of the two main legendary ancestors of the Chinese race (the other is ‘Huangdi 咘Ᏹ/Yellow Emperor’) has its name ‘ ♢’ visualized by the double ‘huo ☿/fire’ symbol — hence this ‘Yandi ♢Ᏹ/ god of fire’ can well be considered a Sun God. Sun worship disappeared in Chinese culture later without a trace compared to the legacy of Sun God worship in India. In the Vedic hymns we find the sun deities ‘Adityas’, ‘Mitra’, ‘Varuna’, ‘Savitr’ whose attributes were merged into the image of ‘Surya/sun’. In the two great Indian epics, the Sun God occupied a prominent position. In Ramayana, Rama is a descendant of Surya. In Mahabharata, Karna is the son of the Pandava mother Kunti and Surya, and Aruna is the charioteer of Surya. There is the renowned Sun Temple at Konark in Odisha (Orissa) which is a UNESCO protected ‘World Heritage Site’. The other important site is the Jinsha site in the city of Chengdu itself. This site is huge and only one-tenth of the site was unearthed at the time of writing this book. The jewel of the Jinsha excavation is a painted gold sheet showing the sun as a wheel with four birds flying in a circle. This is, indeed, the finest graphic demonstration of the ‘surya-chakra/solar wheel’ I have ever seen. I am sure more astonishing finds will surface during the ongoing excavation of the rest of the site. There are also uncertain estimates about the carbon dating of this civilization, roughly 3,000–5,000 year old vintage. Among the unearthed artifacts, there are potteries, bronze wares, jade wares, golden products, but very few stone wares. However, in a nearby village named ‘Baoduncun ᅱ๽ᴥ’ in Xinjin ᮄ⋹ County, and in five other places, a stone-age civilization of the same vintage was unearthed and is now designated ‘Baodun wenhua ᅱ๽᭛࣪/ Baodun Culture’. Scholars believe that the Sanxingdui Civilization was an advanced development of the Baodun Neolithic civilization. The jade artifacts of the Sanxingdui Civilization are significant as they bear signs of a script. They do reveal the existence of an ancient script earlier than the earliest Chinese script, the Oracle Script ⬆偼᭛. As early as 1983, a special centre was created in Sichuan Normal University ಯᎱᏜ㣗໻ᄺ devoted to the study of a refreshing discipline called ‘Ba-Shu wenhua Ꮘ㳔᭛࣪’ (Ba-Shu culture). The aim of this centre

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The ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Lives in the Spirit of China and India 17

is to highlight the importance of the civilizational development in ancient Sichuan with a new perspective. The Director of the Centre for Ba-Shu Culture Studies of the Sichuan Normal University ಯᎱᏜ㣗໻ᄺᏈ㳔᭛ ࣪ⷨおЁᖗ’, Professor Duan Yu ↉⏱ wrote a commendable book on the ‘Changjiang liuyu wenming qiyuan 䭓∳⌕ඳ᭛ᯢ䍋⑤’ (origin of the civilizations of the Yangtse valley).8 He views the Sanxingdui Civilization as a specimen of early development of the civilizations of the Yangtse valley 䭓∳⌕ඳ, within China. He believes a good understanding of this development can correct the prolonged jaundiced view among Chinese scholars that the Yangtse valley had long been culturally backward as compared to the Huanghe valley, and that the Yangtse valley became developed only from the Tang Dynasty ˄7th century˅ onwards. Duan Yu argues: “The study of the origin of the civilizations of the Yangtse valley is a must in order to thoroughly understand the origin of Chinese civilization.” (㽕䗣ᕏⷨおЁ᭛ⱘ䍋⑤, ህϡ㛑ϡⷨお䭓∳⌕ඳ᭛ᯢⱘ䍋⑤).9 Duan Yu also thinks the civilization of the ‘Ba-Shu region’ (Ꮘ㳔ഄऎ) that situ- ates at the upper stream of the Yangtse was a ‘yuanshengde wenming ॳ⫳ⱘ᭛ᯢ’ (primordial civilization).10 Duan Yu cites the theory of 20th century American anthropologist, Clyde Kluckhohn, that three essential elements, i.e., script, city, and utility of metal, marked the creation of early civilization in China. He concludes that the Sanxingdui Civilization already had these elements of the Baodun Culture.11 The Sanxingdui Civilization was just a symbol, of course the brightest symbol, of what Professor Duan and other scholars call ‘Ba-Shu (Sichuan) culture Ꮘ㳔᭛࣪’ which can trace its origin millions of years ago. He believes that the Wushan Ape Man marked the inception of the ‘Ba-Shu (Sichuan) culture Ꮘ㳔᭛࣪’ and the Sanxingdui archaeological discovery can be linked to Neolithic cultures in the same three Gorges area designated as ‘Chengbeixi culture ජ㚠⑾᭛࣪’ and ‘Daxi culture ໻⑾᭛࣪’

8 Duan Yu, Qiubang yu guojia qiyuan: Changjiang liuyu wenming qiyuan bijiao yanjiu 䜟䙺Ϣ೑ᆊ䍋⑤˖䭓∳⌕ඳ᭛ᯢ䍋⑤↨䕗ⷨお (Origin of Chiefdom and State: A Comparative Study of the Origin of the Civilizations of the Yangtse Valley), 2007, Beijing: Zhonghua bookshop Ёढкሔ publication. 9 Ibid, p. 7. 10 Ibid, p. 16. 11 Ibid, pp. 9, 17–18.

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that existed around 7,400–4,500 years ago. There are numerous other archaeological discoveries proving that Sichuan was an area full of cultural activities during ancient times. All this narrative can establish the correct historical sequence of civilizational development that is the central theme of this book — just as the civilizing rivers of Huanghe, Yangtse, Indus and Ganga originate from the towering Himalaya/Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau the civilizations of China and India are the creations from this lofty shrine. The affinity of China and India with the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ is thus established. With this realization we rectify the erroneous idea that India and China are ‘separated by the largely impassable Himalaya and the forbidding Tibetan plateau’. The ‘Himalaya Sphere’ belongs to China and India and China and India belong to the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. The ‘Himalaya Sphere’ unites China and India and China and India cannot be separated from the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. When the Indian poet-saint, Rabindranath Tagore lectured at the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1916, he observed:

The lamp of ancient Greece is extinct in the land where it was fi rst lighted, the power of Rome lies dead and buried under the ruins of its vast empire. But the civilization, whose basis is society and the spiritual ideal of man, is still a living thing in China and in India. Though it may look feeble and small, judged by the standard of the mechanical power of modern days, yet like small seeds it still contains life and will sprout and grow, and spread its benefi cent branches, producing fl owers and fruits when its time comes and showers of grace descend upon it from heaven.12

Note the words of Tagore in that ‘the civilization, whose basis is society and the spiritual ideal of man, is still a living thing in China and India’. Note also that he depicts Chinese and Indian civilizations in one breath. He recognized the ‘living thing in China and India’ not as two civilizations, but as one ‘civilization’ — an integral entity sans boundary. The Sanxingdui Civilization is a powerful validation to this holistic Tagorean perspective. Sanxingdui is an early stage of civilizational development of ‘civilization in China and India’ — in Tagore’s description. It was a civilizational development before any conventional identity of ‘China’ or ‘India’ ever existed.

12 Uma Das Gupta (ed), Tagore: Selected Writings on Education and Nationalism, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009, p. 246.

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This is ‘Chindia’ conceived nearly a century before my friend, Jairam Ramesh, invented this new English word.

II. ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ HELPS TO CLARIFY IDENTITY CONFUSIONS Indian scholars strongly object to the term ‘Himalayas’ because it hurts the powerful and lofty entity that the name ‘Himalaya’ symbolizes. I think it is for the same reason that Tagore discards the letter ‘s’ when he alludes to the civilization of China and India. Indeed, when we study civilization we place our hearts and minds in a spiritual realm which cannot be cut asunder by boundaries. In this respect, the concept of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ promotes the holistic perspective in the study of China and India. We must mention that we resort to the use of labels essentially for sake of convenience. Earlier, we have come across the labels of ‘Ba-Shu culture’ and ‘Sanxingdui civilization’ — two different labels for one thing. The label of ‘Sanxingdui’ recognizes the name of the locality where the ancient artifacts were hidden which is a conventional and legitimate label in archaeology. The label of ‘Ba-Shu’ does not seem as legitimate as the identity of ‘Ba Ꮘ’ and ‘Shu 㳔’ are much later creations unknown to the people of the ‘Sanxingdui civilization’. But, we temporarily accept the label as it helps clarify our understanding of the past. In the same spirit we indulge in labels of ‘China’ and ‘India’ as a courtesy to conventional thinking. We shall now see that the discovery of the ‘Sanxingdui civilization’ has created problems for it.

Sanxingdui and Harappa — New Vistas and Placement in History Surely, in the minds of hundreds of millions of Chinese and Indians as well as other peoples, the name ‘Sanxingdui’ does not click at all. It is however a new discovery that needs to be recognized and replace the conventional thinking. We see that the existence of the ‘Sanxingdui civilization’ is too ancient to be conventionally considered a part of the Chinese civilization because it predates the earliest Chinese script system. It is too far away from the conventionally recognized cradle of Chinese civilization — the Luoyang ⋯䰇 area of Henan ⊇फ Province. Its prominent Surya worship is far too exotic to be recognized and identified as Chinese civilization. Witness the

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reluctance of the archaeological expert in Sanxingdui to recognize the obvious. Its ethnic features are too alien to the conventionally branded Chinese yellow race of the Mongoloid stock. But, it is on the Chinese soil, too far-away and difficult to be identified as a part of the Indian civilization. That is why we need a new mindset to understand history and civilization. If we free our minds from conventional thinking, we can look at Sanxingdui Civilization as belonging to both Chinese and Indian civilizations, or even better the Tagorean vision of one civilization of China and India. We need to consider this as a new entity that breaks down our compartmentalized thinking of separate civilizations — breaking down also the boundaries between China and India. If one is willing to adopt an entirely fresh viewpoint we get a new understanding of the history of China and India. My contention is that our present thinking is fossilized and our understanding of the present in the context of the past just reinforces the compartmentalization instead of the opposite. We must come out of this bird cage, this concept of ‘nation-state’ dominating everything. Our intelligence, knowledge and scholarship actually are rooted in a past that is unified and comes from one civilization. There is much in common between the Sanxingdui Civilization and the Harappan Civilization. First, both are the creations of a famous river — Harappa by the Indus River, the symbol of India, and Sanxingdui by the Yangtse River, the symbol of China. Second, both lie in the fertile plain in an extended area of the foothills of Himalaya/Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau with Sanxingdui towards the east and Harappa towards the south. Third, both are outstanding from the development of the mainstream civilizations in China and India that can be close knit and strung together according to conventional historiography. Fourth, both exhibit early urban development and maritime trade orientation. By paraphrasing the words of Tagore, both Sanxingdui and Harappa symbolize the flame of civilization ‘first lighted’ in China and India when ‘China’ and ‘India’ could not even be identified. Sanxingdui and Harappa concretizes Tagore’s ‘civilization in China and India’. This helps us to realize the long process of two civilizations maturing themselves as separate identifiable entities within the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. An additional meaning of the Sanxingdui Civilization is its Indian affinity — as I have already described. When we further explore this

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affinity we can understand the history of China and India better. When I first saw the photographs before visiting the Sanxingdui site I thought all the bronze and gold artifacts could have been imported from India like those 5,000 odd pieces of cowries. After visiting the site, this thinking needs to be rejected. Some of the bronze items, like the two 4-metre high ‘shenshu ⼲ᷥ’ (sacred trees) unearthed from the second pit, are too large to be imported with the technology then available. More important is the question, why should the people of the Sanxingdui Civilization import these exotic things all the way from India? Another related hard question is where were they produced in India if they were imported from India? We see that though the bronze wares help create the Indian cultural ambience, the bronze sculptural style quite resembles what we see in the Shang and Zhou bronze wares of China. After rejecting the import theory we have to consider the possibility that this Indian cultural ambience was a part and parcel of the Sanxingdui Civilization. It is absolutely certain that during the time of Sanxingdui Civilization there was neither ‘China’, nor ‘India’. Thus, at the time when neither ‘China’, nor ‘India’ existed, then, the statement of ‘Indian cultural ambience present in the Sanxingdui Civilization’ becomes illogical. In this way, the puzzle dissolves by itself. In other words, what we see in Sanxingdui is a typical ‘Himalaya Sphere’ phenomenon which is the creator of both Chinese and Indian civilizations. Thus, we see in the Sanxingdui artifacts the earliest manifestations of the ‘Surya-cakra’ and legendary ‘Garuda’. That these entities only survived in the Indian civilization and not in the Chinese one is probably due to the vicissitudes of times.

‘Himalaya Sphere’ and ‘Cinabhumi’ The identity of the ‘ancient Shu state স㳔೑’ further strengthens the Himalaya Sphere affinity shared by both the Chinese and Indian civilizations. The name ‘Shu 㳔’ was originally a word meaning silkworm as its earliest palaeographic forms in the Oracle Script ⬆偼᭛ depict. Literally, ‘Shuguo 㳔೑’ denotes ‘country of the silkworms’. According to Chinese legend, the wife of Huangdi 咘Ᏹ (the Yellow Emperor), named Luzu Ⴌ⼪, was the inventor of sericulture. Their son married a girl from the family of Shushan 㳔ቅ, and Luzu taught her daughter-in-law the skills of

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sericulture. Through this woman, the family of Shushan became specialists in silk production, and earned the title of ‘Cancongshi 㱩ϯ⇣/Family of silkworm bundles’. Then, this family moved to the locality of present Chengdu and founded the ‘country of the silkworm/㳔೑’.13 Regrettably, we see no silk in the exhibits of the Sanxingdui artifacts. One explanation is that the Chengdu area is damp, and silk fabrics cannot be preserved for thousands of years. But, Duan Yu argues that in the sculptural designs of a bronze human figure unearthed from the second pit of Sanxingdui one can visualize the human wearing a silk robe and a silk hat.14 In addition, scholars argue that the Sanxingdui artifacts have revealed a well developed textile technology consisting of 18 terra-cotta and 14 stone spinning-wheels, and the designs on the painted pottery indicating weaving patterns. There is another indirect evidence. Large quantities of Sichuan produced silk fabrics were discovered in the 1970s from the tombs of the Gongyuguo ᓧ剐೑ Family at Rujiazhuang 㤍ᆊᑘ Village in the Baoji ᅱ叵 City of Shaanxi 䰩㽓 Province. As the tomb was nearly 3,000 years old, this discovery helps substantiate the legacy of the Sanxingdui Civilization — the ‘Country of the silkworms’ on Chinese soil.15 Duan Yu also draws our attention to the ancient Greek and Roman legends about ‘Seres’ and ‘Serica’ (the land of the Seres). ‘Ser’ was the ancient Greek word for silk or silkworm while ‘Seres’ and ‘Serica’ connote the ‘country of silk/silkworms’ which exactly fits the description of our ‘Shuguo 㳔೑/country of the silkworms’ scenario.16 However, great Greco- Roman geographers Pliny and Ptolemy never knew the exact location of the ‘country of the silkworms’, but vaguely pointed out the neighborhood of China and India — and pointed to the Himalaya Sphere!

13 Duan Yu, op cit, pp. 76–77. 14 Duan Yu ↉⏱, Sanxingdui wenming: Changjiang shangyou gudai wenming zhongxin ϝ᯳ේ᭛ᯢ˖䭓∳Ϟ␌সҷ᭛ᯢЁᖗ (The Sanxingdui Civilization: The Civilization Centre in the Upper Stream of Yangtse), 2006, Chengdu ៤䛑: Sichuan People’s Press ಯᎱ Ҏ⇥ߎ⠜⼒, p. 80. 15 www.sss.net.cn/ReadNews.asp? Ңϝ᯳ේ䘫ഔ㗗সথ⦄ⳟफᮍϱ㓌П䏃ⱘᓔ䗮 (The opening of the southern Silk Road viewed from the archaeological discoveries of the Sanxingdui sites). 16 Duan Yu, Sanxingdui wenming, p. 82.

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Then there is the puzzle of the polished cowries — more than 5,000 pieces were unearthed at the Sanxingdui site. Ancient Indians used cowries as currency in trade and commerce. This could be strong evidence for Chengdu’s early trade with the ancients on the coasts of the Indian Ocean. This prompts us to turn to the famous line from Arthasastra authored by Chanakya/ Kautilya/Visnu Gupta, founder-prime minister of the Mauryan Empire: ‘Kauseyam cinapattasca cinabhumijah’ (My translation: ‘The Chinese cocoons and Chinese fabrics are the products of China.’)

This translation is the result of my research a decade ago,17 but I have developed a new perspective regarding this quote. First, the international name ‘China’ is just a modern derivation of ‘cina’ from this Arthasastra sentence. Second, in the sentence we have two identifications: ‘cinapatta’ and ‘cinabhumi’ — ‘patta’ denotes ‘fabrics’, ‘bhumi’ denotes ‘state/country’. Thus, we have ‘China-state’ (cinabhumi) being defined as the producer of ‘China- fabrics’ (cinapatta), i.e., silk, along with the Chinese cocoon (kauseya).18 We know that ancient Greeks discovered and bought Chinese silk from various places of the Indian sub-continent, and learnt that there was ‘Serica’ which was a ‘silk state’ or ‘silkworm state’.19 But, initially they did not know the silkworm, and thought silk was grown from some mysteri- ous trees. Obviously, the Greek concept of ‘Serica’ (the ‘silk state’ or ‘silkworm state’) was a second-hand knowledge originating from ‘cinabhumi’. Using the concepts of reverse-technology, Arthasastra can be considered as the first-ever document to spread the news of the ancient ‘Shu’ state and spread the idea of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

17 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China: Twenty Centuries of Civilizational Interaction and Vibrations, 2005, New Delhi: PHISPC/Centre for Studies in Civilizations, pp. 38, 43. 18 I have discovered this identity whereas Professor Ji Xianlin had failed to do so. See ibid, p. 38. 19 There is great confusion about the Greek terms of ‘Serica’ and ‘Seres’ (people of Serica). Modern scholars tried to analyze that the Greek ‘ser’ denoted the silkworm, but the Greeks lamented in their poems that the ‘Seres’ gathered silk from the tree (showing ignorance of the silkworm). Also, scholars were in doubt why the Greeks would name a foreign country after an insect. See en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serica; William Smith (ed), Dictionary of Greek and Roman Geography, 1873, London: Spottiswoode and Co.

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Here is the evidence that not only silk, but the knowledge of sericulture had reached India during Chanakya/Kautilya’s time or even earlier. We have a clear picture of a country which the ancient Indians called ‘Cinabhumi’ (the state of Cina/China) transporting silk, silkworms, knowledge and skills of sericulture to India. So ‘Cinabhumi’, ‘Serica’ and the ancient Shu state are coterminous. This is very important for us to gain deeper insight into the past.

Where is the ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’? If you google ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’ you will come across the Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok, Thailand. This, of course, is not the ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’ I would like to discuss. But, it is an indication of desire of the people of Thailand, more than any nation of the world, living the ancient Indian dream — the ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’, a dream with a Sanskrit name. Interestingly, when the governments of India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Laos were negotiating a regional development project in 2000, it was initially named the ‘Ganga–Mekong Suvarnabhumi Project’ (an enthusiastic Thai formulation), but the word ‘Suvarnabhumi’ was dropped because of the objection of the Laotian delegation. From our ‘Himalaya Sphere’ perspective, this event is significant. It suggests that the ancient dream of ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’ is still alive, and is relevant to the area from the valleys of Ganga to the valleys of Mekong. People say that the ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’ dream was universal, shared by ancient Greeks. The name ‘Golden Land’ figures in the great Greek geographer, Claudius Ptolemy’s famous book, Geography, in which there is the mention of such a golden land called ‘Aurea Regio’ which is said to be somewhere between Bengal and China. This theory tallies with the intention of reviving the dream of ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’ when the above mentioned five countries were talking about a regional development project to make the area ‘between Bengal and China’ prosperous. There is then the voice of Tagore again: My Bengal of Gold, I love you. These Tagorean words from his famous poem — now the national anthem of Bangladesh — ‘Amar Shonar Bangla’ (My Bengal of Gold) may

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be interpreted as Tagore’s approving the claim that the legend of ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’ pointed to the location of Bengal. The claim is based on the reference from some ancient Jain texts about the merchants of ‘Anga’ (in present Bihar) sailing through Ganga to ‘Suvarnabhumi’ — a prosperous state in ancient times situated in the estuary of Ganga. In Chapter 3, I shall highlight an Indian state on the eastern coast that appeared in ancient Chinese records as ‘Huangzhi 咘ᬃ’ which appears to be in the location of present day Bengal. However, after the Han Dynasty, the reference disappeared. Then, the Chinese maritime expeditions in the 15th century came across ‘Banggela ὰ㨯ࠠ’ which is the Chinese corruption of ‘Bangla’ — the name of a big and prosperous state. These two references can be an indirect evidence of the existence of ‘Suvarnabhumi/ Shonar Bangla’ waiting for further research. My hunch is that the Sanskrit words of ‘Cinabhumi’ and ‘Suvarnabhumi’ echoed with one another. That is to say, the dream of ‘Suvarnabhumi/ Golden Land’ originated from the creation of the concept of ‘Cinabhumi’, referring to a significant trade in remote times. One can imagine a wonderland between Bengal and China. So, where is the ‘Suvarnabhumi/ Golden Land’? Answer: in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

‘Silk Road’ and ‘Silkworm Country’ The term ‘Silk Road’ was just an incidental idea of the German traveler- cum-geographer, Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen (1833–1905), in the 19th century, but has become a popular concept, especially in China. The ‘Silk Road’ concept has now gathered two additional ideas: ‘haishang sichouzhi lu ⍋Ϟϱ㓌П䏃’ (Silk Road on High Seas) and ‘nanfang sichouzhi lu फᮍϱ㓌П䏃’ (Southern Silk Road). The archaeological discoveries at Sanxingdui and Jinsha have given a new impetus to a discourse of both, especially the ‘Southern Silk Road’. If the cowries in Sanxingdui are evidence for silk trade between the ancient Shu (present Sichuan in China) and the Indian sea coast, one must consider the fact that Sichuan is too deeply inland to have easy access to the Indian Ocean. Is it possible that we may be underestimating the ancients’ determination and capability in overcoming geographical barriers? Sanxingdui was at the starting point of the middle stream of the great

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Yangtse River which flowed to sea. We also have an early account of a sea voyage in the ‘dili zhi ഄ⧚ᖫ’ (Section on Geography) in Hanshu ∝к (Annals of Han Dynasty) which has a detailed description of a time-tested trading route by coastal shipping (changing boats in sea voyage) from the present Guangzhou ᑓᎲ to reach the Indian Ocean, even Africa.20 The accessibility from the Indian Ocean to Sanxingdui Civilization could be a possibility for the trade. Arthasastra’s reference to ‘kauseya’ (Chinese cocoon), ‘cinapatta’ (Chinese silk fabric) is probably related to the historical reality of ancient Greek and Roman ships frequenting India to buy ‘silks’, ‘Chinese yarn’ and ‘Chinese cloth’. More than a hundred ships plied every year from the Roman Empire to the Indian Ocean around the dawn of our Common Era. In addition, Zhang Qian ᓴ偲, the Chinese envoy of Han Emperor Wu ∝℺Ᏹ (reigning from 157 to 87 BCE), discovered ‘Shu bu 㳔Ꮧ’ (cloth of Shu, i.e., silk) being transported by Indian merchants to ‘Daxia ໻໣’ which is the present day Afghanistan, and the event was eventually Han China’s ‘Discovery of India’. Then, we know that Indian merchants along with merchants of other countries were on the overland ‘Silk Road’ delivering Chinese silk and silk fabrics to the aristocrats of Rome, and Queen Cleopatra of Egypt. This gigantic silk trade was even accused for bringing down the mighty Roman Empire. All background on highly important and interesting international history has raised many questions about identities, especially the identity of China. For instance, in his report to Han Emperor Wu, Zhang Qian used the term of ‘Shu bu/cloth of Shu’ rather than the proper Chinese term ‘sichou ϱ㓌’ (silk and silk fabrics). Obviously, this term ‘sichou’ was non-existent during Zhang Qian’s time. But, ancient Greek traders who sailed to India in search of silk also described it as ‘Chinese cloth’ as the English translation of the famous Greek account, Periplus maris Erythraci (Periplus of the Indian Ocean) has documented. Even the Arthasastra reference of ‘cinapatta’ means ‘Chinese cloth’. Thus, the correct historical perspective should be that in the silk-producing country, like Sanxingdui, silk fabrics might not have any special name, and was called ‘cloth’ generally. The ‘cinapatta’ reference of Arthasastra may just be a Sanskrit translation of ‘Shu bu/cloth

20 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, op cit, pp. 283–284.

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of Shu’, and the Greek traders learnt the term from the Indians who sold the ‘cinapatta’ to them. So, silk — the ‘Chinese cloth’ — was the symbol of China, and ‘Cinabhumi’ the ‘Silk/Silkworm country’. Meanwhile, as I have alluded to earlier, we have only found the term ‘Shuguo 㳔೑’ from the legends that belonged to another civilization which eventually became the civilization of China. We have no means to know whether ‘Shu’ was the word that the Sanxingdui Civilization used for itself. But, we do know that the Sanxingdui Civilization highlighted the silkworm as its identity, and the palaeographic visual of ‘Shu 㳔’ was the drawing of a silkworm — making ‘Shuguo 㳔೑’ the unmistakable label of the ‘country of silk/silkworms’ which was the connotation of the Greek and Roman word of ‘Serica’. We can surmise from the fact that the Greeks had knowledge about the silkworm to adjudicate the correct historical sequence to be as follows. The Indians first learnt about the ‘country of silk/silkworms’ from the Chinese, while the Greeks and Romans conceived ‘Serica’ as the ‘country of silk/silkworms’ through the Indian sources of information. The Indians probably told the Greeks and Romans about ‘cinabhumi’ hence the exact translation, ‘silk/silkworm country’. The previous plausible theory was the association of ‘Ch’in/Qin ⾺’ or ‘Ch’iang/Qiang 㕠’ with ‘Cina/China’ — ‘China’ being a corruption of ‘Ch’in/Qin ⾺’ or ‘Ch’iang/Qiang 㕠’. Viewing from the light of Jinsha and Sanxingdui, all the conventional theories about the origin of ‘Cina’ may need to be re-evaluated.21 We are still very far from a complete solution of the puzzle as we really do not know when people initially sold silk and passed on the knowledge as well as silkworms to the information sources of Arthasastra. We also cannot ascertain the acoustic accuracy of ‘Cina’ of the ancients while they spread the name of the ‘silk/silkworm country’. Perhaps, the sound ‘cina’ (the last vowel ‘a’ being silent) could be the transliteration of some spoken word relating to silk, such as ‘chin/jin Ꮢ’ (silk scarf) or ‘chin/jin 䫺’ (brocade). In any case, ‘China/Cina’ — the international identity for China — was made in India, and was an intra-‘Himalaya Sphere’ event when the

21 I am, in effect, criticizing my own discourse in this respect. See Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 43.

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self-identity of China was still an evolving process. Thus, we have two different narratives on the origin of Chinese civilization. The first, a traditional concept, is to trace it to the legendary ‘huangdi 咘Ᏹ/Yellow Emperor’ and ‘yandi ♢Ᏹ/Fire Emperor’ which could be an allusion to the Sun God. After a long interval, there emerged three sage-rulers, Yao ᇻ of the ‘Tang ૤’ period, Shun 㟰 of the ‘Yu 㰲’ period, and the Great Yu ⾍. Then, there was a sort of dynastic history inaugurated by the Xia ໣ Dynasty, succeeded by the Shang ଚ Dynasty and Zhou ਼ Dynasty. Modern historians with a scientific approach quickly point out that only the latter part, i.e., from the second half of the Shang ଚ Dynasty onwards of this narrative can be regarded as reliable history because of the archaeological evidence. The second narrative on the origin of Chinese civilization is based on the archaeological evidence. The new archaeological discoveries have forced us to present a more sophisticated lineage. To explain the archaeological evidence, there is an orthodox and somewhat narrow-minded narrative. Only the middle and lower streams of the Huanghe Plain are taken into account to formulate a sequence of the ‘Yangshao ӄ䷊ civilization’ evolving into the ‘Longshan 啭ቅ civilization’ and further into the ‘Anyang ᅝ䰇 civilization’. ‘Anyang ᅝ䰇’ is where the earliest Chinese script, the ‘Oracle Script ⬆偼᭛’ was discovered and the script confirms the existence of the Yin ↋ Dynasty which was the second part of the Shang Dynasty. This narrative is narrow-minded simply because it places vast of areas of China outside the civilizational evolution of China. If this narrative was true, we would expect to find in either the ‘Oracle Script ⬆偼᭛’ documents or documents of other ancient scripts, the term ‘zhongguo Ё೑’, which is the standard name for China, but no such evidence exists. A written tradition heavily reliant on script is a special feature of Chinese civilization. In Chinese studies, we quote very ancient adages and remarks but we do not see them in ancient scripts. Few modern scholars see what they have quoted other than in the modern publications. Of course, we believe that the modern publications are reliable versions of ancient documents, but no more ancient than the Qin and Han dynasties. In other words, we emphasize written sources for our historical information but they are rather incomplete and not necessarily error-free.

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Gradual Emergence of Indian and Chinese Identities Today, the word ‘India’ is indulgingly used by Indians (when they identify themselves) as well as others (when they discuss India). So is the case of ‘China’. But, historically this is not always the case. The identity of ‘India’ (in Indian language) for India is a complicated story during the entire course of development of Indian civilization. For instance, I know that the Bengali word ‘desi/this country’ denotes only the Bengali-speaking world while the non-Bengali communities are called ‘videsi/foreign country’ even today. If this is so, we could imagine the divergence of identities of Indian civilization in ancient times. However, it is not incorrect when we conceive India as one integral civilization in ancient times albeit we cannot say for certain when the identity of ‘India’ (in Indian languages) for India is established. The general feeling is that the identity of ‘China’ (in Chinese language) for China is easier to establish which may not be true. Like in India, the pre-modern Chinese always preferred to identify themselves with the local insignia than the all-China identity. And historically there was no uniform all-China identity as the changing dynasties always change their insignia. Of course, there is the famous name ‘Zhongguo Ё ೑’ which has been made more famous (or infamous) by its English rendition, the ‘Middle Kingdom’ which has become somewhat of a stigmatized term. Western scholars have built the theory of Sinocentrism just on this English rendition of ‘Zhongguo Ё೑’ — the ‘Middle Kingdom’. I am in a mood to forget that decades ago I had been vehemently quarrelling with ‘Sinocentrism’22 and also forgive that it was a part of the anti- China propaganda during the ‘Cold War’, but I find the ‘Zhongguo Ё೑/ Middle Kingdom’ stigma still blotting the vision of people who desire to understand what is China today. Let us examine how the Chinese term ‘Zhongguo Ё೑’ relates to the development of an independent identity of ‘China’ that emerged in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. The earliest Chinese concept of ‘state’ was visually presented as ‘៪’ which is a combination of three visuals: ‘ៜ’ (weapon),

22 Tan Chung, ‘On Sinocentrism: A critique’. See Tan Chung, Triton and Dragon: Studies on Nineteenth Century China and Imperialism, Delhi: Gian Publishing House, 1986, pp. 45–109.

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‘ষ’ (mouth), ‘ϔ’ (a horizontal line representing land). Indeed, we have here the earliest definition of a ‘state’. Modern political science also recognizes this combination of three essential elements of population, territory and sovereignty. Then, the ancient Chinese visual ‘៪’ multiplied into two new visuals: ‘yu ඳ’ and ‘guo ೟’ the latter of which is now written in its simplified form ‘೑’. When we compare these two visuals of ‘yu ඳ’ and ‘guo ೟’ (both connoting ‘state’), we find the former being the visual ‘៪’ with an additional part ‘ೳ’ (land), while the additional part of the latter being a square box (encircling ‘៪’). This difference is very significant. We know that the rulers of Zhou ਼ Dynasty began to build walls around the domain of the ‘Son of Heaven໽ᄤ’ to separate the political centre from the domains of the federal lords (zhuhou 䇌փ). This firmly established what was described as ‘jing guojia, ding sheji, xu minren, li housi 㒣೑ᆊ, ᅮ⼒》, ᑣ⇥Ҏ, ߽ৢஷ’23 (to govern the state, stabilize the society, maintain order among the people, and benefit the descendants). Here, we have one of the earliest references of ‘guojia ೑ᆊ’ (literally, ‘state and family’) in Chinese literature. Looking at it historically, we can say that the transformation of the Han script visual for ‘state’ from ‘ඳ’ (without the wall) to ‘೟’ (with the wall) took place almost at the same time when the concept of ‘Zhongguo Ё೑’ appeared. To our existing knowledge, the earliest appearance of the Chinese term ‘Zhongguo Ё೑’ is from a bronze inscription called ‘Hezunming ԩᇞ䫁’ (inscription of the He vessel) made in the 11th century BCE which was a kind of eulogy for the two earliest rulers of the Zhou ਼ Dynasty, King Wu ਼℺⥟ (reigning before 1055 BCE) and King Cheng ਼៤⥟ (reigning 1055–1021 BCE). The inscription also recorded the latter’s feat of building up the new capital at Luoyang. That was also the time when the concept of ‘tianzi ໽ᄤ/son of Heaven’ was firmly established. The Chinese word ‘guo/೟/೑’ for ‘state’ with the refreshing concept of clear boundaries and a walled city as its capital signified an entity with paramount authority. This authority was, of course, the ‘tianzi ໽ᄤ/Son of Heaven’. In conventional wisdom there was only one ‘Son of Heaven’ in

23 Zuozhuan ᎺӴ (Zuo Qiuming’s chronology), the 11th year of Duke Yin of the Lu State (䱤݀कϔᑈ).

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China. Thus, the ‘tianzi/Son of Heaven’ was the symbol of ‘centre’, hence the concept of ‘Zhongguo Ё೑’ (‘central kingdom’ or ‘middle kingdom’). Earlier, it was designated not as ‘Zhongguo Ё೑’, but as ‘Zhongtu Ёೳ’ (the central land). This ‘Zhongtu Ёೳ/central land’ concept was born with the birth of the Zhou ਼ Dynasty which had been one of the states under the supremacy of the ruler of Shang ଚ Dynasty. The Dynasty’s books described its location in the ‘west’. In the 11th century BCE, King Wu of Zhou ਼℺⥟ overthrew the Shang Dynasty and established the Zhou Dynasty. The location did not change, but the Dynasty’s books described it to be the ‘Zhongtu Ёೳ/central land’ as it had become the seat of the ‘tianzi ໽ᄤ/Son of Heaven’. The emergence of the identity of ‘China’ (‘Zhongguo Ё೑/Middle Kingdom’) for China did not unify China, albeit the presence of a strong desire for unifying China. In fact, no Chinese before the 19th century used these two characters ‘Zhongguo Ё೑’ as the identity of China for China. However, they are frequently alluded to in Chinese Buddhist literature as the translation of the Sanskrit word ‘Madhyadesa’ (the central country), an ancient Indian description of Magadha. Famous Tang scholar-monk, Daoxuan’s 䘧ᅷ (596–667) famous writing, ‘Shijia fangzhi 䞞䖺ᮍᖫ’ (Gazetteers of Sakyamuni Kingdom), composed in 650, has been treated as a classic in Chinese Buddhist community for one and half millennia. In this famous classic, Daoxuan corrects the conventional identity of ‘xiyu 㽓ඳ’ (western regions) for India and asserts that India was actually ‘zhongguo Ё೑’ (central country). He explains that ‘zhongguo Ё೑/central country’ is ‘zhong Tianzhu Ё໽ノ’ (central Heavenly India). He says that even famous and sagacious people in China claimed the ‘western region’ as ‘central country’. He relates a historical debate in the court of the Song Emperor Wen ᅟ᭛Ᏹ˄reigning 424–453 CE) between a Confucian scholar, He Chengtian ԩᡓ໽ (370–447) and a Buddhist monk Huiyan ᚴϹ. Huiyan won the debate by saying: ‘In Heavenly India there is no shadow during the Summer Solstice when the sun is at meridian.’ After narrating this story, Daoxuan makes a statement: ‘south of the Snow Mountain is called Zhongguo/Central country’ 䲾ቅҹफৡЎЁ೑. What Daoxuan has stated is: ‘South of the Himalaya is Madhyadesa.’ Thus, the implied Sinocentrism of ‘Zhongguo Ё೑/Middle Kingdom’ is actually

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‘Indocentrism’ as the real location of ‘Zhongguo Ё೑/Middle Kingdom’ is in India. Chinese Buddhists like Huiyan and Daoxuan, according to modern conception, were men of dual loyalty — for China and also India. In this sense, they were exemplary ‘Himalaya Sphere’ personage. For such people, i.e., for the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’, neither ‘Sinocentrism’ nor ‘Indocentrism’ makes any sense at all.

III. ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ MULTIPLYING CHINESE AND INDIAN SPECIFICITIES From the macro perspective, we see the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ creating the two mega-civilizations of China and India. From the micro perspective, civilization is first created at the grass-root level in innumerable localities, and both the mega-civilizations of China and India are amalgamations of the innumerable grass-root civilizations. In both the Chinese and Indian civilizations there is the unity of diversity — more diversity in the Indian civilization, and more unification in the Chinese civilization. This India–China difference is more or less created by geography — ‘created by Heaven and constructed by Earth’ as Ji Xianlin described. The quintessential Indian civilization is the comprehensive embodiment of the western part of Himalaya Sphere, just as the quintessential Chinese civilization embodies the eastern part of Himalaya Sphere. The intra-Himalaya Sphere affinity can be observed in the reverberations, interconnectivity and intercourse between the two civilizations.

Behaviours of the Four Great Civilization-Giving Rivers The Himalaya Sphere gave rise to the four big rivers of Indus, Ganga, Yangtse, and Huanghe which all flow down from the heights of Himalaya– Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. These rivers created and disseminated civilizations. We can conceive of these river-networks as forming the ground structure of the Himalaya Sphere. The Chinese civilization originated from two river valleys — Huanghe and Yangtse. The Sanxingdui sites exhibit the civilizing power of the Yangtse. The Sanxingdui Civilization evolved into early civilization

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enclaves in the middle and lower streams of Huanghe. The unique feature of these civilizing rivers of China is that they unite after starting off in different directions. From Qinghai, Huanghe flows northwards initially and Yangtse flows southwards. Today, two waterways reunite the two great rivers. The first is Huai River ⏂⊇ which is now considered an extension of Yangtse. Yet, historically this Huai River has had a very intimate relationship with Huanghe. There were times that Huanghe would change its course and merge with Huai River in its last journey to sea. In Chinese documents, the term ‘Huang-Huai 咘⏂’ (Yellow River and Huai River) epitomizes this intimate relationship which also symbolizes the cradle of Chinese civilization. The second waterway that connects Huanghe and Yangtse is the man-made Grand Canal 䖤⊇. What has transpired in the past couple of thousand years in the irrigated areas of the Huanghe and Yangtse epitomizes the history of the Chinese civilization. In comparison, the development in India is similar in some respects and dissimilar in others. Geographically, the Indian peninsula was potentially a better civilization sphere on the ground ‘created by Heaven and constructed by Earth’ that could have attracted people from different global localities as well as ethnic and linguistic origins to live together and build a spiritual commonality and intellectual consensus. However, unlike the Huanghe–Yangtse infrastructural garland for China, the two civilizing rivers in the Indian peninsula, i.e., Indus and Ganga, would never meet after coming out of the Himalayan glaciers — one (Indus) ending in the Arabian Sea, and the other (Ganga) in the Bay of Bengal. Maybe this is the ecological and environmental factor that formed the characteristics of an Indian civilization that was more disseminating and dissipating in contrast to a Chinese civilization which was more acquiring and absorbing. The courses of Indus and Ganga extend beyond the homeland of India which resulted in the expansion of cultural influence beyond the Indian civilization sphere. We see an enduring open-door and more nomadic influence in the Indian civilization sphere compared to the close-door home-bound lifestyle of the Chinese civilization sphere. The element of ‘diversity’ in India reflecting a preference for variety and difference could be considered as the antithesis of China’s super-state-style of unification and preference for a monolithic culture.

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It should not go unnoticed that the absence of a river-bound infrastructure in the Indian civilization sphere is more than compensated by its peninsula geography. There are no high mountains to hamper interconnectivity in the plains of the Indian peninsula. There was a natural environment for residents to live as one civilization sphere without the necessity of a unifying central politic. The uniting factors in the Indian peninsula cannot be overstressed. Peninsular geography, favourable ecological environment, exuberant flora and fauna growth, high population density, and human non-violence and toleration are all ingredients to the formation of a great civilization sphere that surpasses narrow tribal allegiance and parochial obsessions. This is essentially how the Indian subcontinent became a civilization sphere sans political unification.

India Dominated by the Himalaya–Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau Ecology The term ‘Himalaya’ is of Indian origin meaning ‘the abode of snow’. We know that the existence of Himalaya made two big contributions to the Indian subcontinent: (a) preventing the Siberian cold wave from touching the Indian soil, and, (b) inviting the Indian Ocean monsoon currents back to the Indian subcontinent resulting in plenty of sunshine, warmth and humidity. The affectionate term for such a hospitable environment was ‘devapura/paradise on earth’. The unique Indian civilization subsequently gave birth to all the numerous states of the subcontinent, making the subcontinent a unified civilization zone without a unified political structure. In that way, Indian civilization is a unique sample of Himalaya Sphere. For millennia, India has been one of the rare spots on earth that allows more than a couple of crops in a year, sometimes even four crops a year. Such a favourable ecological condition inevitably attracts population growth by way of immigration and local multiplication. India has always occupied a high place in population density in the world, far surpassing China as a whole. Both China and India have become ‘population superpowers’ on earth. Population means human resources and social wealth, which contributed substantially to the greatness of the Chinese and Indian civilizations. Broadly speaking, India was best situated in an ecologically

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favourable condition in addition to a harmonious human social ecology, famous for its non-violence and tolerance. Another difference between the two civilizations is that most of the populated areas in China along its rivers are in areas where the Himalaya is invisible. In contrast, Indus and Ganga flow from the Himalayan heights right down to the plains. The magnificent Himalaya lives side by of most of the populated areas in India. To the Indian mind Himalaya is a source of affection, admiration, and awe. When the sun kisses the snow caps of Himalayan peaks, there is the vision of golden brilliance which outshines anything on earth. This is the source of Indian vision that combines gold, brilliance and sacredness. I know that these three qualities have been eulogized to optimal dimensions in the Buddhist literature than all other religious writings with, perhaps, the exception of writings of Hinduism. I regard this as a Himalaya-inspired culture. If you will, the Indian civilization sphere could be regarded as the favourite child of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. The Vedic, Puranic, Brahmanic, Jain and Buddhist cultures, have an innate ‘Himalaya Sphere’ colour and flavour. The political map in the Indian subcontinent was mosaic but boundaries between kingdoms were not rigidly demarcated, and even less an obstacle for intercommunication. Even more striking was the all-India development of intellect, philosophy, science, art, culture and lifestyle. The Indian subcontinent was truly a civilizational commonwealth or semi- confederation in the political sense. As a result one can consider India as a cultural altar of unity, diversity, opulence, peace and harmony.

Rivers Promote the Unification of China China’s monopolizing two of the five longest rivers on earth has brought about the uniqueness of Chinese civilization. The unique thing is China’s ownership of Yangtse and Huanghe has never been challenged by any country at any time in history. This is in contrast to the long rivers in other parts of the world where nations are born laying claim to only parts of a river, akin to cut pieces of a melon, such as in Europe. The capability of remaining a single entity despite the creation of the countless tribes and communities living along the valleys of Yangtse and Huanghe is what partly makes the Chinese civilization unique.

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Let me translate a couple of lines of Li Zhiyi’s ᴢПҾ (1038–1117) ‘Busuanzi रㅫᄤ’ (Song of fortune-telling):

I live where the long river begins, You’re at the tail of the same. I long for you day after day, Missing the glimpse of your face, River water we share nevertheless. (៥ԣ䭓∳༈, ৯ԣ䭓∳ሒǄ᮹᮹ᗱ৯ϡ㾕৯, ݅佂䭓∳∈Ǆ)

Here I have translated the original bi-syllabic ‘changjiang 䭓∳’ as ‘the long river’, but ‘changjiang 䭓∳’ is the Chinese name of Yangtse as well, as I am not sure whether the poet actually had the Yangtse River in mind when he wrote the poem. In this poem we see the river as a source of human love — not only between young lovers, but between one human-being with another. Not only lovers are interconnected by the river, so are the other residents along the river valleys. The river is the instrument for interconnectivity, integration and unification. It is this love-between-one-another nature of the river that creates the Chinese concept of ‘ren ҕ/human love’ (a visual shows two persons of the bonds of love). This was grasped by the Confucian observation of ‘The sagacious loves the river while the humanist loves the mountain’ (ⶹ㗙Ф∈, ҕ㗙Фቅ).24 In a typical Chinese landscape, wherever there is a river there is a mountain. The Confucian adage expresses a holistic view of likening the virtue of ‘ren ҕ/human love’ in addition to ‘zhi ⶹ/ᱎ/sagacity’ to the combination of ‘shan ቅ/mountain’ and ‘shui ∈/river’. Many Confucian experts view this as a profound understanding of the basic Chinese philosophy of ‘ren ҕ/ human love’. This Confucian love-river-love-mountain adage is a reflection of the spirit of Himalaya Sphere, as one can see a similarity to the Indian view. China’s achievement of unification was a long course of evolution. In the ‘Yongmin ⫼⇥’ (Employment of people) section of the classic Lushi Chunqiu ৩⇣᯹⾟ (Mr. Lu’s Discourse on Spring and Autumn), we see a narrative which I translate thus: ‘There were ten thousand states during

24 Lunyu 䆎䇁 (Analects), Section 6 ‘yongye 䲡г’ .

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the time of the Great Yu, and the number reduced to three thousand odd during the time of the Great Tang. Today, none of them survives.’ (ᔧ⾍П ᯊ, ໽ϟϛ೑, 㟇Ѣ∸㗠ϝगԭ೑, Ҟ᮴ᄬ㗙⶷). The author of this classic was Lu Buwei ৩ϡ䶺 (d. 235? BCE) who was an important courtier of the state of Qin ⾺. By his account, we are led to believe that the Chinese civilization sphere consisted of about 10,000 small states during the time of the Great Yu ⾍ who was China’s corollary of India’s King Rama. The Great Tang ∸ mentioned in the narrative was a subsequent king who was the founder of the Shang ଚ Dynasty just as the Great Yu was allegedly the founder of the previous dynasty — Xia ໣. We still do not have reliable historical data about both these ancient rulers. However, the Great Yu is a very interesting and significant historical phenomenon which deserves further discussion. About two decades ago, I had a pleasant conversation with Professor Zhou Xiyin ਼䫵䫊, veteran researcher and prize-winning expert on national minorities, at his institution in Chengdu ៤䛑 — the Sichuan Institute of Nationality Studies ಯᎱⳕ⇥ᮣⷨお᠔. I was initially surprised but became convinced of his point of view from our conversation and subsequent reading of his book.25 His view was that the Great Yu was a Qiang 㕠 national born in Sichuan province. We all know that Qiang was the ancient racial identity of the modern Tibetans. Thus, what Zhou Xiyin confirms is that China’s equivalent of King Rama was a Tibetan. To my surprise, this two-decade-old theory does not seem to have been universally accepted in China, let alone in the world. The conventional wisdom is that the Great Yu succeeded King Shun 㟰 because of his exceptional achievements in harnessing the rivers in the middle stream of Huanghe which resulted in the initial boom of Chinese civilization. The Xia Dynasty founded by the Great Yu marked the earliest page of China’s dynastic history. Zhou Xiyin’s theory contradicts the conventional wisdom that the early ancestors of Chinese people belonged to the Hua ढ or Xia ໣ race living at the middle and lower stream of Huanghe. It turns out that Sichuan ಯᎱ was the homeland of the Great Yu and the location of the Sanxingdui Civilization is also in Sichuan.

25 Zhou Xiyin ਼䫵䫊 and Liu Zhirong ߬ᖫ㤷, Qiangzu 㕠ᮣ (The Qiang race), 2003, Beijing: Nationality Press ⇥ᮣߎ⠜⼒.

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The word ‘jiang ྰ’ is supposed to be the family name of ancient Chinese cultural heroes like the Yellow Emperor. Zhou Xiyin thought the paleographic forms of Qiang 㕠 and jiang ྰ represented the same identity but based on gender, the former indicating male and the latter female gender. He concludes that the Chinese culture hero, Shennong ⼲ݰ (God of Agriculture) who was supposed to be of Jiang ྰ racial origin was, thus, a Qiang 㕠 national,26 making him also the ancestor of the Tibetans. Thus, the Qiang 㕠race, including its modern descendants — the Tibetans — is very much a part and parcel of the Chinese nation. Earlier, we have talked about the difficulty of identifying Sanxingdui as ‘Chinese’ or ‘Indian’. The origins of Great Yu geographically connects Sanxingdui with the origin of Chinese civilization. Thus, the separation of the origins of Chinese civilization from India becomes impossible and is a testament of the influence of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. We have reversed the natural sequence of development which theorizes the origins of the Chinese and Indian civilizations from the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ and not vice versa. The existence of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ has a history of at least a million years if we judge the antiquity of civilizational activities, while the identities of Chinese and Indian civilizations have a much shorter history — a couple of millennia at the most. In other words, before the emergence of a clearly identifiable Chinese or Indian civilization there was a long period of more than a million years of civilizational activities within the ‘Himalaya Sphere’, and a good deal of shared civilization among the people who lived in the Indian and Chinese subcontinents.

IV. BOUNDARY-BLIND CIVILIZATIONS IN THE ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ Even after the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ multiplied the Chinese and Indian specificities the civilization-sharing activities between the Indian and Chinese subcontinents has continued. People who live in both the Chinese and Indian specificities have not felt any boundary-wall between the two, making both the Chinese and Indian civilizations boundary-blind with respect to each other. Let us look at the evidence.

26 Ibid, p. 34.

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Mount Sumeru, Jambudvipa and ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Enter Dong Zhongshu 㨷ӆ㟦 (179–104 BCE) who was an important Han scholar-courtier. He seminally established the authoritative influence of the Confucian teachings in China. He was famous for amplifying Confucius’ concept of love-river-love-mountain sentiments in Fascicle 16, Section 73 of his classic essay Chunqiu fanlu ᯹⾟㐕䴆 (the quintessential Spring and Autumn) entitled ‘Shanchuan song ቅᎱ乖’ (Eulogy of mountains and rivers). In the Eulogy, Dong likens the lofty mountains to ‘renren zhishi ҕҎᖫ ຿’ (virtuous people and visionary people). He quoted Confucius as saying ‘shan chuan shenzhi li, baocang zhi ቅᎱ⼲াゟ, ᅱ㮣Ⅺ’ (mountains and rivers are where deities stand and treasures multiply). This Confucius–Dong Zhongshu concept makes us feel like we are hearing the Indian prophets speaking. Indian civilization is famous for immortalizing the landscape — for every Indian mountain there is a god, and every Indian river, a goddess. The origin of the mythic River Saraswati in the Vedic literature is still hotly debated in India. The holiness of Saraswati has been transposed onto many Indian rivers including Indus and Ganga. Although both these rivers flow in different directions, with Saraswati in people’s minds, the civilizing rivers of Indus and Ganga conceptually have never been separated! Let us look at one of the oldest icons of Indian civilization, Mount Sumeru. The Indian word ‘sumeru’ denotes ‘the excellent/wonderful Meru’. ‘Meru’ and ‘Sumeru’ are synonymous according to ancient Indian classics and the holy books of the Hindus, Buddhists and Jains. In the Markandeya Purana, there is the description of ‘the golden Mount Meru’ which is ‘the king of mountains’. Our story starts at the steps leading to the main pavilions inside the compound of the Imperial Palace in Beijing. From there, we go and see the pattern on the imperial robes displayed in the Beijing Palace Museum. We then take a short trip to ‘Jiulongbi б啭ຕ/nine dragon wall’ monument inside the Beihai ࣫⍋ Park in Beijing. We end our journey after a flight to Taipei, Taiwan and look at the display of Ming and Qing porcelain in the Imperial Palace Museum. All of these sites have in common a picture pattern that combines the dragon, phoenix, flaming-pearl (symbol of ‘dharmaratna’), swastika, Mount Sumeru, and sea waves. As one can see, it becomes obvious that Mount Sumeru has been a shared civilizational legacy between India and China for 2,000 years.

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According to the Brahmanic/Hindu tradition, Sumeru is the polar center of a network of seas and mountains. It is surrounded by an ocean which is, in turn, surrounded by mountains, which, once again, is surrounded by sea. Sumeru is also related to our world of ‘Jambudvipa’. The Buddhist cosmic tradition is more or less similar to the Brahmanic/Hindu tradition. The most authoritative Chinese interpretation of the Buddhist cosmology was propounded by Xuanzang ⥘༬ (602–664), the famous Chinese pilgrim, and his good friend, renowned scholar-monk, Daoxuan 䘧ᅷ whom I have alluded to earlier. Both of them highlighted the prominence of Sumeru to the human universe. We know that much of the contents of Daoxuan’s ‘Shijia fangzhi/Gazetteers of Sakyamuni Kingdom’ is based on the information gathered by Xuanzang, including additional narratives of Xuanzang’s pilgrimage that are not covered by the latter’s Account and Life.27 Let us focus on the first three sections, which illuminate the Chinese view of Buddhist cosmology. Daoxuan called the land ruled over by Buddha ‘Suohe shijie ㋶䆗Ϫ⬠’ (Sahalokadhatu), and the name ‘Suohe ㋶䆗’ derives from that of ‘shapo ࿥ ယ’ of the scriptures, highlighting the fact that toleration prevailed in the land of the Buddha. This land of the Buddha is encircled by an ‘iron ring of mountains’ (cakravada parvata). He says that within the ‘Saha- lokadhatu’ there are hundred millions of countries. Every country has a ‘Sumilushan 㢣䗋शቅ’ (Sumeruparvata) which is given in the scriptures as ‘Xumishan 乏ᓹቅ’. He says there are four inhabited continents around Mount Sumeru in the centre. In the east is ‘Pitihe ↫ᦤ䆗’ (Purvavideha), in the south is ‘Zhanbu 䌵䚼’ (Jambudvipa), in the west is ‘Qutuoni ⶓ䰔 ሐ’ (Aparagodaniya), in the north is ‘Julu ᢬श’ (Uttarakuru). Basically, he argued that India was the centre of the universe, a concept alluded to earlier. Daoxuan wrote that our earth was situated in ‘nan Zhanbuzhou फ䌵䚼⌆’ (Jambudvipa in the south) which is also called ‘Yanfuti 䯢⍂ᦤ’

27 Xuanzang’s Account is the renowned ‘Da-Tang xiyuji ໻૤㽓ඳ䆄’ (Accounts on Western Regions compiled during the great Tang Dynasty) composed by Xuanzang and scripted by his disciple, Bianji 䕽ᴎ, and submitted to the Emperor in 646. Life is entitled ‘Daci’ensi sanzang fashi zhuan ໻᜜ᘽᇎϝ㮣⊩ᏜӴ’ (Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great Ci’en Monastery) written by his disciples, Huili ᜻ゟ and Yancong ᔺᚄ after the Master passed away.

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(a varying transliteration of ‘Jambudvipa’). The continent surrounded ‘Xumishan 乏ᓹቅ’ (Mount Sumeru) in the centre with the sun and moon hanging in the sky. ‘Xumishan/Mount Sumeru’ was the place that housed various ‘Tiangong ໽ᅿ’ (Chinese translation of ‘devapura/paradise’). It was presided over by ‘Dishi Ᏹ䞞’ the Buddhist version of Indra, the presiding deity of Heaven. He also refers to ‘Ayuda shan 䰓㗼䖒ቅ’ (Ayuda Mountain) and to ‘Ayuda chi 䰓㗼䖒∴’ (Ayuda Lake). Another name for the ‘Ayuda chi/Ayuda Lake’ is called ‘Anatuodaduo 䰓䙷䰔ㄨ໮’ which is ‘Anavatapta’. To Daoxuan, this was the ‘Wure’naochi ᮴⛁ᙐ∴’ (Lake that can cleanse heat and irritation), i.e., Manasarovar, which is situated to the north of the Great Snow Mountain ໻䲾ቅ (Himalaya). Daoxuan also cited Chinese accounts to say that Mount Kunlun ᯚҥቅ is the same mountain (‘Ayuda shan 䰓㗼䖒ቅ’ and ‘Wureqiu ᮴⛁Ϭ’) as the ‘Great Snow Mountain ໻䲾ቅ/Himalaya’. 28 There are two other Chinese versions of Mount Sumeru. One was ‘Sumilushan 㢣䗋शቅ’ which was preferred by Daoxuan and Xuanzang. The other was ‘Xumishan 乏ᓹቅ’ present in other writings. Xuanzang described in Da-Tang xiyuji ໻૤㽓ඳ䆄 (Accounts on Western Regions compiled during the great Tang Dynasty) thus (my translation): ‘Mount Sumeru is the composition of four jewels, situated inside the sea and above the golden wheel, shone upon by the sun and moon, residence of all the deities.’29 There is an annotation in this quotation either by Xuanzang or his disciple, Bianji 䕽ᴎ, indicating that ‘Xumi 乏ᓹ’ was an old Chinese translation of ‘Sumeru’ which Xuanzang retranslated as ‘Sumilu 㢣䗋श’. The Chinese had also been calling Mount Sumeru ‘Miaogaoshan ཭催ቅ’. If one travels on the hills of China and Japan, many of them are named ‘Miaogao ཭催’ (literally ‘excellent and high’), showing the widespread influence of the legend of Mount Sumeru. The reference to Mount Sumeru as the ‘residence of all the deities’ indicates the influence of a prominent Indian tradition of gods and goddesses taking residence on the mountains. My guess is that Himalaya is the very source of this Indian tradition. Indians who lived in the plains at the foot

28 Daoxuan, op cit, pp. 8–9. 29 From the ‘xulun ᑣ䆎’ (Introduction) at the outset of fascicle I of Da-Tang xiyuji ໻૤㽓 ඳ䆄’ (Accounts on Western Regions compiled during the great Tang Dynasty).

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of Himalaya always looked at the great snow-capped mountain with admiration, a sense of awe, and a mystic feeling. When sunlight shone upon the snow peaks of Himalaya they shone brilliantly with golden colour. This is the genesis of ‘suvarna-chakra/golden wheel’. Now, let us go back to the artifacts excavated from Sanxingdui. There is the carved gold sheet showing the sun as a wheel with four birds flying in a circle. Whether Sanxingdui Civilization is the origin of this ancient Indian concept of ‘suvarna-chakra/golden wheel’ we do not know, and no one can confidently reject this possibility. There are obvious links when we consider the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. It is unique to note that in the Xuanzang quote, Mount Sumeru was positioned above ‘suvarna-chakra/golden wheel’ (symbol of the sun) whereas in reality, Himalaya is under the sun. But, we are dealing with legend which dramatizes things and advocates the supernatural entities. One conclusion we draw from the dramatization of Mount Sumeru is that Himalaya was raised to the level of the celestial universe. The legend of Mount Sumeru is possibly, the human (Indian and Chinese) edification of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Returning to the artifacts closely related with the Imperial Palace, when we see the dragon, phoenix, flaming-pearl (symbol of ‘dharmaratna’), swastika, Mount Sumeru, and sea waves in the monuments of Beijing, we almost see the picture of ‘Zhanbu 䌵䚼/Jambudvipa’ conceived by Xuanzang and Daoxuan with the flaming-pearl (symbol of ‘dharmaratna’) and swastika indicating the overarching reach of Buddha-dharma. In other words, this is the depiction of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ transcending the identification boundaries of India and China. That this was the Chinese culture during the Qing/Manchu Dynasty from the 17th to the 19th century convincingly indicates the permanency of the influence of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Apart from the concept of ‘Mount Sumeru’, there are other examples that indicate the arena of Himalaya Sphere without the identities of India and China.

Goddess ‘Uma’ in the Chinese Legend It is logical to imagine that before the invention of agriculture and animal husbandry, people were nomads and moved from one place to another in

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the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ from the valleys of Indus and Ganga to Yunnan and Sichuan in China. Those nomadic tribes had lots of stories to tell each other when they met. We can recognize some of the stories that belonged to the Himalaya Sphere. To begin with, the Indian name of Himalaya corresponds to the Chinese name ‘kunlun ᯚҥ’. Dongfang Shuo ϰᮍ᳨ (154–93 BCE), a courtier of Han Emperor Wu ∝℺Ᏹ (reigning 157–87 BCE), was allegedly a man of vast knowledge and information. He was an authority on Kunlun, the Chinese version of Himalaya. China has the advantage of text tradition and book-making and printing over India, which was mostly an oral tradition of history. I do not know the earliest written/printed evidence of Goddess Uma/Parvati available in India, but am sure that it would not be as early as the written appearance of the legend of ‘Xiwangmu 㽓⥟↡’ (literally, ‘king mother of the west’) in China. The description of Goddess ‘Xi (west)+wangmu (Uma)’ in the Chinese book Shanhai jing ቅ⍋㒣/Classics of Mountains and Seas which mentions her in three different places as a deity on Mount Kunlun and ‘Yushan ⥝ቅ’ (Jade Mountain), describing her living alone (not as the wife of any god), of human figure combining with tiger’s body. She is described to live in a cave and has food gathered for her by three ‘qingniao 䴦右’ (literally ‘blue birds’, probably the ancient Chinese name for the peacock/peahen). Here, we see the version of the legend of Goddess ‘Xi (west)+wangmu (Uma)’ vastly different from the later versions circulated during the Han Dynasty. While in the Shanhai jing ቅ⍋㒣/Classics of Mountains and Seas Goddess ‘Xi (west)+wangmu (Uma)’ is described in very simple living conditions, in later versions she lives in a palatial environment as magnificent as Chinese people during the Han Dynasty could imagine. The legend contains fantastic stories of meetings between Xiwangmu/ ‘King Mother of the West’ and Chinese rulers mainly from two fictitious historical accounts: Hanwudi neizhuan ∝℺ᏱݙӴ (Inside Stories of Han Emperor Wu) and Shi zhou ji क⌆䆄 (Account of Ten continents).30 There was another text written on bamboo pieces unearthed from

30 Both these books existed during the Sui Dynasty as they were listed in the chapter on books in Sui shu 䱟к (The Annals of Sui Dynasty).

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a graveyard in Henan ⊇फ Province during the second half of the 3rd century CE, entitled ‘Mutianzi zhuan 〚໽ᄤӴ’ (Biography of the Son of Heaven, King Mu) which is a hagiographic account. Shi zhou ji क⌆䆄/ Account of Ten continents was allegedly authored by Dongfang Shuo, but might actually be the work of someone with good knowledge of legends and exotic information around the 4th and 5th centuries. According to these stories, King Mu of Zhou Dynasty ਼〚⥟, the 4th ruler of the Zhou Dynasty in the 10th century BCE, travelled to Mount Kunlun (Himalaya) to meet Xiwangmu. Then Xiwangmu descended to the palace of Han Emperor Wu at Chang’an 䭓ᅝ (present Xi’an 㽓ᅝ) for a conversation with the Han Emperor. This is a fantastic account of a female deity coming down to meet an Emperor but more importantly places the narrative of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Both the concepts of Mount Kunlun (Himalaya) and Xiwangmu existed in Chinese culture during the pre-Han period. They are mentioned in an ancient Chinese text entitled ‘Shanhai jing ቅ⍋㒣’ (literally, ‘Classics of Mountains and Seas) which had existed before our Common Era (must have been compiled by many writers). Sima Qian ৌ偀䖕 (145/135–86 BCE) described in his renowned chronological history, Shiji ৆䆄/Records by a Historian that ‘The Huanghe/ Yellow River originates from Mount Kunlun. The height of Kunlun is over 2,500 li 31 where even the sun and moon would shy from. On the top of the mountain there is the fountain of amrita and the Lake Manasa Sarovar/ Manasarovar.’32 Here I have used two ancient Indian concepts in the translation because I think they were exactly what the historian had in mind. In the original text, the references are ‘liquan/ganquan 䞈⊝/⫬⊝’ (literally the ‘sweet spring’) for the ‘fountain of amrita’ and ‘Yaochi ⩊∴’ (literally the ‘jade lake’) for the ‘Lake Manasa Sarovar’. The term ‘liquan 䞈 ⊝’ (also called ‘ganquan ⫬⊝’) was the concept of the fountain of immortality. The term ‘yaochi ⩊∴’ also indicates a lake of the deity. It is sometimes called ‘tianchi ໽∴’ (the ‘celestial lake’). We see that the notion of Mount Kunlun is closely linked with the legend of Goddess Xiwangmu

31 This ‘li 䞠’ is a Chinese measurement normally about half of a kilometer though its length varies from time to time. 32 This is Sima Qian’s comment at the end of the section on ‘Dayuan ໻ᅯ’ . See Shiji ৆䆄 (Records by a historian), Account on Dayan (໻ᅯ߫Ӵ).

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and vice versa. Also, the Xiwangmu legend has the ‘Yaochi ⩊∴/Lake Manasa Sarovar/Manasarovar’ allusion. I should also add that the fantastic story of King Mu of Zhou having travelled to Mount Kunlun (Himalaya) to meet Goddess Xiwangmu is also in the text of Sima Qian’s Shiji/Records, by a Historian.33 The story that an ancient Chinese king travelled to Himalaya instantly refutes the ‘India-and-China-separated-by-the- Himalaya’ concept and vindicates our ‘Himalaya Sphere’ theory. The most important part of all these references is Sima Qian’s observation that ‘The Huanghe/Yellow River originates from Mount Kunlun’ and ‘The height of Kunlun is over 2,500 li’. These reflect an adequate understanding of the geographic reality of the Himalaya/Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau. It also confirms my theory that ‘Mount Kunlun’ and Himalaya are one and the same. Not surprisingly, the holy shrine of Shiva that is Kailash–Manasarovar is located in Tibet, and the governments of China and India have a special agreement and joint-arrangement for Indian pilgrims to visit this site every summer. I should also mention the famous scenic spot named ‘Tianchi ໽∴’ (Celestial Lake) 110 kilometres away from Urumqi Р剕᳼唤, capital city of Xinjiang ᮄ⭚, where I visited during the 1980s. The 3.5 kilometre long lake is situated at a height of 1,928 metres above sea-level, and located at the tip of a beautiful area of 40 kilometres in radius, which consists of high mountains, glaciers, lakes, forests, marshes and deserts. It is now declared a special ecological site by UNESCO, and a 5A-class scenic spot by the Chinese authorities. It is also a popular summer resort and a place for winter sports events. More important is its being identified as the very venue where the rendezvous with legendary Goddess Xiwangmu-King Mu of Zhou took place. There is a possibility of the historical legend having travelled to China via the ‘Silk Road’ as it climbed the Himalaya to reach the Chinese plains. In this way, Shiva’s Kailash–Manasarovar shrine has been duplicated in Xinjiang across the Gobi desert. Lake Manasarovar and Mount Kailash form the exclusive holy shrine of Lord Shiva. It at once links the ‘Yaochi ⩊∴/Lake Manasarovar’ connection of the ‘Xiwangmu 㽓⥟↡’ legend with the Indian legend of Shiva and his wife, Parvati whose name denotes ‘She of the mountains’. Parvati also

33 Ibid, in its section recounting the history of the pre-Qin Zhao state (䍉Ϫᆊ).

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assumes the name ‘Uma’, the Indian icon of the ‘Great Goddess’ and mother of all goddesses. Thus, we cannot but conclude that the ancient Chinese goddess Xiwangmu is the transposition of the Indian legendary icon of ‘Uma/Parvati’. The Chinese name ‘wangmu’ could be the corruption of ‘uma’ (the Indian name was probably spread first to Central Asia and then, to China, and the effect of Central Asian language resulted in the ‘Uma’-‘wangmu’ corruption). So, the meaning of Chinese ‘Xiwangmu 㽓⥟↡’ was initially ‘Xi (west)+wangmu (Uma)’ with the second and third syllables conveying the sound of the goddess’ name. If we try to make sense of the story, we have to transpose the Indian Goddess ‘king mother of the west’ onto the Chinese Goddess ‘West Uma’. One could argue that the involvement of two ancient Chinese rulers in the legend would go against such a transposition if it was an Indian legend travelling through Central Asia. A more logical explanation is that the legend of ‘Xi (west)+wangmu (Uma)’ is typical evidence of cultural interactions within the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ long before people became conscious of state boundaries and the separate identities of India or China. The imaginary rendezvous of the Goddess Uma and the emperors are the result of the attitude of people in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’, an attitude that was boundary-blind and identity-blind. Coming back to Dongfang Shuo, he could be construed as an advocate of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. But, in all the Chinese versions there is no mention of Lord Shiva. It raises the possibility that while the legend of Lord Shiva was created by the incoming Aryan culture, the legend of Uma/Parvati might be a pre-Aryan native Indian legend. If such a proposition can hold water the legend of Goddess ‘Xi (west)+wangmu (Uma)’ can reveal a different insight into early Indian civilization. Goddess Xiwangmu never disappeared in Chinese folklore from the time she entered the Chinese legendary documentation two millennia ago. She has become ‘Wangmu niangniang ⥟↡࿬࿬’ (by dropping the first syllable ‘xi 㽓/west’ and suffixing ‘niangniang ࿬࿬/Madame’ to ‘wangmu ⥟ ↡’), wife of the Taoist deity ‘Yuhuangdadi ⥝ⱛ໻Ᏹ’ (Great Jade Emperor) which was certainly the folklore much later than the Han Dynasty ‘Xiwangmu 㽓⥟↡’ vogue. Taoism, we know, grew as a popular native belief after Buddhism had gained supremacy in China, and the Taoist scriptures and religious practices emulated Buddhism in great measure.

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There are confusing theories about the origin of ‘Yuhuangdadi ⥝ⱛ໻Ᏹ/ Great Jade Emperor’. One theory is that the rulers of the Han Dynasty had the iconic symbol of ‘Yudi ⥝Ᏹ’ (Jade Emperor) while another suggests that ‘Yuhuangdadi/Great Jade Emperor’ is the Taoist equivalent of the ‘Dishi Ᏹ䞞’ icon (replica of Indra) of the Buddhist legend. We may pay more attention to the impact of the legend of Goddess Xiwangmu to notice the emergence of a lesser known Chinese legend of ‘Dongwanggong ϰ⥟݀’ which is obviously a supplement to the ‘Xiwangmu 㽓⥟↡’ legend. In the formulation of its name, ‘dong ϰ/east’ ‘wang ⥟/ king’ ‘gong ݀/father’ just pairs up Goddess Xiwangmu’s ‘xi 㽓/west’ ‘wang ⥟/king’ ‘mu ↡/mother’. If its name were ‘Xiwanggong 㽓⥟݀’ (denoting ‘West-king-father’) we would have reason to believe that it was the identification of Shiva. But, the syllable ‘dong ϰ/east’ eliminates that possibility. This would suggest that such legend-making was done without the knowledge of Goddess Uma’s being the wife of Lord Shiva along with a Chinese motivation of not seeing Goddess Xiwangmu living alone in Heaven. This intention of creating the ‘Dongwanggong’ legend as a complement to that of the ‘Xiwangmu’ legend in the Chinese folklore started from the period of the Southern Song (12th–13th centuries). There is similarity of the older legend of Goddess Xiwangmu matching the later legend of ‘Dongwanggong’ with Goddess Xiwangmu’s becoming the wife of ‘Yuhuangdadi/the Great Jade Emperor’ which was also a much later legend. But, the two legendary circumstances were different. The Great Jade Emperor was a much universal tradition in China (so was Goddess ‘Wangmu niangniang’), but the legend of ‘Dongwanggong’ was familiar only in limited Taoist circles — many Chinese have not heard of it. People who are familiar with the Taoist traditions think it is a mistake to consider Goddess Xiwangmu as the wife of Dongwanggong, and similarly Goddess ‘Wangmu niangniang’ as the wife of the Great Jade Emperor. For, Xiwangmu was regarded as the leader of all female deities and Dongwanggong, the leader of all male deities, as if there were two separate families in Heaven. The most vivid depictions of the two deities of Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong are in the wall paintings of the Mogao Grottoes 㥿催び at Dunhuang ᬺ✠. In the magnificent paintings on the ceiling of Cave 285 first excavated during the Western Wei period (535–556) we see deities and

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strange figures flying and running in Heaven. Among them there are the images of Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong, according to the identifications of the Dunhuang Academy. Duan Wenjie ↉᭛ᵄ, former Director of the Academy, reiterated that both Xiwangmu and Dongwanggong were prominent in the local traditions of Dunhuang. The Dunhuang frescoes are the incredible millennial collective creation of thousands of artists and arti- sans of China, India, and many other countries. They provide a tremendous wealth of information about the legends of these countries, especially China and India which, unfortunately, has not been adequately and exhaustively studied. Dunhuang is quite close to Lhasa and the prominence of Goddess Xiwangmu in the Dunhuang frescoes helps us to highlight the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

Other Legends Shared by China and India Goddess Xiwangmu/Western Uma is just one specimen we have highlighted to illustrate the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ sans India–China boundaries. Another prominent specimen is the Chinese legend of ‘Pangu Ⲭস’. This legend did not exist as early as the ‘Xiwangmu 㽓⥟↡’ legend, and was not mentioned by the two early historians, Sima Qian ৌ偀䖕 and Ban Gu ⧁ ೎ (32–92 CE) in their respective masterpieces of chronological history, Shiji ৆䆄/Records by a Historian and Hanshu ∝к/Annals of Han Dynasty. But, during the last 1,000 years at least, Chinese universally came to regard Pangu as the creator of the universe due to assertions of Taoists. Reliable documentation of the Pangu Ⲭস legend is from a relatively recent book, Yishi 㒢৆ (Explanatory History), written by Ma Su 偀偩 (1621–1673) who quoted a narrative allegedly written by Xu Zheng ᕤᭈ, an official of the Wu ਈ State (when China was split into the so-called ‘Three Kingdoms’ at the end of the Han Dynasty during the third century CE). Xu’s narrative was a part of a text entitled Sanwu liji ϝѨग़㑾 (Three-Five Chronology), and ‘Pangu Ⲭস’ was described as the earliest man found in the universe when the environment was like what was inside an egg. The life-span of this man, ‘Pangu Ⲭস’ , was 18,000 years which was also the duration of the formation of Heaven and Earth, viz, the process of Heaven separating from Earth. ‘Pangu Ⲭস’ transformed himself nine times every day. With his transformation, Earth increased its

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thickness and Heaven its height by 10 feet everyday. As a result, Heaven moved 90,000 li (45,000 kilometres) above Earth at the time of death of Pangu. After Pangu died, his air became wind and clouds, his sound became thunder, his left eye became the sun, his right eye became the moon, his limbs formed the four ends and five mountains of the land, his blood became rivers, his flesh became land and field, his skin became vegetations, and his hair became the stars. This Chinese legend of Pangu betrays an exotic origin. The legend bears resemblance with the Indian legend of Purusha who personifies the creation of the universe, and is a part of all aspects of the Earth. When Purusha was sacrificed, his body formed the castes of Indian Hindu society (his mouth transformed into the Brahmans, his arms the Kshatriyas, his thighs the Vaishyas, and his feet the Shudras), his mind became the moon, his eye the sun, his mouth the storm and fire, his breath the wind, his head the Heaven, his feet the earth, and his navel the atmosphere. The egg scenario of the Pangu legend also bears resemblance to the Indian legend of Brahma, the Creator who first planted a seed in the Divine Womb which grew into an egg. When the egg cracked there emerged Brahma who created Heaven and Earth. There was also the legend of Fuxi ӣ㖆 and Nüwa ཇဆ first documented by Li Rong ᴢݫ (a scholar of the Tang Dynasty) in his book Du yi zhi ⣀ᓖᖫ (Exclusive accounts on extraordinary phenomena). The second half of the book describes Fuxi ӣ㖆 (a man) and Nuwa ཇဆ (a woman) living on Mount Kunlun (homeland of Goddess Xiwangmu/ Western Uma). They were brother and sister, and the only two human beings on earth. They looked at the mist surrounding them and cried: ‘If we should become husband and wife, the mist should coalesce!’ the mist did, and they cohabitated.34 This story of brother-and-sister becoming husband-and-wife looks like a replica of the Indian legend of Yama and Yami (Yami was sister and also wife to Yama and she would not stop crying when she found Yama dead, and to stop her grief the gods created night and made her sleep). There was also another legend of Nuwa ཇဆ as the creator of humans which was first documented in Ying Shao’s ᑨࢁ (153?–196 CE) book

34 Yuan Ke, op cit, p. 164.

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Fengsu tong 亢֫䗮 (General expositions on customs) and subsequently cited in the renowned collection of fairy tales, Taiping yulan ໾ᑇᕵ㾜 (For the Perusal of His Majesty in the Taiping Era), which was compiled at the instance of Song Emperor Taizong ᅟ໾ᅫ (reigning from 976 to 997) by the imperial courtiers Li Fang ᴢᯝ and others — a project which started in 977 and completed in 983. There are two references regarding Nuwa. One is that after Heaven and Earth had been created there was no human being. First Nuwa moulded mud into human shapes and created people. Then, as this was inefficient, she dipped a rope into muddy water and spilt the muddy drops on the ground to create more people. The two different processes of human-creation by Nuwa became the root cause of disparity between the rich and the poor. The other reference says that Nuwa prayed to God to make her a match-maker, and she became the founder of the marriage system. 35 Studies show that Nuwa was a very popular legend, and the famous work of Qu Yuan ሜॳ (339–278 BCE) entitled Tian wen ໽䯂 (Questioning Heaven) observed: ‘Nuwa had also her body, and who created that?’ (ཇဆ᳝ԧ, ᅄࠊࣴП˛) This shows that Qu Yuan knew the legend of Nuwa creating people hence the Nuwa legend was circulated in China at least in the 3rd century BCE, if not earlier.36 Wen Yiduo 䯏ϔ໮ (1899–1946), one of the authorities of the Fuxi– Nuwa legend, thought they were separate cultural heroes during the pre- Qin period not related to each other. Wen Yiduo did not ascertain the approximate time when the two deities were first identified as brother and sister, but thought that the Empress Wu of Tang Dynasty ૤℺ৢ (reign from 690 to 705) could have been a powerful motivational force for the establishment of their husband-and-wife relationship. When Empress Wu was the queen of Tang Emperor Gaozong ૤催ᅫ, the palace dance performances had an item called ‘Juntianwu 䩻໽㟲’ (Balancing the Heaven dance), likening the Emperor to Fuxi, and the Empress to Nuwa. In the National Museum at New Delhi, there are Chinese paintings of the Tang Dynasty that depict the ‘nagabund ’ (intertwined snakes) with male and female human heads. Wen Yiduo thought this was the depiction of Fuxi

35 Ibid, p. 44. 36 Ibid, p. 43.

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and Nuwa as husband and wife. But, we see similar ‘nagabund ’ images in the sculptures of the tombstones of the Han Dynasty (Wen Yiduo was also aware of them), which was half a millennium prior to the time of Tang Empress Wu. In Wen Yiduo’s famous essay ‘Fuxi kao ӣ㖆㗗’ (Study on Fuxi), he pointed out that in a vast area from Hunan ␪फ Province in central China to central India — covering Southeast Asia — there are legends among the people (like the Miao 㢫 nationality of mainland China, Ami 䰓ⳝ tribes of Taiwan ৄ⑒ island, the Ba-hnars of Vietnam, the Bhils and Kammars of India, the Pagans of Northern Borneo, and so on) about the great flood, and the two lone survivors, a man and a woman. They were first brother and sister, then, husband and wife, and then, progenitor and progenitress of the humans. The man’s name varied from ‘Fuxi’, to ‘Phu-Hay’, to ‘Bu-i’, and so on.37 Wen Yiduo’s essay is significant. It reflects that people today who are separated by national boundaries in a vast belt within the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ have inherited a common legend about the origin of humanity. This common legend provides the Chinese civilization with cultural heroes of Fuxi and Nuwa, and the Indian civilization with cultural heroes of Yama and Yami — all are just different manifestations of the same ‘Himalaya Sphere’ belief about the origin of humanity. It is impossible and unnecessary to trace the original source that had generated the belief. It probably is a result of a consensus arising from the interactions of humans with their natural environment. That natural environment bears the identity of ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

VI. BOUNDARYLESS ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ BONDS I would like to convince the reader of the boundaryless nature of the bonds created as the very creation of civilization is an on-going process of eliminating boundaries, identities and differences between small primitive tribes. Chinese and Indian civilizations were exemplary in performing this

37 Wen Yiduo 䯏ϔ໮, ‘Fuxi kao ӣ㖆㗗’ (Study on Fuxi), see Zhu Ziqing ᴅ㞾⏙ (comp), Wen Yiduo quanji 䯏ϔ໮ܼ䲚 (collected works of Wen Yiduo), 1948, Shanghai Ϟ ⍋˖Kaiming Bookshop ᓔᯢкᑫ, Vol. I, pp. 3–12.

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process of elimination during their internal development. However, this process of boundary elimination is also at work between the Chinese and Indian civilizations.

An Integral ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Cosmology Let us look at the beginnings of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ cosmology as conceived by Xuanzang and Daoxuan. Xuanzang who had been in India was the source of much of the information and knowledge of Daoxuan. He had a profound influence on the royalties. He even converted not one but two Tang emperors to this holistic Buddhist cosmology. We know that Tang Emperor Taizong ૤໾ᅫ (reigning 626–649) and Tang Emperor Gaozong ૤催ᅫ (reigning 649–683),38 both wrote their ‘Foreword’ for Xuanzang’s translated works. These two back-to-back essays by imperial rulers are known as ‘Da-Tang sanzang shengjiao xu ໻૤ϝ㮣೷ᬭᑣ’ (Foreword for the sacred teaching produced by the Tripitaka Master of the great Tang Dynasty) and ‘Da-Tang sanzang shengjiao houxu ໻૤ϝ㮣೷ᬭৢᑣ’ (Second foreword for the sacred teaching produced by the Tripitaka Master of the great Tang Dynasty) respectively. In addition, Emperor Gaozong also composed a eulogy entitled ‘Shu sheng ji 䗄೷䆄’ (a note on the sacred religion) after reading some Buddhist scriptures. All these three pieces were composed in 648, and have become important government documents in Chinese historiography. Let me translate a paragraph from each. Emperor Taizong wrote in his ‘Foreword for the sacred teaching produced by the Tripitaka Master of the great Tang Dynasty’:

I hear Taichi (Brahma) creates yin and yang that, in turn, creates the four manifestations. This is the law of all embracive-ness and life-creation. But, the four seasons are formless, introducing clandestinely alternations of cold and heat to effect material development. (Ⲫ䯏ѠҾ᳝䈵, ᰒ㽚䕑ҹ৿⫳, ಯᯊ᮴ᔶ, ┰ᆦᱥҹ࣪⠽Ǆ) Therefore, by examining the Heaven and Earth, the sagacious and the dumb get a hang of life; and by understanding yin and yang, the worldly and the prophet comprehend the rhythm of truth…. Thus we know that manifestations are reliable,

38 When he was actually in charge of the government but yet to be officially proclaimed the Emperor as his imperial father, Emperor Taizong was suffering from indifferent health.

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and even the dumb feel sure, while invisible changes can perplex the intelligent. Not to think of the Law of the Buddha that advocates sunyata (existence of non-existence), presiding over the unseen and controlling harmony, rescuing all beings, governing all directions,… never becoming outdated through millennia… The rise of this great teaching originates from the western land, ﬂ ying over the Han palace that bright dream (㝒∝ᓋ㗠ⱢṺ), shining upon the eastern region and make compassion ever ﬂ owing (✻ϰඳ㗠⌕᜜)….39

The Emperor began his ‘Foreword’ by four Chinese syllables ‘er yi you xiang ѠҾ᳝䈵’ which summarized the famous adage of Zhouyi ਼ᯧ (Book of Changes): ‘taiji sheng liangyi, liangyi sheng sixiang, sixiang sheng bagua ໾ᵕ⫳ϸҾ, ϸҾ⫳ಯ䈵, ಯ䈵⫳ܿऺ’. The adage is the quintessence of Chinese philosophy that the universe originates from ‘taiji ໾ᵕ’, i.e., the internationally famous ‘Tai-chi’ (literally, ‘the ultimate end’), which is very much the Chinese equivalent of the Indian ‘Brahma’. According to the Chinese logic, it is this Ultimate Reality that creates ‘two aspects’ (‘liangyi ϸҾ’). This binary ‘two aspects’ can mean ‘yin’ and ‘yang’, o r Heaven and Earth, or male and female and so on. The next stage of multiplication is the ‘two aspects’ creating ‘four manifestations’ (‘sixiang ಯ䈵’), and the next stage is the ‘four manifestations’ creating ‘Eight Diagrams’ (‘bagua ܿऺ’). This ‘bagua ܿऺ/Eight Diagrams’ is meant to be the matrix of ancient Chinese philosophy. It is also said to be the mother of Chinese script. Here we see the Emperor setting up the context of Chinese civilization, and trying to review the Buddhist impact on Chinese civilization. Significantly, Emperor Taizong’s ‘zhao dongyu er liu ci ✻ϰඳ㗠⌕᜜’ (shining upon the eastern region and make compassion ever flowing) does not depict China as ‘Zhongguo Ё೑/Middle Kingdom’, but ‘dongyu ϰඳ/ eastern region’. Towards the end of the ‘Foreword’, the Emperor even penned a sentence: ‘invoking the compassionate cloud from the western end to cause dharma rain in the eastern corner’ (ᓩ᜜ѥѢ㽓ᵕ, ⊼⊩䲼 Ѣϰൖ) to compliment the achievement of Xuanzang.40 Here, the Emperor described India as ‘xiji 㽓ᵕ/western end’, and China as ‘dongchui ϰൖ/eastern corner’ assuming an even humbler gesture for China. This

39 Huili ᜻ゟ & Yancong ᔺᚄ, op cit, p. 142. 40 Ibid, p. 143.

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gesture is typical for the Buddhist believers expressing China’s gratitude to India for sending the Buddha’s teachings to China. We must pause to reflect that Tang Emperor Taizong was a very powerful ruler at that time of not only China but in the world. China during his reign was probably the most powerful country in the world. The Emperor and other powerful people were thought not to be shy of arrogance or paragons of modesty; far from it. However, we do not see ‘Chinese triumphalism’ at any level to the modern ‘American triumphalism’. Just picture an American President describing the United States as a humble state in the ‘western corner’?! I point this out to highlight the power of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ that even the personification of Chinese ‘arrogance’ like Tang Emperor Taizong was capable of deference towards China’s ‘Himalaya Sphere’ civilization twin — India. Emperor Gaozong (when he was the Crown Prince) made an interesting observation in his ‘Shu sheng ji 䗄೷䆄/a note on the sacred’ thus: ‘His Majesty … has made the water of Ayuda Lake connecting eight rivers of China, and Gridhrakuta lining up the lush green peaks of Mount Song and Mount Hua’ (Փ䰓㗼䖒∈䗮⼲⬌ПܿᎱ, 㗚䯛ዯቅ᥹ጽढП㖴ኁ).41 The reference to ‘Ayuda Lake’, i.e., Manasarovar, reminds us the Hindu shrine on the Himalaya and the abode of Goddess Xiwangmu/Uma. Incidentally, in a memorial to Emperor Taizong dated 646, Xuanzang made a mention about ‘Ximu baihuan 㽓↡ⱑ⦃’ (literally, ‘the Western Mother with white garland’) which is doubtlessly a reference to Goddess Xiwangmu, when he looked back at Chinese history.42 This shows that Goddess Xiwangmu/Uma was a historical figure in the eyes of both Emperor Gaozong (when he was the Crown Prince) and Reverend Xuanzang. When he was Crown Prince, Emperor Gaozong was instructed by his imperial-father to write his ‘Second foreword for the sacred teaching produced by the Tripitaka Master of the great Tang Dynasty’. In his ‘Second foreword’, the royalty wrote: ‘Water of Nairanjana flows into [China’s] imperial lake, and garden of Sravasti joins China’s imperial forest.’ (ሐ䖲ᖋ∈䖽Ᏹ 䞠П≻∴, 㟡िᒉು᥹ϞᵫП㣖㢥). 43 All the three references of Emperor

41 Ibid, p. 147. 42 Ibid, p. 134. 43 Ibid, p. 150.

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Gaozong, — ‘Qidujueshan 㗚䯛ዯቅ/Gridhrakuta’,44 ‘Niliandeshui ሐ䖲ᖋ ∈/Nairanjana river’,45 and ‘Shewei’anyuan 㟡िᒉು/garden of Sravasti,46 are famous historical Buddhist shrines in India. The Emperor’s interconnecting these places with the holy mountains of China and the imperial palace is, once again, the true spirit of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ affinity. I highlight these quotations of two of China’s well-known rulers not to exaggerate their loyalty to Buddha. We know that all Tang emperors except one were pro-Buddhist rulers; the exception being Tang Emperor Wuzong ૤℺ᅫ (reigning 840–846) who demolished Buddhist temples. But all the Tang rulers had strong ties with the Taoists as well, and they governed China basically according to Confucian teachings. In short, when we are emotionally touched by the words of Tang Emperors Taizong and Gaozong we maintain a clear understanding that they embraced Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism in the same mindset, if not in the same breath. Many people steeped in the Western obsession with ‘-isms’ will cut up the Chinese cosmological perspective into a Confucian-China, Taoist-China and a Buddhist-China, which misses the forest for the trees. Interestingly, if one closely looks at both Chinese and Indian civilizations, there is a relative absence of ‘-isms’. The holistic perspective is much more suitable for this part of the world. The Chinese adaptations need to be understood but also not given undue prominence to make these powerful tyrants Sinocentric heroes. Never did Tang Emperor Taizong mention ‘Zhongguo Ё೑/Middle Kingdom’, the basis of Sinocentrism. Instead, note that he opted for a ‘western corner’ for China when he talked about cosmology and even made his successor follow this line of thinking.

Tan Yun-shan’s ‘Zhong-Yin Zhenming ЁЁॄㆈ䫁ॄㆈ䫁/ Chindia Motto’ I have had many encounters with scholars brain-washed by the dogmatic Western perspective. A recent one was when I attended the Fifth World

44 Vulture Peak (Gridhrakuta) in Rajgir, Bihar. 45 The river passing Bodhgaya where Buddha obtained his enlightenment, now called Lilaja River. 46 A Buddhist shrine near Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh.

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Forum on China Studies at Shanghai, China, on March 24, 2013. It was a very impressive academic gathering under the auspices of the Information Office of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China and the Shanghai Municipal People’s Government. The theme of the Forum was ‘China’s Modernization: Road and Prospect’. Several hundreds of Chinese and foreign scholars had gathered at the conference to deliberate the ‘Zhongguo daolu Ё೑䘧䏃/Chinese road’ of future development based on expositions of quintessential Chinese civilization and traditional wisdom. In a session devoted to the relevance of Chinese philosophy to the central theme of the conference, i.e., marching forward along the ‘Zhongguo daolu Ё೑䘧䏃/Chinese road’, I was distressed to see Chinese philosophy being cut asunder into a one-plus-two (Confucianism in addition to Taoism and Buddhism) concoction. One paper titled ‘Confucian Introspection as a Model of Social Comportment’ discussed China’s ‘social comportment’ by dusting off a Confucian phrase ‘shendu ᜢ⣀’ (remaining prudent and non-devious while one is alone and away from public scrutiny). This was very disappointing as so many changes have occurred from the time of venerable Confucius. In fact, so much water has flowed down the Huanghe, Yangtse, Indus and Ganga that a Sino–Indian cultural fusion has firmly established in self cultivation). This) ’ݏׂ China’s ‘social comportment’ known as ‘xiuyang conforms exactly to the Indian practice of ‘tapasya’ — a self-disciplinary endeavour aimed at a spiritual enhancement by restraining physical urges. Though it reaffirmed Confucius’ self-cultivation process of ‘gewu Ḑ⠽/ examining things’, ‘zhizhi 㟈ⶹ/gaining knowledge’, ‘chengyi 䆮ᛣ/focussing intentions’, ‘zhengxin ℷᖗ/putting the heart in the right place’, xiushen ׂ䑿/cultivating personality’ (which I will discuss a little later), it‘ was the exemplary conduct of the eminent Indian monks who showed the -self cul/ݏׂ way to the enlightened Chinese elite. The vogue of ‘xiuyang tivation’ started only after the zenith of Buddhist influence during the Tang Dynasty. I have of course been greatly influenced by the life-long practice of my father, Tan Yun-shan 䈁ѥቅ (1898–1983), who was a personification of the ‘Chindia’ concept of spiritual fusion. Tan Yun-shan prescribed for

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himself and his children a ‘Zhong–Yin zhenming Ёॄㆈ䫁/Chindian motto’ which is composed by 64 Chinese characters:

‘lide liyan ゟᖋゟ㿔’: — cultivate your virtue and speech ‘jiuren jiushi ᬥҎᬥϪ’ : — rescue others and humankind ‘zhigang zhida 㟇߮㟇໻’ : — be the hardest and greatest ‘youshou youwei ᳝ᅜ᳝Ў’ : — balance between commission and omission ‘nanxing nengxing 䲒㸠㛑㸠’: — do what is diffi cult to do ‘nanren nengren 䲒ᖡ㛑ᖡ’ : — tolerate what is diffi cult to tolerate ‘suiyuan bubian 䱣㓬ϡব’ : — be fl exible and consistent ‘bubian suiyuan ϡব䱣㓬’ : — be consistent and fl exible ‘zijue jueta 㞾㾝㾝Ҫ’ : — enlighten yourself and enlighten others ‘zili lita 㞾߽߽Ҫ’ : — benefi t yourself and benefi t others ‘jili liren ᏅゟゟҎ’ : — establish yourself and establish others ‘jida daren Ꮕ䖒䖒Ҏ’ : — make yourself prosper and make others prosper ‘cibei xishe ᜜ᚆ୰㟡’: — compassion, sympathy, joy, generosity (chaturpramana) ‘chanding zhihui ⽙ᅮᱎ᜻’ : — meditation and insight (vipasyana) ‘ge zhi cheng zheng Ḑ㟈䆮ℷ’: — investigation, learning, devotion, conscientiousness ,xiu qi zhi ping ׂ唤⊏ᑇ’: — self-cultivation, harmonize the family‘ govern well the state, create peace in the universe (the last eight characters summarize the process of personality development Confucius prescribed in ‘Daxue ໻ᄺ/Great Learning’)

Tan Yun-shan was a typical personality of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ — a very traditional Chinese scholar who lived and died in India, who wore his self-designed Chindian dresses, who worked out every morning on the roof-top doing a hybrid Chindian exercise invented by him, and who emulated Mahatma Gandhi to observe ‘silence day’ every week, and followed ‘Gurudeva’ Tagore in promoting India–China fraternity. We see in the above ‘Chindia motto’ a collection of the essential virtues distilled from Chinese and Indian civilizations — mainly quotes from Confucian classics and Chinese Buddhist scriptures. But, as I know well, Tan Yun-shan was just emulating millions of historical models of Chinese civilization — those who had internalized Indian spiritual values without announcing it.

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Actually, Tan Yun-shan cannot be considered a pioneer of such a Chindia cultural fusion. He was just expounding a historical Chinese tra- ᄺ/Learning⫳ݏdition alternately known as ‘xiuxing yangsheng xue ׂᗻ for character-cultivation and life-preservation’ or ‘yangshen yangxin xue ݏ⼲ݏᖗᄺ/Learning for vitality-cultivation and mind-cultivation’. Such a tradition endeavours to lead a virtuous, healthy and long life, avoiding devious behaviours, self-abuse and indulgence in hedonism. This was, in essence, what Liang Qichao ṕਃ䍙 (1873–1929) described as the ‘baozhong -erdao ֱ⾡Ѡ䘧/two-way protection of Chinese race’: (a) learning to pro tect the soul: (ᄺҹֱ݊ᖗ♉), and (b) medication to protect the body -एҹֱ݊䒃໇).47 Many readers will appreciate the emphasis on the pres) ervation of body and soul in the learning expounded by Chinese and Indian civilizations. There is also a seemingly dark side. We have mentioned the Sino–Indian Tantric cult (Chinese ‘Mizong ᆚᅫ/secret sect’). There are even fantastic stories in Indian Tantric legends about Sage Vasishtha witnessing Lord Buddha enjoying alcohol and sex for the attainment of ‘siddhis/supernatural powers’ in ‘Mahacina’.48 The Tantric influence is sometimes shocking to the prurient soul, but the ancients did not see this as deviant behavior sometimes. I must reiterate that much of the development of this Sino–Indian Tantric cult assumed the label of ‘daojiao 䘧ᬭ/Taoism’ in China which is a misnomer. The typical example is the case of Sun Simiao ᄭᗱ䙜 (581–682) who was a renowned medical expert with important writings which recorded valuable medical knowledge from India. He had a discourse on the preservation of male vitality in sex in the ‘yangxing ݏᗻ/ preservation of sex vitality’ section of his masterpiece entitled ‘Qianjin yaofang ग䞥㽕ᮍ’ (Important recipes worth thousands of gold). He was revered by Taoist followers as ‘Yixian miaoying Sun zhenren एҭ཭ᑨᄭⳳҎ’ (Saint Sun who is a medical deity with magical power). In fact, he was the Chinese impersonation of the Buddhist legend of ‘Bhaisajyaguru’ — the

47 This is popularly quoted from Liang Qichao’s ṕਃ䍙 book, Yixue shanhui xu एᄺ୘Ӯভ (On the meeting place of medical science). I have not read the book. 48 As narrated in the texts of Rudrayamala and Brahmayamala. See www.sacred-texts.com/ tantra/sas/sas08.htm, read on December 19, 2013.

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medical expert among the Indian Bodhisattvas who ultimately became the ‘Yaoshi Fo 㥃Ꮬԯ’ (Buddha of healing) in Chinese culture. Sun Simiao, indeed, involuntarily removed the boundaries between Taoism and Buddhism, and between the identities of China and India. In the foregoing narrative, I have reversed the historical sequence of a quest for character-cultivation and life-elongation within the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ with Sun Simiao leading the way among Chinese intellectuals, and Liang Qichao and Tan Yun-shan as modern path-finders. In India, such a quest has been vigorously pursued non-stop for many millennia. The ‘Bhaisajyaguru’ who was a cynosure of both Sun Simiao and Tan Yun-shan is an eloquent evidence of this Indian tradition.

The Vimalakirti Model of Chinese Intellectuals Equally, the source of inspiration of the ‘Chindia motto’ of Tan Yun-shan can be traced to the Chinese scholars of the Tang and Song periods and the spiritual influence of the hero of Indian Buddhist legend, Vimalakirti. It is now common knowledge among world China experts why the great Tang poet, Wang Wei ⥟㓈 (692–761) was ‘Wang Wei’ — as an example of a ‘Chindian’.49 Wang Wei’s two official names, ‘Wang Wei ⥟㓈’ and ‘Wang Mojie ⥟ᨽ䆬’ enabled him to completely identify with Vimalakirti, whose Chinese translation was ‘Weimojie 㓈ᨽ䆬’. Thus, for the first time in Chinese history, we had a Chinese poet who was ‘Wang Vimalakirti’. I have categorized a group of famous Chinese intellectual India–China boundary-demolishers as ‘Vimalakirti Personalities’, including among others, eminent Chinese writers and intellectuals, Wang Wei, Li Bai ᴢⱑ (701–762), Bai Juyi ⱑሙᯧ (772–846), Su Shi 㢣䕐 (1037–1101), Zhu Xi ᴅ➍ (1130–1200), and Wang Yangming ⥟䰇ᯢ (1472–1529).50 I have documented evidences in my book India and China that it was the Vimalakirti model that wrought an important link between the Chinese civilization and the Indian civilization which seemed to move towards the opposite extremes — Indian civilization towards spiritualism at the

49 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, Chapter 7: ‘Sino-Indic’ Ratna (3): Vimalakirti Personalities, pp. 147–148. 50 Ibid, pp. 147–174.

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expense of material enjoyment while Chinese civilization doing just the opposite. The Indian motto of ‘simple living, high thinking’ was attractive to Chinese intellectuals only half-way. The idea of ‘high thinking’ was admirable and doable while ‘simple living’ was hard for them to comply. But Vimalakirti was a modified model. He was not a monk hence there was no compulsion for ‘simple living’. On the other hand, Vimalakirti’s ‘high thinking’ surpassed even the Bodhisattvas, and the Buddha directed Manjusri to go to Vimalakirti to learn about enlightenment. Chinese intellectuals found in Vimalakirti the ideal model for them — as the embodiment of ‘rich living, high thinking’. Wang Wei, Li Bai, Bai Juyi and Su Shi were all in love with material enjoyment, but were also romantic personalities pursuing ‘high thinking’ spiritualism. Let me quote a poem from Li Bai and Bai Juyi respectively to delve more on this point. First, there was Li Bai’s poem ‘Da Huzhou Jiaye sima wen Bai shi heren ㄨ␪Ꮂ䖺৊ৌ偀䯂ⱑᰃԩҎ’ (Who am I? Answer to the query of Kasyapa, the officer of Hu Prefecture) in my new translation51:

I was Nilotpala Upasaka, To the world now banished, Buried in the pub my insignia For Springs three tens. Who am I? The question is silly Your Huzhou Excellency! Can’t you set apart Golden Millet Tathagata?! (䴦㦆ሙ຿䇾ҭҎ, 䜦㙚㮣ৡϝक᯹˗␪Ꮂৌ偀ԩ乏䯂, 䞥㉳བᴹ ᰃৢ䑿)

This poem reflects how Li Bai thought of himself and the society he lived in. The imagery of ‘zhexianren 䇾ҭҎ/demoted fairy’ combines Li Bai’s self-confidence and self-pity. He aptly exploited the Indian belief of easy traffic between Heaven and humanity. He makes a dig at the Chinese imperial system where imperial officers frequently got demoted and banished to remote areas. By describing himself ‘zhexianren 䇾ҭҎ/demoted

51 If you wish, readers may compare this with what I wrote in ibid, p. 149.

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fairy’, Li Bai used Vimalakirti as a reference point. The term ‘Qinglian jushi 䴦㦆ሙ຿/Nilotpala Upasaka/the blue-lotus lay-follower of Buddha’ was the title he arrogated to himself comparing himself with Vimalakirti, whose residence was the ‘Nilotpala/Blue Lotus Palace’ (䴦㦆ᅿ). In India and China, I agreed with the interpretation of a Chinese scholar that the reference of ‘Jinsu rulai 䞥㉳བᴹ/Golden Millet Tathagata’ in the last line of the poem identifies with Vimalakirti’s nickname.52 I have changed my opinion now and think what Li Bai meant by this reference was the identification of the omnipotent and omnipresent Buddha. It was typical of Li Bai to regard himself a class much above the mediocre folks in the streets — not excluding those holding government official rank. A new feature revealed by this poem is the reference of an officer of Huzhou Prefecture by the name of ‘Jiaye 䖺৊’ which was not a Chinese name, but the Chinese transliteration of ‘Kasyapa’. The poem tells us that this Mr. ‘Jiaye 䖺৊/Kasyapa’ with an Indian name (might be a Chinese officer of Indian descent), who had quite a distinguished status, was a new acquaintance who wanted to know more about Li Bai. Here is an evidence of the openness of Chinese society during the Tang Dynasty. The second poem was by Bai Juyi, entitled ‘Xian yin 䯆৳’ (Idle rhyme), again with my new translation:

I’ve slogged in its noble path The dharma of Sunyata53 To cinders the sundry regalia Life’s innate maya.54 Poetry remains a nuisance An invincible mara,55 Out burst my idle stanzas When nice scenery appears. (㞾Ң㢺ᄺぎ䮼⊩, 䫔ሑᑇ⫳⾡⾡ᖗ˗ଃ᳝䆫儨䰡᳾ᕫ, ↣䗶亢᳜ϔ 䯆৳)

52 Ibid. 53 His original words ‘kongmenfa ぎ䮼⊩’ literally mean ‘the law of the school of Sunyata/ voidness’ which was a popular Tang idiom for Buddhist teachings. 54 Meaning ‘delusion and desire’. 55 In his original words of ‘shimo 䆫儨’ (devil of poetry).

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This poem is less complex than the previous one. What Bai Juyi meant to express is his experience with the Buddhist self-cultivation of spiritual enlightenment. He was serious and sincere in his endeavour. What he tried to reiterate was that as a poet, he could not become a saint completely free from mundane sentiments and predilections. However, when we read it again and again, the real aim of the poem was to highlight the importance of the Buddhist teaching of ‘Maravijaya/Dharma overcoming the devil’ the Chinese translation of which is ‘xiangmo 䰡儨’ which comes out in the second half of the poem. We know that the syllable ‘mo 儨’ was a new Chinese visual symbol created to translate the Sanskrit ‘mara/demon’.56 Here was one of the important messages of Buddhist teaching that every right-thinking person should overcome the demon within his/her being just as the society in general should overcome the evil forces with the power of Dharma. Readers can see how laboured I am in translating these two poems of very simple Chinese words, and I have to resort to Sanskrit vocabulary and annotations to make the poems understandable. If some readers are boundary-sensitive, you might imagine how un-Chinese or Indianized these poets were. In reality, both Li Bai and Bai Juyi were completely blind to the distinctions between China and India. These two poems are fine specimens of boundaryless ‘Himalaya Sphere’ bonds. Here are just a couple of illustrations of ancient Chinese civilization which was at its best during the Tang Dynasty — both Li Bai and Bai Juyi personified Chinese civilization at its highest achievement. But, by reaching such a height, Chinese civilization already had a facelift with a new outlook different from Chinese civilization during, say, the days of Confucius, or Laozi in the 5–4th century BCE. If we really want to identify this new Chinese civilization, we might use the label of ‘Chindia’ which, I think, is a good and expressive identity though not yet popularly adopted in the learned circles. If we do so, Li Bai and Bai Juyi who were leaders of the Tang poets were ‘Chindia’ intellectuals — as much as Wang Wei was a typical ‘Chindian’.

56 Originally, ‘mara’ was transliterated into Chinese as ‘moluo ᨽ㔫’. Then the new visual was created by inserting the component of ‘儐/evil spirit’ into the first syllable ‘mo ᨽ’, making it a homonymous concept of ‘demon’.

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VII. THE SPIRIT OF ‘VASUDHAIVA KUTUMBAKAM’ IN CHINESE CULTURE The Indian adage of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ (the whole world is one single family) is a perfect fit for the formation of the Chinese civilization. By highlighting the spirit of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ in China there are two scenarios: First, there was the dynamics of boundarylessness at work which resulted in the unification, solidarity and harmony of Chinese civilization; second, this dynamics of boundarylessness was a ‘Himalaya Sphere’ phenomenon, viz., Chinese culture with Indian input.

Creation of ‘Padmabhumi’ that is the Scenic China China and India are the civilization twins of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ character- ized by the Chinese saying of ‘tian ren heyi ໽Ҏড়ϔ/merging Heaven and humans into one entity’ and the Indian saying of ‘Brahmatmaikya/ merger of Brahma and Atma’ which are synonymous. This makes both China and India famous for value-added scenic beauties. Scenic China is immortalized by the famous description of ‘shang you tiantang, xia you Su Hang Ϟ᳝໽ූ, ϟ᳝㢣ᵁ’ (As there is Devapura in Heaven, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou on earth.) This description is tantamount to eulo- gize two scenic places of Suzhou 㢣Ꮂ (of Jiangsu ∳㢣 Province) and Hangzhou ᵁᎲ (of Zhejiang ⌭∳ Province). For more than a thousand years, Suzhou and Hangzhou have been famous as China’s popular tourist destinations for their scenic beauty, and even more so today. Much of the scenic beauty of these places has been man-made and value-added. The eulogistic description of ‘Devapura/paradise on earth’ suggests Buddhist influence in the description. These two famous paradise-on-earth scenic places of China are closely associated with the famous scholar-officer-poet, Bai Juyi ⱑሙᯧ whom I have alluded to a little earlier as an ‘India–China boundary-demolisher’. Bai Juyi was the Governor of Hangzhou during 821–824. He repaired the wells and streamlined the irrigation system, built a bund at the West Lake in Hangzhou which later becomes famous for its paradise-on-earth scenic beauty. Bai Juyi’s tenure as the Governor of Hangzhou has left behind many stories praising his administration doing work for the welfare of the common people. When he was transferred from Hangzhou, the local

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people affectionately sent him off. They named the bund he built as ‘Baigong di ⱑ݀෸’ (Bund of Sir Bai). Bai Juyi, thus, was one of the earliest examples of ‘fumu guan ⠊↡ᅬ/parent officer’ meaning that imperial officers were so endeared to the common people like a parent to his children. Bai Juyi also contributed to the prosperity of Suzhou as he did to Hangzhou. He was loved and revered as a deity by the people of both Hangzhou and Suzhou. The good administration of Bai Juyi was one of the reasons for the economic development of Hangzhou and Suzhou, an important factor contrib- uting to the prosperity of the Suzhou–Hangzhou belt generally known as ‘Jiangnan ∳फ’ (literally, ‘south of the Yangtse’). The saying ‘As there is Devapura in Heaven, there are Suzhou and Hangzhou on earth’ is not just about the scenic beauty, but also the material prosperity of the area. Bai Juyi contributed to both these aspects. In his own words: ‘The land of Hangzhou is pretty and robust while the people of Suzhou are rich and affluent.’ (ᵁೳ БϨᒋ, 㢣⇥ᆠ㗠ᒊ). As he was a poet, his poems advertised Hangzhou and Suzhou as scenic places and these were much appreciated by local people. In a poem with a very long title ‘After reading 30 poems of Imperial Censor Yin Yaofan which are replete with narratives of Suzhou and Hangzhou’ (㾕↋ᇻ 㮽աᕵᖚ∳फ䆫ϝक佪, 䆫Ё໮ভ㢣ᵁ), Bai Juyi rhymed:

Famous places south of Yangtse Suzhou and Hangzhou one must see. Vividly narrated already In Ofﬁ cer Yin’s verses thirty. You were just a traveller there, Yet you found so much to remember, I was there as their governor, Just imagine my nostalgia forever. The feelings of my muse Carry me to yesteryears’ ambience. Those days — what a kingdom of poetry?! The mood was high And songs with music So drunk we lie In our sweet dreams… फৡ䚵᭄㢣ᵁ, ݭ೼↋ᆊϝकゴǄ৯ᰃᮙҎ⢍㢺ᖚ, ៥Ўࠎ৆᳈∳) 䲒ᖬǄ๗⡉৳, ⳳ䆫೑, ݈ܹロ℠ད䝝еĂ)

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Another famous administrator-scholar-poet in Hangzhou was Su Shi 㢣䕐 (better known as Su Dongpo 㢣ϰവ) (1037–1101) who was assigned to the Hangzhou administration twice. He emulated Bai Juyi to solve the water problems there. More important, in 1090 when he was the Governor of Hangzhou, he launched a huge project to dredge the West Lake which received the imperial sanction but not financial support. He raised donations from the people (partially by selling his paintings and calligraphy) and mobilized 200,000 workers to clean up the Lake which has maintained its present size to this day. He used the mud that was dug out of the Lake to build a new embankment that complemented the already existed embankment built by Governor Bai Juyi three hundred years ago. (Today, there are two embankments of the West Lake frequented by tourists, one named ‘Baidi ⱑ෸/Bai Juyi’s Embankment’ and another ‘Sudi 㢣෸/Su Shi’s Embankment’). Su Shi wrote more poems than Bai Juyi to immortalize the beauty of West Lake. The most famous one is entitled ‘Yin hushang chuqing er yu 佂␪ Ϟ߱᱈㗠䲼’ (Drinking at West Lake the fine day suddenly turned into rainy):

In sunshine so nice Waves glittering bright Another wonder in the scene Hills hanging in the sky as if rain-freezing. The West Lake resembles Lady Xishi exactly, She is always so pretty And cosmetics are secondary. (∈ܝ┟⒳⴯ᮍད, ቅ㡆ぎ㩭䲼Ѻ༛Ǆ㢹ᡞ㽓␪↨㽓ᄤ, ⎵ཚ⌧ᢍᘏ ⳌᅰǄ)

Tagore visited the renowned monastery of Lingyinsi ♉䱤ᇎ (where he saw the rock sculptures of the Buddha and the image of an Indian pilgrim who was the patriarch of the local Buddhists) at Hangzhou ᵁᎲand made the remarks in his address to an audience of more than three thousand people on April 16, 1924 about the self sacrifice and ‘exuberance of love’ of an ancient pilgrim. The particular Indian pilgrim referred to by Tagore was a monk named ‘Huili ᜻⧚’ (whose Indian name is untraceable, perhaps, Matiyukti) in the Chinese records, who arrived at Hangzhou in 326.

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Tagore did not mention that this Indian monk ‘Huili ᜻⧚/Matiyukti?’ had wrought a leaf of boundaryless India–China cultural intercourse worthy of scholarly attention. The story goes that when Huili ᜻⧚/Matiyukti? stood at the site where the present Monastery of Lingyinsi ♉䱤ᇎ was located, he cried with pleasant surprise: ‘Here is the Gridhrakuta peak of Madhyadesa (central India), when did it fly to this place?’ The locals were marvelled by his claim, and requested him to produce proofs. He said he was familiar with the peak and had some friends living on it. Then, he shouted loudly in a strange language, down came some monkeys from the hill to greet him. The locals were convinced, revering him as a patriarch, and building the Monastery of Lingyinsi in his honour. Also, the hill now by the side of the Monastery of Lingyinsi has acquired the name of ‘Feilaifeng 亲ᴹዄ’ (Peak that has flown here from India). Of course, the real significance of ‘Feilaifeng 亲ᴹዄ/Peak that has flown here from India’ did not lie in the flying-peak. In people’s minds, what was flying to China was not the hill which would not fly, but the ‘gridhra ♉吿/sacred vulture’ which lived where Lord Buddha lectured. Therefore, the real meaning of the name ‘Lingyinsi ♉䱤ᇎ’ is ‘the temple where the ‘gridhra ♉吿/sacred vulture’ takes rest. (I think few Chinese, if any, realize this today.) Even more, this area has had, for more than one and half millennia, three pieces of Indian territory: ‘shan-Tianzhu Ϟ໽ノ’ (upper-Heavenly India), ‘zhong-Tianzhu Ё໽ノ’ (middle-Heavenly India), and ‘xia-Tianzhu ϟ໽ノ’ (lower-Heavenly India) — which tourists today can travel through. Here is the romance of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ reaching its unthinkable climax. It makes the psyche of boundary-sensitive and boundary-obsessed moderners so petty- minded and mean. It would have been unthinkable (even regarded as a scandal) in our times of territory-sensitivity and ‘cartographic aggression’ mania. When Bai Juyi was Governor of Hangzhou, he enjoyed his pilgrimages to this Indian territory. This is expressed by a poem entitled ‘Three years as the Hangzhou Governor’ (ϝᑈЎࠎ৆) (my translation):

Three years as the Hangzhou Governor Frugal was my life true to my scruples.

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Only once on the Holy Indian Hill, I picked up two pebbles. To me they are the priceless treasure, Yet I remain a clean ofﬁ cer. (ϝᑈЎࠎ৆, 佂ބ໡亳⁫Ǆଃ৥໽ノቅ, পᕫϸ⠛⷇Ǆℸᢉ᳝ग䞥, ᮴ЗӸ⏙ⱑǄ)

Here was the clean imperial officer Bai Juyi who had earned the reputation of ‘fumu guan ⠊↡ᅬ/parent officer’. This poem also shows Bai Juyi’s input to Hangzhou in creating it as the Devapura/Paradise-on- earth. The Lingyinsi (gridhra/sacred eagle-comes-to-rest temple) which was initially built for Huili ᜻⧚/Matiyukti(?) to stay and preach is a great and prosperous monastery and one of the major holy shrines in China today. Its reputation and importance have grown with the reputation and importance of Hangzhou. In 960, the last king of the Five Dynasties — the King of Wuyue ਈ䍞೑ — spent money to renovate it and make it a huge establishment of 3,000 monks and the important centre for the Tiantai ໽ৄ Sect of East Asian Buddhism. It was said that the great Manchu ruler, Emperor Kangxi ᒋ❭ (reigning 1661–1722) visited the monastery and wanted to change its name into ‘Yunlin chansi ѥᵫ⽙ᇎ/ the Chan Monastery of Cloud-Forest’. But the power of the symbol of the ‘gridhra/sacred eagle’ was too great to allow the revision of the powerful emperor. Suzhou’s success story was also not unrelated with a great Buddhist temple named ‘Hanshansi ᆦቅᇎ’ (literally, ‘temple of the cold hill’) named after a famous Buddhist monk of the Tang Dynasty, Hanshan ᆦቅ who brought reputation to this holy shrine initially built during the reign of the great Chinese Buddhist ruler, Emperor Wu of Liang ṕ℺Ᏹ (reigning 502–549). Like the Lingyinsi monastery, this Hanshan Monastery also had its reputation and importance grown with the reputation and importance of Suzhou. In Arthasastra China was ‘Cinabhumi/Land of the Silkworm’ as I have discussed in the early part of this chapter. Now, the creation of Suzhou and Hangzhou with the input of Buddhism has converted China into a ‘Padmabhumi/ Lotus land’.

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China Shone upon by the ‘Bright Moon ᯢᯢ᳜᳜’ of Buddhadharma Buddhism is truly a movement, both spiritually and physically. A true Buddhist is always on the move, like a traveller in dark night with his/her path shone upon by ‘the brilliance of the bright moon’ which is Buddhadharma, as described by Xuanzang when he invented the Chinese name ‘Yindu ॄᑺ’ for India. Here is what he wrote (my translation):

About the name of Heavenly India ໽ノ, there are some controversies. In the past, it was called Shen/Juan Du 䑿↦, or Xiandou 䋸䈚. In correct pronunciation it should be called Yindu ॄᑺ. Indians name their local states as different countries. I complement it with the general name which is all inclusive of the diversities. The name Indu is what we call the moon in our Tang Dynasty. They have various names for the moon, this is just one of them. It symbolizes endless transmigrations of all beings. The world is an eternal dark night without dawn. It is like the sun having gone on hiding, and people living on candle lights. Though the stars are twinkling, nothing can match the brilliance of the bright moon. All this is because the land features a succession of sages and prophets who guide the common people and things like the moonshine. Therefore we name the land Indu. In this Indu there are caste distinctions. The Brahmans are specially pure and noble, its title derives from an elegant name [Brahma], and the tradition has nothing to do with the boundaries of classics. The general name [for India] is Brahman Country. 57

Metaphorically speaking, Buddhism, the one time dominant religion of India, has moved to China and settled down there. Otherwise, we shall not be able to explain the phenomenon that it is the Chinese language (not Sanskrit or any Indian language) that is the most comprehensive repository of Buddhist scriptures and historiography — modern scholars who do not know the Chinese language cannot become Buddhist experts in academic circles. Li Bai’s most famous poem, ‘Jing ye si 䴭໰ᗱ’ (Reflections on a Quiet Night), has been a household name in the Chinese-knowing world

57 Quoting from Section 1 of fascicle 2 of Xuanzang’s Accounts on Western Regions.

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(including Japan and Korea). Hundreds of millions of people have read, recited and liked it, yet its true meaning is more than what the soundbytes have conveyed. I give my translation below with my analysis:

The bright moon shines by my bed, Do I see frost on the ﬂ oor? Gaze the moon I raise my head, Missing home, my head low. (ᑞࠡᯢ᳜ܝ, ⭥ᰃഄϞ䳰; В༈ᳯᯢ᳜, Ԣ༈ᗱᬙе)

I always wonder how these 20 visual-cum-sound syllables so ordinary and simple (in addition, with repetitions, violating the rules of good poetry) have been, for more than a thousand years, the most liked and endeared masterpiece in Chinese, Japanese and Korean civilizations — virtually the most read, remembered, chanted and admired literary composition in East Asia. If we analyze, in this poem, ‘mingyue ᯢ᳜/the bright moon’ is repeated, and occupies one-fifth of the total space. Another repetition is the syllable ‘tou ༈/head’ which echoes with the character ‘si ᗱ’ (mental exercise including feeling, emotion, and so on) in the text and the title. Other substantial syllables are ‘chuang ᑞ/bed’, ‘di ഄ/land/floor’, ‘wang ᳯ/look’ and ‘guxiang ᬙе/home/homeland’. These syllables construct in a simple and natural way but create a magic effect. I have personal experience of it in my 85 years of life. Whenever I travelled alone and woke up at night my feeling was always seized by this poem. The poem is so powerfully resonating with a Chinese-thinking traveller. I think, we must focus on the imagery of ‘mingyue ᯢ᳜/the bright moon’ to discover the source of the magic force. Earlier, I discussed why Xuanzang gave India the Chinese name ‘Yindu ॄᑺ’ which was the transliteration of the Sanskrit ‘indu/moon’. Xuanzang who knew India so well also knew the Indian penchant for the moon (as so many people were named after it — like ‘Chanda’, ‘Chandra’, ‘Chandrika’, ‘Indu’). In the above quote, Xuanzang observed: ‘Though the stars are twinkling, nothing can match the brilliance of the bright moon.’ This was Xuanzang’s effort to liken Buddhadharma to the ‘bright moon’ (in his words: ‘ᳫ᳜Пᯢ’). Now, I go a step further to identify Xuanzang as the inventor of the imagery of ‘mingyue ᯢ᳜/bright moon’

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in Chinese literature — the favourite of the poets of Tang and Song times — likening China to a ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/world’ under the guidance of Buddhadharma. With this Xuanzang invention in view, we go back to Li Bai’s masterpiece.

The bright moon shines by my bed, Do I see frost on the ﬂ oor? Gaze the moon I raise my head, Missing home, my head low.

The first scenario emerges from reading the poem is a dynamic world with day and night rotating in an active life — daytime with ceaseless activities, night time lying in bed for retrospection. Life is full of ups and downs, happiness and sorrow, success and failure, hope and frustration. The second scenario focusses on the ‘mingyue guang ᯢ᳜ܝ/bright moonshine’ which interacts with the reader’s complex feelings and sentiments mingling with life’s experience. Though kids in China can recite the poem, they only respond to its lyrics, not its philosophy. Only those who have a wealth of life’s experience can enter the poet’s heart. Li Bai leads these readers through the line ‘Do I see frost on the floor?’ (⭥ᰃഄϞ䳰) to reflect what the ‘mingyue ᯢ᳜/bright moon/Buddhadharma/Truth’ can mean to them — is life blessed or covered by the ‘shuang 䳰/frost’ of strife and hardship? The third scenario emerges especially from the traveller (one constantly on the move) the three-in-one (the world, family, and oneself) reality of an individual’s place that the ‘mingyue ᯢ᳜/bright moon/Buddhadharma/Truth’ is an unbroken link and attachment between him/her and ‘guxiang ᬙе/home place’. There can be greater insight into this great poem, but these three scenarios are the fruits of my experiences of life. I suggest that we should link Li Bai’s great poem on ‘mingyue ᯢ᳜/ bright moon/Buddhadharma/Truth’ together with the masterpiece of Su Shi 㢣䕐, i.e., ‘shuidiao getou ∈䇗℠༈’ (song of water) which I translate selectively below:

How often do we enjoy the bright moon? I raise my goblet to ask Heaven.

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What year and month is this evening In the astral palace at this moment? …… Separation and reunion, fret and joy, Beyond men’s choice is life’s rhythm. Sunny days sometimes, others cloudy, Face of the moon, then round, then broken. Wish you and I long life Always share the moon bright A thousand miles apart. (ᯢ᳜޴ᯊ᳝, ᡞ䜦䯂䴦໽, ϡⶹ໽Ϟᅿ䯭, Ҟ໩ᰃԩᑈ˛ĂҎ᳝ᚆ⃶ ⾏ড়, ᳜᳝䰈᱈೚㔎, ℸџস䲒ܼǄԚᜓҎ䭓Й, ग䞠݅၉࿳Ǆ)

We know that Su Shi’s poem was addressing his brother, Su Che 㢣䕭 (1039–1112), an equally renowned scholar-writer like Su Shi. Clearly, these two masterpieces are identical discourses on Buddhadharma-guided Chinese ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/world’ — a world permeated with family affections, vividly reflecting the ideal of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam/the whole world is one single family’. We now discover that Li Bai and Su Shi as well as innumerable Chinese poets were sizing up the Buddhadharma-guided Chinese ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/ world’. In this world, an individual moves within the ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/world’ under the guidance of some spiritual truth and tied with the sentiments of ‘jia ᆊ/family’. I see that the poets’ inspiration from ‘mingyue ᯢ᳜/bright moon/Buddhadharma/Truth’ echoed with a similar Chinese worldview innate in the Chinese civilization. This can be seen from the writings of Laozi 㗕ᄤ whose spiritual influence on Chinese minds is matching that of Confucius or Mencius.

Holistic Chinese Worldview — The Revelation from ‘Laozi 㗕㗕ᄤᄤ’ There is a vein in Chinese history that follows the diktat of ‘zhengtong ℷ㒳’ (literally, ‘the correct tradition’) which often prioritized a particular stream of culture at the expenses of others. There is a predominant influence of Confucian teachings which might have come at the cost of other

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pre-Qin philosophers. More specifically, I think we might be able to read more of Laozi’s 㗕ᄤ quotations had there not been the prioritization of the Confucian teachings. However, whatever precious little we are provided, we can see the holistic worldview of ancient Chinese scholars reflected from the classic Laozi.58 In Section 7 of Laozi 㗕ᄤ, there is the observation of ‘tianchang dijiu ໽䭓ഄЙ/Heaven and Earth are eternal’, and the explanation of the ‘bu zisheng ϡ㞾⫳/not for itself’ phenomenon of the universe that has made it eternal. In Section 16, there is the observation of ‘wang nai tian ⥟З໽/ wang is Heaven’, ‘tian nai dao ໽З䘧/Heaven is Tao’, ‘ dao nai jiu 䘧ЗЙ/ Tao is eternal’. In Section 23, there is an observation of ‘How can humans be permanent when even Heaven and Earth cannot be so. For people who are in search of Tao: The Tao-seekers will try to identify with Tao, and the De-seekers will try to identify with De’ (໽ഄᇮϡ㛑Й, 㗠މѢҎТ˛ʽᬙҢ џѢ䘧㗙, 䘧㗙ৠѢ䘧, ᖋ㗙ৠѢᖋ). In Section 25, there is an observation of ‘Humans are subject to the laws of Earth, Earth is subject to the laws of Heaven, Heaven is subject to the laws of Nature.’ (Ҏ⊩ഄ, ഄ⊩໽, ໽⊩䘧, 䘧⊩㞾✊). There are two separate quotes which can well be read together to gain an insight into the mind of the ancient philosopher. In Section 42 of Laozi 㗕ᄤ, there is an observation of ‘Tao creates One [that is the universe]; One creates Two [that is yin and yang]; Two creates Three [that is Heaven, Earth and Humans]; Three creates all beings of the universe.’ (䘧⫳ϔ, ϔ⫳Ѡ, Ѡ⫳ϝ, ϝ⫳ϛ⠽) In the first three visuals ‘dao sheng yi 䘧⫳ϔ’ Laozi talked about Tao as if it is the beginning mother (the three visuals ‘䘧⫳ϔ’ literally meaning ‘Tao gives birth to One’). There is the visual ‘sheng⫳/give birth to’ being repeated three times charting out four consecutive processes of creation. The last two visuals of the quote ‘wanwu ϛ⠽/everything of the universe’ mark the end-result of the processes. This quote helps us to give the true interpretation of another quote in Section 52 which observes: ‘All under Heaven there is a beginning that is

58 ‘ Laozi 㗕ᄤÿ is the title of an ancient philosophical text which is the collection of fragmented quotations of an ancient teacher with the same name. It is also known as ‘Taode jing 䘧ᖋ㒣’ (internationally, ‘Tao The King’ etc.) meaning a ‘classic on Tao/dao and De’.

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the mother of the universe. When we grasp the mother we know the children [everything of the universe]. When we know the children [everything of the universe] we stick to the mother [Tao].’ (໽ϟ᳝ྟ, ҹЎ໽ϟ↡Ǆ᮶ᕫ ݊↡, ҹⶹ݊ᄤ˗᮶ⶹ݊ᄤ, ໡ᅜ݊↡) The readers should not think I am hinting that Laozi was inspired by Buddhadharma, which would be ridiculous. Laozi and the Buddha were contemporaries. Not only that. When Buddhadharma made its initial appearance in China, there was a rumour being floated either by the Taoists or by the Buddhists that the Buddha was the reincarnation of Laozi. 59 I firmly believe that with the effect of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ even without the influence of Buddhadharma Chinese civilization could cherish the spirit of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’. Returning to the fragmented quotations of Laozi, we find evidence of a profound holistic understanding of the universe. In the text of Laozi 㗕ᄤ, we find mention of ‘guo ೑/state’, ‘xiang е/village’, ‘jia ᆊ/family’, and ‘shen 䑿/ person’ similar to the Confucian classic Daxue ໻ᄺ (Great Learning). He added one more element of ‘xiang е/village’. We can say for certain that Laozi and many of the ancient Chinese philosophers had a very holistic perspective of the three-in-one ‘ᆊ(family)-೑(state)-໽ϟ(world)’ Chinese universe in which ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/world’ is most omnipotent, permanent and stable. In fact, this ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/world’ is the manifestation of the spirit of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ which is the quintessence of Chinese civilization. This brings our discourse to the most important Chinese ideal of ‘tianxia datong ໽ϟ໻ৠ/grand harmony all under Heaven’ which is the Chinese echo of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’. In the classic of Liji ⼐䆄 (Book of Rites) there is the famous passage generally called ‘datongpian ໻ৠ㆛’ (Essay on Grand Harmony) which is one of the hallmarks of Chinese civilization. The ‘Essay’ depicts the utopia of the ancients which is a society governed by the most virtuous and capable people. Everyone is well provided, says the Essay. The old pass away peacefully, the adults are employed, the young are well nourished, and the widowers, widows,

59 There was this mystic text entitled ‘Laozi hua hu jing 㗕ᄤ࣪㚵㒣’ (the classical text of Laozi’s reincarnation in a foreign land) started circulating after the downfall of Han Dynasty the intention of which was to claim the Chinese origin of Buddhadharma than rejecting it.

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orphans, and disabled are taken care of. There is no unrest, robbery, theft, machination, and people do not need to close their doors when they sleep at night. This is the picture of the Chinese utopia of ‘daton/Grand Harmony’. To the Indian mindset, here is something of a Ramarajya depicted very precisely, practically, and earthily — totally devoid of religious thinking and pious vision. The most important concept in this Essay is ‘tianxia weigong ໽ϟЎ݀’ — a famous phrase hard to translate — which was the favourite motto of Dr. Sun Yat-sen ᄭЁቅ (1866–1925). The term ‘tianxia ໽ϟ’, as defined by the erstwhile great American doyen of Chinese studies, John King Fairbank, means ‘to embrace the whole world including everything outside of China; but in common usage it was taken to designate the Chinese empire, which in any case included most of the known world’.60 The entire phrase of ‘tianxia weigong ໽ϟЎ݀’ conveys the sense that in this world there is no selfishness, and everything is for the public good. The essence of this ‘tianxia weigong/all for the public good’ spirit is further amplified into ‘xuan xian yu neng 䗝䋸Ϣ㛑’ (elect the sagacious person -and empower the capable person) and ‘jiang xin xiu mu 䆆ֵׂⴺ’ (advo cate faith and cultivate harmony). The Essay further describes that in the utopian society people not only love their own parents and children, but also others’ parents and children. More extraordinarily, the Essay contains two descriptions: (a) ‘huo wuqi qiyudiye, bubi cangyuji 䋻ᙊ݊ᓗѢഄг, ϡᖙ㮣ѢᏅ’ (It is a pity that money litters on the ground, yet people do not feel like to keep it as their own), and (b) ‘li wuqi bu chuyushenye, bubi weiji ࡯ᙊ݊ϡߎѢ䑿г, ϡᖙЎᏅ’ (It is a pity that more energy does not come out from the bodies, yet people do not feel like to work for their own good). We have now discovered the soul of ‘Himalaya Sphere’, i.e., ‘tianxia datong ໽ϟ໻ৠ/grand harmony all under Heaven’ as expressed in Chinese, and ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ as expressed in Sanskrit. All the quotes above, from Laozi and the Liji text to the poems of Li Bai and Su Shi, are various manifestations of this soul of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. I shall extend this discussion to highlight another ‘Himalaya Sphere’ phenomenon.

60 John King Fairbank (ed), The Chinese World Order: Traditional China’s Foreign Relations, Cambridge: Harvard University, 1968, p. 2.

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Culture of ‘Wuhu Sihai ѨѨ␪ಯ⍋␪ಯ⍋’ — The Soul of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Yet, the ideas and ideals of Laozi and the Liji text have not diluted the importance of the immortal poems of Li Bai and Su Shi. It is safe to conclude that the Chinese ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/world’, as it were, was reinvented during the Tang and Song dynasties with the blessing of the Indian spirit of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam/the whole world is one single family’. It is a kind of spiritual universalism which can best be symbolized by the four syllables of ‘wuhu sihai Ѩ␪ಯ⍋’ (literally, ‘camaraderie among people from five lakes and four seas’) in Chinese popular idiom. This phrase was the invention of Li Bai who was the descendant from a non-Chinese ancestry, and was born outside the territory of China. But he was a hundred percent Chinese, spent his life in China, and travelled extensively all over the country. Universal sentiments reverberated in Li Bai’s poetry. ‘O, Yellow River descends from Heaven,/Towards Eastern Sea it runs;/Through leagues of ten thousand,/All gushing into my bosom.’ (咘⊇㨑໽䍄ϰ⍋, ϛ䞠ݭܹ 㛌ᗔ䯈)61 ‘What is the universe,/Heaven and Earth?/It is but one guesthouse./Millennia of mundane affair,/An eternal lament we share.’ (໽ഄϔ䗚ᮙ, ৠᚆϛসᇬ).62 It is true that in China, there has been the family-clan ‘in-group’ within which affection, loyalty, morality and trust are abound, whereas the same cannot be said about the ‘out-group’. Even today, when there is so much talk about the deterioration of public morality and trust in China, people still see exemplary moral standard within the ‘in-group’ untainted by the general moral decline. There is, therefore, a theory among Chinese observ- ers that traditionally, the Chinese social behaviour has been fine-tuned to the family-clan affinity while the traditional Chinese lifestyle is not accli- matized to the new environment of cosmopolitanism of globalization of our times. Erstwhile Chinese anthropologist authority, Fei Xiaotong 䌍ᄱ䗮 (1910–2005), has invented the term of ‘shuren shehui ❳Ҏ⼒Ӯ’ (society of acquaintance), and others take the cue from him to believe that the subterranean rule of playing the ‘society of acquaintance’ dominates the

61 Li Bai ᴢⱑ, Zeng Peishisi 䌴㻈कಯ (poem for Mr. Pei, the 14th among his brothers). 62 Li Bai ᴢⱑ, Ni gu ᢳস (poem imitating old style).

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Chinese social order today. Such a scenario creates an incorrect impression that there was a prominent inbred Chinese civilization. The true picture is that the spirit of cosmopolitanism — or ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ — has never been wanting in China in three millennia. ,There is a famous Confucian saying that ‘sihaizhinei jie xiongdi ye ಯ⍋Пݙ ⱚܘᓳг’ (All within the four seas are just brothers).63 Confucius had not had any sea in his mind when he talked of ‘sihaizhinei ಯ⍋Пݙ/within ’the four seas’. His description of ‘sihaizhinei ಯ⍋Пݙ/within four seas -simplified as ‘hainei ⍋ݙ’) is coterminous with ‘tianxia ໽ϟ’. For millen) nia, the Chinese have conceived themselves as living in a world of ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/all-under-Heaven’ or ‘hainei ⍋ݙ/within four seas’ sans state boundaries. Conficius meant ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ by observing ‘All within the four seas are just brothers’. The most famous line with reference to ‘hainei ⍋ݙ/within four seas’ is found in the poem by a Tang poet, Wang Bo ⥟ࢗ (649/650–675/676), entitled ‘Du shaofu zhiren Shuzhou ᴰᇥᑰПӏ㳔Ꮂ’ (For Official Du who is going to take up the assignment of Prefecture of Shu), (My translation):

Bosom friends plenty Within the four seas, My next door neighbours Are those who live On the other end — Under Heaven. (⍋ݙᄬⶹᏅ, ໽⎃㢹↨䚏)

China has always been a country with simultaneous vertical and horizontal mobility. People have always been moving from place to place in large numbers across great distances. The Chinese poetry is largely a travelogue, capturing various local scenes through the length and breadth of the vast country. If China were just a ‘shuren shehui ❳Ҏ⼒Ӯ/society of acquaintance’ this would not have happened. Talking of China’s travelling poetry, there has been an immortal piece by Wang Wei ⥟㓈, the Chindian ‘Wang Vimalakirti’ we have talked about earlier, entitled

63 Lunyu 䆎䇁 (Analects), Section on Yan Yuan (买⏞).

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‘Weicheng qu ␁ජ᳆’ (Song of the Town of Wei) which was more popularly known as the ‘Yangguan qu 䰇݇᳆’ (Song of the Gate of Yang). The first half of the four-line poem depicts the pretty view of the willows in front of a hotel after a shower. The second half quotes the conversation of two friends before parting which reads (my translation):

Come, my dear, Another toast to cheer Before we say farewell here, Once you go beyond the Gate of Yang You won’t ﬁ nd any friend around. (ࡱ৯᳈ሑϔᵃ䜦, 㽓ߎ䰇݇᮴ᬙҎ)

The poem was rendered into a song which was almost always sung for more than a millennium at tearful parting gatherings. There were later poets expressing their horror of hearing the ‘Song of the Gate of Yang’ as being too raw an emotion to bear. However, scholar-courtier Chen Gangzhong 䰜߮Ё (who lived in the 12th century) composed a famous piece title ‘Yangguan ci 䰇݇䆡’ (Song of the Gate of Yang) to cheer up the parting gatherings which I translate below:

Don’t you feel sad at the willows So refreshing from the guesthouse, Spring sceneries everywhere you go – East, West, North, South. Brothers plenty within the four seas That’s what everybody sees, How can he not be Your acquaintance When you meet him any place?! (ᅶ㟡ӥᚆ᷇㡆ᮄ, ϰ㽓फ࣫ϔ㠀᯹˗㢹ⶹಯ⍋ⱚܘᓳ, ԩ໘Ⳍ䗶䴲 ᬙҎǄ)

We notice that this poem quotes the Confucian adage of ‘All within the four seas are just brothers’ to neutralize the parting sorrow created by Wang Wei’s masterpiece. However, these two masterpieces, especially Chen Gangzhong’s, did reflect the Chinese ethos to evolve from the confines of ‘shuren shehui/society of acquaintance’ to embrace cosmopolitanism/

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‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’. The last line of the original poem ‘hechu xiang- feng fei guren ԩ໘Ⳍ䗶䴲ᬙҎ’ (how can he not be your acquaintance when you meet him any place’) is a profound statement that suggests all strangers one meets in the open society are as good as acquaintances — a spirit that goes beyond the cosmopolitanism of the ‘society of strangers’ of our times. It is this spirit that has fortified solidarity within China and laid the foundation for the culture of ‘wuhu sihai Ѩ␪ಯ⍋’. The term ‘wuhu sihai Ѩ␪ಯ⍋’ (literally ‘five lakes and four seas’) was famously trumpeted by Chairman Mao Zedong when he said in 1944 at the Yan’an ᓊᅝ caves that ‘We have come from five lakes and four seas, and are now marching together for a common revolutionary goal.’ (៥Ӏ䛑ᰃᴹ㞾 Ѩ␪ಯ⍋, ЎњϔϾ݅ৠⱘ䴽ੑⳂᷛ, 䍄ࠄϔ䍋ᴹњ).64 Mao did not invent this perception, but only reiterated the camaraderie among the popular organizations — especially the peasants’ rebellious armies. As early as during the third century CE when the Three Kingdoms were contesting for supremacy, the founding fathers of the Shu 㳔 state were three men from different places and backgrounds forming a tight brotherhood. The three men were a bunch of folks from the lower layers of society: an unem- ployed low-ranking official, Liu Bei ߬໛ (161–223), a fugitive law-offender, Guan Yu ݇㖑 (160/162–219), and a butcher, Zhang Fei ᓴ亲 (?-221) who became what is known in China as ‘jiebai xiongdi 㒧ᢰܘᓳ’ (sworn god- brothers). Their story shines in Chinese social history as ‘taoyuan sanjieyi ḗುϝ㒧Н’ (a trio of sworn righteous brotherhood at the peach garden) resulting in exemplary mutual trust and loyalty for the common cause which would eclipse even the best behaviour of real brothers. The sworn righteous brotherhood transformed a society of strangers into a society of brethrens, and was the source of strength of secret societies and peasant rebellions in Chinese history that made Chinese civilization long endure. In this way, the spirit of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ has been the forte of China. The unique Chinese spirit of ‘wuhu sihai/five lakes and four seas’ thrived in the time of political anarchy and social chaos and propped up heroes who could achieve earth-shaking feats. Mao Zedong was such a

64 In his essay ‘Wei renmin fuwu ЎҎ⇥᳡ࡵ’ (Serving the people) which was one of the three Mao essays to be recited daily by the Red Guards and the masses during the Cultural Revolution.

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personality, hence his ardent advocacy for such a spirit. Before him, there was the hero and founder of the Taiping Rebellion/Revolution, Hong Xiuquan ⋾⾔ܼ (1813–1864). In a poem entitled ‘Song of the Sword ࠥ䆫’ written in 1843, Hong expressed such sentiments (my translation):

I make mountains and rivers a good land With the three-foot sword in my hand. The four seas that’s where our home be Let us toast for victory and peace. ……… From east, west, south and north To the zenith of Heavenly glory, Dragons rhyme and tigers roar, The new world shines brilliantly. So happy to celebrate solidarity, Our Ramaraj of grand harmony!’ (᠟ᣕϝሎᅮቅ⊇, ಯ⍋Ўᆊ݅佂੠ …….

ϰ㽓फ࣫ᬺⱛᵕ, ᮹᯳᳜䖄༣߃℠Ǆ 㰢ୌ啭৳ܝϪ⬠, ໾ᑇϔ㒳Фབԩ˛ʽ)

In the translation I have used the Indian word ‘Ramarajya/utopia’ because it would be otherwise impossible to convey Hong Xiuquan’s perception of ‘taipingtianguo ໾ᑇ໽೑’ (literally, ‘the celestial kingdom of Grand Equality’) which mixed the Buddhist and Christian idealism.

The Chindia Spirit of ‘Zhen Shan Mei ⳳⳳ୘㕢୘㕢/ Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’ Mao Zedong made a reference to ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢’ in 1957 which I translate: ‘Haven’t people been talking about “zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢” all the times?’ (ҎӀग़ᴹϡᰃ䆆ⳳ୘㕢৫?)65 Yes, the term ‘zhen shan mei

65 Mao Zedong xuanji ↯⋑ϰ䗝䲚 (Selected works of Mao Zedong), Vol. V, Beijing: People’s Press Ҏ⇥ߎ⠜⼒, 1977, p. 416, speech in the All-China Propaganda Conference of the Communist Party of China on March 12, 1957.

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ⳳ୘㕢’ has always been talked about in China for more than a thousand years, but few Chinese, if any, know about its Indian origin. There is zero knowledge in China that this term is the Chinese translation of ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’ daily chanted in Indian prayers, apart from appearing as a part of the logo of the Doordarshan (Indian public broadcaster) television. Rabindranath Tagore expressed the aim of his school-university as standing for the noble goal of ‘Shantam, Sivam, Advaitam’. Tagore quoted this from the Upanishads which is the same concept of ‘Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’. Here is the ancient Indian concept of trinity which is the combination of three supreme qualities of God Shiva. Even without any elaborate research, I can safely say that the Chinese translation of ‘Shantam-Sivam-Advaitam/Satyam-Shivam-Sundaram’ had already arrived during the 6th century. There was a Buddhist text entitled ‘Fahua xuanyi ⊩ढ⥘Н/Mystic meanings of the Lotus Sutra’ dictated by the eminent monk of the Sui Dynasty, Reverend Zhiyi ᱎ丫 (538–597), which contains a term of ‘zhen shan miaose ⳳ୘཭㡆’. Here, we have four visual symbols to match the three of ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢’ with only the variation of the last part replacing ‘mei 㕢’ by ‘miaose ཭㡆’. We know that the latter (‘miaose ཭㡆’) is the description of the countenance of the Bodhisattva. This is it! As the phrase of ‘Shantam-Sivam-Advaitam/ Satyam-Shivam-Sundaram’ is the description of the God-head in Indian civilization, it has created the echo of ‘zhen shan miaose ⳳ୘཭㡆’ in Chinese Buddhism to describe the countenance of the Bodhisattva. The Chinese phrase ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢’ is just a subsequently edited version of ‘zhen shan miaose ⳳ୘཭㡆’. We now have the three golden Chinese words to transpose the three golden Sanskrit words of ‘Shantam- Sivam-Advaitam/Satyam-Shivam-Sundaram’. That the transposition has been an elaborate process is beyond doubt. For example, ‘Satya’ was translated into Chinese as ‘di 䇯’ which later took the form of ‘zhendi ⳳ䇯’ and now widely used to mean ‘truth’. The Chinese sensitivity to the concept of ‘ⳳ’ was fired up by the transposition of ‘Satya’ and also of ‘Tathatā/Bhūtatathatā’ which was translated into ‘zhenru ⳳབ’ (literally, ‘as it is true’). From this sensitivity there developed the Chinese ethos of ‘qu wei cun zhen এӾᄬⳳ’ (peel off falsehood to -㙛 (384–414), disڻ preserve truth). Famous Buddhist scholar, Sengzhao cussed, in his signature essay ‘Zhao lun 㙛䆎/Discourse of Sengzhao’, the

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concept of ‘zhendi ⳳ䇯/truth’ and that of ‘shengxin ೷ᖗ/sacred heart’66 which is obviously a discussion on the combination of ‘satya’ and ‘shiva’. Li Baiyao ᴢⱒ㥃 (565–648), famous courtier-scholar of Tang Emperor Taizong’s reign, used ‘she su gui zhen 㟡֫ᔦⳳ/departing from convention and returning to truth’ and ‘de run ciyun ᖋ⍺᜜ѥ/virtue being moistened by the cloud of Maiterya’ to describe the feeling of a Buddhist disci- ple67 which echoed Sengzhao’s synthesis of ‘zhendi ⳳ䇯/Satya’ and ‘shengxin/Shiva’. The ‘siva’ element in ‘Shantam-Sivam-Advaitam/Satyam-Shivam- Sundaram’ transformed into the Chinese symbol of ‘shan ୘’ (goodness) which translates the Sanskrit word ‘kusala’. With a little oversimplification, Buddhism can be described as a choice for ‘kusala’ and abandonment of its opposite ‘akusala’ in the human society where the two elements are deeply entangled. Chinese culture which had already stood on the side of Mencius’ ‘xing shan ᗻ୘/Human nature is goodness’ has embraced this Buddhist idea of embracing ‘shan ୘/kusala/goodness’ and rejecting ‘e ᙊ/ akusala/evil’. For instance, the Buddhist belief in ‘karma/retribution’ yielded the popular Chinese saying:

Goodness is rewarded with good consequence, Evil deeds beget evil retribution. Don’t you think you can be an exception, Karma will come in proper time, if not at present. (୘᳝୘᡹, ᙊ᳝ᙊ᡹˗ϡᰃϡ᡹, ᮹ᄤ᳾ࠄǄ)

This sensitivity of the good–evil dichotomy has been reinforced by another dichotomy between ‘dao 䘧/dharma/truth’ and ‘mo 儨/mara/devil’. In Indian civilization, ‘maravijaya’ (goodness overcomes evil) has been an essential ethos. Chinese culture enthusiastically reverberated this with the repeated reprecation of the painting of ‘xiangmo tu 䰡儨೒’ (painting of maravijiya) in Chinese Buddhist frescoes, especially at the Mogao Grotoes 㥿催び of Dunhuang ᬺ✠. In popular Chinese saying, we have ‘When Mara rises by one foot, Dharma rises by ten (儨催ϔሎ, 䘧催ϔϜ) and its opposite ‘When Dharma rises by one foot, Mara rises by ten’ (䘧催ϔሎ, 儨催ϔϜ).

66 ⷇ዏ Shi Jun et al., op cit, pp. 145–149. 67 Quan Tang wen, Vol. II, p. 1447.

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Incidentally, this visual symbol of ‘mo 儨’ was a loan word created through the elaborate translation process. The earliest Chinese equivalent for the Sanskrit ‘mara/devil’ was its transliteration ‘moluo ᨽ㔫’ which gradually were written as ‘moluo 儨㔫’, replacing the symbol of ‘mo ᨽ’ by its homonym ‘mo 儨’ (which has the component of ‘gui 儐/ghost/evil spirit’ in its visual form — a special invention for the concept of ‘mara/devil’. Incidentally, when he was only the ‘Decorated General and Duke of Qin’ (Ϟ᷅೑⾺⥟), Tang Emperor Taizong wrote a letter to the Lord Abbot of the famous Shaolin Monastery ᇥᵫᇎ to thank them for their help during the armed uprising. In that letter, the chaotic situation of the country is described as ‘qunmo jingqi 㕸儨ゲ䍋’ (devils rose in large numbers vying with each other).68 We cannot miss the symbolic significance of this reference. It signifies that the Indian legendary scenario of ‘maravijaya’ (goodness overcomes evil) had landed on the stage of power contest in China with the winning side assuming the moral position of ‘dharma/truth’ and the opposition being denounced as ‘mo 儨/devil’. All pre-Buddhist Chinese teachings paled before the profound discourse of spiritualism disseminated by Buddhism in China. In the words of Zong Bing ᅫ⚇ (375–443), ‘the gentlemen of China have been conversant in civility but unenlightened in knowing human heart.’69 He charac- terized the Buddhist discourse as a ‘construction of feeling and enlightenment’ (ᚙ䆚Пᵘ). In this construction, the ‘methodology of transformation and separation’ (বᯧ⾏ᬷП⊩) could achieve an understanding of illusion and reality, of the ‘moon image in water’ (∈᳜)70 and so on. He said that in human life, a desire in the heart kindled a flame, and the desire continued to develop into feeling and set up a fire. But, the process of the ‘construction of feeling and enlightenment’ prevented the fire by extinguishing the flame, thus attaining spiritualism and enlightenment. He commented that the eminent disciple of Confucius, Yan Hui 买ಲ (521–481 BCE), was a virtuous man. Yet, Yan Hui could not have such a

68 Quan Tang Wen, Vol. I, p. 115. 69 ⷇ዏ Shi Jun et al., op cit, p. 228. 70 This “∈᳜” (image-of-moon-in-water) Chinese Buddhist idiom becomes a form of reincarnation of 㾖䷇ Guanyin/Avalokitesvara Bodhisattva. As Huisi ᜻ᗱ (515–577) explained, Buddhadharma, like the moon, had only one image hanging in the sky, but millions of images in every river, pond, even basin.

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construction hence his virtue was hollow. That was why the longer Yan Hui was gone the further were people devious from virtuous behaviour.71 We see, in Zong Bing’s observation, a powerful argument of superiority of Buddhist spiritualism over Confucian teachings. The Song Buddhist monk-painter Chan Master Daoji 䘧⌢⽙Ꮬ (1150–1209) is generally regarded as the personification of the ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢/Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’ maxim. He observed: ‘The person who cultivates dharma should dispense with his/her desire, tran- quilize his/her heart, pacify his/her thought, rectify evil and follow goodness’.72 Like his predecessors, he always likened the Buddhist faith to ‘ruzhen ܹⳳ/entry into satya’, using ‘shan ୘/goodness’ to connote ‘Shiva’. He was also a painter and left behind important theories on landscape painting, conceiving it as ‘the great dharma of universal transformation’ (໽ϟব䗮П໻⊩) and ‘the quintessence of the structures of mountains and rivers’ (ቅᎱᔶ࢓П㊒㣅) .73 Thus, we see the synthesis of ‘mei 㕢/Sundar’ in his thinking as well. By imbedding the spirit of Chan ⽙ in the Chinese landscape painting, Daoji made it a unique genre of Chinese art. The ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢/Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’ spirit is not the aggregate of three separate elements, but an integral force with three manifestations. The Chinese enthusiasm in perfecting this spiritual force of ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢/Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’ is proved by the creation of the feminine ‘Guanyin 㾖䷇/Avalokitesvara/Goddess of Mercy’ image. This perfect ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢/Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’ image would not have been there if the Bodhisattva had maintained the fierce-looking male appearance. This, I think, is the best explanation of the sex metamorphosis of this deity — a puzzling academic topic evoking some interest, but no proper study on it has been conducted. I am not trying to provide any satisfactory answer to the question: why did the male Indian Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara ultimately transform

71 ⷇ዏ Shi Jun et al., op cit, p. 233. 72 Quoting from 䪅ฬ␪䱤⌢乴⽙Ꮬ䇁ᔩ Qiantanghu yin Jidian chanshi yulu (Quotations from Chan Master Daoji/Jidian who was a recluse of the Qiantang Lake). 73 Ѣᅝ╰ Yu Anlan, ⬏䆎ϯߞ Hua lun congkan (A collection of painting theories), 1937, reprint 1958, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, p. 147.

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himself into the universal Goddess of Mercy of East Asia. Of course, it was not the deity who transformed himself, it was the Chinese civilization which effected this transformation. I think we must formulate the issue in proper historical perspective. To both Indian and Chinese civilizations, the concept of ‘Guanyin 㾖䷇/Avalokitesvara/Goddess of Mercy’ is at the supernatural level, not the human level. In Indian iconography, a deity can have the manifestation of one or two or alternate genders while Chinese civilization has not developed any good theory of iconography — just adapt the Indian legendary traditions intermixing with some Chinese fairy tales. The explanation of Chinese Buddhist experts is thus: Avalokitesvara is the saviour of humankind whose entire devotion is to rescue the humans from disaster and distress. As women have the maximum distress, it is better for the Bodhisattva to appear as a woman so that the rescue operation would be smoother. In this way, Avalokitesvara has only undergone a transfiguration in China that involves changes in gender identifications — and we should highlight more on the changes in appearance than the transformation of sex. Moreover, this transfiguration of Avalokitesvara in China was a very long process, and the final appearance of a beautiful female figure of ‘Guanyin 㾖䷇/Avalokitesvara/Goddess of Mercy’ arrived only during the Yuan/Mongol Dynasty (1206–1368) — this conclusion is based on my study of the evolution of the images of ‘Guanyin 㾖䷇’ in the wall paintings of the Mogao Grottoes 㥿催び at Dunhuang ᬺ✠, and the Yulin ὚ ᵫび Grottoes at Guazhou ⪰Ꮂ County Gansu ⫬㙗 Province. In the early presentations of ‘Guanyin 㾖䷇’, say, in the caves of the period of 5th–8th centuries, the Bodhisattva was essentially a male figure (often with mous- tache), but a trend of feminization of the deity’s figure can also be dis- cerned. The end result of this feminization process is the appearances of the beautiful goddess called ‘shuiyue guanyin ∈᳜㾖䷇’ painted on the walls of the Mogao 㥿催 and the Yulin ὚ᵫ Grottoes. Ji Xianlin propounded a theory that the creation of the ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ culture (which he thought was not an Indian import, but a Chinese invention) was a powerful source for the development of Chinese poetry. He quoted a poem by Han Ju 䶽偍 (1080–1135) entitled ‘zeng Zhao Boyu 䌴䍉ԃ剐’ (presented to Zhao Boyu) describing mastering the art of poetry as similar to mastering the spirit of ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’. He also

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quoted two 12th century Chinese poets’ (Wu Ke ਈৃ and Gong Xiang 啮Ⳍ) poems with the same title of ‘xue shi shi ᄺ䆫䆫’ (poem on learning to rhyme) in which both equated the task of ‘xue shi ᄺ䆫/learning to rhyme’ to ‘can Chan খ⽙’ (participation in ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ cultivation). According to Ji, the commonality between the pursuits of poetry and ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ lies in the quest for ‘wu ᙳ/enlightenment’. What I understand of Ji’s proposition is that being a great Chinese poet would inevitably create a ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ ambience in his heart and mind just as a great ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ master cultivated the ‘puti xin 㦽ᦤᖗ/ bodhicitta’ spirit. In that kind of ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ ambience, a great Chinese poet could unearth from very common phenomenon of ordinary life something very unique — the manifestation of ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢/ Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’. I want to quote two great Chinese poems to illustrate this point. The first poem is ‘Ti ducheng nanzhuang 乬䛑ජफᑘ’ (Scribbling on the gate of a southern house in capital Chang’an) by Cui hu የᡸ (8th–9th centuries):

Last year this very day I was inside the same gate, Greeting me, there’s a pretty face, Peach ﬂ owers all over the place. Gone away, today, is the pretty face, Her whereabouts I can’t trace. Peach ﬂ owers still all over the place Smiling at me in spring breeze. (এᑈҞ᮹ℸ䮼Ё, Ҏ䴶ḗ㢅Ⳍ᯴㑶; Ҏ䴶ϡⶹԩ໘এ, ḗ㢅ձᮻュ ᯹亢Ǆ)

The poem describes a story in which the young scholar, Cui Hu, missed the pretty woman who had greeted him a year ago from the house he passed by, and the scholar scribbled the poem on the gate to express regret in a cheerful, romantic scenery. The story is ordinary, but the poem is unique. It has created the refreshing expressions of ‘renmian taohua Ҏ䴶 ḗ㢅/pretty face and peach flowers’, and ‘taohua yijiu xiao chunfeng ḗ㢅 ձᮻュ᯹亢/peach flowers always smile at people with spring breeze’ which have been endlessly quoted in Chinese literature.

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This poem is a marvellous construction of only 28 syllables. Without any bombastic word, nor sensational expressions, the poem is like a powerful magnetic field attracting maximum numbers of readers. It distills the noble affection between a man and a woman that is essential to humanity. Anyone who reads it once will not stop reading it again and again and reciting it again and again. The more people read and recite it, the greater they are immersed in the spirit of ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢/Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’. It is a tryst with love and beauty, harmony and delight. It is a spiritual tonic for people who have to live in malice and misery and face life’s anguish and anxiety as well potential travails and dangers. Personally, I have benefited enormously by this poem which I learnt during the school days. Being the first of seven children, I was the fruit of my parents’ love for one another in its highest and richest status. In fact, I was born with the name ‘Aizhiguo ⠅Пᵰ/Fruit of Love’ christened by my father who I hardly saw when I grew up. But, I grew up without a single day’s absence of the feminine love of my mother for ten years. Then, father took mother away to India, and left me and a younger brother alone behind in the war-torn China. However, I had a number of female friends who were a little older and maturer than I, and showered on me their affection and feminine care. China was in chaos and everyone tried to struggle for a personal future. Meeting and parting with the beloved ones was routine. The moment I learned this poem from the school teacher I fell in love with it. My language ability was not enormous, let alone literary appreciation. But, I was charmed by the attraction of the ‘pretty face’ amidst the peach flowers. I felt that this was the true picture of life and the human world. From that time onwards till today, I have always had a sweet feeling when I see a vague ‘pretty face’. It is a feeling of happiness and romance, a feeling of imagination, intuition and inspiration, but not adventure, acquisition and adulteration. I think there must have been tens of millions of similar beneficiaries like me as a reader of this masterpiece. The second poem is another marvellous construction of 28 syllables by Luo Yin 㔫䱤 (833–909) entitled “Ziqian 㞾䘷” (self amusement) which I translate below:

In success I sing my song In adversity my life goes on

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I grow up with regret and sorrow But am always a jolly fellow When there is wire for me today ‘Tis time I enjoy it thorough Tomorrow worry may come my way Let me worry only tomorrow. (ᕫे催℠༅ेӥ,໮ᛕ໮ᘼѺᙴᙴ;Ҟᳱ᳝䜦Ҟᳱ䝝,ᯢ᮹ᛕᴹᯢ ᮹ᛕǄ)

These 28 soundbytes vividly illustrate the spirit of ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ in the Chinese ethos. The ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ spirit reinforces the Chinese will power in going ahead and making a progress amidst handicaps and hard- ships and in encountering setbacks and disasters. I have lost count of how often these 28 syllables had stood by me in my life’s journey, providing enormous moral support in the face of difficulties and challenges. This must have happened to other Chinese as well. I hasten to add that while the poet must have been a sort of alcoholic as a good number of the great Tang poets were, I have never been. Hence, I take the lines ‘When I have wine to drink today/Enjoyment’s pretty thorough’ (Ҟᳱ᳝䜦Ҟᳱ䝝) to mean that: ‘Be happy and enjoy whatever life that Providence has provided for me’. But, this never makes me believe that I am dominated, or doomed, by fate. Interestingly, the poem seems echoing what the Hindu holy book Bhagvadgita (IV, 14) is reiterating: ‘Work do not stain me; nor in me is there a longing for fruits of work’. These 28 magical visual symbols have constructed the ideal living philosophy and worldview for China, and have created a permanent Chinese lifestyle: Work to one’s maximum ability through thick and thin; celebrate success and not frightened by failure; maintain happy mood and go for merry-making; minimize anxiety and anguish and face challenges bravely whenever they come. There is the Chinese Buddhist concept of ‘de run ciyun ᖋ⍺᜜ѥ/virtue being moistened by the cloud of Maiterya’. Today, the Chinese use the term ‘runse ⍺㡆’ (literally, ‘to moisten and to make colourful’) to mean edito- rial efforts for literary improvement of a manuscript. Literature, I think, has an important function of ‘run ⍺/moistening’. In the first place, good literature serves to discover how real human life has been moistened by the spirit of ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢/Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’. On top of it,

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literature, in turn, becomes the endowment of the spirit of ‘zhen shan mei ⳳ୘㕢/Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram’ to moisten real human life. I draw from my own life’s experience to make this observation as the above two Chinese poems (only 56 syllables) did have a great impact on my real life.

VIII. CONCLUSION Readers! I am supposed to write this book to mark the Diamond Jubilee (60th anniversary) of ‘Panchsheel’ (Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence) jointly invented by China and India. But, I have devoted the first chapter discussing the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ and the following paragraphs explain why I did so. Let me first quote what Tagore said to Feng Youlan ރট݄ (1895– 1990)74 (famous modern Chinese philosopher of Peking University) on November 20, 1920 at Hotel Algonquin in New York which was almost unreported. Let me translate a small part of the conversation in what Feng had written and gotten published in a Chinese journal in 1921:

Feng Youlan:

Nowadays, the Chinese people are exuberant in their inquisitiveness for new information. You would be warmly received if you could visit China. The ancient Chinese civilization was very impressive, it is a misﬁ t today. We have launched a new movement wishing to renovate every old thing in China, philosophy, literature, ﬁ ne arts as well as all social institutions, in order that they are adapted to the changing circumstances of the world today…

Tagore:

Adapted to the modern world? Of course that should not be delayed. Let me ﬁ rst tell you why I have come to the United States this time. We can divide our Asian civilization into two streams: the East Asian stream, that is China, India, Japan, and the West Asian stream that is Persia and Arab and so on. Now, I only speak about the East Asian stream. Chinese and

74 He is the internationally known ‘Fung Yu-lan’, author of the famous book: A Short History of Chinese Philosophy, edited by Derk Bodde.

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Indian philosophies are quite different, but they share a commonality greatly. Why is the Western civilization so strong? That is because it shows focus of power. Just go to London and Paris, you would at once have the whole picture of Western civilization in view. Even Harvard University in America makes you feel so. Our countries in the East are like loose sands. We don’t study each other and don’t unite together. Therefore our Eastern civilization declines. My purpose of coming to the U.S.A. is to get donations to build a university so that we can study all the components of Eastern civilization in one place. What need to be preserved and what need to be abolished we have to study and decide with our own eyes. We should not listen to what the Westerners tell us with their confusing inﬂ uence. May be our civilization is wrong, but how can we know if we don’t study it?75

This is a re-translation of Tagore’s words from what Feng had first translated into Chinese. They would not be exactly what Tagore had said, but must have been the gist of Tagore’s ideas. Tagore hit the nail on its head to point out that we Easterners ‘don’t study each other and don’t unite together’, not only centuries ago, but even today. In his most substantial and thought-provoking talk on the campus of Tsinghua University on May 1, 1924, Tagore was a bit blunt in saying these words to the teachers and students of the University:

I ask you, I ask myself, what have you got, what out of your own house can you offer in homage to this new age? You must answer this question. Do you know your own mind? Your own culture? What is best and most permanent in your own history? You must know at least that, if you are to save yourselves from the greatest of insults, the insult of obscurity, of rejection. Bring out your light and add it to this great festival of lamps of world culture.76

‘May be our civilization is wrong, but how can we know if we don’t study it?’ ‘Do you know your own mind? Your own culture? What is best

75 Jiang Jingkui ྰ᱃༢ et al. (eds), Zhongguo xuezhe lun Taige’er Ё೑ᄺ㗙䆎⋄ៜᇨ (Chinese scholars on Rabindranath Tagore), 2011, Beijing: Sunshine Publishing house 䰇ܝߎ⠜⼒, Vol. 1, pp. 16–17. 76 Sisir Kumar Das, Tagore, Talks in China, p. 63.

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and most permanent in your own history?’ I think these words by Tagore are still relevant to Chinese intellectuals, especially to those who are blindly led by the Western civilization down the garden path (as well as their Indian counterparts). If we think the India–China relations are not quite all right it is because we are somewhat in the wrong direction. We are in the wrong direction because the leaders of political, journalistic, academic spheres of influence of India and China, do not seriously study their civilizations. Some of the jingoistic opinions expressed in the press of both India and China make my heart bleed. So serious are the mindsets in India and China poisoned by the bigoted Western way of thinking that we must stop it before the hearts and minds of the two ‘Himalaya Sphere’ civilization twins are rotten to the core.

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CHAPTER 2

CIVILIZATION TWINS GREW SIDE BY SIDE

So far, I have tried to elevate the mindset of readers to look at the entire picture from the beginning of time. We have been looking at the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ in which China and India have had a shared existence, sometimes glossing over the fact that they later on develop different sociopolitical- economic-cultural entities, each with its own idiosyncrasies. Only at the end, Tagore appears to advise the Chinese: ‘Knowing your own civilization and culture is important’ — which implicitly separates India from China. Let us now see the historical reality of the separate identities of China and India and explore the thread of continuity of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. The readers will come to their own conclusions whether the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ permeates through the ages, or whether the two civilizations grew in isolation. We shall first explore the wealth of information of Chinese records and literature providing a remarkably consistent account with historical continuity. This is in contrast to India’s paradigm shifts with the examples of Islamic and Christian influences, ending ultimately in a ‘Look West’ attitude which resulted in the weakening of the interconnectivities between the civilization twins. We shall explore the story of how Buddhism spread, in the context of the interconnectivities.

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I. HOME-COMING FOR INDIAN ‘WANDERING ASCETICS’ IN CHINA Tagore once observed: ‘India has two aspects — in one there is a householder, in the other a wandering ascetic.’1 Buddhism as a movement and the Buddhist missionaries who travelled to China epitomize the Indian dynamics of ‘wandering ascetic’. The Chinese civilization largely fits Tagore’s description of ‘householder’. It is interesting to see the interaction between the Chinese ‘householder’ and Indian ‘wandering ascetic’ dynamics through millennia. We have touched upon the fact that Brahmins and Kshatriyas as the ‘ruling elites’ of ancient India. One view is that Kshatriyas represented the ‘householder’ dynamics of ancient Indian society, the Brahmins represented its ‘wandering ascetic’ dynamics. This was not the case always. Buddha could be considered one of the most celebrated compassionate ‘wandering ascetic’ the world has known, but he was originally a Kshatriya, not a Brahmin. During the heyday of Buddhism in India, it was the princes and hence prominent Kshatriyas who would be ordained and asked to lead the life of the ‘wandering ascetic’. This, of course, did not include the heir to the throne, but other princes. This was certainly more civilized than killing of the potential rivals of the throne. When we examine the lineage of the eminent Indian monks made famous by Chinese records, we find both Brahmins and Kshatriyas. We could even consider Hindu culture as the ‘householder’ and Buddhist culture as the ‘wandering ascetic’ because Hinduism has been a religion deeply rooted on Indian soil, while Buddhism has largely left its homeland, India, to thrive in East and Southeast Asia. The vitality of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ is made up of the interaction between the householder and wandering ascetic. Pilgrimage, thus, forms and integral part of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Maybe, Tagore when referring to ‘wandering ascetic’, intended to say ‘pilgrim’. He once observed: ‘Pilgrims go on pilgrimages with a vision and purity of heart.’2 In his lecture at Hangzhou ᵁᎲ in April 1924, Tagore inadvertently defined a ‘pilgrim’ to be a person

1 Uma Das Gupta, Rabindranath Tagore: My life in my words, 2006, New Delhi: Penguin Viking, p. 309. 2 Ibid, p. 199.

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‘through an exuberance of love which made him leave his homeland’.3 Tagore meant to contrast ancient pilgrims between India and China with modern-day ‘tourists’ who travel to ‘see only the surface of life’.4 What is distinctive about the energy of the ‘wandering ascetic’ is that it is marked by the ‘exuberance of love’ and accompanied by tremendous self-sacrifice as the pilgrim leaves the comfort of his home. We begin to understand the dynamics of Indian ‘wandering ascetics’ as taking on the spirit of ‘Bharatia Tirthasthan/Indian Pilgrimage’ highlighted by Tagore (in his Bengali poem of the same title):

Here do I stand with arms outstretched to hail Man Divine and sing his glory in notes glad and free. These mountains rapt in meditation, these plains and rivers like rosaries behold this land for ever holy on the shore of vast humanity that is India.5

If the last word in this quote was ‘Himalaya Sphere’, instead of ‘India’, then, it would be an apt introduction to this chapter. In that spirit, let us look at examples of ‘hailing Man Divine’.

China Responded to Indian ‘Dreamer’ Dynamics There is a famous quote from the French writer and Nobel Laureate, Romain Rolland (1866–1944): ‘If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India.’ Having lived in India for nearly half a century in the 20th century, I would second his thoughts. It is believed that telepathy was an Indian cultural phenomenon. Thus we can understand when Rolland refers to the ‘dream’ being an important

3 Sisir Kumar Das, Talks in China, p. 50. 4 Ibid, p. 49. 5 Translation by Sisirkumar Ghose. See Sisirkumar Ghose (ed), Tagore for You, Calcutta: Visva-Bharati Press, 1984, p. 149.

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means of distant communication. In traditional Indian belief, the mind is a remote sensor of earth-shaking events. The mother would receive a shock wave in her dream when her far-away son’s life was in grave danger, and her prayer to God could rescue him out of harm’s way. The birth of the Buddha was not from the womb of Mayadevi, but from her dream. This concept was a remarkable cultural invention. It found leverage in popularizing the Buddhist movement. Thus, we can trace the story of a Han Emperor Ming (reigning 57–75 CE) dreaming of the Buddha to its Indian origins of ‘dream’ dynamics. In a way, the spread of Buddhism in China was by dreams. There is a reference to a Chinese general, Huo Qubing 䳡এ⮙ (?–117 BCE), who obtained as booty, a golden Buddha statue from the vanquished Hun Chief, King Xiutu ӥሴ⥟ in 122 BCE.6 This establishes the arrival of Buddhism to the gateway of China more than a hundred years before the commencement of our Common Era. Just like the later ‘Silk Road’, we see a ‘Dharmaratna marga’ (road for the spread of the Triple Jewels of Buddha-dharma) from India towards China via Central Asia. Trade caravans facilitated the travel of Buddhist ‘wandering ascetics’ and created a corridor for this dissemination of Buddhism from India to China. There are too many similarities between the golden Buddha statue captured from the Hun chief and the actual dream of the Han Emperor Ming. His dream was that of the golden Buddha flying over his palace. This legend was, later, firmly established in Chinese folklore. As a result, Buddha was affectionately called ‘Jinxian 䞥ҭ’ (the Golden Fairy). After the dream, the Emperor sent out emissaries to fetch Indian Buddhist masters to his court. This resulted in the arrival at Luoyang ⋯䰇, the imperial capital, of two eminent Indian monks, Kasyapa Matanga (Chinese name ‘Shemoteng ᨘᨽ㝒’) and Dharmaratna (Chinese name ‘Zhufalan ノ⊩݄’) in 67 CE. The Emperor ordered the construction of the ‘Baimasi ⱑ偀ᇎ’ (Monastery of White Horses) to accommodate the Indian guests and also ordered the court artists to copy the portrait of the Buddha brought back by the search team led by the imperial officer, Cai Yin 㫵ᛨ. Now the Western reader would look at these stories and may be skeptical. The renowned Dutch historian, Erik Zürcher (author of the classic,

6 Ibid, p. 285.

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The Buddhist Conquest of China: The Spread and Adaptation of Buddhism) among others doubted the credibility of the famous dream story of the Han Emperor Ming. They argue that this story exists only in Chinese Buddhist literature, not in China’s official imperial documents. However, they missed Tang Emperor Taizong’s ‘Foreword for the sacred teaching produced by the Tripitaka Master of the great Tang Dynasty’ in which he alludes to ‘flying over the Han palace that bright dream’ (㝒∝ ᓋ㗠ⱢṺ’ ) — a clear reference to Han Emperor Ming’s dream. There is more documentation from Chinese authorities but I shall add just one more. Tang Empress Wu ૤℺ৢ (reigning 690–705) alludes to Buddha’s ‘xiaotong Hanmeng ᆉ䗮∝Ṻ’ (communicating in the Han [emperor’s] dream at night) in her essay titled ‘Sanzang shengjiao xu ϝ㮣೷ᬭᑣ’ (Foreword to the Tripitaka Master’s translation of the Sacred Religion). She also alludes to ‘moteng ᨽ㝒’ (Kasyapa Matanga) and ‘baima donglai ⱑ偀ϰᴹ’ (the white horse arriving from the west) which was a part of the ‘dream’ story in another essay ‘Fangguang dazhuangyanjing xu ᮍᑓ ໻ᑘϹ㒣ᑣ’ (Foreword to the translation of Mahayana-sutra- lankaratika). 7 One has to understand the context of dreams, and how the concept came from India and took a powerful hold as it was utilized by emperors in China to consolidate power. At the same time, Han Emperor Ming’s ‘dream’ story is an important watershed in the linkage between the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ civilization twins of China and India. It is recorded that Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaratna started their work in the Chinese capital, Luoyang, not only preaching but also translating the scriptures (yielding ‘Sishierzhang jing ಯकѠゴ㒣/Forty two chapters of scriptures’) which is not extant unfortunately. There is an account of Prince Liu Ying ߬㣅, younger brother of the ‘dreamer’ Emperor Ming, who confessed in 65 CE, just a year after the ‘dream’ story, that he had been attending preaching sessions of the Buddhist temples and observed the Buddhist-initiated practice of vegetarianism.8 This implies that Buddhism had already arrived among the people. It was probably officially inaugurated by the a ‘dream’ story.

7 Ibid, Vol. I, pp. 1001, 1003. 8 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 286.

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The Baimasi/Monastery of White Horses — so named because the white horses had carried Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaratna to the Chinese capital city, Luoyang ⋯䰇 — has stood there for nearly two thousand years as a testament to the ‘dream’ story. I visited the monastery in early 1980s, and saw ruins of the boundary walls of the monastery built during the Tang Dynasty which, in turn, was built over the ruins of the original monastery built in the Han Dynasty. There was also a tomb for Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaratna built during the Ming Dynasty without the relics of the Indian monks. It is a happy coincidence that, in recent years, especially in 2014 — the officially designated ‘Year of Friendly Cultural Contacts’ between China and India — this ‘Baimasi ⱑ偀ᇎ/Monastery of White Horses’ became a focal point of bilateral friendship activities. During Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s visit to India in 2005, the two countries signed an agreement that India build an Indian-style temple within the premises of the monastery to commemorate the historic event that symbolized the advent of Buddhism in China. The architecture is modelled on the Sanchi Stupa with a dome that is 63 feet high and 80 feet in diameter. Inside the hall there is a 16-foot tall statue of Buddha for which funding and design were provided by India, while construction was handled by China. The hall was inaugurated by then visiting Indian President, Pratibha Patil, in May 2010 in a solemn ceremony. President Patil said in her address that ‘The Indian- style Buddhist Temple is a gift from the people of India to a sister civilization — one with which we share so many valuable associations and memories of interaction’. The inauguration also became a part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China.

Affectionate Chinese Reception to Versatile Indian ‘Wandering Ascetics’ One can view the efforts of inviting the cream of ancient India’s intellectuals to disseminate quintessential Indian civilization as a master plan of China. Bodhidharma was specifically instructed by his illustrious guru to go to China to enlighten the masses where there was a crisis of civilization. Thus, there was a give-and-take dynamic with India sending culture to

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China and China receiving the essence of Indian civilization including Buddha-dharma. The arrival in China of eminent Indian monks (the majority of them were scholars) was a situation somewhat similar to brain drain to the Unites States. One could even take the view that men like Kumarajiva (whose story I shall narrate a little later) were perhaps as influential to the cultural fabric of the receiving country as were Albert Einstein, Joseph Schumpeter and other European thinkers in USA. There are many moving stories about how the Chinese affectionately received hundreds of Indian ‘wandering ascetics’. ‘Fotudeng ԯ೒╘’ (whose Indian name was, perhaps, Buddhacinga) was not only a good scholar (capable of reciting millions of words of the scriptures), but also an expert in astronomy and medicine. He was also a strategist. His assistance to the general, Guo Heilue 䛁咥⬹ in winning repeated battles inspired the general to become a devout Buddhist. As a result, the ruler of Latter Zhao ৢ䍉, Shi Le ⷇ࢦ (reigning 319–333), became curious. He asked General Guo: “I don’t see any outstanding strategic talent in you, how is that you could foresee the dangers and chances before every operation?” General Guo told the ruler that it was all due to the Indian monk, Fotudeng/Buddhacinga. The ruler, Shi Le, said: ‘This is Heaven’s gift for me!’ He employed Fotudeng/Buddhacinga as his chief strategic consultant, and led his army from victory to victory. The Indian monk also cured Shi Le’s army of a contagious disease, and, then, converted them en masse to Buddhism. Fotudeng/Buddhacinga was designated as ‘Guoshi ೑Ꮬ (‘Rajya Guru’) and ‘Daheshang ໻੠ᇮ’ (‘Great Monk’) by both Shi Le and his successor, Shi Hu (reigning 334–349), thus the first Indian ‘wandering ascetic’ to be honoured as a leader in ‘householder’ China. Most eminent Indian monks arrived in China without carrying any scriptures. What distinguished the eminent monks was their impeccable memory. There was the story of Buddhayasas ԯ䰔㘊㟡 (in China from the 380s to 408), guru of the celebrated Kumarajiva 叴ᨽ㔫Ҕ, passing a memory test given by his Chinese imperial host. The story goes that when his Chinese patron, Emperor of Latter Qin ৢ⾺, Yao Xing ྮ݈ (reigning north China 394–416), was told that Buddhayasas could recite the entire Dharmagupta vinaya, an important text of Buddhist law, the ruler was initially a bit skeptical. There was no written text available to check the

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authenticity of the eminent monk’s memory. The Emperor devised a way by asking Buddhayasas to memorize an obscure Sanskrit medical text in a single day, and recite it the next day. Buddhayasas did it flawlessly.9 The story is just one of the marvels about the Indian ‘wandering ascetics’ in China on record. The most fascinating story was that of Kumarajiva 叴ᨽ㔫Ҕ (344–413) who spent about three decades (from 385 to 413) and died in China. His father was a Kashmiri, and mother was from Kuca (in present-day Xinjiang). Kumarajiva distinguished himself as a revered popular preacher in Kuca during the second half of the 4th century. The contending war- lords in north China scrambled to add a feather to their own hats by obtaining his allegiance. First, the ruler of Former Qin ࠡ⾺, Fu Jian ヺമ (reigning in northwest China 357–385) sent General Lu Guang ৩ܝ with a military contingent to Kuca to ‘invite’ (actually more like command) him to come to China in 385. When General Lu Guang escorted Kumarajiva back, Fu Jian’s government collapsed, and General Lu had Kumarajiva as his own luminous possession. Then, the ruler of Latter Qin ৢ⾺, Yao Xing ྮ݈, forced General Lu to yield Kumarajiva, and welcomed Kumarajiva to his imperial capital of Chang’an 䭓ᅝ (present-day Xi’an) and created an unprecedented ‘yijingyuan 䆥㒣䰶’ (academy of scripture-translation) for the Indian monk. Kumarajiva presided over the Translation Academy with nearly a thousand Chinese and foreign scholars and Buddhist experts to assist him. Yao Xing, the Emperor, frequented the Academy to witness the translation process. All the work done collectively was published in the name of a single translator, i.e., Kumarajiva, because every Chinese word in the translations was approved by him after elaborate discussions. Later on, Xuanzang and other great translators tried to re-translate the scriptures done by Kumarajiva to improve upon them. However, Kumarajiva’s translations have proved unsurpassable. Kumarajiva was not only a Buddhist expert, but a Chindian intellectual conversant in both Sanskrit and Chinese. Yao Xing the Emperor who observed Kumarajiva from close quarters was absolutely convinced that he was a rare genius. Kumarajiva would contend that he was just a monk under strict moral constraints. Yao Xing’s worry was that the genius would

9 Ibid, p. 399.

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vanish from the world when Kumarajiva died. He devised a novel way to save what he thought was an endangered species. Instead of allowing Kumarajiva to continue the frugal living of a monk, the Emperor provided him with a dozen pretty ladies in attendance amid luxurious surroundings. According to accounts, Kumarajiva was compelled by the circumstances to violate the taboo, and thus, fathered many offspring. His guru, Vimalaraksa/Premraksa (337–413), who had also come to China and not knowing that he was being forced by circumstances, was completely flab- bergasted by Kumarajiva’s conduct. He asked Kumarajiva: ‘You seem to be destined to have such profound affinity with China, how many disciples have you ordained?’ To this Kumarajiva answered: ‘China is a land where Buddhist institutions are still incomplete. Most of the sutras and sastras are disseminated by me. Three thousand disciples have been ordained by me. However, I am a man burdened with karma [retribution] and klesa [root cause of sufferings], and I don’t deserve to be revered.’ When he was preaching, Kumarajiva was always apologetic likening himself to a lotus whose root was buried in dirty mud, but whose leaves and flowers were pure — encouraging people to adhere to the truth of his preaching, ignor- ing that he, as a person, did not have exemplary conduct. 10

Chindia Joint-Venture — The Chinese Tripitakas ໻໻㮣㒣㮣㒣 Kumarajiva, along with many others, created the greatest literary treasury of Buddhism called ‘Dazangjing ໻㮣㒣’ (the Chinese Tripitakas). Before discussing this treasury, I want to relate the story of Liu Xie ߬ࣄ (465?– 520?) and his marvelous book entitled ‘Wenxin diaolong ᭛ᖗ䲩啭’ (Carving out a dragon from the heart of culture and literature). This is a milestone in the history of Chinese literature — the first and unique work on literary criticism with a clear Buddhist perspective. This book of 37,000 Chinese characters was created in a Buddhist temple after more than a

10 Kumarajiva’s stories are well documented. See ibid, pp. 397–398. I have added more infor- ,(Ӵ (Biographies of eminent monksڻmation taken from Huijiao’s ᜻Ɫ Gaoseng zhuan 催 cited in Institute of South Asian Studies of Peking University (comp), Zhongguo zaijizhong nan-Ya shiliao huibian Ё೑䕑㈡ЁफѮ৆᭭∛㓪 (A compilation of the historical materials on South Asia from Chinese documents), Shanghai: Shanghai ancient texts publishing house, 1994, Vol. I, pp. 51–58.

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decade of studying Buddhist philosophy. The contents of the book are not about Buddhism, but a critical survey of Chinese culture and literature. The popular appreciation of his book enabled him to become a middle- ranking government officer. After a stint of officialdom he turned to the Buddha and completed the life’s journey as a monk with the Buddhist name ‘Huidi ᜻ഄ’. In a famous essay ‘Mie huo lun ♁ᚥ䆎’ (On eliminating doubts), Liu Xie/Reverend Huidi described the Sanskrit–Chinese translation of Buddhist scriptures as ‘yiyin yanfa, shuyi gongjie ϔ䷇ⓨ⊩ˈ⅞䆥݅㾷’. 11 It is rather difficult to translate these 8 Chinese syllables. In ‘yiyin yanfa ϔ䷇ⓨ⊩’, he used the word ‘yin ䷇’ in the sense of ‘sound bytes’, and ‘yanfa ⓨ⊩’ to connote ‘dissemination of Buddhadharma’. What he meant was that ‘yiyin ϔ䷇/one sound system’ was in operation in the Buddhist propagation in China. By ‘shuyi gongjie ⅞䆥݅㾷’, he meant that ‘a common understanding is arrived through different translations’. According to Liu Xie, it was this ‘one sound system’ — Sanskrit (to a lesser degree, Pali) — that was operating the Indian cultural movement in China, but the Chinese comprehension was through ‘yi 䆥/translation’. In short, this was a summary of the multilingual transposition of cultural images in the Sino–Indian civilizational intercourse. Liu Xie further added a commentary of ‘Fan Han yu ge er huatong ẉ∝䇁䱨㗠࣪䗮’, which states that though Sanskrit and Chinese languages are strangers to each other, they become mutually conversant through transformation and transposition.12 The reader should be made aware of a major difference between Chinese and Indian civilizations with respect to communication. The Chinese script is not only a system of visual symbols for auditory communication, but also a set of cultural symbols, providing civilizational conceptualiza- tion. The Chinese also invented paper, printing and book-making and thus the written and text tradition formed the basis of Chinese civilization. In comparison, such a development was wanting in Indian civilization and as

11 Shi Jun ⷇ዏ et al. (comps), Zhongguo fojiao sixiang xuanbian Ё೑ԯᬭᗱᛇ䌘᭭䗝㓪 (A selection of materials on Chinese Buddhist thinking), Beijing: Zhonghua Bookshop Ёढкሔ publication, 1981, Vol. I, p. 326. 12 Ibid.

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a result there was emphasis on the oral tradition — passing the cultural heritage from mouth to mouth with scanty dependence on written and printed texts. This would require high auditory precision and discipline in which the Sanskrit language excelled. When China welcomed Buddhism, she did not have the benefit of the Indian oral tradition. The Sanskrit auditory language system could not be replicated in China. Moreover, because of the written tradition, China was notoriously lax in auditory precision and uniformity. Thus, from the very beginning, China concentrated her attention on converting the repository of Buddhadharma from its Indian auditory structure into the Chinese visual structure. Thus the reader will realize that what we are seeing here is not just the transposition of Buddhism from one cultural system to another. It is a transformation of Buddhism from an oral system into a visual, written and printed system. It is a revolutionary transformation that was key to the spread of Buddhism. We know a written and printed system is a far better means for safe preservation of traditions and dissemination of knowledge. In contrast, Buddhism in India did not leave permanent roots after Ashoka’s time following pushback from Hinduism because of the use of oral system. Even during the expansion of Buddhism in India, it was somewhat chaotic. In a sense, all roads lead to China, as it were. In China, there was the serious state-sponsored transformation from oral discourse to a visual system. This transformation can be regarded essentially as a joint Chindia venture, an effort mostly presided over by eminent Indian monks. The final result was the creation of the richest repository of Buddhist philosophy and history the world has ever seen. For more than a millennium from the time of Han Emperor Ming up to the Song Dynasty (1st–13th century), Chinese government authorities and high-ups spent heavily on the construction of Buddhist shrines and the creation of the magnum opus of sacred Buddhist literature which is now known as ‘Dazangjing ໻㮣㒣/Chinese Tripitakas’. It is called ‘Tripitakas’ (literally ‘three baskets’) because it combines the ‘jing 㒣/ Sutras’ (fundamental teachings), ‘lun 䆎/Sastras’ (discourses), and ‘lu ᕟ/ Vinayas’ (rules and regulations). The ‘lun 䆎/Sastras’ is also called ‘Abhidharma’ in Sanskrit, and ‘abidamo 䰓↫䖒⺼’ in its Chinese transliteration. Sporadic efforts in the compilation of the Chinese Tripitakas began with various regimes almost in the wake of the Han ∝ Dynasty

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(after the 3rd century CE). It was during the Kaibao ᓔᅱ Era (968–975) of the Song ᅟ Dynasty that the first printed book-form was produced. This valuable Kaibao Edition of the Chinese Tripitakas was not only circulated within China, but also in Korea and Japan. The Japanese Buddhist community was particularly enthusiastic in producing their versions of the Chinese Tripitakas (with Kanji script). China, Japan and Korea vied with each other to add new publications of the Chinese Tripitakas, making it especially rich in content and variety. I must add that in these various versions of the Chinese Tripitakas, Buddhist biographies and travelogues by Chinese, Japanese and Korean authors are included, making this literature for Buddhism a must read for the serious learner. The production of this encyclopaedic literature for Buddhism in Chinese script was the accumulated endeavour of individuals with passionate government patronage. I have already alluded to the ‘yijingyuan 䆥㒣䰶/academy of scripture-translation’ created by the ruler of Latter Qin, Yao Xingˈfor Kumarajiva. The academy had a learned international collective of about 800 monk-scholars and courtier-scholars — virtually the largest and most colourful academic Buddhist institution in the Chinese history. Besides Kumarajiva, there were other great Indian translators in China, like Bodhiruci(a) 㦽ᦤ⌕ᬃ (in China from 508 to 530s), Paramartha ⳳ䇯 (in China from 546 to 569), Bodhiruci(b) 㦽ᦤ⌕ᖫ(in China from 683 to 727), and Amoghavajra so on, who all enjoyed Chinese government patronage. In addition to all this, we also see two eminent Chinese translators, i.e., Xuanzang, who went to India from 628 to 642 and Yijing Нޔ (635–713) who went to India from 673 to 685. Both learnt Sanskrit at the Nalanda Monastery. Xuanzang translated 75 scriptures totalling 1,335 fascicles. Yijing translated 61 scriptures totalling 239 fascicles. Both of them also contributed to the reconstruction of ancient Indian history. Of course, all enjoyed government patronage and many received the assistance of other scholars who are unsung heroes. Three important aspects of this Buddhist translation enterprise should be noted. First, this enterprise entailed the best part of Chinese intellectual energy for so many centuries at the expense of development of other disciplines of scholarship, e.g., Confucian teachings. No wonder, during this time of Buddhist translators, there were hardly any great Confucian masters who could match the prestige and influence of the Buddhist monks.

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Second, it was the need of the creation of this Buddhist magnum opus that stimulated the birth of printing industry and book-making industry in China. That the first printed book of the world extant is a Chinese Buddhist scripture has been universally acknowledged. Initially, the first book in the world was thought to be Jin’gangjing 䞥߮㒣, the ‘Diamond Sutra’ (Chinese translation of Vajracchedika-prajnaparamita Sutra) printed in 868 CE and now in the custody of the British Museum, London. This book was outdated by the discovery of Wugou jingguang da tuoluoni jing ᮴൶䞥ܝ໻䰔㔫ሐ㒣 (Chinese translation of Vimala-prabha mahadha- rani) in South Korea which was obviously an even older printed Chinese book.13 Third, as I have already discussed, it amounts to the Chinese written tradition rescuing the jewels of ancient Indian intellectual and scholarly system from a perishable oral tradition of ancient India by means of transforming the recitations of eminent Indian monks into permanent records. The larger part of this recitation treasure could not be double checked by existing texts, as they were sparse. So, we cannot rule out that the monk-scholars added their own words and biases into the mouth of the Buddha and Bodhisattvas. On the other hand, such a freedom enjoyed by them also contributed to the enrichment of Buddhist philosophy which is, indeed, the crystallization of collective wisdom of thousands of men of sagacity and dedication. It is thus, a reflection of the splendour of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

Chinese Homes for Indian ‘Wandering Ascetics’ Chinese civilization has distinguished itself as a good ‘householder’ by providing homes for the Indian ‘wandering ascetics’ — not only for the living beings who had settled down on Chinese soil with ‘unimaginable difficulties and discomforts’ (in Tagore’s words), but also for the legendary Indian cultural heroes whose ‘wandering ascetic’ spirit had accompanied the Indian monks to China as well. Ancient Indian imaginations thought Buddha was omnipresent in innumerable reincarnations. This made every

13 See Luo Shubao 㔫ᷥᅱ et al. (eds), Yinshuazhi guang: Guangming laizi dongfang ॄࠋ Пܝ˖ܝᯢᴹ㞾ϰᮍ (The brilliance of printing: Brilliance originated in the East), 2000, Hangzhou ᵁᎲ: Zhejiang People’s Art Press ⌭∳Ҏ⇥㡎ᴃߎ⠜⼒, p. 30.

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Chinese worshipper of Buddha believe ‘Fo zai wo xinzhong ԯ೼៥ᖗЁ’ (Buddha lives in my heart). In fact, not only every Chinese Buddhist had a home for Buddha, but Chinese homes for various forms and sizes of Buddha made with copper, stone, straw, paint, ink and so on for two odd millennia must have far exceeded Buddha’s homes in the entire world outside China. The Tang Dynasty had 10 emperors, all were pro-Buddhist rulers with one exception. The exception, Tang Emperor Wuzong ૤℺ᅫ (reigning briefly 840–846), was overwhelmed by the charm of a Taoist priest, Zhao Guizhen 䍉ᔦⳳ (who promised to make the emperor an immortal), and listened to his vicious advice to ban Buddhism and demolished 4,600 temples and monasteries. His uncle and successor, Emperor Xuanzong II ૤ᅷᅫ (reigning 846–859) immediately restored the thriving conditions of Buddhism. He observed that without Buddhist temples China would be deprived of the ‘superb ambience of sacred landscape’ (♉ቅ೷᱃).14 When we measure the popularity of Buddhism in India and China in historical times, we cannot be guided by the number of worshippers and believers, as China was a much bigger and more populous country than the entire Indian subcontinent. But, from the ‘householder’ viewpoint, the Chinese scene was much more exciting. Of course, it was not so in the very beginning, and there was a long process of transformation. From the accounts of Chinese pilgrims, especially Xuanzang and Yijing, India during the 7th century was truly the ‘Foguo ԯ೑’ (land of the Buddha) with enviable magnificent Buddhist shrines everywhere. It was only after the 7th century that China has gradually replaced India as the land of enviable magnificent Buddhist shrines. The greatest and most significant impact of Buddhism on Chinese civilization, in my opinion, is a Buddhist Brave New World in the mental infrastructure of the Chinese folklore. In folklore, the Chinese worldview has two universes, one dominated by the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and another created by the Taoists to rival it. The two universes have co-existed in the minds of the majority of Chinese who have not been ideologically committed to either movement. The most interesting and prominent examples are Guanyin 㾖䷇/Avalokitesvara and Mile ᓹࢦ/Maitreya, the

14 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 93.

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Indian ‘wandering ascetics’ who gained an omnipotent status in China. I describe these two as Indian ‘wandering ascetics’ because they were supposed to be the disciples of Buddha in the so-called ‘Bodhisattva’ (enlightenment-being) category — out of eight revered Buddha disciples. We know that only males qualified to be revered as ‘Bodhisattvas’ in ancient India. Guanyin 㾖䷇/Avalokitesvara is a male bodhisattva from India, transformed into the ‘Goddess of Mercy’. Mile/Maitreya is one of eight Indian bodhisattvas transformed into the ‘future Buddha’. Both the deities now have a hundred percent Chinese image in East Asia. While the image of Guanyin/Avalokitesvara just represents a pretty Chinese woman as the embodiment of all the best feminine virtues centering round the idealism of ‘cibei ᜜ᚆ/maitre-karuna’, the image of Mile/Maitreya, the big-bellied ‘laughing Buddha’, personifies a historical monk called ‘budai heshang Ꮧ㹟੠ᇮ/the monk carrying a cloth bag’ who lived in the 10th century in Zhejiang ⌭∳ Province, according to popular tradition. The pre-eminence of the symbols of Guanyin/Avalokitesvara and Mile/ Maitreya in Chinese folklore for the last thousand odd years epitomizes a powerful Chindia cultural tradition the significance of which cannot be over-exaggerated. First, these two deities have had the highest esteem in Chinese society and have been most popularly worshipped in China. All the Chinese cultural heroes, including Confucius and Laozi, have been eclipsed. Second, both the deities were the first choice of Chinese for invocations in difficult times in life. Guanyin/Avalokitesvara and Mile/ Maitreya (who was called ‘Cishi ᜜⇣’, i.e., ‘Mr. Maitre/compassion’) figured in the life story of Reverend Xuanzang’s celebrated pilgrimage to India in vivid details. The life story is enshrined in Da Ci’ensi sanzang fashi zhuan ໻᜜ᘽᇎϝ㮣⊩ᏜӴ (Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great Ci’en Monastery) authored by Huili ᜻ゟ and Yancong ᔺᚄ, disciples of Xuanzang based on the Master’s oral account. There is a description that Xuanzang dreamed of Guanyin/Avalokitesvara in the image of a tall warrior urging him to struggle forward when both the pilgrim and his steed were lying in the great desert (of Xinjiang today) completely exhausted and several days out of water. There is another description of Xuanzang invoking ‘Cishi/Maitreya’ when he was about to be executed by a group of Indian pirates (worshippers of Goddess Durga)

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on the Ganga River. The invocation resulted in the occurrence of a violent sand storm that frightened the pirates who immediately released Xuanzang and asked for his pardon. Such dramatized and mystical accounts were quite normal with the ancients. While no modern rational argument can dismiss such accounts off hand, they actually became classical examples for the propagation of the supernatural power of Buddhadharma in China for more than a millennium. Cishi ᜜⇣/Mile ᓹࢦ/Maitreya: This Future Buddha of the Chinese populace epitomizes the duplication and the synthesis of the Indian and Chinese civilizations. The image rose from the religious tradition of India but settled down in the secular tradition of China. Cishi/Mile/Maitreya represents the Bodhisattva spirit of pious India and the idealist optimism of earthy China. In the pantheon of the god-centered India, Maitreya is a relatively minor figure, but on the altar of the human-centered China, Mile becomes the most important and most beloved, omnipresent idol. This idol is not feared. Scholars trace the Maitreya-cult to Tantrism. As I have alluded to in the last chapter, the Indian Tantric literature, especially Rudrayamala and Brahmayamala, depict that Lord Buddha chose to settle in Cinabhumi (the same China that introduced silk and sericulture to India as alluded to in Kautilya’s Arthasastra, ‘kauseyam cinapattasca cinabhumijah’), leading a life without abstaining from alcohol and women. This may be an indirect reference of Cishi/Mile/Maitreya’s popularity in China. In a way, Tantrism could be a Chindia tradition. There are four eminent examples of Chinese homes for Indian ‘wandering ascetics’. These four prominent Buddhist shrines have been constructed as the brightest jewels of the Chinese ‘superb ambience of sacred landscape’: Mount Putuo ᱂䰔 for Bodhisattva 㾖䷇/Avalokitesvara, Mount Wutai Ѩৄ for Bodhisattva Wenshu ᭛⅞/Manjusri, Mount Emei ኼⳝ for Bodhisattva Puxian ᱂䋸/Samantabhadra, and Mount Jiuhua бढ for Bodhisattva Dizang ഄ㮣/Ksitigarbha. Let us examine these sites in detail. Mount Putuo ᱂䰔: This name ‘Putuo ᱂䰔’ is the first two syllables of the Chinese transliteration of the Sanskrit word ‘potalaka/brilliance’ which is the legendary home of Bodhisattva 㾖䷇/Avalokitesvara originally supposed to lie in the seas south of India. Now, there are several such names on the Chinese map. There is ‘Luojiashan ⦲⦜ቅ’ (Mount Luojia which

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has the last two syllables of the Chinese transliteration of ‘potalaka’) in Wuhan ℺∝, which was a beautiful campus. I had visited this campus in 1947 when I sat in one of the big classrooms to write my answers for the entrance examination of Nankai University फᓔ໻ᄺ. Today, Chinese who come to ‘Potalaka’ is overcrowded with tourists who see the old residences of Chiang Kai-shek 㩟ҟ⷇, Zhou Enlai ਼ᘽᴹ, and other historical monuments. In March, people come here from afar to specially see the beautiful sight of cherry blossoms. (100,000 visitors virtually gate- crashed the Potalaka shrine, i.e., Wuhan University ℺∝໻ᄺ campus, on March 23, 2014.) There is, of course, the renowned Potala Palace in Lhasa. But, Mount Putuo ᱂䰔 which is the name of a tiny island of 12.5 square kilometres, the smallest of the Zhoushan 㟳ቅ archipelago, off the Bay of Hangzhou ᵁᎲ⑒ of Zhejiang ⌭∳ Province is today universally recognized as the abode of Bodhisattva Guanyin 㾖䷇/Avalokitesvara — the Goddess of Mercy of East Asia. For more than a millennium, this off-shore Mount Putuo ᱂䰔 has welcomed a large crowd of pilgrims from mainland China as well as Taiwan, Japan and other countries to participate in the traditional Bodhisattva Guanyin/Avalokitesvara celebrations on the 19th of the second moon (Guanyin’s birthday), 19th of the sixth moon (Guanyin’s date for attaining Bodhi/Enlightenment), 19th of the ninth moon (Guanyin’s date renouncing the world) of the Chinese lunar calendar. The Guanyin/Avalokitesvara-worshipping activities on the island began during the Tang Dynasty. In 1131, the monastery on the island memorialized the Song imperial court to convert the entire island into a holy shrine, evicting 700 odd fishermen families from the island. In 1214, the imperial court of the founder-emperor of Yuan/Mongol Dynasty, Kublai ᗑᖙ⚜ Khan (Chinese title ‘Emperor Shizu of Yuan Dynasty ܗϪ⼪’) official recognized the shrine for Bodhisattva Guanyin/Avalokitesvara along with the recognition of Mount Wutai Ѩৄ for Bodhisattva Wenshu/Manjusri, Mount Emei ኼⳝ for Bodhisattva Puxian/Samantabhadra, and Mount Jiuhua бढ for Bodhisattva Dizang/Ksitigarbha. Kublai Khan’s government also donated money for infrastructure constructions at Mount Putuo. Interestingly, the establishment of the Putuo shrine for Guanyin/ Avalokitesvara was associated with the dedication of a Japanese Buddhist monk Egaku ᜻䬋 who obtained a miniature Guanyin/Avalokitesvara

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statue from the famous shrine Mount Wutai Ѩৄ and was carrying it back to Japan. In 863, he took a boat from Hangzhou for Japan. When the boat passed Putuo it hit a reef and got grounded. He carried the Guanyin/ Avalokitesvara statue to safety and kept the statue for public worshipping in a private house on the Putuo Island. His story of unsuccessful return to Japan became a famous legend of ‘bukenqu Guanyin ϡ㚃এ㾖䷇’ (Guanyin/Avalokitesvara who refuses to depart), and the private house rose to prominence as ‘bukenqu Guanyin yuan ϡ㚃এ㾖䷇䰶’ (Institute for worshipping the refusing-to-depart Guanyin/Avalokitesvara) headed by Reverend Egaku of Japan. It was this small Institute that ultimately created the important shrine for Bodhisattva Guanyin/Avalokitesvara. Mount Wutai Ѩৄ has a longer and more distinguished history than Mount Putuo. It is situated in northeastern Shanxi ቅ㽓 Province, 230 kilometres away from the provincial capital Taiyuan ໾ॳ City. The name ‘wutai Ѩৄ’ denotes five peaks which occupy an area of 250 square kilometres. The tip of the highest peak, ‘Qingliangshan ⏙ޝቅ’ (literally, ‘Pure and cool mountain’), is 3,058 metres above sea level — an ideal tourist resort and pilgrimage shrine. While some Western circles are still sceptical about the authenticity of the two early Indian pilgrims of Kasyapa Matanga ᨘᨽ㝒 and Dharmaratna ノ⊩݄, information resources of Mount Wutai Ѩৄ assert that in the year of their arrival (in 67 CE) in the imperial capital Luoyang ⋯䰇, the two visited Mount Wutai and discovered it as a site of one of the 84,000 stupas built by the ‘Loha-cakravartin’ King Ashoka all over our universe — Jambudvipa. It was even reported that Bodhisattva Wenshu ᭛⅞/Manjusri had visited the site. I must hasten to express my own dis- belief of both the Ashokan stupa and the Manjusri visit. However there is no evidence to prove or disprove the account of Kasyapa Matanga and Dharmaratna’s visit to Mount Wutai. Anyhow, there has been a host of records (especially in the local gazetteers) during various times to show that from the first century CE onwards, Mount Wutai started to be an active Buddhist shrine. It featured more than 300 temples and monasteries with over 10,000 monks during its climax in the Tang Dynasty. Today, 47 temples still remain, making it one of the busiest Buddhist centres of the world.

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The shimmer of the Mount Wutai shrine was heavily glossed by the Tang rulers, especially Tang Emperor Taizong and the reigning Tang Empress Wu. The Mount Wutai archives15 remember a purported Tang Emperor Taizong’s edict in 635 describing the shrine as ‘sure residence of Manjusri and home for thousands of prophets’ (᭛⅞ᖙᅙˈϛ೷ᑑᷪ) as well as ‘the root of virtue planted by my ancestors’ (៥⼪ᅫỡᖋП᠔). I have checked the records of Tang Emperor Taizong’s writings and cannot find the edict. However, I think we can take it for granted that the Mount Wutai’s monasteries had intimate links with the imperial authorities for one and half millennia, and are sources of information about historical events and personalities (like Sun Simiao). Ten Buddhist temples were built and hundreds of monks ordained in the year 635 with the Emperor Taizong’s blessings, the archives reported. In 702, the reigning Empress Wu (who changed the name of the dynasty from ‘Tang ૤’ into ‘Zhou ਼’) proclaimed that her ‘spirit visited the five great peaks’ (⼲␌Ѩ乊), and ordered to renovate the main monastery of Mount Wutai, i.e., Qingliangsi ⏙ޝᇎ (Monastery of Purity and coolness). She further appointed a famous monk (Reverend Dadegan ໻ᖋᛳ) as its Lord Abbot with the rank of a Duke (and a fiefdom of one thousand households). The Lord Abbot of this monastery also became the Imperial Officer-in-charge of Buddhist affairs of China by the order of the Empress. This greatly enhanced the eminence of Mount Wutai. Finally, there was the official recognition of the shrine for Bodhisattva Manjusri declared by the founder-emperor of Yuan/Mongol Dynasty, Kublai Khan, in 1214 that reconfirmed the four holy mountains of Putuo, Wutai, Emei and Jiuhua. Two decades ago, I discovered an important historical evidence of the eminence of Mount Wutai from my repeated visits to the Mogao Grottoes 㥿催び at Dunhuang ᬺ✠ in Gansu ⫬㙗 Province. During ‘Middle Tang Ё૤’ (781–848), the Mogao Grottoes were under Tibetan occupation. A Tibetan mission visited Mount Wutai in 826. As a result, several Dunhuang caves (cave Nos. 159, 361 and 61) have the ‘Map of Mount Wutai’ on the wall paintings. The painting of Mount Wutai on the west

15 Published by a text entitled ‘Wutaishan zhi Ѩৄቅᖫ/Gazetteers of Mount Wutai’ compiled by the Department of Tourism of Shanxi Province in 2003 by Shanxi People’s Press ቅ㽓Ҏ⇥ߎ⠜⼒, Taiyuan ໾ॳ.

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wall of cave 61 is huge — 45 square metres. It is not an ordinary map, but a photo-like display of the architectures and life of Mount Wutai during its climax.16 Today, Mount Wutai is a thriving place of both traditional Buddhist temples and Tibetan Lama temples that attract large numbers of Tibetan pilgrims to this shrine. Mount Emei ኼⳝ is today a full-fledged city in Sichuan ಯᎱ Province comprising a scenic area of 154 square kilometres. The tip of the mountain is 3,099 metres above sea level. In ancient times, it was a part of the Sanxingdui Civilization — our focus of discussion of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ in Chapter 1. The advent of Buddhism to this area was through direct trade routes linking India with Tibet and Yunnan ѥफ. In the Indian Buddhist legend, Bodhisattva Samantabhadra forms the so-called ‘Sakyamuni trinity’ along with Sakyamuni Buddha and fellow Bodhisattva Manjusri. In Sichuan ಯᎱ Province, worshipping Bodhisattva Puxian ᱂䋸/Samantabhadra has been very popular for many centuries. Samantabhadra worship has also been very popular in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, particularly the Nyingma School. All this contributes to the creation of this Chinese shrine for Bodhisattva Puxian ᱂䋸/ Samantabhadra at Mount Emei. In the Buddhist scripture, Buddhavatamsakamahavaipulya-sutra (Avatamsaka-sutra), the main cultural hero is Samantabhadra. In its Chinese version, Huayanjing ढϹ㒣, there is the mention of a ‘Guangmingshan ܝᯢቅ’ (Mount Brightness) in the southwestern direction which has been the residential area of the Bodhisattvas, and Bodhisattva Samantabhadra living there with 3,000 family members. The Bodhisattva also preached there. Today, the authorities of Mount Emei explain that Mount Emei ኼⳝ is the locality of ‘Guangmingshan ܝᯢቅ/ Mount Brightness’. Official recognition of the shrine for Bodhisattva Samantabhadra was declared by the Kublai Khan in 1214 as I have repeatedly alluded to. At Mount Emei, the main Buddhist monument is ‘Wanniansi ϛᑈᇎ’ (literally, ‘Monastery of ten thousand years’) which was the earliest Samantabhadra shrine built in the 4th century originally named ‘Puxiansi

16 Tan Chung (ed), Dunhuang Art: Through the Eyes of Duan Wenjie, 1994, New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and Abhinav Publications, p. 206.

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᱂䋸ᇎ’ (Monastery for Bodhisattva Samantabhadra). During the 10th century, Song Emperor Taizu (reigning 960–975) sent two massive Buddhist delegations to India (the first delegation of 300 monks in 964, and the second delegation of 157 monks in 966).17 One of the India- returned monks, Reverend Jiye 㒻Ϯ, dedicated himself to developing Buddhism in Sichuan by imperial order. One of his building efforts is the creation of a giant bronze statue of Samantabhadra of 7.85 metres tall and weighing 62 tons now installed inside Wanniansi ϛᑈᇎ. The monastery had suffered decrepitude in history, but was renovated first in 1954 and again in 1986 and 1991, and it is quite magnificent today. This home for Puxian ᱂䋸/Samantabhadra — Mount Emei — is true to the name of the Bodhisattva, ‘Samantabhadra’ which denotes ‘universal worthy’. It is now a UNESCO-recognized ‘Heritage Site’ and an internationally known popular tourist spot for a combination of sacred ambience, scenic charm, climate attraction and cultural richness. People can conduct ‘cultural tourism’ by visiting 164 places of cultural relics and a museum of nearly 7,000 cultural treasures (850 pieces of which are under special state protection). Ancient and modern writers and poets visited the shrine and leave behind poems and calligraphy that provide a mini-exhibition of history of Chinese culture. An additional feature of Mount Emei is that it is home to one of the three schools of ‘kungfu/martial arts’. Of the three schools (Shaolin ᇥᵫ, Wudang ℺ᔧ and Emei), Shaolin and Emei have Buddhist affinity. These kungfu schools are unique consequences of the marriage between the Chinese ‘householder’ culture and the Indian ‘wandering ascetic’ culture. Mount Emei, in this way, is a shining jewel of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Mount Jiuhua бढ is the least historically prominent and popularly known among the four Chinese homes for the Indian Bodhisattvas. It is located within the jurisdiction of the Chizhou ∴Ꮂ Municipality of Anhui ᅝᖑ Province, and has 99 peaks composing a 120 square kilometres of solemn and serene ambience of beautiful scenery and comfortable climate. Today, with 80 plus Buddhist temples and 300 monks and nuns, the place is thriving with pilgrimage and tourism. The Mount Jiuhua бढ authorities boast of ‘xianghuo jia tianxia 佭☿⬆໽ϟ’ (universally first for

17 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 336.

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worshipping activities) and ‘dongnan diyishan ϰफ㄀ϔቅ’ (number one mountain in southeast China). The shrine’s association with Bodhisattva Dizang ഄ㮣/Ksitigarbha arose from an unusual pilgrimage of a Korean monk during the 8th century. The earliest Buddhist activities at Mount Jiuhua can be traced to 401 when a monk arrived at the foot of Furong Peak 㡭㪝ኁ and built a hut as a temple. Not much happened until the arrival of Reverend Kim Qiaoque 䞥Ш㾝 (an ex-prince of Silla State being ordained) from Korea in 719. The Reverend emulated Prince Siddhartha’s ascetic practice in search of bodhi/enlightenment at Mount Jiuhua and died there at 99 years of age. It was said that his corporeal body did not decompose and this bewildered the local residents. People remembered his austere life of living in a cave and surviving on the porridge cooked with rice and mud. They concluded that he was the incarnation of Bodhisattva Dizang ഄ㮣/Ksitigarbha. Thus, the story spread and Mount Jiuhua’s became a shrine of the Bodhisattva, and was officially recognized in 1214 by the imperial order of Kublai Khan. During Ming and Qing dynasties, there were as many as 360 temples and 4,000 to 5,000 monks and nuns — substantiating its claim as ‘xianghuo jia tianxia 佭☿⬆໽ϟ universally first for worshipping activities’ and ‘dongnan diyishan ϰफ㄀ϔቅ/number one mountain in southeast China’. The Korean monk, Reverend Kim Qiaoque, made a contribution to carry forward the true Bodhisattva spirit which is famously expressed by Bodhisattva Dizang ഄ㮣/Ksitigarbha thus: ‘wo buru diyu, shui ru diyu ៥ϡܹഄ⣅ˈ䇕Ҏഄ⣅’ (If I don’t go to the Hell, who will?), and ‘diyu weikong, shibu cheng Fo ഄ⣅᳾ぎˈ䁧ϡ៤ԯ’ (I vow not to become the Buddha when the Hell is not empty). In historical times and even today, there has been a popular vogue of Dizang/Ksitigarbha-worship in the Yangtse valley in its lower stream for this reason. Every year, on the 30th of the 7th Moon of the lunar calendar, temples would organize ‘Dizang fahui ഄ㮣⊩Ӯ’ (Ceremony invoking the blessings of Bodhisattva Dizang/ Ksitigarbha), and people burn incense at home remembering the deity. The above quoted Ksitigarbha adage was the motto of my father, Professor Tan Yun-shan. It is this Bodhisattva spirit that has inspired so many Chinese in various historical times to die for a noble cause, or to die for the country. Today, Mount Jiuhua is a place attracting pilgrims and

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tourists for a variety of reasons, both spiritual and material, for education and for vacation.

II. BUILDERS OF THE CULTURAL SUPERSTRUCTURE OF ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ We know that without human efforts there is no creation of civilization. Thus, we must highlight the people who have helped create the dynamics of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. There is an extraordinary cult of ‘Mahacina Tara/Goddess of Great China’ in India, which deserves our attention. Let me begin with a translated passage from Tantrasara which is alleged to be the work of Abhinavagupta, the most famous historical proponent of Kashmir Shaivism:

The worshipper should conceive himself as (Mahacina-Tara) who stands in the Pratyalidha attitude, and is awe-inspiring with a garland of heads from the neck. She is short and has a protruding belly, and her looks are terrible. Her complexion is like that of a blue lotus, and she is three- eyed, one-faced, celestial being and laughs horribly. She is in an intensely pleasant mood, stands on a corpse, is decked in tiger-skin round her loins, is in youthful bloom, is endowed with the ﬁ ve suspicious symbols, and has a protruding tongue. 18

Here is a very graphic description of a goddess quite widely worshipped in northern India for a thousand years. We know that the ‘Tara’ deity is widely worshipped by the ‘Vajrayana’ (or the ‘Adamantine Vehicle’) of Buddhism. Its theoretical base is quoted below:

Though the Buddha was antagonistic to all sorts of sacriﬁ ces, sorcery, necromancy or magic, he nevertheless is credited by some later authorities with having given instructions on Mudras, Mandalas, Yoga and Tantra, so that prosperity in this world could be attained by his less advanced disciples who seemed to care more for this world than for the Nirvana preached by him.19

18 Benoytosh Bhattacharyya, The Indian Buddhist Iconography, Second Revised and Enlarged Edition, 1958, Calcutta: Published by K.L. Mukhopadhyay, p. 190. 19 Ibid, p. 9, citing Tattvasangraha of Santaraksita.

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The Trio of Architects of Vajrayana Though Vajrayana has faded in people’s memories, it was a very significant element in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Let us turn our attention to the marvelous feats of three Vajrayana masters viz., Vajrabodhi, Amoghavajra and Padmasambhava. Vajrabodhi (662–732) hailed from Maraba in present Kerala, and was a resident monk in the world renowned Nalanda Monastery. He arrived in China in 719, and was received in the imperial capital, Chang’an with warm hospitality in 720. He was requested by the Tang Emperor Xuanzong ૤⥘ᅫ (reigning from 710 to 756) to translate Buddhist esoteric texts, and erected a Mandala in the Chinese capital to perform Tantra, allegedly saving the life of a princess. He even baptized Emperor Xuanzong. The Emperor was too fond of him to allow him go back to India. He died in Chang’an in 732 at the age of 71 and was awarded a posthumous honour of ‘Guanding guoshi ☠乊೑Ꮬ’ (Rajya Guru who baptized the Emperor).20 Amoghavajra (705–774), the disciple of Vajrabodhi, was even more eminent in the annals of Buddhist history than his guru. He might be from south India or the present Sri Lanka and first arrived in China with Vajrabodhi in 719 at the age of 14. When he was on his way back to India and Sri Lanka in 732 after his guru passed away, he was asked to stay by the Governor of Guangzhou ᑓᎲ where he taught and performed Tantra, baptizing hundreds of thousands of disciples until he finally left China in 741. In 746, he was sent back to China by the king of Lanka, carrying a letter and gifts for Emperor Xuanzong. Then, he stayed on as a distinguished guest of the Tang imperial court, and repeatedly performed Tantra in massive gatherings at the insistence of a succession of Tang rulers. In 764, China faced an imminent Tibetan invasion, and Amoghavajra delivered a series of lectures expounding the Sakyaraja Sutra (ҕ⥟㒣) with Tang Emperor Daizong ૤ҷᅫ (reigning from 762 to 779) and his courtiers in the audience. The Emperor requested him to re-translate this Sutra and wrote the ‘Foreword’ for his new Chinese translation. Before Amoghavajra’s death, Emperor Daizong awarded the Duke’s rank to him along with a fief of 3,000 households’ revenues. After he died in 774 in the Chinese capital, the Emperor ordered a three-day

20 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, pp. 426–427.

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state mourning and awarded him a posthumous honorific title of ‘The Great Tripitaka Master of Viveka, Vyasa, and Amogha’ (໻䕽䆕ܝᱎϡぎ ϝ㮣੠ᇮ). Apart from being one of the greatest translators of Buddhist (most Tantra) scriptures in Chinese history, Amoghavajra also baptized the highest number Chinese disciples on Chinese soil, reportedly in hundreds of thousands. He had the unique honour of being the ‘Sandai guanding guoshi ϝҷ☠乊೑Ꮬ’ (Rajya Guru who baptized three- generation of Emperors), i.e., Tang Emperor Xuanzong, Tang Emperor Suzong ૤㙗ᅫ (reigning from 756 to 762) and Tang Emperor Daizong. He also baptized, at the request of Emperor Daizong, 5,000 of his civilian and military officers in 768 which marked the zenith of Tantra in world history.21 Amoghavajra left behind many anecdotes in Chinese folklore. Probably, the Chinese tradition of performing rituals beseeching the Dragon King to send down rain for drought relief was started by Amoghavajra. Padmasambhava, who hailed from Udyana, was a great master of the Nalanda Monastery. In 755, he accepted the invitation of the Tibetan king Khri-sron Ide-btsan and went to Tibet to preach Tantra. He eventually became the patriarch of the ‘Gsan-snags-gnin-ma’ Sect (red sect) of Tibetan Buddhism, and widely known in China as ‘Liánhuāshēng dashi 㦆㢅⫳໻຿’ (the lotus-born sage guru). Joining the illuminated rank of Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra, Padmasambhava made great contributions in disseminating Tantric Buddhism in Tibet and Bhutan which also extended its influence to China. Let me pause to explain that in the Chinese Buddhist world there are two categories of teachings: (a) ‘xianjiao ᰒᬭ’ (literally, ‘open teaching’) and (b) ‘mijiao ᆚᬭ’ (literally, ‘secret teaching’). Thanks to the efforts of Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra who smuggled Tantra into the Chinese Buddhist world through the back-door, Tantra tradition has been firmly established in China and spread beyond the boundaries of Buddhism in Chinese folklore for more than a thousand years. The chanting of the Sakyaraja Sutra famously performed by Amoghavajra at crucial junctures of Chinese history has been developed into a powerful folklore.

21 Ibid, pp. 427–429.

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Bodhidharma’s Role in Integrating Two Buddhist Traditions Another great builder of the cultural superstructure of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ was Bodhidharma who arrived in China in 520/527 and died in China in the first half of the 6th century. Unlike other eminent monks from India, he was not given much attention in China when he was alive. After his death, he became a legend and his influence on the development of Chinese culture has been the greatest of all the monks. There has been no end of stories, true or imaginary, about him in Chinese folklore. One story which might have been true is that he was instructed by his illustrious guru to go to China to enlighten the masses of that very important country on earth. He accomplished that mission eminently. It is meaningless to delve into the myth of this episode which cannot be handled as a historical topic any more. Yet, the moral of this episode cannot be lost. We see for over a century of Bodhidharma’s times that the cream of Indian Buddhist masters not only ‘Look east’, but vied with one another in ‘Going east’. There was truly an eastward Buddhist movement reminiscent of the modern ‘brain drain’. Bodhidharma has been popularly called ‘Damo laozu 䖒ᨽ㗕⼪’ (Bodhidharma the patriarch), and his image has been painted by artists, carved on rocks, and even in porcelain. Writers portray him in fiction. The famous monastery ‘Shaolinsi ᇥᵫᇎ’ has earned its reputation because Bodhidharma lived there for 10 years. And, it was Bodhidharma who made the Shaolin Monastery the famous centre of ‘kungfu’ (martial art). Indian friends claim that Kerala was the homeland of ‘kungfu/martial art’ which was spread to China by Bodhidharma. I visited the Shaolin Monastery in the 1980s, and saw an exhibition of a rock with the impression of a human figure as if it was engraved on the rock. I was told that the impression was not engraved, it was because of Bodhidharma doing meditation in front of the rock. Bodhidharma’s power of concentration then created the impression on the rock. I was also told that the exhibit was the replica of the real rock which had been cut out from the hill and now under safe custody in the Imperial Palace Museum of Beijing as a priceless treasure. I did not check whether all of it was true. But, Bodhidharma’s doing meditation before a rock on the hill adjacent to the Shaolin Monastery has been one of the fantastic stories of the Boddhidharma legend in China.

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I want to add another thing relating to Bodhidharma’s influence on China’s historical development. In 1900, Indian soldiers were fighting in Tianjin ໽⋹ and Beijing ࣫Ҁ for Britain under the banner of an Eight- power coalition of expeditionary force, and many of them marveled at the heroic spirit shown by the ‘Yihetuan Н੠ಶ’ (literally, ‘Group of Righteousness and Harmony’) soldiers (internationally known as the ‘Boxer rebels’) who faced the invaders’ bullets with their bare bodies. Little did these Indian (British) soldiers know that their opponents were inspired by an Indian monk-turned-deity, who was none other than Bodhidharma. Three decades ago, I saw photographs of some of the mementos that had belonged to the Boxers now preserved in a regiment centre in India. These were things that were used as altars for worship and originally belonged to a sub-group of the ‘Yihetuan Н੠ಶ’ called ‘Chuanxiang jiao Ӵ佭ᬭ’ (Sect passing down the incense). Bodhidharma was revered by this group as ‘Danglai dongdu chuanxiang jiaozhu laoshizun ᔧᴹϰ⏵Ӵ 佭ᬭЏ㗕Ꮬᇞ’ (The reverend guru who has come to the East from the sea passing down the incense).22 In Western literature, these Boxer soldiers are epitomes of Chinese xenophobia. Ironically, these so-called xenophobes were broad-minded enough to revere someone that had ‘come to the East from the sea’ and become a ‘Guru’ and worship him to the extent of dying for the cause. An important aspect of Bodhidharma’s role in history was the provision of a golden link between the two civilization spheres of India and China — integrating the two Buddhist traditions of India and China. Chinese Buddhist historiography ascertained that Bodhidharma was the 28th Buddhist patriarch descending directly from Lord Buddha. Bodhidharma was revered as the founding patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China. Correspondingly, Reverend Huineng ᜻㛑 was the 6th successor of Bodhidharma and also the founder patriarch of the Southern sect of Chan (फᅫ). The family tree continued, and the 6th successor of Reverend Huineng, i.e., Reverend Yixuan Н⥘, became the founder patriarch of the Linji Sect (Ј⌢ᅫ) of the Southern sect of Chan. Today, Reverend Xingyun (᯳ѥ⊩Ꮬ) of Foguangshan ԯܝቅ, Taiwan ৄ⑒,

22 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 143.

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is the 48th patriarch of this Linji Sect. In this way, we can trace Reverend Xingyun as the 86th successor of Lord Buddha. There is dual importance of this succession. First, such an uninterrupted succession of Buddhist family tree, as it were, was built with Bodhidharma being the key-link. Second, the Buddhist family tree has been transplanted from India to China, again, via the historic role of Bodhidharma. In this way, Bodhidharma was, indeed, a great builder of the cultural superstructure of ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

III. INDIAN ‘TEMPLE CULTURE’ BLOSSOMING IN CHINA I conceive two essential aspects of Buddhism: ‘Spiritual Buddhism’ and ‘Monastic Buddhism’. ‘Spiritual Buddhism’ is the Buddhist ideology which is very broad-minded. Indian thinkers like Tagore did not believe in narrow-minded religion, and completely discarded idol-worship. From his writings we can see some impact of Buddhist ideology. Nehru was a ‘Hindu’ by cultural heritage. He chose to have the ‘dharma-cakra’ in the centre of Indian National Flag, thus embracing spiritual Buddhism as the soul of Indian politics. If there were no temples and only spiritual Buddhism the Buddhist ideology could have been accepted wholly or partially by followers of other faiths of the world. Yet, from the religious perspective, ‘Monastic Buddhism’ is essential without which the Buddhist movement would not have a body to grow. That Buddhism could develop in China from strength to strength was the contribution of Buddhist temples. India as the motherland of four religions — Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism — has to be a land of strong ‘temple culture’. I conceive three facets of ‘temple culture’. First, the society devotes much of its resources of money, manpower, space, art and architecture to the construction and expansion of the temples. Second, temples are the venue of collective social activities, festivals and family events (birth, death, marriage and so on), apart from religious prayers and sermons. Third, temple is a symbol of sacredness to be revered by all walks of life. Before the advent of Buddhism in China there was no temple, let alone ‘temple culture’. Buddhism made China a country thriving with ‘temple culture’.

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Chinese Palace Culture Unpopular Among the Masses The householder-cum-wandering-ascetic dynamics of Indian civilization split the passion for household-prosperity in India to create a ‘temple culture’ of other-worldly glory amidst the household opulence. As pilgrim Xuanzang and other travellers to ancient India testified to, the landscape of the Indian subcontinent was shining with glittering temples than palaces. Today, we see only religious relics of ancient India, and not a trace of residences of kings. India was and still is a land of ‘temple culture’. A typical example is that the expansion of roads does not demolish temples — big or small. In pre-Buddhist China, ‘temple culture’ was absent, but lots of human, material and monetary resources in addition to art and architectural endeavours were poured into the creation of magnificent residences for the kings and their men, which may be called the ‘palace culture’. The sali- ent feature of this ‘palace culture’ was marked by high boundary walls to segregate the wasteful luxurious living from the common people. The grief of this segregation is immortalized by the lines of ᴰ⫿ Du Fu (712–770), which I translate below:

Wine and meat decay Inside the red gate, Skeletons on the roadside Those who died of frostbite. 23 (ᴅ䮼䜦㙝㟁ˈ䏃᳝ޏ⅏偼)

This description concerns only the general palatial houses, but China’s imperial palaces always had a reputation in the world for luxury and magnificence. Emperor Qin Shihuangdi, imperial China’s founder-ruler, set the tone for the country’s ‘palace culture’. He virtually forced the labourers of the entire country to construct three things: the Great Wall, public roads, and his palaces. His special palace named ‘Epang Palace 䰓᠓ᅿ’ was destroyed

23 Du Fu’s extraordinarily long poem of 500 characters entitled ‘Zi jing fu Fengxian xian yonghuai 㞾Ҁ䍈༝ܜও੣ᗔ’ (Rhyming my inner feelings in my journey from the imperial capital to Fengxian County).

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by the armed rebellion no sooner than it had been completed. We have no trace about the magnificence of this legendary glittering palace but a famous rhapsodic essay on it by the Tang poet Du Mu ᴰ⠻ (803–852?) titled ‘Epanggong fu 䰓᠓ᅿ䌟’ (Essay on the Epang Palace) which is included in Chinese school textbooks. In this essay Du Mu (who also did not see any trace of the Palace but would be better informed than us as he lived only a thousand years after the construction and destruction of it) related that the Palace complex extended to 300 li (about 150 kilometres) in distance which is incredible. Two rivers flowed within the premises of the Palace that was dotted with buildings and pavilions interconnected with covered corridors. There were so many beauties dressing their hair with ribbons that one might have thought that there were green clouds. The innumerable ‘looking glasses’ used by them shined in the dark night like twinkling stars. The rivers flowed fragrantly with the washed-off perfume of the ladies. The air was fumigated by incense smoke. The royal carriages rumbled like thunders. The palace was piled up with treasures that had been looted from all over. Here, Du Mu’s dramatic description of the ‘rivers flowing fragrantly with the washed-off perfume of the ladies’ (␁⌕⍼㝏ˈᓗ㛖∈г) reminds us the famous (or infamous) ‘liuxiang qu ⌕佭⏴’ (the drain that draws off perfume) which forms a part of the true story of the debauched lascivious ruler — Han Emperor Ling ∝♉Ᏹ (reigning from 168 to 189). Drains are supposed to carry dirty water, but this one from the bath tank of the imperial ladies drained out remnants of expensive imported perfumes used by the Emperor’s harem — an eloquent testimony of the wasteful ‘palace culture’. Du Mu’s powerful dramatization of the extravagance of such a ‘palace culture’ continues to indicate that the number of timber pieces used to build the Epang Palace were much more than the farmers and weavers of the country, that the number of nails used to build the Epang Palace were much more than the grains of the country, that the number of bricks and tiles of the Epang Palace were much more than the fabrics worn by the people of the country, that the architectural units of the Epang Palace were much more than all the cities of the country, and that the musical sounds of the Epang Palace were much more than the words spoken by common folks of the country. All this made ‘the people of China furious at heart without the courage of speaking out’ (Փ໽ϟПҎˈϡᬶ㿔㗠ᬶᗦ).

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Finally, everything was razed into ashes. Indeed, in more than two thousand years since Emperor Qin Shihuangdi started the rage of the ‘palace culture’ thousands of magnificent architectures were built and destroyed — a manifestation of the notoriety of ‘palace culture’ in China. Had there not been the advent of Buddhism, China today would have become barren in historical monuments. What Du Mu wrote is literature, not history. As I have mentioned earlier, the history of Qin Shihuangdi has suffered from want of authentic records in addition to a negative view about the tyrant from post-Qin historians and scholars. Interestingly, a joint investigation by the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the archaeological department of the Xi’an Municipality recently concluded that the Epang Palace was too ambitious a project to be completed during the Emperor’s life time, hence it was never completed. The historically recorded event of rebel leader Xiangyu’s burning the palace was not the Epang Palace, but the Xianyang Palace ઌ䰇ᆂ on the other side of the river. In any case, the extravaganza of Chinese ‘palace culture’ was real and tremendously unpopular. It is worth mentioning that there was an abortive plan of the Xi’an Municipality to rebuild the ‘Epang Palace 䰓᠓ᅿ’ with a 38 billion yuan investment by the Beijing Realty Development Company. This Plan was motivated by a desire to revive the historical glory of the city. However, it flouts the new policies of the Xi Jinping д䖥ᑇ–Li Keqiang ᴢܟᔎ leadership of austerity and anti-corruption. The Secretary-General of the Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping, observed in January 2013, at a conference convened by the Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, that the ‘Epang Palace’ was the symbol of the bankruptcy of the Qin Dynasty and appealed the Party members to learn seriously from the lesson. It is important to reiterate that before the advent of Buddhism in China there was no ‘temple culture’ in the country. Confucianism was not a religion as such, and the emergence of the so-called Confucius’ temple or ‘Wenmiao ᭛ᑭ’ was just a by-product of the prosperity of Buddhist ‘temple culture’ in China. The case of Taoist temples is similar and a large number of these temples were built in the wake of the Buddhist ‘temple culture’.

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It is not my purpose to clarify the complications and confusions on Taoism. Suffice it to say, that the mindset of the ancients was much more holistic than that of the moderners who look at ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Taoism’ as if they were water-tight compartments. ‘Buddhism’ and ‘Taoism’ shared a common cultural legacy by and large in China, as was the case with Shintoism and Buddism in Japan. Though we cannot deny the existence of ‘Taoist’ cultural traditions in China before the advent of Buddhism, Taoism developed into a highly organized institution of religion only after the advent of Buddhism in China, and only by imitating and duplicating the religious practices of Buddhism. The transplantation of Indian ‘temple culture’ to China created all kinds of temples. There are Buddhist temples, Taoist temples, and Confucian temples. Then there are ‘longwangmiao 啭⥟ᑭ/temple for the Nagaraja/dragon king’, ‘tudimiao ೳഄᑭ/temple for the deity of the locality’, and ‘Guandimiao ݇Ᏹᑭ/temple for Lord Guan’. The last three temples are regarded by researchers as ‘Taoist temples’ but this view is incorrect. If anyone cares to tour the countryside of China and peep into any temple, he or she will discern an absence of clear cut boundaries between Buddhism and Taoism. A common feature in the ‘longwangmiao 啭⥟ᑭ’, ‘ tudimiao ೳഄᑭ’, and ‘Guandimiao ݇Ᏹᑭ’ is the presence of ‘Guanyin pusa 㾖䷇㦽㧼/Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara’. In recent years, lots of new temples have been constructed in the cities and rural areas to cope with the demand for worship and tourism. Many years ago, I visited a huge new Buddhist temple complex at Shenzhen (said to have been visited by the Chairman of the People’s Republic, Jiang Zemin) and went around some of the pavilions and saw all kinds of non-Buddhist idols inside. Most visitors went from one pavilion to another, with incense packets in hand, burned incense, and bowed in front of idols they had no idea about. I suppose the young visitors I saw were taking out insurance policies with every deity they came across.

Buddhist Neighbourhood of Confucian Community Confucianism in ancient China was essentially an educational institution. Buddhism was also an educational movement and was even more so in the Land of Confucianism. The complimentary nature between the Confucian

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and Buddhist educational institutions in China cannot be exaggerated, although this has not been sufficiently understood and appreciated. .(ᆊ’ (scholars’ schoolۦ The Chinese name for Confucianism is ‘rujia Ever since the erection of the ‘Baimasi ⱑ偀ᇎ/Monastery of White Horses’ this scholarly touch has never disappeared in Chinese Buddhist institutions. Any Buddhist temple that has residential quarters has a library and reading room. This may be regarded as a Confucian imprint on the Buddhist temple culture. Conversely, the Buddhist temple culture, in turn, has served to re-invigorate the scholarly atmosphere in Confucian China from the erection of the ‘Baimasi ⱑ偀ᇎ/Monastery of White Horses’ onwards. We know that the scholarly/Confucian tradition of China underwent a revolutionary change with the institution of the Imperial Examinations System and civil services vigorously introduced during the reign of Tang Emperor Taizong. Before that the studying community of Confucianism was very small being confined to certain families with long scholarly traditions and private academies. But, as Buddhist temples mushroomed, and, as every Buddhist temple was a study place of sorts, there was an eruption of scholarly activity. There is no gainsaying that Buddhist temples encouraged the study of Confucian classics as well. A vivid example is the Mogao Grottoes 㥿催び at Dunhuang ᬺ✠ where the world-famous Dunhuang Manuscript of hand-written (with a few printed) documents was created. Nearly a thousand reels were recorded with dates, and the entire creative process according to the records was from 405 to 1002. The Manuscripts, 58,600 reels, are scattered in museums and libraries of China, Britain, France, Russia, Japan, the U.S.A., India, Denmark and Germany. 95% of the Manuscripts are copies of Buddhist scriptures while 5% are non-Buddhist, including Confucian classics. The Mogao Grottoes was a historical Buddhist and a serious educational institution. Buddhist temples were a great help in popularizing Confucian teachings and in helping candidates succeed in the Imperial Examinations. The main syllabus for the Examinations was Confucian philosophy and Chinese history. An interesting phenomenon of the Tang Dynasty was that scholars who had qualified the initial two tiers of examinations and reached the imperial capital, Chang’an 䭓ᅝ, for the final test would

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inevitably visit the great Ci’en Monastery ໻᜜ᘽᇎ complex and write a poem on the side walls of the Great Swan Pagoda ໻䲕ศ. As a result, this famous Buddhist shrine became an exhibition ground of the golden treasury of Chinese literature. It was the Tang reigning Empress Wu who started making the Great Swan Pagoda of Ci’en Monastery a solemn venue of poetry ensemble. She celebrated the ‘Double Ninth Festival’ (on the 9th day of the 9th moon), the traditional day for climbing mountains, to ascend to the top of the Pagoda with a group of scholar-courtiers and ordered them to compose poems on the spot. This event yielded a few famous poems with the same title ‘fenghe jiuyuejiuri deng ci’ensi futu yingzhi ༝੠б᳜б᮹ⱏ᜜ᘽᇎ⍂ ೒ᑨࠊ’ (poem composed after ascending the pagoda of Ci’en Monastery on the ninth of the ninth moon at the instance of Her Majesty) by different famous scholars. The poem written by Cen Xi ብ㖆 (?–713) contains a couple of couplets describing:

The ratna pagoda pierces the sky, Royal carrier on top of the clouds. (ᅱৄ㘌໽໪ˈ⥝䕛ℹѥッ) And again, The Brahma hall24 attracts swans from afar, Royal music amuses the ﬂ ying phoenix.25 (ẉූ䘹䲚䲕ˈᏱФ䖥㖨吒)

I have used the Sanskrit ‘ratna’ for the original ‘bao ᅱ’ and the Sanskrit ‘Brahma’ for the original ‘fan ẉ’ to be faithful to the courtiers lyrics eulogizing Empress Wu (likening Her Majesty to ‘walking on top of the clouds ℹѥッ’ and a ‘flying pheonix 㖨吒’) showing the marriage between the Buddhist temple culture and Chinese palace culture. The son and successor of reigning Empress Wu, Tang Emperor Zhongzong ૤Ёᅫ (reigning 705–710) repeated his late imperial mother’s poetry ensemble in 709. There was another poetry ensemble on top of the Great

24 Here ‘fantang ẉූ/Brahma hall’ is the euphuism for Buddhist temple. 25 The word of ‘luan 吒/phoenix’ refers to Empress Wu’s proclaiming her throne as the ‘luantai 吒ৄ/phoenix throne’.

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Swan Pagoda in 752 which was even more historic though not graced by the emperor. Five great Tang poets, Du Fu ᴰ⫿, Gao Shi 催䗖 (700–765), 㖆 (706?–763), and Xue Juܝټ Cen Shen ብখ (715–770), Chu Guangxi 㭯᥂ (8th century, no precise dates) met and each composed a poem on the same theme: Feelings after ascending the Great Swan Pagoda. I translate Du Fu’s piece below:

Pagoda lofty riding the blue sky, Fierce wind blows so violent. A man ordinary, here am I Standing so high, Fret and grief all open. I’m overpowered by The Religion of Elephant26 That’s the searchlight In our uncouth darkness. Winding path upward Borough snake-like, Reaching the lush green vistas. There the Pole Star Greeting me in the north, Huanghe and Han River Furiously ﬂ ow westward. The carriage of Sun God Tired in its journey, Reining in the Autumn Deity. Mountain of Qin cut asunder, Is there River Wei, or Jing? I wonder. I look down at the expanse of obscurity, Can’t see my emperor’s Forbidden City. I turn my head in search of Taizong’s tomb, Only see the cloud of tedious gloom.

26 Du Fu’s word is ‘xiangjiao 䈵ᬭ’ (literally, ‘religion of elephant’) which was the Tang nickname for Buddhism. The conventional interpretation is that ‘xiang 䈵’ here connotes ‘image’, and ‘xiangjiao 䈵ᬭ’ connotes ‘idol-worshipping religion’ that was Buddhism. I think a new interpretation is possible. Buddha is Naga, and the Chinese Buddhist translation of ‘Naga’ is ‘longxiang 啭䈵’ (dragon-elephant), hence Buddhism was euphorically called the ‘religion of elephant’, not the detrimental ‘idol-worshipping religion’.

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Goddess Uma drank at Manasarovar With the Zhou King On the Karakoram. Cranes leaving homes one by one, Unable to rest, Singing a distressing tune. There the swans gather Around the sun Minds of machination In everyone! (催ᷛ䎼㢡きˈ⚜亢᮴ᯊӥǄ㞾䴲ᯋ຿ᗔˈⱏݍ㗏ⱒᖻǄᮍⶹ ,䈵ᬭ࡯ˈ䎇ৃ䗑ݹ᧰Ǆӄこ啭㲛びˈྟߎᵱᩥᑑǄϗ᯳೼࣫᠋ ⊇∝ໄ㽓⌕Ǆ㖆੠䶁ⱑ᮹ˈᇥᯞ㸠⏙⾟Ǆ⾺Ꮁᗑ⸈⹢ˈ⋒␁ϡৃ 㾚Ԛϔ⇨ˈ⛝㛑䕼ⱛᎲ˛ಲ佪ি㰲㟰ˈ㢡ṻѥℷᛕǄᚰઝ׃Ǆ∖ ⩊∴佂, ᮹ᰣᯚҥϬǄ咘吸এϡᙃˈઔ号ԩ᠔ᡩ˛৯ⳟ䱣䰇䲕ˈ৘᳝ 』㊅䇟Ǆ)

This poem of Du Fu has a dark innuendo of the sad state of the Tang Empire forecasting the disastrous end of Emperor Xuanzong’s reign. It is replete with historical and legendary allusions that my plain translation can hardly do justice to. There is the allusion of the legend of Goddess Xiwangmu/Uma. The allusion is the poet’s complaint of the Emperor’s indulgence in his love affair with Lady Yang ᴼ䌉བྷ that led the country to ruin. Here is a literary event that was highly politically sensitive which took place within a Buddhist temple. The great Ci’en Monastery ໻᜜ᘽᇎ itself was originally built by Tang Emperor Gaozong to redeem his gratitude for his late imperial mother. The term ‘ci’en ᜜ᘽ’, meaning ‘blessings from my compassionate mother’ was obviously the transposition of Indian sentiments via Buddhist media. The Monastery was, in fact, the first institution to propound the concept of ‘cimu ᜜↡/compassionate mother’ in China. Then, the Monastery was made the workplace of pilgrim Xuanzang, and the Great Swan Pagoda was added to commemorate his historic return from India, complementing the love for the mother with the affection for the motherland. Thus, a Buddhist temple became the platform for poetic masterpieces. As Du Fu’s piece demonstrates, it was when a poet reached the high point that he felt the power of Buddha’s searchlight in the

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‘uncouth darkness’. It was at this place that the intersection of history, politics, culture and legendary stories integrated with the landscape, and is an example of how the Chinese civilization interconnected with the temple culture. During the Tang Dynasty, many eminent Buddhist monks were learned Confucian scholars. The renowned pilgrim, Xuanzang, was conversant in both Confucian and Buddhist teachings. A more vivid story was the rise of a famous sect of Chan Buddhism, the ‘Yangqizong ᴼቤᅫ/Yangqi Sect’ which was also very popular in Japan. The official Patriarch of the Sect was Reverend Yangqi Fanghui ᴼቤᮍӮ (996–1049) who founded the Sect at the shrine of Mount Yangqi ᴼቤቅ in the present Pingxiang 㧡е City in Jiangxi ∳㽓 Province. The Buddhist shrine was first established by a renowned Chan Master, Reverend Chengguang Ьᑓ⽙Ꮬ who passed away in 798. Liu Yuxi ߬⾍䫵 (772–842), renowned poet, scholar-officer of the Tang Dynasty, authored Reverend Chengguang’s epitaph at the request of the Reverend’s followers who were building a monument for their departed guru. Liu Yuxi’s epitaph which was inscribed at Reverend Chengguang’s tomb (which is still extant) provides valuable historical information about the rise of a Buddhist preacher. It writes that the Reverend was originally from the Zhong ᓴ family. At the age of seven, the Reverend had been an enthusiastic student of Confucianism until the age of 13. Then, he was fascinated by Buddhism and began to visit Buddhist shrines. He became a devotee of the great Chan Master, Shenhui ⼲Ӯ (684–758) at Luoyang and decided to embrace Buddhahood at the age of 30. From then on till he breathed his last at 52, he enthusiastically disseminated the message of Buddha in his native place with ‘a mindset of dedicated persuasion and transformation of people’ (ᨘ࣪Ўᖗ)27 — a typical Confucian–Buddhist synergy in education. Many Confucian scholars frequented Buddhist temples to learn Buddhist philosophy and spiritual cultivation. A typical example was renowned scholar-officer, Liu Zongyuan ᷇ᅫܗ (773–819). Liu wrote an essay to present to his bosom friend, Chan Master, Reverend Haochu ⌽߱ ⽙Ꮬ, Lord Abbot of the Longxing Monastery 啭݈ᇎ of southwest Hunan ␪फ Province. In the essay, he candidly narrated his close association with

27 Quan Tang wen, Vol. 6, pp. 6162–6163.

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the Buddhist community as well as his admonishment by another eminent scholar-officer, his colleague and good friend, Han Yu 䶽ᛜ (768–824). Liu’s essay reveals that Reverend Haochu was a quiet man and diligent reader, conversant in Confucian classics like Book of Change ᯧ㒣 and Analects 䆎䇁, fond of writing, and enjoyed sight-seeing. Liu also used the occasion to praise the Buddhist culture that made ‘fathers and sons following Truth, living in the vogue of nurture and culture, with broad- mindedness and no desire’ (জ⠊ᄤઌЎ݊䘧ˈҹݏ㗠ሙˈ⊞⛝㗠᮴∖). He wrote that he liked this culture, and was sick of those ‘careerists who fought with one another for the scrambling of positions’ (ϪП䗤䗤㗙ଃ ॄ㒘ЎࡵҹⳌ䔻). ‘That is why I enjoy the company of Buddhists’ (਒ПདϢ⍂ሴ␌ҹℸ), he wrote.28 There is one more episode relating to the convergence of Buddhist temple culture with Confucian scholarship. In 1175, two contending Neo- Confucian exponents, Zhu Xi ᴅ➍ (1130–1200) and Lu Jiuyuan 䰚б⏞ (1139–1193) met in the Ehu Temple 吙␪ᇎ at the Qianshan 䪙ቅ County in Jiangxi ∳㽓 Province. The temple eventually became a renowned Confucian institution called ‘Ehu shuyuan 吙␪к䰶’ (Ehu Academy), now one of the four major Confucian academies in Jiangxi. The Zhu-Lu meeting is now a famous historical event called ‘Ehu zhi hui 吙␪ПӮ’ (meeting at Ehu) in China’s cultural history.

Buddhist Temples for the ‘Guo ೑/State’ of China The Tang Dynasty was a prosperous period for Buddhist temple-building. It was from the Tang Dynasty onwards that Buddhist temples assumed a very pro-state attitude. There is a prominent, if not paradoxical, phenomenon of important Buddhist monasteries in China bearing the character ‘guo ೑’ (state) in their names which was quite often christened by Chinese emperors. I can name some examples: ‘Anguosi ᅝ೑ᇎ’ (Temple pacifying the state), ‘Xingguosi ݈೑ᇎ’ (Temple revitalizing the state), ‘Longguosi 䱚೑ᇎ’ (Temple enriching the state), ‘Qingguosi ⏙೑ᇎ’ (Temple purifying the state), ‘Huguosi ᡸ೑ᇎ’ (Temple protecting the state), ’Baoguosi ֱ೑ᇎ’ (Temple securing the state), ‘Ningguosi ᅕ೑ᇎ‘

28 Ibid, p. 5852.

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(Temple tranquilizing the state), ‘Baoguosi ᡹೑ᇎ’ (Temple redeeming gratitude to the state), and so on and so forth. Which ‘guo ೑/state’ are we talking about? Of course not India which was not a ‘state’ in those years. Nor can we identify the ‘guo ೑/state’ here with the ‘Zhongguo Ё೑/ Middle Kingdom/Madhyadesa’ of Reverend Daoxuan. Obviously the state referred to was the one in China. If we substitute China for ‘guo ೑/state’, the motives become clear: ‘Anguosi ᅝ೑ᇎ/Temple pacifying China’, ‘Xingguosi ݈೑ᇎ/Temple revitalizing China’, ‘Longguosi 䱚೑ᇎ/Temple enriching China’, ‘Qingguosi ⏙೑ᇎ/Temple purifying China’, ‘Huguosi ᡸ೑ᇎ/Temple protecting /China’, ‘Baoguosi ֱ೑ᇎ/Temple securing China’, ‘Ningguosi ᅕ೑ᇎ Temple tranquilizing China’, and ‘Baoguosi ᡹೑ᇎ/Temple redeeming gratitude to China’ and so on. Let us examine ‘Anguosi ᅝ೑ᇎ/Temple Pacifying China’ situated in modern Shanxi ቅ㽓 Province which is a good example of the influence of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. It was established in 637 (during the reign of Tang Emperor Taizong) originally called ‘Anjisi ᅝঢ়ᇎ’ (Temple of Good Auspice and Peace). During the reign of Tang Emperor Daizong ૤ҷᅫ (reigning 762–779), the Temple gained prominence because the area was the fief of the imperial daughter, Princess Changhua ᯠ࣪݀Џ. Emperor Daizong was one of the two Chinese rulers who held national celebrations for the Buddha’s relics. He gave two pieces to the Princess’ fiefdom, and the Temple built a bronze pagoda to store the relics, which is still preserved in the temple as a tourist attraction. But, a more famous story associated with the Temple was its having provided refuge to a royal prince who later became Tang Emperor Xuanzong II ૤ᅷᅫ (reigning 846–859). The per- secutor of the Prince was Tang Emperor Wuzong ૤℺ᅫ, and who usurped the throne with the help of anti-Buddhist Taoist priests. It was this ‘Anguosi ᅝ೑ᇎ/Temple Pacifying the State’ that saved the life of the Prince who became Emperor Wuzong’s successor as Tang Emperor Xuanzong II ૤ᅷᅫ. In order to show his gratitude to the Temple, Tang Emperor Xuanzong II christened the Temple as ‘Anguosi ᅝ೑ᇎ/Temple Pacifying the State’ and honoured the Lord Abbot of the Temple, Reverend Wukong ᙳぎ as ‘Guoshi ೑Ꮬ’ (Rajya Guru/Preacher of the State). In this example we see the influence of the ‘temple culture’ in China’s political strife.

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The history of ‘Xingguosi ݈೑ᇎ/Temple revitalizing China’ is closely related to the founder ruler of Sui Dynasty, Sui Emperor Wen 䱟᭛Ᏹ (reigning 581–604), the hero who reunified China after four centuries of disintegration. The Emperor was born in a nunnery and cared by the head- nun of the nunnery. After he was enthroned, he became an enthusiastic patron of Buddhism. Among his pro-Buddhist measures, he ordered a ‘Xingguosi ݈೑ᇎ/Temple revitalizing China’ being established in all the 45 provinces of China. Most of them disappeared, yet a few are still extant. The most famous one is situated on the ‘Hill of Thousands of Miniature Buddhas’ (गԯቅ) in Ji’nan ⌢फ city, capital of Shandong Province. It was first established during the Sui Dynasty, then renovated during Tang Emperor Taizong’s reign which is now called ‘Xingguo chansi ݈೑⽙ᇎ’ (the Chan/Zen Monastery revitalizing China), and recognized as a ‘priority temple’ (䞡⚍ᇎ䰶) by the government. Another is situated within the Xi’an City, at the Xinglong Village ݈䱚е in the Chang’an District 䭓ᅝऎ, and was first established in 650, the first year of Tang Emperor Gaozong’s reign. The temple was famous for having the famous pilgrim, Xuanzang, live in its premises twice. It was repeatedly destroyed during historical times, and again during the ‘Cultural Revolution’ in the 1960s. It was renovated in 1993. It is also called ‘Xingguo chansi ݈೑⽙ᇎ’ or the Chan/Zen Monastery revitalizing China. The venue where Sui Emperor Wen 䱟᭛Ᏹ was born is the location of one of the ‘Xingguosi ݈೑ᇎ/Temple revitalizing China’ at Dali ໻㤨 County in Shaanxi 䰩㽓 Province — one of the surviving temples of the 45 built during the Sui Dynasty. There is the ‘Baoguosi ֱ೑ᇎ/Temple securing China’ located at the foot of Mount Ling ♉ቅ in the Anshan Village 䵡ቅᴥ in the Jiangbei District ∳࣫ऎ of Ningbo City ᅕ⊶Ꮦ of Zhejiang ⌭∳ Province. This temple is also a priority Buddhist site declared by the government. The temple was first built during the Han Dynasty and destroyed during the reign of the lone anti-Buddhist Tang ruler, Emperor Wuzong. In 880, Tang ᅫ (reigning 873–888) approved the re-building ofڪEmperor Xizong ૤ the temple and granted the name of ‘Baoguosi ֱ೑ᇎ/Temple securing China’. The temple was repeatedly renovated during the Song, Ming and Qing dynasties. There are two famous ‘Ningguosi ᅕ೑ᇎ/Temple tranquilizing China’ in China now, one located in the Zizhong 䌘Ё County of Sichuan ಯᎱ

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Province, and another in Baoying ᅱᑨ County under the jurisdiction of Yangzhou ᡀᎲ City of Jiangsu ∳㢣 Province. The Sichuan ‘Ningguosi ᅕ೑ᇎ/Temple tranquilizing China’ was first built during the Han Dynasty, and received the patronage of the reigning Tang Empress Wu. It used to be a prominent Buddhist shrine but was destroyed by the peasant rebellion at the end of the Ming Dynasty. The People’s Republic of China rebuilt it into a prosperous Buddhist shrine and tourist site. The Jiangsu ‘Ningguosi ᅕ೑ᇎ/Temple tranquilizing China’ was first built during the reign of Tang Emperor Taizong, and was once a thriving shrine. Again, it was restored to its historical glory by the government of People’s Republic of China. Historically, there were many sites of ‘Baoguosi ᡹೑ᇎ/Temple redeeming gratitude to China’ many of which are not extant, others with a changed name. Even then, eight temples of the namesake still survive. Of these eight, the one located on the Jingu Hill 䞥啳ቅ in Longmen 啭䮼 Village near Lezhi Ф㟇 County in Sichuan ಯᎱ Province, the one located in Jianning ᓎᅕ County within Sanming ϝᯢ City in Fujian ⽣ᓎ Province, and the one located in Suzhou 㢣Ꮂ City in Jiangsu ∳㢣 Province were famous in historical times and are prominent shrines and tourist spots today. The Sichuan temple was first built during Sui Emperor Wen’s reign and renovated a number of times, and was a prominent shrine through history. The Fujian temple was first built in 921 and was also a famous shrine. The Suzhou temple was first built in the second half of the 13th century which has also enjoyed a sustained reputation as a prominent shrine. Today, there is a Buddhist Museum along with an art institution, a charitable clinic and other organizations on its campus. These examples reflect what the other-worldly ‘wandering ascetics’ dynamics have been doing in China — having transformed into this- worldly ‘householder’ builders for the good of China. This reflects the mutual affection for the civilization twins of India and China, and the noble spirit of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

Metamorphosis of Sakyamuni into Sakyaraja in China Let us return to Amoghavajra. In 764 when China was facing an imminent Tibetan invasion, Tang Emperor Daizong and his courtiers were audience

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to a series of Amoghavajra’s lectures on the Buddhist canon, the ‘Renwang jing ҕ⥟㒣/Sakyaraja Sutra’. Amoghavajra’s re-translation of this Sutra had the full Chinese name as ‘Foshuo renwang banruoboluomi jing ԯ䇈ҕ ⥟㠀㢹⊶㔫㳰㒣’ (literally, ‘The Prajnaparamita sutra of the Sakyaraja related by Buddha’). As a matter of fact, the first translator of this Sutra was none other than Kumarajiva. However, as this Sutra was so important in safeguarding the security of China, the Tang Emperor felt it should be re-translated by its best exponent — Amoghavajra. The ‘Renwang jing ҕ⥟㒣/Sakyaraja Sutra’ is one of many Buddhist scriptures whose originally Sanskrit text could not be found. During Xuanzang’s search for authentic Buddhist texts in India, he tried hard but failed to find the original written text of the Sakyaraja Sutra. The Sanskrit text of this Sutra may have never appeared in China, and was one example of Indian oral tradition being converted into Chinese written and printed tradition via the photographic memories of the eminent Indian monk- scholars like Kumarajiva. Without any intention of impugning the honesty of Kumarajiva and others, I feel that Mahayana Buddhism may be regarded as a joint Chindia enterprise with a noble mission to reinvigorate the structure of the ‘super state’ of China. I say this because this ‘Renwang jing ҕ⥟㒣/Sakyaraja Sutra’ was regarded as one of the three famous ‘huguo jing ᡸ೑㒣’ (literally, ‘sutras that protect the state/China’) which amply demonstrates its contribution to the super-state-building in China. I must add that Tang Emperor Daizong was not the first Chinese ruler to highlight the importance of this Sutra. Two years after Tang Emperor Taizong ascended the throne (in 627), he ordered (in 629) that on the 27th day of every moon all the Buddhist monks in the capital, Chang’an, must chant this Sutra (of Kumarajiva’s translation) to invoke the Buddha’s blessings for the invigoration of his reign.29 We should remember that Tang Emperor Taizong’s reign with the name of ‘zhenguan 䋲㾖’ is generally regarded as the best period throughout the history of imperial China. This objectively enhances the importance of ‘Renwang jing ҕ⥟㒣/ Sakyaraja Sutra’ in Chinese political history. We know that ‘ren ҕ’ is the quintessence of Confucian teaching, and the ideal governance in Chinese tradition is ‘renzheng ҕᬓ/benevolent

29 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 306.

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governance’. It was not a part of Indian thinking and would not have been carried from India to China by Kumarajiva or Amoghavajra. There was the Chinese urge of equating the Indian concept of ‘Sakyaraja’ with ‘renwang ҕ⥟’ (king of benevolent governance) but this terminology never existed in pre-Buddhist China. The term ‘Sakyaraja’ itself is a puzzle. Perhaps, it was a reference to ‘Sakya Gan. a-rājya’ which was a small ancient state in the Indian sub-continent — the homeland of Lord Buddha. Thus, the narrative of this Sutra is a eulogy of the benevolent governance in Lord Buddha’s (Prince Siddhartha’s) homeland supposed to be narrated by Lord Buddha to his disciples. Kumarajiva and Amoghavajra were responsible for the input of magic power into this Sutra. ‘Sakya’ was the name of an ancient Indian ruling family. Buddha renounced his rightful prospect of becoming the ‘Sakyaraja’ (king of the Sakya family) to become ‘Sakyamuni’ (sage of the Sakya family) in India, but his brilliant disciples, like Kumarajiva and Amoghavjra, went to China to project Buddha as a powerful supernatural ‘Sakyaraja’ to protect China when her security was threatened. In this way the ‘Foshuo renwang banruoboluomi jing ԯ䇈ҕ⥟㠀㢹⊶㔫㳰㒣/Buddha telling the story of Sakyaraja’ Sutra looks like restoring the rightful place of ‘Sakyaraja’ for Buddha the ‘Sakyamuni’. China was the venue and motivation of this res- toration. This is but natural from the perspective of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Today, the Sakyaraja Sutra translated by Amoghavajra has been eulogized in a variety of ways. One can capture its fantastic details by talking to the Buddhist communities of mainland China, Taiwan, and abroad. In my discussions above, we have already felt that the term ‘renwang ҕ⥟’ creates doubt about the genuine Indian origin of the Sutra. Today, the full title of the text in Chinese has become ‘Renwang huguo banruoboluomi jing ҕ⥟ᡸ೑㠀㢹⊶㔫㳰໮㒣’ with the even more doubtful bi-syllable ‘huguo ᡸ೑/protecting the state’ being permanently added. Its abridged title becomes ‘Renwang huguo jing ҕ⥟ᡸ೑㒣’ (the Sakyaraja Sutra that protects the state) or ‘Renwang huguozhou ҕ⥟ᡸ೑੦’ (the Sakyaraja Mantra that protects the state). This indeed is a paradoxical phenomenon of chanting Sakyamuni’s supposed quotations of Sakyaraja in the service of protecting the state of China. The Tantra characteristics of the Sakyaraja Sutra transcend the limits of Buddhist teaching enabling it to be shared by the non-Buddhists, even

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Taoists, in China. It advocates ‘da yujia fa ໻⨰ԑ⊩’ (the great Yoga mantra) that can deter away enemies who threaten the security of the country as well as bless individuals with riches, imperial careers and longevity. Amoghavajra’s prayer meetings in which the Sakyaraja Sutra was invoked has become a vogue of ‘renwang hui ҕ⥟Ӯ’ (Sakyaraja sessions) particularly popular in Jiangsu ∳㢣 Province and adjacent areas.

IV. BUDDHIST ‘SUNYATA’ GENERATING SUBSTANTIAL BENEFITS IN CHINA Who and what was the legendary Nagarjuna (150–250 CE) still puzzles us. I visited Nagarjunakonda in Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, in the 1990s to look for an answer in vain. There might be confusion (which is unavoidable) for me to take ‘Nagarjuna’ as the symbol of Buddhism (he was the famed ‘Second Buddha’ internationally, and ‘dierdai Shijia ㄀Ѡҷ䞞䖺/ the second-generation Sakyamuni’ in China), great philosopher-cum- physician (the famed ‘Medicine Buddha’), and the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. The concept of ‘sunyata/voidness’ invented by him has greatly improved our understanding of the interconnectivity between the two civilizations of China and India. There is the famous philosophical text ‘Madhyamika sastra’, the original of which no one on earth has seen. It has permanently registered its place in the scholarly world, thanks to the translation team led by Kumarajiva which yielded its famous Chinese translation titled ‘zhonglun Ё䆎/ discourse of the middle path’. In my opinion, the aim of the theory was to destroy ‘wozhi ៥ᠻ/atmagraha/ego-clinging’ among people who had developed arrogance because of personal achievement — without a higher understanding that in this world there is ‘neither creation nor destruction’ (ϡ⫳Ѻϡ♁). I do not agree with the interpretation that this ‘Madhyamika’ theory is ‘the middle way between eternalism and annihilationism’ which tends to see only its negative aspect. I think we get an insight from Nagarjuna’s ‘Madhyamika’ theory by realizing that what is positive can be negative, and what is negative can be positive. This further helps people to correct the misconception that the advent of Buddhism in China had a negative impact on the Chinese material culture.

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Frank John Ninivaggi has supposedly written a book entitled Ayurveda: A Comprehensive Guide to Traditional Indian Medicine for the West (a book I confess I have not read), in which Nagarjuna was regarded as an exponent and a practitioner of India’s mainstream traditional medicine, Ayurveda. I know that Nagarjuna enjoyed a great reputation in Chinese traditional medicine, witness the well known ‘Longshu pusa yaofang 啭ᷥ㦽㧼㥃ᮍ/ Collection of the prescriptions of Bodhisattva Nagarjuna’. There was a widely popular story that famous Tang poet, Bai Juyi, had read a medical text entitled ‘Longshu lun 啭ᷥ䆎/On Nagarjuna’. There was an important Chinese reference book, ‘Yifang leiju एᮍ㉏㘮/A classified collection’ authored by a group of Korean experts in 1443, and first published in 1465 which was subsequently lost. The book quoted a text titled ‘Longshu pusa yanlun 啭ᷥ㦽㧼ⴐ䆎/Bodhisattva Nagarjuna on eye problems’. There was an account of an Indian eye doctor who was doing cataract surgery known as ‘jinzhen bozhang 䞥䩜ᢼ䱰’ or removing cataract with a gold needle. Tang poet, Liu Yuxi (who I have mentioned a little earlier) wrote a poem Ҏ/To the Brahmin monk’ toڻentitled ‘Zeng Poluomen sengren 䌴ယ䮼 thank the Indian doctor who treated his cataract. I translate the poem below:

I looked at the red colour Blue was what I gather’d, My eye-sight declined In the daytime. My Guru, How did your needle gold Restore my sight of old? (ⳟᴅ⏤៤⹻ˈ㕲᮹ϡ⽕亢˗Ꮬ᳝䞥ㆺᴃˈབԩЎথ㩭?)

Famous Indian mathematician, Aryabhata (476–550 CE), invented the Place value system and ‘sunya/zero’ which reconfirmed Nagarjuna’s dialec- tic proposition between existence and non-existence. The earliest Chinese translation of ‘zero’ was ‘kong ぎ’ just as translated ‘sunya’. We see today how ‘zero’ functions as both substance and voidness. If ‘zero’ stands alone there is no substance. If we add ‘zero’ to a sum (at the end or in between figures) it means a 10-fold multiplication. The concept of Buddhist ‘sunyata’ is generally understood as ‘voidness’.

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Austere Indian Lifestyle Enriching Chinese Food Culture One can see that the practice of Buddhism in China showed a great flexibility in contrast to some of the religious fundamentalism we see in modern times. With a noble goal of rescuing humankind from the ‘sea of sorrow’ (in Sanskrit ‘duhkha-sagar’, in Chinese ‘kuhai 㢺⍋’), the dynamics of Indian ‘wandering ascetic’ enthusiastically engaged itself in promoting a better living condition in China. Those who live in pious religious societies, be they Indians or other peoples, may be able to appreciate the strong desire to live a better and better material life with a quest for higher and higher spiritual values on the part of Chinese people. Chinese culture featured the world’s first scientific studies on the nutrition and medicinal values of food. There was the publication of ‘Yinshan zhengyao 佂㞇ℷ㽕’ (Essentials of what we drink and eat) in 1330, followed by another similar book, ‘Shiwu bencao 亳⠽ᴀ㤝’ (Analysis of the vegetations of our food) published in the middle of the 17th century. The former was the work of Hu Sihui ᗑᗱㄏ/He Sihui ԩᗱㄏ, a physician working in the food department of the imperial palace of Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty. He had a long life, possibly was a centenarian, and was living proof of his teachings. The latter was allegedly an unpublished work of a famous physician, Li Gao ᴢᵆ (1180–1251), author of many medical texts. Famous biologist, Li Shizhen ᴢᯊ⦡ (1518–1593), was supposed to have edited it, while Yao Kecheng ྮৃ៤, a scholar of the 17th century, was instrumental in its publication. These two nearly forgotten publications highlighted the desire of longevity with the help of food in Chinese culture, already obsessed with food. The influence of Buddhism on cooking is notable. The Indian austerity represented by Buddhism actually stimulated Chinese enjoyment in eating and drinking. This seemingly paradoxical scenario was a historical reality. This phenomenon must also be considered along with the fact that lots of plants migrated from India to China through the efforts of Buddhist monks and others. I have itemized a few elsewhere,30 and shall briefly mention some here: sesame, black pepper, broad-bean, cucumber, brinjaul,

30 Tan Chung & Geng Yinzeng, India and China, pp. 225–226.

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spinach, lotus-root, and turmeric. There is a consensus among Chinese scholars that India is the homeland of brinjaul, and the plant was introduced to China during the 4th or 5th century. The Indian brinjaul was globular, and the elongated variety was developed in China. About spinach, there is a theory that its Chinese name ‘bocai 㦴㦰’ (literally, the ‘bo-vegetable’) was the abridged form of ‘bolengcai 㦴㭤㦰’ which was a transliteration from ‘palinga/palenga’ said to be the name of Nepal — hence the vegetable was from Nepal. I think there is a little hitch in this theory: ‘palinga/palenga’ is the India vernacular name for spinach — I know that the Bengal people call it so. If one looks at sesame, black pepper, and cucumber, all originating from the south of the Himalaya, they were all prefixed with the syllable ‘hu 㚵/foreign’ when they initially grew in China — sesame as ‘huma 㚵咏’, black pepper as ‘hujiao 㚵Ủ’, broad-bean as ‘hujiao 㚵䈚’, and cucumber as ‘hugua 㚵⪰’. This ‘hu 㚵/foreign’ prefix reflected their having arrived in China along the ‘Silk Road/Dharmaratna-marg’ through Central Asia. About lotus-root there is no controversy as we know that India is the homeland of lotus (the sacred flower of ancient India) that must have migrated to China during the early post-Han period. I want to repeat what I have discussed in India and China — the import of turmeric to China.31 This most important Indian cooking medium was called ‘yujinxiang 䚕䞥佭’. Li Shizhen’s ᴢᯊ⦡ famous classic, ‘Bencao gangmu ᴀ㤝㒆Ⳃ’ (Compendium of Metria Medica), devoted a lot of space to study it, showing its importance in Chinese cuisine and pharma- cology. He quoted from the Buddhist scripture, Jin’guangming jing 䞥ܝ ᯢ㒣 (Chinese translation of ‘Survanaprabhasottama Sutra’) that its Indian name was ‘chajumo 㤊ⶽᨽ’ (Chinese transliteration of Sanskrit ‘kumkuma’* for turmeric) and also repeated the traditional Chinese belief that it was the product of ‘Daqin ໻⾺’ — India.32 He also detailed the

31 Ibid, pp. 224–225. 32 I have pointed out (see ibid, pp. 45–46) that there has been a serious mistake in Chinese historiography from ancient times till today in identifying the term ‘daqin ໻⾺’ as the Roman Empire. It was actually the name for India. *Author’s note: This is based on the historical Chinese identification of things. In historical and modem Indian texts as well as in day-to-day life in India, ‘Kumkuma’ (vermillion) is known to be red in colour and ‘turmeric’ yellow.

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medicinal values of turmeric underlying its importance in Chinese material life.33 Thus, Buddhist teaching was not a pedantic indoctrination, but had the intention of serving as a guide to living. It is important to note that turmeric — the essential Indian cooking medium — figures in many canons in the Chinese Tripitaks (in Lengyan jing ἲϹ㒣/Surangamasamadmadhi sutra, Fahua jing ⊩ढ㒣/Saddharmapundarika sutra, Niepan jing ⍙ᾗ㒣/ Mahaparinirvana Sutra, in addition to Jin’guangming jing 䞥ܝᯢ㒣/ Survanaprabhasottama Sutra).34 Here is the proof that the Indian ‘wandering ascetics’ were well equipped in turning themselves into ‘householder’ builders in China. Second, the ‘householder’ Chinese civilization welcomed the Indian ‘wandering ascetics’ not only for their spiritual assets, but also for the material benefits they had brought to provide people with a better life. One can surmise that a large numbers of Chinese higher-ups went on a pilgrimage to Buddhist temples and monasteries, often on hill-tops. This posed a challenge to the temples. They had to accord warm and generous hospitality to the luxury-intoxicated patrons who were tired after the long and uphill journey. The Buddhist hosts faced two practical issues in view of their own religious taboos: (a) how to provide gourmet satisfaction to the meat-eating patrons by strictly observing ahimsa (non-slaughter); and (b) how to quench the thirst of the alcoholic-habituated patrons as drinking was strictly forbidden within the Buddhist premises. The Chinese solutions to such daunting challenges were wise and inventive, and had far-reaching consequences. For quenching the thirst, there was the invention of the new elegant beverage of tea! For the gourmet satisfaction, the Chinese Buddhists invented new dishes utilizing what they could get from Nature. On the one hand, they brought to the dining table exotic edible materials, including leaves, flowers, mushrooms and tree fungi in addition to introducing foreign vegetations to China, such as sesame, black pepper, cucumber, brinjaul, spinach and turmeric. On the

33 Li Shizhen ᴢᯊ⦡, Bencao gangmu ᴀ㤝㒆Ⳃ (Compendium of Metria Medica), with added materials by Gan Weisong ⫬ӳᵒ (Kan Wei-sung), Taipei: Hung-ye Bookshop ᅣϮкሔ, 1985, Vol. II, pp. 49–50. 34 See Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 225.

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other hand, they adopted new concoctions such as ‘vegetarian chicken’, ‘vegetarian duck’ and so on, made of soya-bean products. This brought a lot of variety to Chinese cuisine. The Liang Emperor Wu ṕ℺Ᏹwas a devout Buddhist and strict vegetarian. It might not have been his intent, but he did make Buddhist ceremonies and lifestyle a part of the Chinese imperial palace routine. It was from his time onwards that there were Buddhist temples within the premises of imperial palaces in China. It was also from his time onwards that vegetarian kitchens formed a part of the palace catering. In recent times, the Manchu Imperial Palace in Beijing was famous for its ‘Suju ㋴ሔ’ (vegetarian office) that created over 200 famous vegetarian dishes. Chinese monasteries have distinguished themselves as pioneers of a highly respectable category of Chinese cuisine for more than a dozen centuries. We see reputed vegetarian restaurants still linked with Buddhist institutions in Taiwan ৄ⑒. In Xiamen ॺ䮼, Fujian ⽣ᓎ Province, there is the Nanputuosi फ᱂䰔ᇎ (South Potalaka Monastery) famous for both its holy shrine dedicated to Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara as well as its renowned vegetarian cuisine — their chefs frequently demonstrate their culinary art all over China. The cumulative effect of all this is the creation of two new cultures in Chinese lifestyle: ‘sushi wenhua ㋴亳᭛࣪/vegetarian culture’ and ‘caishi wenhua 㦰亳᭛࣪/vege-diet culture’. Aside from the Buddhist monks and nuns who strictly observed vegetarianism, followers of ‘Chinese vegetarianism’ have included the pilgrims and visitors to the Buddhist temples. Many of these pilgrims and temple visitors have vowed before the idols of the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to observe vegetarianism for a certain period, or regularly on certain days either to seek the holy blessings, or to express their gratitude for the holy blessings. These may be described as ‘part-time vegetarians’. There were, and still are, also those who prefer vegetarian food for the reasons of health or even enjoyment without religious sentiments. We can describe them as ‘lay vegetarians’ to distinguish them from ‘pious vegetarians’. Apparently, these ‘part-time vegetarians’ and ‘lay vegetarians’ do not seem to be a big deal for Chinese development. In reality, they have contributed, in no small measure, to the enrichment and rationalization of material life in China. They have been instrumental in transposing the Indian concept of ahimsa to China.

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This moving-closer-to-flora vogue in Chinese lifestyle as illustrated by ‘caishi wenhua 㦰亳᭛࣪/vege-diet culture’ impacted Chinese civilization greatly by improving human health and promoting moderate behaviour. Chinese ‘caishi wenhua 㦰亳᭛࣪/vege-diet culture’ is not complete abstention from meat-eating, but prioritizing vegetables in people’s daily intake. I would venture to say that the per capita intake of daily vegetable consumption among Chinese is one of the highest, if not the highest, among all peoples. Certainly no other cuisine is as variety-rich in the use of fresh, processed and preserved vegetables as in Chinese restaurants and families. Today, a fast-growing new industry of hot-house vegetable production has emerged for three decades to cater to the increasing vegetable and fruit consumption of China’s cities.

Tea Culture — The Jewel of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Equally, if not more greatly impacting Chinese civilization as the ‘caishi wenhua 㦰亳᭛࣪/vege-diet culture’ is China’s ‘cha wenhua 㤊᭛࣪/tea culture’. Of course, we have to further note the great impact of Chinese ‘tea culture’ on the wider world, and, I daresay, no other vegetation has created such a sensation and consequence in world affairs than the Chinese herb — tea. The ‘tea culture’ was initially the invention of the mountain-top Buddhist temples to please their fastidious patrons. The famous Chindia monastery ‘Lingyinsi ♉䱤ᇎ/temple was the place where the ‘gridhra ♉吿/sacred vulture’ takes rest in Hangzhou situated on top of the Chindia hill ‘Feilaifeng 亲ᴹዄ/Hill flown here from India’. Its neighbourhood had assumed the name of ‘tianzhu ໽ノ/Heavenly India’ with a monastery named ‘Tianzhusi ໽ノᇎ/temple of Heavenly India’ built there. Both the ‘Lingyinsi ♉䱤ᇎ/temple of the gridhra’ and ‘Tianzhusi ໽ノᇎ/temple of Heavenly India’ were pioneers of the ‘tea culture’ during the Tang Dynasty as testified by the renowned ‘Tea Bible’ (㤊㒣) (The Classic of Tea: Origins & Rituals)35 authored by the ‘Tea Sage’ (㤊೷) Lu Yu 䰚㖑 (733–804). The famous ‘Yuquansi ⥝⊝ᇎ/temple of jade spring’ in Dangyang ᔧ䰇 City of

35 See The Classic of Tea: Origins and Rituals Lu, Yu; Yu, Lu; Carpenter, Francis Ross; New York, U.S.A.: Ecco Press. 1995 reprint of 1974 edition.

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Hubei ␪࣫ Province (first built during the Sui Dynasty) was another such pioneer. Famous poet Li Bai had the pleasure of drinking the ‘xianrenzhang cha ҭҎᥠ㤊/tea of the deity’s palm’ presented to him by his nephew (a monk in the Monastery) as narrated in the ‘Preface’ in his poem ⥝Ёᄮ䌴ڻDa zuzhi seng Zhongfu zeng Yuquan xianrenzhang cha ㄨᮣ՘‘ ⊝ҭҎᥠ㤊’ (Reply to Li family nephew monk Zhongfu who presented me the tea of the deity’s palm from the Yuquan Monastery). Three of the four great shrines for the Bodhisattvas at Mount Putuo, Wutai, Emei and Jiuhua were renowned pioneer tea-producing centres, the exception being Mount Wutai because its cold climate prevented tea production. In south China, there are many famous hill-top Buddhist shrines that are celebrated tea production centres. An eminent example is located at a tourist spot named Baizhangshan ⱒϜቅ/Baizhang Hill, about 100 kilometres away from Nanchang फᯠ, the capital city of Jiangxi ∳㽓 Province. On this Baizhang Hill, there is the Baizhang Monastery ⱒϜᇎ which was first built around 766–778. The monastery has been famous for its tea plantation from the Tang Dynasty. The tourists can see two giant drums hanging inside the main pavilion. One is called ‘fagu ⊩哧’ (the dharma drum), and another ‘chagu 㤊哧’ (the tea drum). Beating the ‘fagu ⊩哧/dharma drum’ was to summon the inmates of the monastery to go listen to the sermon; and beating the ‘chagu 㤊哧/tea drum’ was to ask them to partake in tea and refreshments. There is a special pavilion named ‘chatang 㤊ූ’ (tea pavilion) for the inmates to meet during the tea break, and a manager titled ‘chatou 㤊༈’ (head of tea department) is in charge of the tea break. All this had been a part of the regular daily activities from the early days of the monastery. It also displays its age-old tea-sets and tea ceremonies. In addition, the patriarchs of the monastery are famous for tea-culture-related expositions of the wisdom of ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ — using tea as an analogy of the state of mind of ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’. Our ‘Tea Sage’ (㤊೷) Lu Yu 䰚㖑 spent many years in the tea- producing ‘Huzhou ␪Ꮂ’ (Hu Prefecture) after 760. It so happened that in 770, the imperial government built a large-scale tea plantation here called ‘Gongcha yuan 䋵㤊䰶’ (literally, ‘the courtyard of tributary tea for the emperor’) — actually a state-enterprise for tea production. Top-most grades and qualities were produced from here for the consumption of the royal family and high-ranking officials in the imperial capital. In the

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international tea market of modern times there is high-grade tea known as ‘Pego’. This name was created when the agents of the British East India Company were dealing with the Chinese ‘Hong Merchants’ at Guangzhou (Canton) in the 18th century. This ‘Pego’ is the pidgin corruption of the Chinese word ‘baihao ⱑ↿’ (literally, ‘white down’), a description of the bud of tea leave when it was just sprouting — white in colour and tender as a down. This was the choicest tea product of the ‘gongcha 䋵㤊/tributary tea for emperor’ grade which was created in very early times of the ‘tea culture’ vogue. Tea culture evolved in two stages. In the first stage, tea was a good and popular medicine. Its taste was bitter, hence its name was ‘tu 㥐’. In the second stage, Buddhist monasteries transformed tea into an elegant beverage, known for its enticing fragrance and near-absence of bitterness. Its name became ‘cha 㤊’. Note that in its visual form the ‘cha 㤊’ symbol is just one horizontal stroke less than the earlier ‘tu 㥐’ symbol. Tea culture complemented and promoted the ‘chanding wenhua ⽙ᅮ᭛࣪’ (Chan/ dhyana/meditation culture) and the two had a symbiotic relationship. The public noticed that all those Buddhist masters who were tea-drinkers and practised meditation enjoyed longevity which helped promoting tea culture in China. Buddhist monks were able to assuage the thirst as well as substitute tea as an alternative social beverage to alcohol. An Italian writer, Giovanni Botero, in 1590, on the eve of European adoption of the tea culture, made this comment:

The Chinese have an herb out of which they press a delicate juice, which serves them for a drink instead of wine; it also preserves their health and frees them from all those evils that the immoderate use of wine doth breed in us.36

In a way tea, was instrumental in reducing the incidence of alcoholism through the ages. Western adoption of tea culture resulted in phrases that conveyed the positive impression of the public to tea, such as, ‘my cup of tea’, ‘not for all the tea in China’, ‘I could murder for a cup of tea’, ‘More tea vicar?’, ‘Tea and sympathy’, ‘Storm in a teacup’ and so on. In the early 20th century, a ‘cup of tea’ was such a synonym for acceptability that it

36 Tan Chung, Triton and Dragon, p. 16.

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became the name given to a favoured friend, especially one with a boisterous, life-enhancing nature. During the height of British efforts in making India the largest tea- producer of the world in the 19th century, wild tea plants were discovered at the foothills of Himalaya in Assam, India, implicating the origins of this plant in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Chinese tradition traced the discovery of tea to ‘Shennong ⼲ݰ/God of Agriculture’ which also speaks of the early utilization of tea in China — being developed from the wild plant in the Chinese area of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ of course, not in Assam. One documentary evidence of this is from a very important historical-geographical text entitled ‘Huayangguo zhi ढ䰇೑ᖫ’ (Gazetteers of the Huayang country) written by Chang Qu ᐌ⩽ (291?–361? CE) during 348–354 in which there is a reference that the ancient Ba Ꮘ state (the neighbour of ancient Shu 㳔 state of our focus in Chapter 1) had tea gardens and was famous for the production of tea. When tea drinking became a vogue among the Chinese higher-ups, the demand for elegant vessels for serving the beverage rose as well. It was in the wake of the emergence of tea industry that a new porcelain industry was created. The consequence was that elegant tea was matched with an elegant tea-set. Both tea and porcelain became symbols of Chinese culture in the world. There is evidence to prove this from the chronology of porcelain industry. When tea became popular during the Tang Dynasty it marked the beginning of the porcelain industry. The porcelain industry obtained a degree of perfection during the Song Dynasty (959–1276) and one can see testament to these two cultures in many museums all over the world today. We can cite the example of ‘Junyao 䩻づ’ (the Jun Kiln) in the present- day Yu County ⾍ও of Henan Province ⊇फ. There was a kiln that produced prestigious porcelain wares. It was founded during the Tang Dynasty, and started producing high quality porcelain from the Song Dynasty onwards. Even more famous is the ‘cidu ⫋䛑/porcelain capital’ of Jingdezhen ᱃ᖋ䬛. The porcelain capital of Jingdezhen became known for the magic power of turning earth into ‘white jade, thin paper, and bright mirror’ (ⱑབ⥝ǃ㭘བ㒌ǃᯢབ䬰). Jingdezhen began as a small township in northeastern Jiangxi ∳㽓 Province. It became famous for pottery from the first century of CE. Pottery products were sold as ‘faked jade ware’ during the Tang Dynasty.

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From October 2012 onwards, an excavation led by a joint team involv- ing Peking University and the Jiangxi provincial archaeological research institution has been trying to discover relics of Jingdezhen during the Tang Dynasty without success — the earliest relics found so far are from the post-Tang ‘Five Dynasties’ (Ѩҷ). The only trace of its Tang glory is from the famous Tang scholar, Liu Zongyuan’s ᷇ᅫܗ (773–819) essay on porcelain titled ‘Jin ciqi zhuang 䖯⫋఼⢊’ (Memorial about tribute presentation of porcelain) which was a description of the porcelain wares presented to the emperor by the Governor of Rao Prefecture 佊Ꮂ, Yuan Cui ܗየ. He sent the choicest products of Jingdezhen to the emperor to advertize his achievement of administration. There is an obvious interconnection between the name of ‘Jingdezhen ᱃ᖋ䬛’ and the reign title of Song Emperor Zhenzong ᅟⳳᅫ (reigning 997–1022) — the Jingde Era ᱃ᖋ ᑈҷ (1004–1007).

V. ‘CONFUCIANISM’ DESERVING A CHINDIA UNDERSTANDING To be fair to the reader, I must mention that there have been several Chinese scholars, such as Liang Shuming ṕ┘⑳ (1893–1988) and Zhang Dainian ᓴኅᑈ (1909–2004) who have specifically rejected Buddhism or Indian thought as a source of influence on the development of Chinese philosophy. I am not sure whether this is from a bias arising from the general thought of “looking to the West” that afflicted many Chinese intellectuals in the late 19th century and 20th century. ᄺ’) which wasۦTake the term ‘neo-Confucianism’ (in Chinese ‘ᮄ coined for Western consumption. One can supposedly trace this philosophy to Chinese thinkers from the Song Dynasty onwards down to the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty. This term presupposes that ‘Confucianism’ is the body and soul of Chinese philosophy or Chinese thought which is questionable. The Indian input in the newness of ‘neo-Confucianism’ is not recognized.

Indian Energy Infusion in Neo-Confucian Thinking The 5th century scholar Zhu Zhaozhi ᴅᰁП (whose dates were unknown) commended the Buddhist practice of ‘jiangsong 䆆乖’ (preaching and chanting) which, he thought, resulted in ‘tong 䗮’ (mastery of ideas) and

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‘wu ᙳ’ (thorough understanding of ideas).37 Zhu’s commentary suc- cinctly establishes the superiority of the Buddhist ‘preaching culture’ over the pre-Buddhist scholarship in China which was obsessed with understanding and annotating fragmented quotations of the ancient sages. ԥ (444–518) unprecedentedlyڻ Renowned monk-scholar Sengyou argued against setting ideological boundaries between ‘Hua ढ’ (China) and ‘yi ་’ (non-China). He argued that ‘wuchu ਈἮ’ (Jiangsu ∳㢣 and Zhejiang ⌭∳ in addition to Hunan ␪फ and Hubei ␪࣫) had originally been a part of ‘yi ་’ which ultimately became a part of ‘Hua ढ’, and the ancient Chinese cultural heroes, Shun 㟰 and Yu ⾍, both hailed from “non-Hua/China” regions.38 The implications of this remark are profound. Before the spread of Buddhism in China, the teachings of Confucius and Mencius were quite inadequate in ideologically supporting the making of a super-state. There were shortcomings in both methodology and content. For example, Confucian ideology was simply not cut out for the universal polity of the Qin and post-Qin dynasties. In methodology, this can best be described as “quotation culture”. The philosophical method repeats the sages’ random quotations generation after generation without weaving them into a strong ideological system or expanding them into refreshing ideological theories or propositions. The entire thinking is based on fragmented quotations of ancient philosophers. The discounting of the influence of Buddhist and Indian thinking into what is considered as ‘Neo-Confucianism’ is still persistent today. More than a thousand years of Buddhist influence had to have a profound influence. More importantly, the exponents of these so-called ‘Neo-Confucianists’ were eclectic between Confucian and Buddhist ideologies. A pioneer of these scholars was Zhang Zai ᓴ䕑 (1020–1077) who began with his career as a military strategist, but shifted his interest to the study of all philosophical systems. He made two sets of outstanding observations. The first set is:

We call Qian father, and kun mother…. The prevalence of the universe creates my body. The commander of the universe forms my nature. All human beings are my brothers. All things of the universe are my species. (ђ⿄⠊ˈസ⿄↡Ǆ…໽ഄПาˈ਒݊ԧǄ໽ഄПᏙˈ਒݊ᗻǄ⇥਒ ৠ㚲ˈ⠽਒ϢгǄ)

37 Shi Jun ⷇ዏ et al., op cit, p. 267. 38 Ibid, p. 294.

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Here, ‘qian ђ’ and ‘kun സ’ are symbols taken from Zhouyi ਼ᯧ (Book of Change) with the former representing “Heaven”, and the latter, “Earth”. Heaven being likened to “father” and Earth to mother was a very ancient Chinese idea. The exceptional word in this observation is ‘wu ਒’, denoting ‘I’ or ‘me’, which was not emphasized in ancient Confucian literature. Ji Xianlin has very liberally translated the last eight visuals ‘min wu tongbao, wu wu yuye ⇥਒ৠ㚲ˈ⠽਒Ϣг’ of this observation thus: ‘People of all nations are born of the same parents, and the faunae and florae are our fellow creatures’, and treated it as the Chinese echo of the Indian adage of ‘Brahmatmaikya’ (unity of Brahma and Atma).39 Applying Ji’s logic, we see Zhang Zai using the Indian symbol of ‘atma’ to establish ‘wu ਒’, and using ‘Brahma’ to equate ‘tiandi ໽ഄ’ (Heaven and Earth). Thus, the first Zhang Zai’s observation injected Indian philosophy into an ancient Chinese proposition. The second set of Zhang Zai’s observation was: ‘We create the core for Heaven and Earth, foster life for human beings, carry forward the forsaken learning of past sages, and unfold grand equality for posterity.’ (Ў໽ഄ ゟᖗˈЎ⫳⇥ゟੑˈЎᕔ೷㒻㒱ᄺˈЎϛϪᓔ໾ᑇ). These 22 syllables, indeed, established a refreshing Sino–Indian worldview erasing the boundaries between Confucianism and Buddhism. The first five syllables ‘wei tiandi li xin Ў໽ഄゟᖗ/create the core for Heaven and Earth’ could be considered Confucian but also transcend the limits of the thinking of Confucius and Mencius. They actually reiterate the Buddhist worldview and inject a Confucian realism into it. We derive two aspects from these five syllables. First, they seem to assume that the universe made by ‘tiandi ໽ഄ/Heaven and Earth’ must have a ‘xin ᖗ/core/heart’. Second, they express the human urge in setting up a good, judicious, benign and benevolent ‘xin ᖗ/core/heart’ for the public good of humans. It amounts to conscience-keeping for humanity which the Indian civilization has been doing for a long time. The key term in these five syllables is ‘xin ᖗ’ which was hardly a concept in ancient Chinese philosophy. However, it figures prominently in Chinese Buddhist literature, being a refreshing translation of two Sanskrit

39 In his ‘Foreword’ to the book co-authored by me and Geng Yinzeng. See Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. xiii.

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words: ‘citta’ and ‘hrdaya’. There is the popular Buddhist concept of ‘bashi xinwang ܿ䆚ᖗ⥟’, depicting the existence of the ‘xinwang ᖗ⥟’ i.e., ‘xin ᖗ/citta/mind’ as the controller of eight senses within a human. Among Buddha’s many Chinese nicknames there are ‘Xinwang rulai ᖗ⥟བᴹ’, i.e., the ‘Hrdaya-raja-Tathagata’ (The mind-controller who is the Great One who has thus come), and ‘Xinwang dari ᖗ⥟໻᮹’, i.e., the ‘Hrdaya- raja-Vairocana’ (The mind-controller who is the Great Sun). Mahayana Buddhism focusses on ‘cibeixin ᜜ᚆᖗ’, the Chinese translation of ‘bodhicitta’ (enlightened virtue). Therefore, the first part of this observation, ‘wei tiandi lixin Ў໽ഄゟᖗ’, can make sense only when this ‘xin ᖗ’ connotes ‘bodhicitta’ (enlightened virtue which Chinese translated as ‘putixin 㦽ᦤᖗ’). Furthermore, in Liu Xie’s ‘Wenxin diao long ᭛ᖗ䲩啭’, there were references to ‘qian ђ’ and ‘kun സ’, and the description of Chinese culture/literature as ‘tiandizhi xin ໽ഄПᖗ’, i.e., ‘the heart for the universe’. Here we see Zhang Zai lifting Liu Xie’s words to formulate his immortal observation. One can thus, consider these two sets of Zhang Zai’s observations as another example of Chindia. Zhang Zai greatly influenced the thinking of his late contemporary, Zhu Xi, one of the greatest exponents of the so-called “Neo-Confucianism”. Zhu Xi was the scholar who went to the imperial capital to appear in the Imperial Exams prepared with the quotations of a famous Chan master, Reverend Dahui ໻᜻. He was also one of the first Chinese scholars to build a ‘jingshe ㊒㟡/vihara’ or a sort of Confucian school in an Indian disguise. One of Zhu Xi’s pet theories is on ‘taiji ໾ᵕ’, i.e., the well-known ‘T’ai-chi’, which was an adaptation of the Buddhist ‘Anuttara-samyaksa-sambodhi’ or the ultimate truth. Zhu Xi observed that this T’ai-chi existed within every human-being and even every being. Readers will notice that this is an Indian holistic perspective. Zhu Xi also exhibited a couplet at the gate of the ‘Bailudong academy ⱑ呓⋲к䰶’ on Mount Lu ᑤቅ in Jiangxi ∳㽓 Province which reads (my translation):

Two wheels are the sun and moon Forming the eyes of Earth and Heaven; I have here in fascicles thousands

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Of poetry and history That represents Minds of sages and saints. (᮹᳜ϸ䕂໽ഄⴐˈ䆫кϛो೷䋸ᖗ)

Here, Zhu Xi’s analogy of the sun and moon reminds the Indian legend of Purusa whose mind became the moon, and eye became the sun. He also conceived the ‘rilun ᮹䕂/surya-cakra/wheel of the sun’ and ‘yuelun ᳜䕂/ wheel of the moon’, which the reader will recognize as the same phrase that had puzzled my guide when I visited the Sanxingdui site, as alluded to in Chapter 1. Let us revisit Zhu Xi’s historic meeting with his academic rival, Lu Jiuyuan 䰚б⏞, at the Ehu Temple 吙␪ᇎ at the Qianshan 䪙ቅ County in Jiangxi ∳㽓 Province. The rivalry between these two leading Neo- Confucian scholars was not personal, but theoretical. The heated polemics between these two powerful thinkers made Confucianism undergo, as it were, a process of schizophrenia — with Zhu Xi gravitating towards philosophical reasoning, and Lu Jiuyuan gravitating towards spiritual enlightenment. The energy infusion from Indian civilization is obvious in such a development. In Zhu Xi’s thinking, ‘li ⧚/truth/rationality’ is the altar of scholarship. It was this ‘li ⧚’ that has created the universe and makes the primary essence of the world. Then, there comes ‘qi ⇨/spirit’ which is secondary. He treats ‘li ⧚’ as something absolute and primordial without which nothing in the universe would exist, while our material world is only the external manifestation of this ‘li ⧚’. So, Zhu Xi’s ‘li ⧚’ amounts to a Chinese replica of the Indian ‘Brahma’. Lu Jiuyuan’s fundamental difference with Zhu Xi lies in his theory that the basic element of the universe is ‘xin ᖗ/human heart’. His famous adage is ‘The universe is my heart, my heart is the universe.’ (ᅛᅭ֓ᰃ਒ᖗˈ਒ᖗेᰃᅛᅭ). For him, the entire universe is the manifestation of ‘xin ᖗ/human heart’. He also went a step further to argue with Zhu Xi by saying ‘xin ji li ᖗे⧚’ which means that his ‘xin ᖗ/human heart’ is one and same as Zhu Xi’s ‘li ⧚/truth/ rationality’. On the surface, it would seem that Zhu Xi and Lu Jiuyuan were heading two different schools of thought. Zhu Xi’s theory was branded as ‘lixue ⧚ᄺ’ (literally, ‘the study of li ⧚/truth/rationality’) and Lu Jiuyuan’s as

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‘xinxue ᖗᄺ’ (literally, ‘the study of xin ᖗ/human heart’). However, Zhu Xi’s fame and influence was greater than Lu Jiuyuan’s, so the latter’s ‘xinxue ᖗᄺ’ was not really taken as the rival of ‘lixue ⧚ᄺ’ during the 12th century. People still treated Lu Jiuyuan’s thinking as a part and parcel of ‘lixue ⧚ᄺ’. The situation changed with the emergence of Wang Shouren ⥟ᅜҕ (1472–1529), who is better known as ‘Wang Yangming ⥟ 䰇ᯢ’ during the Ming Dynasty. In the intellectual history of China, Wang Yangming’s fame and influence rivalled that of Zhu Xi, if not surpassing him. Thus, it was Wang Yangming who is generally regarded as the patriarch of ‘xinxue ᖗᄺ’. We ought to go back to the 5-syllabic ‘wei tiandi lixin Ў໽ഄゟᖗ’ advocated by Zhang Zai and see its echo in the thinking of Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming. We have seen that ‘xin ᖗ’ is the Chinese replica of Indian ‘bodhicitta’ (Chinese translation: ‘putixin 㦽ᦤᖗ’). There is a difference between the location of this in traditional India and China. For Indians, ‘citta’ is the mind, while for Chinese, this ‘putixin 㦽ᦤᖗ/bodhicitta’ is located in the heart — the centre of human body — which commands thinking, emotion and other mental and spiritual activities according to the Chinese traditional wisdom. At that time, there was not much acknowledgement of the mind in China. We see in Zhu Xi’s conception of ‘li ⧚/truth/rationality’ an endeavour to carry forward Confucius’ ‘gewu Ḑ⠽/investigation’ and ‘zhizhi 㟈ⶹ/ learning’ to the extent of ‘qiongli か⧚’ or literally, ‘exhaust all avenues of reasoning’. Both this approach and the usage of the term ‘li ⧚’ are new and certainly not derived from the Confucian classics. The reader will notice that the early writings of Chinese Buddhist scholars alternatively addressed ‘tui Hu keyi mingli ᥼㚵ৃҹᯢ⧚’ or understanding the truth by investigating the foreign theory, and ‘tui Fan keyi mingli ᥼ẉৃҹ ᯢ⧚’ or understanding the truth by investigating the Brahma theory, with ‘li ⧚’ denoting ‘truth’. The Chinese Buddhist literature was replete with terms like ‘lihuo ⧚ᚥ/insufficient understanding of truth’ and ‘li zhang ⧚䱰/barrier to the understanding of truth’. One of the earliest Chinese essays expounding Buddhism was entitled ‘lihuo lun ⧚ᚥ䆎’ written by Mouzi ⠳ᄤ (born in 170 CE), meaning ‘A discourse on reasoning to dispel doubts’. This is actually the earliest Chinese usage of ‘li ⧚’ as ‘discourse’. The term ‘li zhang ⧚䱰/barrier to the understanding of truth’

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conceives ‘li ⧚’ as ‘bodhi/enlightenment’ and ‘zhang 䱰’ as the barrier to the attainment of ‘bodhi/enlightenment’. In addition, the Sanskrit word ‘yukti’ (reasoning, logical argument, etc.) is translated into Chinese as ‘li ⧚’. One can thus see the Buddhist inspiration for Zhu Xi to develop his theory of ‘lixue ⧚ᄺ’. The more appropriate translation for this theory should be ‘yukti-sastra’ or ‘Yukti school’. In the same manner, the ‘xinxue ᖗᄺ’ of Lu Jiuyuan and Wang Yangming should be the ‘bodhi-citta-sastra’ or ‘Bodhi-citta school’. We come to the conclusion that Zhu Xi’s ‘lixue ⧚ᄺ’ or Wang Yangming’s ‘xinxue ᖗᄺ theories are not really ‘Neo- Confucianism’ but a new Chindian theorization. The use of a Buddhist prism to illustrate quotations can be seem in Wang’s discourse on Mencius. The first quotation is Mencius’ ‘ren, yi, li, zhi, genyu xin ҕǃНǃ⼐ǃᱎˈḍѢᖗ’ (Section on Gao Zi ਞᄤ), des- ignating ‘xin ᖗ’ as the ‘root’ of the virtues of ‘ren ҕ’ (humanliness), ‘yi Н’ (righteousness), ‘li ⼐’ (propriety), and ‘zhi ᱎ’ (sagacity). The second quotation is Mencius’ ‘liangzhi 㡃ⶹ’ (Section on ሑᖗ) which is the keyword in Wang’s discourse. This ‘liangzhi 㡃ⶹ’, or what is now popularly called ‘liangxin 㡃ᖗ’, connoting “benign consciousness”, is, no different from “bodhicitta”. During the last days of his life, Wang Yangming summarized his discourse in four sentences, known as ‘sijujiao ಯহᬭ’, i.e., the ‘teaching of four sentences’:

The entity of xin/citta is beyond good and evil. The dynamics of feeling creates good and evil. Knowing good and evil is benign consciousness. Doing good and discarding evil is human conduct. (᮴୘᮴ᙊᖗПԧǄ᳝୘᳝ᙊᛣПࡼǄⶹ୘ⶹᙊЎ㡃ⶹǄЎ୘এᙊ ᰃḐ⠽Ǆ)

Wang Yangming’s discourse has become the most popular purported Confucian teaching in China in the last five centuries. The reader can see the convergence of Chinese/Confucian and Indian/Buddhist ethics. We also notice that the Chinese Chan Buddhist teachings during this period have diligently reiterated the importance of ‘xin ᖗ’. Thus, the intellectual discourse around Neo-Confucianism reinvigorated both Buddhist and Confucian concepts in China.

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‘State-Minded and People-Sensitive ᖻᖻ೑ᖻ⇥೑ᖻ⇥’ Chinese Intellectuals The concept of Buddhist universal love is reflected in the new Chinese intellectual vogue of ‘you guo you min ᖻ೑ᖻ⇥’ which literally means ‘concerned/worry for the state and the people’. Those scholar-officers who showed exemplary concerns and worries for the state and the people were commended by the people as ‘fumu guan ⠊↡ᅬ/parent officer’ one of whom was Bai Juyi ⱑሙᯧ and whose exemplary administration as Governor of Hangzhou ᵁᎲ and Suzhou 㢣Ꮂ I have illustrated in Chapter 1. Bai Juyi was the most productive poet of the ancient world — leaving only about 3,000 pieces behind with a lot more of his poems being lost. Not long after he became an imperial officer, Bai composed the famous poem ‘guan yimai 㾖ߜ呺’ (watching farmers harvesting wheat) which vividly describes the farmers’ real life. Towards the end of the poem, it depicts a poor woman with a baby in her arm picking up the dropped ears of wheat. She narrates the sad story of her family income being taken away by government taxation, thereby forcing her to the state of picking dropped ears of wheat to survive. In his last lines, Bai Juyi expresses great shame that he had a salary that was excessive for his maintenance, and that he led a comfortable life without toiling and suffering as did the farmers. An even more passionate poem of Bai Juyi entitled ‘Duling sou ᴰ䱉঳’ (The old man of Du ling) voices an old farmer’s complaint of heavy taxation of the local government with such explosive language (my translation):

Off stripping my body the clothing, Away snatching from my mouth the food, Crushing humans and crashing things, You are as same as wolves. Why must you Gobble up human ﬂ esh With your hook-like claws, And your saw-shape teeth?! (࠹៥䑿ϞᏯˈ༎៥ষЁ㉳ˈ㰤Ҏᆇ⠽े䉎⣐ˈԩᖙ䩽⟾䬃⠭ 亳Ҏ㙝?!)

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The last part of the poem relates to an episode of someone who memorialized the emperor about the repressive taxation. The emperor listened and remitted. But, when the imperial order reached the people, most of the farmers had already paid, rendering the relief redundant. Interestingly, the person who memorialized the emperor was none other than Bai Juyi himself. Bai Juyi is a wonderful example of what we would call a ‘state-focussed and people-sensitive ᖻ೑ᖻ⇥’ scholar-poet-officer. Yet, he was also a devout Buddhist who eagerly practised ‘chan ⽙/dhyana/zen’ self-cultivation. He relished the pleasure of such practice lyrically in his poem titled ‘he zhifei ੠ⶹ䴲’ which was a reply to his bosom friend, Yuan Zhen ܗ」 (779–831) who had written a poem to him asking for ‘knowing what’s wrong’(ⶹ䴲). Bai’s reply spelled out the joy of meditation (my translation):

Like the wide sky my heart inﬁ nite, My mind freezes deeper than sleep. All gone my innate desires, Comfy feelings doesn’t linger any longer. In Spring I have no Spring grief, In Autumn I shed no Autumn tears. Sitting in serenity is the joy of veracity, That’s the blessings of Master Sunyata. (ᯋᒧњབぎˈ╘ޱ㚰Ѣⴵ˗ሣ䰸咬咬ᗉˈ䫔ሑᙴᙴᗱǄ᯹᮴Ӹ ᯹ᖗˈ⾟᮴ᛳ⾟⊾Ǆത៤ⳳ䇯Фˈབফぎ⥟䌤Ǆ)

The poem alluded to ‘the blessings of Master Sunyata’ (ぎ⥟䌤). The term ‘kongwang ぎ⥟/Master Sunyata’ was the nickname of the Buddha passionately called so by Chinese intellectuals and writers. Bai Juyi, by the way, was not hesitant to reveal his Buddhist leaning. We can easily see the union between Bai Juyi’s self-cultivation in the ‘chan ⽙/dhyana/zen’ spirit and his ‘state-minded and people-sensitive ᖻ೑ᖻ⇥’ sentiments. He was the poet best remembered for two masterpieces of long poems, ‘Changhen ge 䭓ᘼ℠’ (Song of Eternal Lament) and ‘Pipa xing ⨉⨊㸠’ (Song of the guitar). ‘Changhen ge 䭓ᘼ℠’ (Song of Eternal Lament) propounds the theory of the contradiction between ‘ai jiangshan ⠅∳ቅ’ (love for ‘rivers and mountains’/the state) and ‘ai meiren ⠅㕢Ҏ’ (love for ‘beautiful woman’/one’s lover) on the part of

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the ruler through a very long and vivid narrative of the love affairs between Tang Emperor Xuanzong I and the Lady Yang ᴼ䌉བྷ (719–756) which ended tragically not only for the couple, but also for the country. This theory very much fits into Emperor Taizong’s observations, ‘Constricting the desires of one man gladdens people within four seas’, and ‘When people enjoy officers suffer, when officers enjoy people suffer’. It also served as a warning to all future Chinese rulers. Bai Juyi’s other masterpiece, ‘Pipa xing ⨉⨊㸠’ (Song of the guitar), is also a very long and readable poem that tells the story of a woman he met on a journey. The woman was a courtesan who was good in music. She was admired when she was young. When she grew older, she was married to a merchant who knew only money-making but not merry-making, thus leaving her alone in a boat wedded with loneliness. Both the masterpieces have been extremely popular from Bai Juyi’s life time. The Chinese liked them for their effusive empathy and human sentiments. Tang Emperor Xuanzong II not only granted him a posthumous honour of ‘wen ᭛/culture’, but also wrote a poem entitled ‘Diao Bai Juyi ৞ⱑሙᯧ’ (Mourning Bai Juyi), mourning his demise. In the poem, Bai was eulogized as ‘shixian 䆫ҭ’ (Fairy of Poetry), whose two masterpieces were chanted by every kid. One and half centuries after Bai Juyi, emerged the Song Dynasty scholar, Fan Zhongyan 㣗ӆ⏍ (989–1052) who voiced two immortal observations. The first observation: ‘xian tianxiazhi you er you, hou tianxiazhi le er le ܜ໽ϟПᖻ㗠ᖻˈৢ໽ϟПФ㗠Ф’ for which I give a very literal translation as ‘Be the first to worry the worries of the world, and the last to enjoy the enjoyment of the world.’ It divides human feelings into two broad categories: For ‘you ᖻ/fret/worries’ there are ‘tianxiazhi you ໽ϟПᖻ/worries all over the world’ and ‘jiyou Ꮕᖻ/worries of oneself’; for ‘le Ф/happiness/enjoyment’ there are ‘tianxiazhi le ໽ϟПФ/happiness of the whole world’ and ‘jile ᏅФ/happiness of oneself’. Fan’s message is crystal clear: being a ruler or ruling elite, one must put one’s sentiments well ahead of the miseries of the humanity, and must let the entire world feel happy first before the indulgence of one’s own happiness. So, a better translation of this observation should be:

Carrying the world’s fret in your own feelings while letting the world enjoy before you seek your own happiness.

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This, indeed, is the echo of the ‘Bodhisattva spirit’ transforming the metaphoric and rather pessimistic tone (of rescuing humanity from the ‘kuhai 㢺⍋/duhkasagar/sea of sorrow’) of Indian spiritualism into a real- istic and materialistic Chinese materialism — yet maintaining the noble selfless spirit. The second observation: ‘ju miaotang zhi gao ze you qi min, chu jianghuzhi yuan ze you qi jun ሙᑭූП催߭ᖻ݊⇥ˈ໘∳␪П䖰߭ᖻ݊৯’ for which my very literal translation is: ‘Care for the people from the top of the imperial court; care for the ruler from the remoteness of rivers and lakes.’ First of all, this is a focussed proposition on the relationship between the ruler and the ruled. The ruler and ruling elite are described as ‘ju miaotang zhi gao ሙᑭූП催/high up in the imperial court’ while the ruled are described as ‘chu jianghu zhi yuan ໘∳␪П䖰/away at every nook and corner of the country’. It advocates a high sensitivity for the sufferings of the masses. It also advises the masses to focus on the situation of the ruler. Again, a better translation:

Those who are high up in the imperial court must always think of the sufferings and frets of the masses while those far away at every nook and corner of the country must always be considerate to the difﬁ culties of the ruler.

I want to add a footnote here about Fan Zhongyan’s usage of ‘miaotang ᑭූ’ which was an ancient terminology for ‘chaoting ᳱᓋ’/temples and offices’. In fact, the unsimplified visual of ‘miao ᑭ’, i.e., ‘ᒳ’, is the combination of ‘ᑓ’ (house) and ‘ᳱ’ (royal audience) — denoting the hall which seated the royal audience. In fact, long before the Buddhists introduced the ‘temple culture’ to China, there had been a kind of ‘temple’ for the kings and aristocrats to perform rituals called ‘zongmiao ᅫᑭ’ for the ancestors. Also, the convention of ‘miaohui ᑭӮ’ (public gatherings and fairs) had already been established in China before the advent of Buddhism. Before the inception of the ‘temple culture’ in China, the official residence was called ‘si ᇎ’. The name of ‘baimasi ⱑ偀ᇎ/monastery of white horses’ created the new trend of calling the Chinese accommodations for the visiting Indian and other foreign Buddhist monks ‘si ᇎ’. In this respect, we see clearly the role of the Chinese imperial government in the creation of the ‘temple culture’ in China — today, when the words of ‘miao ᑭ’ and ‘si ᇎ’

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are used, the connection with the imperial government is lost. Fan Zhongyan’s second observation, thus, was a rare occasion of referring ‘miao ᑭ’ to the ‘imperial court’. I must introduce an earlier person, the very capable and courageous courtier of Tang Emperor Taizong whose name was Wei Zheng 儣ᕕ (580–643). Here was a man who would dare criticize the Emperor at the risk of losing his position and even his life. In fact, the greatness of the courtier and the Emperor complemented each other. There was a well known story that after Wei Zheng submitted his most famous and daring memorial ‘shijian shu क⏤⭣’ (memorial of the [emperor’s] ten lapses), Emperor Taizong got so mad that he told the queen that he would not tolerate any more and even would like to kill the defiant courtier. Unexpectedly, the queen congratulated him that only a great emperor could have such a daring courtier. This not only pacified the angry Emperor, but made him realize the great asset he had in the form of Wei Zheng. Before submitting ‘shijian shu क⏤⭣/memorial of the [emperor’s] ten lapses’, Wei Zheng had already memorialized the Emperor against taking a married woman away from a commoner’s household to be his royal mis- tress. The memorial entitled ‘jian zhipin Chonghua shu 䇣ℶ㘬ܙढ⭣’ (memorial of stopping marrying Chonghua) has these observations of Wei Zheng 40:

Worry what the people worry; enjoy what the people enjoy. (ᖻ⇥᠔ᖻˈФ⇥᠔Ф)

Fit people’s hearts into Your Majesty’s own heart. (ҹⱒྦྷПᖗЎᖗ)

Here, we see Wei Zheng introducing the ‘youguo-youmin ᖻ೑ᖻ⇥/ state-focussed and people-sensitive’ culture four centuries earlier than Fan Zhongyan. And it was no accident that he was the pillar of Tang Emperor Taizong’s government. Coming back to Fan Zhongyan’s story, we see the career of a Chinese intellectual built on the best tradition of Emperor Taizong’s ‘zhenguanzhi zhi 䋲㾖П⊏’ (governance of the Zhenguan Era). His father died when he

40 Quan Tang wen, Vol. II, p. 1418.

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was hardly two years old. His widowed mother was forced to remarry. From a very young age, Fan took residence in a Buddhist temple near his home and led a Spartan life focussing his mind on self-learning. In three years, he read all the books available in the locality. By accident, he discovered that he was an adopted son, and left home against the wishes of his mother and the adopted father to pursue an independent scholar’s career. In 1015, he cleared the last stage of the Imperial Examinations and became an imperial officer. In 1021, he was posted as a superintendent in charge of government salt reserve and transportation, and quickly discovered the need for building dykes to protect the coastal people of Jiangsu ∳㢣 Province. He made a proposal to his superior officer who, in turn, memorialized the imperial authorities. In 1024, he was appointed Magistrate of Xinghua ݈࣪ County to build the dykes. He personally led tens of thousands of workers for the job. It was a perilous project and more than a hundred workers were drowned. But, Fan was always at the most dangerous spots to inspire the workers, and the dykes were completed. The coastal people felt very grateful, and named the dykes as ‘Fangong di 㣗݀෸’ (Sir Fan’s dykes) even built a memorial hall called ‘Fangong ci 㣗݀⼴’ (Hall for Sir Fan) for him. In 1033, there were natural calamities of drought and locust swarms along the Huai ⏂ River valley. Fan memorialized the ruler, Song Emperor Renzong ᅟҕᅫ (reigning 1022–1063) to send a mission with relief immediately. The memorial was ignored by the Emperor. Fan went to the imperial court and confronted the Emperor, He asked: ‘What would Your Majesty do if for half a day the supply of food in the palace stopped?’ The Emperor realized it was important and sent Fan to the calamity area as Relief Commissioner. Fan Zhongyan was subsequently demoted and transferred from the imperial capital, Bianjing ≈Ҁ (present Kaifeng ᓔᇕ in Henan ⊇फ Province), for his bluntness in petitioning the Emperor, but was again promoted and transferred back to the imperial capital for doing good work in harnessing the rivers. He was appointed the Governor of the Capital, Kaifeng ᓔᇕ, and greatly improved the law and order situation of the city within several months. Soon, Fan was demoted again as it was rumoured that he had been interested in the appointment of the Crown Prince and successor to the young Emperor who was issueless.

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In 1038, there was a rebellion of the minority community of Dangxiang ܮ乍 and the establishment of a secessionist regime of Xixia 㽓໣. The rebel leader, Yuanhao ܗᯞ led a force of 100,000 soldiers and invaded Shaanxi 䰩㽓 Province. The imperial court sent a general to quell the rebellion but met no success. Finally, the Emperor restored the top rank to Fan Zhongyan and appointed the 52 years old courtier as Commander-in- Chief to the front. Fan reorganized the armed forces, adopted good strate- gies and defeated the rebel force. Then, he strengthened the border defence, and negotiated peace with Xixia, and stabilized the situation. In the final years of Fan’s career, he rose to the rank equivalent to vice- premier and helped the Emperor to carry out reforms. There were tremendous difficulties, and the Emperor retreated in 1045. The year-long reform measures were abandoned, and Fan Zhongyan was stripped of his high- ranking positions both in the civil establishment and in the military. He had tried, but was not able to reinvigorate a government which was cor- rupt and dysfunctional. Apart from his political career, Fan was also a renowned scholar and teacher, presiding over an academy during 1026– 1028, when he was on a compulsory vacation. When he died in service in 1052, the Emperor granted him a posthumous honour of ‘wenzheng ᭛ℷ/ cultured and righteous’. Henceforth, he was revered in history as ‘Fan Wenzheng gong 㣗᭛ℷ݀’ (venerable sir of Wenzheng of Fan family) — a sort of mini-sage in the society. There were not too many scholar-officers like Bai Juyi and Fan Zhongyan in Chinese history. But, every dynasty that lasted for more than a hundred years had scores of such like-minded dedicated individuals. Historians sometimes likened the Chinese ruling elite to a river which has a ‘qingliu ⏙⌕/clean stream’ distinguishable from ‘zhuoliu ⌞⌕/dirty stream’. Though numerically the ‘zhuoliu ⌞⌕/dirty stream’ was larger than the ‘qingliu ⏙⌕/clean stream’, the latter could provide a sort of self- purification for the Chinese political culture so that the nature of ‘civilization state’ was not lost. The constraint of space prevents me from giving more examples of so called Chinese ‘Confucian’ scholars like Zhang Zai, Zhu Xi, Lu Jiuyuan, Wang Yangming, Bai Juyi and Fan Zhongyan to show the influence of quintessential Indian civilization in their thoughts and deeds. The Chindia input of these scholars caused the evolution of Confucianism. The eclectic

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scholarship absorbed nutrients from non-Confucian realms, especially the Indian philosophical system introduced by Buddhism. This is why I have used the adjective ‘Chindia-Confucianism’.

VI. INDIAN SPIRITUAL POWER ENERGIZING CHINA Some readers will mistake my intention to be to dampen or diminish China’s pride for the profound richness and outstanding height her ‘Confucian’ scholars had achieved, similar to the feedback I received at a recent international conference. Far from it; all I want to convey is the historical fact that Indian civilization did help energize ‘Confucianism’. The fact that some of the scholars drew inspiration from non-Confucian sources is reflective of the sagacity and maturity to which the civilization had achieved.

Buddhism Empowering Harmony and Struggle Ethics in China Maintaining control over a super-state in a territory as large as Europe was a problem through the ages. China had to maintain harmony to sustain development. In maintaining control, the forces of rebellion had to mini- mized. A two-pronged strategy was adopted by the Chinese authorities for the maintenance of harmony, combining persuasion and suppression. They resorted to suppression by brute force on one hand and winning hearts and minds on the other. The harmony ethic and the struggle ethic had origins in Buddhism. The dynamics of the harmony ethic has a strong showing in the religious societies in ancient India as well as those adhering to the teachings of Confucius and Mencius in ancient China. The teachings of Confucius and Mencius concentrated on mutual relations among various segments of the society and thus, were not enough to persuade the large masses of people in a super-state. This deficiency was made up by the dissemination of Buddhism. Buddhism presented China with its own harmony ethic which focussed more on a universalism guided by Buddhadharma. This had three dimensions. First, there was the ‘fawang ⊩⥟/dharma-raja/the Buddha’ and ‘lunwang 䕂⥟/cakravartin/the king’ dimension, doubly

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ensuring the harmony within the super-state. Second, there was the Bodhisattva spirit maximizing Love and compassion. Third, there was the conception of ‘equality/upeksa’ promoting justice and ease. Buddhist culture promoted Chinese social harmony by sowing the spiritual values of ‘ahimsa/non-slaughter/non-violence’, ‘santi/peace’ and ‘ksanti/toleration’. It made Chinese people pious, good-hearted and god-fearing with ‘yinguo baoying ಴ᵰ᡹ᑨ/karma/retribution’ deterring violence and evil-doing. All this resulted in a reinvigorated harmony ethic in China. On the other hand, Buddhism also helped strengthen struggle ethic in China. We know the ancient Chinese concept of ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/all under Heaven’ which was somewhat narrow in area and vague in meaning. It was the wide reach of Buddhism that continually broadened and substantiated this Chinese concept. When Buddhism thrived in China, two popular phrases emerged: (a) ‘tianxia taiping ໽ϟ໾ᑇ’ (all peaceful and happy under Heaven) voiced the satisfaction that life was good and everything was under control; (b) ‘da tianxia ᠧ໽ϟ’ (fight to win back all-under- Heaven) was the slogan of armed mass uprisings. We know that every armed uprising in Chinese history was a peasant insurgency very often led by country bumpkins. The extreme example was Zhu Yuanzhang ᴅܗ⩟ (1328–1398) who began his life as a beggar-boy and ended his career as the founder-emperor of Ming Dynasty ᯢᳱ (1368–1644). One is hard- pressed to find examples of any peasant insurgency in any other country that raised the slogan of ‘fight to win back all-under-Heaven’. On the other hand, almost all peasant uprisings in China seldom stopped at a local victory but always had the ambition to take over the imperial capital. There was obviously an element of ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/all-under-Heaven’ universalism that originated from Buddhist indoctrination. By the way, the beggar-boy- turned-emperor Zhu Yuanzhang was once a monk for a period in his life. The concept of ‘equality’ is the invention of Buddhism. Buddha’s teaching of ‘upeksa’ (ability to see everyone and everything as equal and not with discrimination) something akin to the ‘All men are created equal’ in the American ‘Declaration of Independence’. In the Chinese cultural tradition, Buddha is ‘pingdengwang ᑇㄝ⥟’ (upeksa-raja/king of equality). In the Chinese translation of Buddhist scriptures, the concept of ‘zhipingdeng ᱎᑇㄝ’ (prajna-upeksa/wisdom equality) or a conviction that denies the existence of special gift and genius, is the antithesis of Confucian ideology

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which highlights the importance of the intellectual elite. The roots of the struggle against Hindu Brahmins in India which underlay the foundation of Buddhism can also be seen in the anti-Confucian-elitism movement in China. The popularization of the Buddhist concept of ‘pingdeng ᑇㄝ/upeksa/ equality’ among Chinese masses generated two popular phrases in Chinese folklore: ‘buping ze ming ϡᑇ߭号’ (inequality creates loud grumble) and ‘dabao buping ᠧᢅϡᑇ’ (fighting against inequality). The former was first conceived by the famous Tang Dynasty scholar-courtier, Han Yu 䶽ᛜ (768–824) who was sensitive and, perhaps, a little uncomfortable about the predominance of the Buddhist influence, and wanted to revitalize Confucian teachings. In one of his essays, Han Yu observed: ‘generally when there is a feeling of inequality there is a loud grumble’ (໻޵⠽ϡᕫ ݊ᑇ߭号).41 Here we have a refreshing example of a Confucian scholar propounding a non-Confucian proposition which indirectly proves the impact of Buddhist ideology. The four-syllabic phrase of ‘buping ze ming ϡᑇ߭号/inequality creates loud grumble’ must have been created by one of the admirers of Han Yu, but it gradually became a spark that would ignite a fire storm of struggles against inequality. The other four-syllabic phrase of ‘dabao buping ᠧᢅϡᑇ/fighting against inequality’ was very prophetic. I grew up in the countryside of Hunan Province where this ‘dabao buping ᠧᢅϡᑇ/fighting against inequality’ culture was a prevailing vogue. Hunanese have a long history of joining the ranks of rebellion, be it the Taiping ໾ᑇ໽೑ movement of the 19th century or the Communist movement of the 20th century. According to ancient Chinese interpretation, ‘taiping ໾ᑇ’ connotes ‘grand peace’, but Buddhism seems to have injected the Indian value of ‘mahasamata’ (grand equality) into it. Buddha’s nickname of ‘pingdengwang ᑇㄝ⥟/Upeksaraja’ arose from the Buddhist belief that all humans are destined to another life according to the principle of equal justice — hence the need of the “Upeksaraja” to preside over transmigration. An additional proof of ‘taiping ໾ᑇ’ having acquired the Buddhist ‘Upeksa/ mahasamata’ value is the fact that the famous Taiping Rebellion that wrecked the Manchu Empire in mid-nineteenth century designated its

41 Han Yu 䶽ᛜ, ‘Song Meng Dongye xu 䗕ᄳϰ䞢ᑣ’ (An essay for Meng Jiao ᄳ䚞).

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millenarianism as ‘Taipingtianguo ໾ᑇ໽೑/Celestial Kingdom of Taiping/ Mahasamata’. Let us also re-visit the Sui Emperor Wen 䱟᭛Ᏹ (541–604) who was born and brought up in a Buddhist nunnery under the care of a nun when his father, Yang Zhong ᴼᖴ (a duke under the regime of Northern Zhou ਼࣫), was busy fighting wars. His name was actually Yang Jian ᴼമand he was a staunch Buddhist believer both before and after he ascended the throne as Sui Emperor Wen. He reunited China in 581, and ushered in more than three centuries of consecutive zealous pro-Buddhist regimes (2 dynasties and 11emperors) if we overlook the 6-year aberration of Tang Emperor Wuzong ૤℺ᅫ. Both the Sui and Tang dynasties were established as a result of a victorious armed uprising overthrowing the ancien regime with the blessings of the Buddha. But, the Tang Dynasty not only firmly established the structure of reunification of the super-state of China, but established it with a clear ideology adopting the Buddhist legendary story of ‘xiangmo 䰡儨/maravijaya/overcoming the demons’. When the Tang resurgence started its war to overthrow the tyranny of Sui Emperor Yang 䱟♔Ᏹ, it issued a kind of manifesto now known as ‘Ju yiqi shizhong wen ВН᮫䁧ӫ᭛’ (text of mass swearing while raising the righteous standard) in the name of the founder-ruler, Tang Emperor Gaozu ૤催⼪ (reigning 618–626).42 In the early edicts issued by the Emperor, the phrase of ‘yiqi Н᮫’ (righteous standard) was repeatedly used to glorify the Tang uprising.43 Thus, ‘Tang Emperor Gaozu raising the righteous standard’ (૤ 催⼪ВН᮫) became a well-known phenomenon in Chinese historiography. All this amounts to a refreshing justification of armed rebellion for a revolutionary cause in Chinese civilization from 7th century onwards which is expressed by the two-syllabic term ‘juyi ВН’ or in its more popular version ‘qiyi 䍋Н’ both coterminous. The reader can discern the earliest glorification of revolution in the history of mankind. The Mile ᓹࢦ/Maitreya/Future Buddha was used on one hand to reinvigorate the authorities of Chinese super-state. However, on the other

42 Quan Tang wen, Vol. I, pp. 42–43. 43 Such as ‘yiqi boluan Н᮫ᢼх’ (righteous standard to right the wrong) and ‘yiqi jihe Н᮫⌢⊇’ (righteous standard crossing the river) in addition to ‘yibing qu ren Н݉পҎ’ (righteous army winning people). See Quan Tang wen, Vol. I, p. 17.

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hand, we also see the down-trodden of China trying to overthrow the established socio-political order in the name of Maiterya Buddha (ᓹࢦԯ). The earliest example was a man from Shaanxi named Xiang Haiming ৥⍋ᯢ who proclaimed himself as the reincarnation of the Maiterya Buddha, and gathered a mass rebellion in 613. In the same year, there was another self-proclaimed ‘Maitreya Buddha’ on the part of a magician named Song Zixian ᅟᄤ䋸in Hebei Province who convened an abortive ‘wuzhe dahui ᮴䙂໻Ӯ/pancaparisad/the quinquennial mammoth gathering’ to conspire an assault on the Emperor on tour. During the middle of the 14th century, there was a surge of Chinese uprisings against the Yuan/Mongol rulers. A man named Han Shantong 䶽ቅス, who was the head of ‘White Lotus Society’ (ⱑ㦆Ӯ), rose as a popular rebel leader amidst the widespread belief that (‘Tianxia daluan, Milefo xiasheng ໽ϟ ໻хˈᓹࢦԯϟ⫳’ (There is chaos in the universe, hence there is the reincarnation of Maitreya Buddha on earth). This ignited a mass rebellion of the ‘Army of Red Scarf’ (㑶Ꮢݯ), also known as ‘Red Army’ (㑶ݯ), or .incense-burning army’ (佭ݯ), because of its worshipping of the Buddha‘ Though Han Shantong was shortly captured by the Yuan government, the identity of the ‘Maitreya Buddha’ was passed on to another man of his namesake, Han Lin’er 䶽ᵫܓ, and the armed rebellion lasted for 15 years from 1351 to 1366 in the name of Maitreya Buddha. Chinese history is notable for large-scale peasant wars all of which had their crude revolutionary ideology which definitely did not originate from the culture of ‘Confucianism’. The important thing to note is that the new peasant rulers always attempted to take control of the super-state and this cycle was repeated. In a way, the influence of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ made China what it is now and not broken into many states, as in Europe.

Converting China into ‘Ahimsa’ Pacifism King Ashoka transformed himself after the Kalinga War in India. It symbolized the turning point of the Ashokan Era. Similarly, two of China’s reunification heroes exhibited their repentance in the wake of the revolutionary wars. The Sui Emperor Wen who was born in a Buddhist temple and brought up by a nun erected pagodas on the erstwhile battleground where he had vanquished the enemy and established the Sui Dynasty. The

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Tang Emperor Taizong issued three edicts: ‘Shoumai haigu zhao ᬊඟ傌偼䆣’ (Edict for burying the skeletons), ‘Wei zhanwangren shezhai xingdao zhao Ў៬ѵҎ䆒᭟㸠䘧䆣’ (Edict for performing mourning ceremonies for the war dead), and ‘wei zhanzhenchu lisi zhao Ў៬䰉໘ゟᇎ䆣’ Edict for establishing temples on the spots where battles were fought) immediately after he had ascended the throne. These were instances inspired by King Ashoka’s pacifism. In his second edict, Tang Emperor Taizong observed: ‘The sacred teaching of the Tathagata is deeply compassionate. Killing assumes primacy among its taboos. Constantly talking of all this increases my regret and fear.’ (しҹབᴹ೷ᬭˈ⏅ᇮ᜜ҕˈ⽕៦П⾥, ᴔᆇЎ䞡Ǆ∌㿔ℸ⧚ˈᓹ๲ᙨᚻ) He said holding services for the dead in a war would ‘emancipate them from millennial sufferings, and spread relief widely, eliminate hatred and uncouthness, and advance towards the path of Bodhi/Enlightenment’ (಴ᮃ㾷㜅ϛࡿП㢺ˈ㮝ℸᅣ⌢ˈ♁ᗼ䱰 Пᖗˈ䍷㦽ᦤП䘧). In his third edict, the Emperor ordered to build separate temples and pagodas for the ‘yishi Н຿’ (literally, ‘righteous persons’, i.e., his own troops who died in the war) and ‘xiongtu ߊᕦ’ (literally, ‘vicious fellows’, i.e., soldiers of the enemies) respectively. He hoped that ‘By beating the drum of dharma, hot fire will transform into blue lotus; and by sounding the temple music, the sea of sorrow will transform into elixir dew’ (ᳯ⊩哧᠔䳛ˈব♢☿Ѣ䴦㦆˗⏙ẉ᠔䯏ˈᯧ㢺⍋Ѣ⫬䴆).44 Here, the Emperor used three Indian idioms: ‘qinglian 䴦㦆’ (blue lotus, Chinese translation of Sanskrit nilotpala), ‘kuhai 㢺⍋’ (the sea of sorrow, Chinese translation of Sanskrit duhkhasagar), and ‘ganlu ⫬䴆’ (the elixir dew, Chinese translation of Sanskrit amrita). There is another example of scholar-courtier Li Junqiu ᴢ৯⧗ (of early 7th century) who prevented an impending expedition against Korea by Tang Emperor Gaozong. He argued that the common people would become restive, if they grew ‘war fatigue’ (⮆Ѣ䕀០) and were unable to have safe and stable living. That would result in the ‘failure of the [Chinese] universe’ (໽ϟ䋹), and the Emperor would not have “self peace” (㞾ᅝ).45 Scholar-courter Wei Cou 䶺ޥ (658–722) did the same against Tang Emperor Xuanzong I’s intended war against Anxi ᅝᙃ (Bokhara). In his

44 Ibid, pp. 57–58, 60. 45 Quan Tang wen, Vol. II, p. 1625.

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petition, he observed that Han Emperor Wu ∝℺Ᏹ, the renowned ruler who had made Confucianism a state ideology, was not a hero in Chinese history because of his waging endless wars and conquests, exhausting the vitality of the country.46 This was an unusually daring statement according to the prevailing standard. The comparison of Chinese imperial adventur- ism to a better pacifist perspective inspired by the Indian spirit of ‘santi/ peace’ was notable. We also see great Tang poets such as Li Bai and Du Fu as powerful anti- war spokesmen. Li Bai’s Zhan chengnan ៬ජफ (Fighting South of City) poem has been popularly appreciated in which he vehemently lamented (my translation):

War burns with vehemence, To no end the expeditions. Warriors in the ﬁ eld lie dead, At a loss the ﬁ ghting steeds Bellow heart-breaking neighs. Scavenging human entrails Vultures hang them On the boughs of dry trees. Dead in the jungle our soldiers, In vain to decorate our generals. We should realize Evil gadgets are the weapons Ancient sage has recommended It as a last resort. (⛑☿➗ϡᙃˈᕕ៬᮴ᏆᯊǄ䞢៬Ḑ᭫⅏ˈ䋹偀ো号৥໽ᚆǄР叶 ଘҎ㙴ˈ㸨亲ϞᣖᶃᷥᵱǄ຿द⍖㤝㦑ˈᇚݯぎᇨЎǄЗⶹ݉㗙 ᰃߊ఼ˈ೷ҎϡᕫᏆ㗠⫼ПǄ)

Li Bai’s argument is powerful, his depiction graphic. In the last sentence, he quoted Laozi 㗕ᄤ (Section 31): ‘Weapons are inauspicious gadgets, not for the gentlemen, and should be used as a last resort.’ (݉㗙ϡ⼹П఼, 䴲৯ᄤП఼ˈϡᕫᏆ㗠⫼П). This shows the poet’s great grasp of Chinese classics. Indeed, this poem amounts to the exposure of the dark side of the Chinese super-state with his third eye of Buddha’s compassion.

46 Quan Tang wen, Vol. II, p. 2018.

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Du Fu was Li Bai’s contemporary and friend. He was particularly famous for his anti-war sentiments expressed in three masterpieces: ‘Bingche xing ݉䔺㸠/Troops Marching’, ‘Chun wang ᯹ᳯ/Spring aspiration’, and ‘Shihao li ⷇ຩৣ/Official of Shihao’. The last poem depicts a pathetic scene he had witnessed. The government was short of soldiers, and sent officers to take away the last male, an old man, from the house in which the poet was spending the night. The old man ran away, and the officers took away his old wife. The poem records what the old woman talked to the officers (my translation):

They are in the defence All my three sons. The second died recent Wrote the eldest one. We still survive On borrowed life, In eternal rest lie Folks who have died. No, there’s no one In the inner room Only a breast-fed baby. For the kid’s sake The mother can’t be away, She has no dress to wear For her outdoor chore. Though frail and old I’ll go with you To ﬁ ght if I have to. But just be delayed a little, Let me cook the morning meal For other members. ϝ⬋䚎ජ១ˈϔ⬋䰘к㟇ˈѠ⬋ᮄ៬⅏Ǆᄬ㗙Ϩً⫳ˈ⅏㗙䭓) Ꮖ⶷ǄᅸЁ᳈᮴Ҏˈᚳ᳝чϟᄭˈ᳝ᄭ↡᳾এˈߎܹ᮴ᅠ㺭Ǆ㗕ཾ ࡯㱑㹄ˈ䇋ᇚৣ໰ᔦˈᗹᑨ⊇䰇ᕍˈ⢍ᕫ໛᰼♞Ǆ)

It is a sad poem, a sad picture of the period called ‘sheng Tang ⲯ૤/ Tang Dynasty in its pinnacle’ — that old folks, even women, had to be drafted as soldiers.

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More can be gleaned from Chinese literature. Mao Wenxi’s ↯᭛䫵 (lived in the 10th century) poem ‘Zui huajian 䝝㢅䯈 Drunk among flowers’ seems to echo Chen Tao’s 䰜䱊 (812?–885?) ‘Longxi xing 䰛㽓㸠/ Expedition to the west of Shaanxi’. In the latter, Chen Tao lamented that ‘skeletons on the beach of the nameless river’ (᮴ᅮ⊇䖍偼) on the Chinese border, yet they were still alive in the ‘sweet spring dreams’ (᯹䯎 Ṻ䞠Ҏ) of their sweethearts afar. In the former, Mao Wenxi spoke out the fret of a wife who has missed the tidings of her husband who was in the ᖚ០ὐҎˈЙ㒱䖍ᒁֵ). The two scenariosأ) army on the border weave a wholesome tragedy for the war heroes and their families. The Song Dynasty government pursued a pacific policy of strengthening the central authority by weakening the military power of the governors who were stationed along the borders. The army of the country was brought under the control of the civilians. The two brother-rulers and co- founders of the Song Dynasty, Emperor Taizu ᅟ໾⼪ (reigning 959–976) and Emperor Taizong ᅟ໾ᅫ (reigning 976–997) were devout Buddhists, and initiated this pacific tradition known as ‘zhongwen qingwu 䞡᭛䕏℺/ civilian rule over the military’. Thus, a pacific vogue prevalent in China was epitomized by the popular saying ‘A high quality man does not become a soldier just like a piece of high quality steel is not turned into nails’ (ད䪕 ϡᠧ䩝ˈད⬋ϡᔧ݉). I must quote one of the greatest and most popular poems and songs, ‘Liangzhou ci ޝᎲ䆡/Song of Liangzhou’ by Wang Han ⥟㗄 (7th century) which I translate below:

I enjoy my ﬁ ne grape wine My goblet the noctilucent shine. To my heart’s content I want to booze But there sounds the war signal Urging me to go to battle. Hey, please don’t giggle When you see me tipsy On the battle ﬁ eld I sleep, Since time immemorial, tell me, Warriors how many Could go home during peace?! 䝝ऻ≭എ৯㥿ュˈসᴹᕕ៬˗ڀᵃˈ℆佂⨉⨊偀Ϟܝ㨵㧘㕢䜦໰) ޴Ҏಲ˛)

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Although I have failed to bring out the lyrical charm of the song in my translation, readers can still glean its meaning. There was the bubbling passion for the good things of life (which is typically Chinese) and the deep-rooted cynicism towards warfare (which is typically Indian).

Chan/Zen Culture — The Gem of Himalaya Sphere Any discourse on Chinese culture, especially from a historical perspective, is not adequate without highlighting the Chan ⽙ culture which has been widely popularized in the ‘Anglobalized’47 sphere by Japanese culture as ‘Zen’ (the Japanese pronunciation of ‘Chan ⽙’). The creator of this culture, we have seen, was the renowned Indian monk, Bodhidharma, who was the linchpin of intra-‘Himalaya Sphere’ interconnectivity. Many sects of Mahayana Buddhism were created in China of which the ‘Chan ⽙’ sect was one. Today, ‘Chan ⽙’ Buddhism is virtually the only thriving and sustainable stream of Buddhism in China and all over the Chinese- speaking world. The Chinese word ‘Chan ⽙’ is a Buddhist creation, transliterating the Sanskrit word of ‘dhyana/meditation’. In fact, it is the Buddhist version of Indian cultivation of ‘tapasya’ as I have alluded to earlier. Thus, the Chan dynamic has penetrated far beyond religious activities and built a special lifestyle in China. It was instrumental in internalizing the noble Buddhist culture in oneself for one’s own good and enjoyment while treating all ceremonial Buddhist practices as secondary, even dispensable. The most important thing for a ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ follower is ‘Fo zai wo xinzhong ԯ೼៥ᖗЁ/Buddha lives in my heart’. It is not necessary for a Chan follower to worship the idol, or even study the scriptures. We need to present to the reader the classical polemic between the two main exponents of the Chan Sect — the northern patriarch, Reverend Shenxiu ⼲⾔ (606–706) and the southern patriarch, Reverend Huineng ᜻㛑 (638–713). Shenxiu composed a poem which I translate below:

We see in our body a bodhi tree, Like a mirror our heart would be.

47 I follow many others to prefix ‘Anglo’ to globalization because our Western world today is largely dominated by English language.

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Dust the mirror time and again So that it bears no stain. (䑿Ԑ㦽ᦤᷥˈᖗԐᯢ䬰ৄ˗ᯊᯊࢸᢖᣁˈ࣓Փᛍᇬ඗Ǆ)

Huineng had been an illiterate wood-cutter before he was ordained. When he heard this famous poem of Shenxiu who was a fellow-disciple of his Guru, he composed two poems in response to Shenxiu’s. In the first poem, he observed that ‘bodhi’ was not a tree, nor was our heart a mirror, hence dusting the heart was not the proper understanding of ‘Chan ⽙/ dhyana’. In the second poem, he reversed Shenxiu’s analogy by likening the heart to a bodhi tree and the body to a mirror, and also refuted the idea of dusting. Huineng succeeded his Guru as a patriarch. He thought that everybody had a Buddha in his/her heart thus observing dharma was a natural and effortless development. This idea has become the tenet of the ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’ culture and spirit. I must add a note here that in Huineng’s second poem when he reiterated ‘xin shi putishu ᖗᰃ㦽ᦤᷥ/ heart is a bodhi tree’ he was expounding the paramount nature of the ‘puti xin 㦽ᦤᖗ/bodhicitta’ just as Lu Jiuyuan did in the 12th century and Wang Yangming did in the 16th century. All this served to reiterate what Zhang Zai famously said about ‘wei tiandi li xin Ў໽ഄゟᖗ/create the heart for Heaven and Earth’ was to install the ‘puti xin 㦽ᦤᖗ/bodhicitta’ in Chinese civilization. This was the true spirit of Neo-Confucianism. This was the true spirit of ‘Chan ⽙/dhyana’. This was the true spirit of Chinese civilization. And this was the true spirit of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

VII. CONCLUSION My arriving in India at the age of 26 (after a somewhat solid grooming in Chinese civilization) and spending 45 years of my entire thinking life in India has equipped me with a spade to dig out the hidden intra-Himalaya Sphere affinity and cultural synergy between the two civilization twins of China and India. Without living in India for such a long a period I would not have been able to write this chapter. I have written about other examples in my previous books, India and China: Twenty Centuries of Civilizational Interaction and Vibrations.48

48 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, op cit, p. 204.

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Let me recount to the reader about an epiphany of mine that will illustrated my journey. The four-syllabic Chinese phrase ‘moding fangzhong ᨽ乊ᬒ䐉’ appears in the classic ‘Mengzi ᄳᄤ/Mencius’.49 Let me quote the context and see how this has been understood in Chinese academic circles. The original reference is: ‘Mozi jian’ai moding fangzhong li tianxia, weizhi ๼ᄤݐ⠅ᨽ乊ᬒ䐉߽໽ϟЎП’ (literally, ‘Master Mo advocates universal love. He rubs his forehead and puts down something on the feet. Anything for the good of the universe he will do it.’) Here is Mencius comment on Mozi who was also a disciple of Confucius and one of the eminent philosophers of the pre-Qin period. The conventional reading of the 11 syllables of Mencius’ commentary is to break them into three sections: (a) ‘Mozi jian’ai ๼ᄤݐ⠅’, (b) ‘moding fangzhong li tianxia ᨽ乊ᬒ䐉߽໽ϟ’, and (c) ‘weizhi ЎП’. The first section relates to Mozi .’advocating ‘jian’ai ݐ⠅/universal love Here is the general explanation one finds from the Chinese dictionaries about the next two sections. About the second section, ‘moding fangzhong li tianxia ᨽ乊ᬒ䐉߽໽ϟ’, the explanation is: ‘moding ᨽ乊’ means ‘motou touding ⺼⾗༈乊/grind the top of the head till it becomes hairless’; ‘fangzhong ᬒ䐉’ means ‘mopo jiaogen ⺼⸈㛮䎳/grind and injure the heels’; ‘li tianxia ߽໽ϟ’ means ‘dui tianxia youli ᇍ໽ϟ᳝߽/beneficial to the universe’. The entire explanation is presented as such: Mozi was such a person who would slog so hard till his head was broken and heels got injured for the public good of the universe. There are two problems with such an explanation. First, Mozi was a famous ancient thinker who advocated pacifism and universal love. There is no historical evidence that he had done such a service to the universe by thus injuring himself, nor is there any evidence that he had advocated such a service publicly. Second, the Chinese phrase ‘moding ᨽ乊’ only denotes ‘a touch of the forehead with hand’, not ‘grind the top of the head till it becomes hairless’; and the Chinese phrase ‘fangzhong ᬒ䐉’ only denotes ‘putting the heels down’ or ‘putting something on the heels’, not ‘grind and injure the heels’. So, such an explanation always felt inadequate when I studied the teachings of Mencius. Living in India helped me solve the puzzle easily. One evening, I was watching a cultural programme, which was a lecture-cum-demonstration

49 Mengzi ᄳᄤ(Mencius), fascicle 13, ‘Jinxin ሑᖗ’ A.

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by a Kathakali dancer at the India International Centre in New Delhi. She started her lecture by narrating that every Indian classical dancer had to start the day by worshipping God and also worshipping the Guru, then, vigorous training got going. When a dance worshipped the Guru, he/she had to kneel before the Guru, touch the Guru’s feet with both hands, then rub his/her forehead with the hands so that he/she would transfer the Guru’s mastery onto his/her own head. No sooner had she done this narrative than I suddenly realized the meaning of ‘moding fangzhong ᨽ乊 ᬒ䐉’, i.e., putting hands on the Guru’s feet (‘fangzhong ᬒ䐉’) and then rubbing one’s own forehead (‘moding ᨽ乊’) — the ancient ritual that vividly illustrates the ‘Guru–shishya’ (master–disciple) relationship. With such an understanding I looked at the Mencius quotation again and arrived a better understanding of Mencius’ commentary on Mozi. The crux of the issue lies in the conventional wisdom’s lumping ‘moding fangzhong ᨽ乊ᬒ䐉’ together with ‘li tianxia ߽໽ϟ’, whereas the two are not inter-connected at all. My subsequent interpretation of the Mencius’ quotation is to attach ‘li tianxia ߽໽ϟ’ with the last two syllables ‘weizhi ЎП/doing it’. My three-fold division and interpretation of the Mencius’s ,(quote is: (a) ‘Mozi jian’ai ๼ᄤݐ⠅’ (Mozi advocated universal love (b) ‘moding fangzhong ᨽ乊ᬒ䐉’ (there was an intimate Guru/master– shishya/disciple relationship, and (c) ‘li tianxia weizhi ߽໽ϟЎП’ (he would do something for the public good of the universe). Was there really such master–disciple relationship in China during Mozi’s (or Mencius’) time? Did Mozi intend to introduce it to China? Could Mozi have been an Indian or Indian descendant? We will not find an answer to the original meaning if we treat Chinese and Indian civilizations as water-tight compartments. With a holistic perspective in understanding civilization the answer is obvious, viz., the Chinese phrase of ‘moding fangzhong ᨽ乊ᬒ䐉’ leaves no doubt about the intra-Himalaya Sphere affinity and commonality. The ancient traditions of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ are manifest in the ancient Chinese saying alluding to a master– disciple relationship that was missed as the saying was passed through the generations. Readers might have found in this chapter something quite unique in the relations between two neighbouring civilizations, one, i.e., China, more or less a super-state, and the other, i.e., India, a conglomeration of numerous

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small states in the space of two odd millennia. I can foresee two kinds of criticisms: First, my viewing things from the cultural perspective without touching upon politics; second, my free interpretation of historical events seeing only the bright side while glossing over the other side, brushing aside the conflicting elements. These criticisms are fair and the reader should thus take my point of view with a pinch of salt. However, if the reader accepts my point of view, he or she will benefit from a deeper understanding of the civilizations. More importantly, the reader will be liberated from the geopolitical constraints, the cultural pigeonholes, and the straight-jacket of ‘nation states’ and will eventually view the two ‘civilization states’ of China and India as two different entities growing from a single embryo — the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. This explains why I have been reiterating the term ‘Himalaya civilization twins’. With this selective and focused rhythm my narrative in this chapter may have driven home the viewpoint that ‘Himalaya Sphere’ augurs a bright future for China– India Relations.

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CHAPTER 3

CIVILIZATION AND STATE IN CHINA–INDIA RELATIONS

Many people only view China–India relations from the point of view of state-to-state relations and completely ignore the influence of civilization. This is also evident when they think of the history of both countries. China and India ought to be considered as civilization-states, while being surrounded by nation-states. Let us investigate the state-to-state relations between China and India, which was, of course, always present.

I. STATE-TO-STATE RELATIONS IN HISTORICAL TIMES In contrast to the event in the Western hemisphere, there was peace and harmony between the Chinese and Indian sides of the subcontinent historically. This was insightfully highlighted by Tagore’s Tokyo lecture in 1916 which compared the extinguished ‘lamp of ancient Greece and Rome’ with the living flame of civilization ‘in China and India’ through the vicissitudes of history. In the late 1990s, my good friend, Geng Yinzeng 㘓ᓩ᳒, an important member of Ji Xianlin’s ᄷ㕵ᵫ research collective on China–India, compiled a chronology of state-to-state relations between the two subcontinents of China and India during the ancient times. That was the initial base for us to bring out our joint book, India and China. The chronology of events forms a substantial part of the book.1

1 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, Chapter 11, pp. 283–384.

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There is a book by Bhasker Anand Saletore, former Director of National Archives, New Delhi, entitled India’s Diplomatic Relations with the East published in 1960.2 Saletore was not a China expert, and his information from Chinese historical documents was through Western books. Yet, this was the first, and perhaps only, book by an Indian scholar discussing China–India relations from the point of state-to-state relations starting from the very beginning to the 13th century. I want to quote what he observed:

For over a thousand years cordial relations prevailed between the ‘Western Heaven’, as the Chinese called India, and the ‘Middle Kingdom’, as they called their own country. This long contact was illuminated by many diplomatic missions which … were less political and more religious and cultural in their nature … while the Chinese monarchs and people were anxious to know about the land of the [Buddhist] Sacred Law, the Indian rulers and scholars were equally sincere in reciprocating their good wishes and in maintaining friendly relations between the two countries.3

Note Saletore’s observation of ‘cordial relations’ between China and the ‘Western Heaven’ (India). He seems to have summarized my last chapter more than half a century in advance.

China’s Discovery of India We have seen Zhang Qian’s ᓴ偲 report to the Han Emperor Wu about the products of Sichuan ಯᎱ being re-exported by ‘Shendu 䑿↦/Hindu/ Indian’ merchants to ‘Daxia ໻໣’ (present-day Afghanistan). The two exact products he mentioned were ‘Qiong zhuzhang 䙯ネᴪ’ (bamboo walking sticks made in Qiongshan 䙯ቅ) and ‘Shu bu 㳔Ꮧ/cloth of Shu’ (literally ‘cloth from Shu 㳔’) — silk fabrics. Zhang Qian did not know about silk as it was a rare product used only by the royal family and the privileged few. But, Emperor Wu understood the import of this information. He discovered that on the southwest side of China there existed an

2 B.A. Saletore, India’s Diplomatic Relations with the East, Bombay: The Popilar Book Depot, 1960. 3 Ibid, p. 39.

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important neighbouring state ‘Shendu 䑿↦/Hindu/India’ whose merchants could get the precious product of silk from Sichuan (a periph- eral place of his reign) and export it to Central Asia. We should view this episode as China’s first discovery of India. We know that the Emperor sent out several missions through Sichuan and Yunnan (which was not yet Chinese territory) as well as Central Asia without fulfilling his aim, which was establishing a direct contact with the state in the Indian subcontinent. However, in Chinese history, the tradition of ‘Han Wudi tong xiyu ∝℺Ᏹ䗮㽓ඳ/Han Emperor Wu connecting the Western Regions’ is firmly established. The alternative tradition is ‘Zhang Qian tong xiyu ᓴ偲䗮㽓ඳ/Zhang Qian connecting the Western Regions’. Indian and international scholars know that in ancient Chinese documents, the term ‘xiyu 㽓ඳ/Western Regions’ is coterminous with India (the Indian subcontinent). In Chinese records India is referred to by various names. The eminent Indian monk, Dharmaratna ノ⊩݄, who arrived in Luoyang after the ‘gold Buddha dream’ of Han Emperor Ming is described in ancient Chinese literature as ‘xiyu huren 㽓ඳ㚵Ҏ/foreigner foreign monk from/ڻfrom the Western Regions’ or ‘xiyu huseng 㽓ඳ㚵 the Western Regions’. Chinese historiography attributes Han Emperor Wu’s connecting ‘xiyu 㽓ඳ/Western Regions/India’ for exporting the technology of iron-industry, well-making, silk-industry, and lacquer- industry, as well as importing cucumber, broad-bean, sesame, pomegran- ate, carrot, horses, and walnut. We should understand the information as symbolizing the opening up of China to the Indian subcontinent from Han Emperor Wu’s reign through Central Asia. We now reap the benefit of Chinese records to look at Chinese history. Many of these records testify to wide international contacts between China and foreign countries. Unfortunately, these records often contain incomplete information with lots of missing links creating difficulties for us to reconstruct real events. We cannot ascertain the Indian State with which China made the initial contact, followed by substantial trade. I want to highlight two particular names in Chinese records referring to India creating lots of ambiguity and controversy. These are: ‘Huangzhi 咘ᬃ’ and ‘Daqin ໻⾺’. ‘Huangzhi 咘ᬃ’ is mentioned in a famous account in the Section on ‘Geography’ (ഄ⧚ᖫ) in Hanshu ∝к (Han Annals) as a prominent state

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on the eastern coast of India. Although briefly mentioned in my previous book, India and China, we should look at it in more detail. 4 There has been little serious study on this subject. ‘Huangzhi 咘ᬃ’ has been identified as ‘Kanchipuram’ (in present-day Tamil Nadu) which I think is a gross mistake. Let me narrate what the account says (my translation):

There is the Huangzhi state where people live more or less like those in Guangdong. It is a vast country with numerous population and unusual products. It has shown up [in China] with presents since Han Emperor Wu’s time. There was a chief interpreter of the imperial palace who accompanied the voluntary government envoys to sail abroad, buying pearls, beryl, precious stones and other unusual products [from there] and taking gold and silks with them to go there…. They were often drowned during storms. Those who could survive returned after several years. The big pearls had a diameter of nearly two inches. During the Yuanshi Era (1–5 CE) of Han Emperor Ping, Wang Mang assisted the governance and wanted to boost its morale. He sent lavish gifts to the king of Huangzhi to ask for a live rhinoceros. ˈ⠽᳝咘ᬃ೑ˈ⇥֫⬹Ϣ⬹Ϣ⦴ዪⳌ㉏ˈ݊Ꮂᑓ໻᠋ষ໮ˈ໮ᓖ) 㞾℺Ᏹҹᴹⱚ⤂㾕Ǆ᳝䆥䭓ሲ咘䮼ˈϢᑨࢳ㗙ׅܹ⍋ˈᏖᯢ⦴ǃ ⩻⌕⾏ǃ༛⷇ᓖ⠽ˈ䌡咘䞥ᴖ㔃㗠ᕔˈĂ জ㢺䗶亢⊶⒎⅏ˈϡ㗙 ᭄ᑈᴹ䖬Ǆ໻⦴㟇ೈѠᇌҹϟǄᑇᏱܗྟЁˈ⥟㦑䕙ᬓˈ℆㗔࿕ ᖋˈ८䘫咘ᬃ⥟ˈҸ䘷Փ⤂⫳⡔⠯Ǆ) 5

The reference to Wang Mang ⥟㦑 (45 BCE–23 CE) gives us a time- frame of this account. Wang Mang usurped the throne (reigning as Emperor during 9–23 CE) and briefly disturbed the continuity of the Han Dynasty. Subsequent rulers made Wang Mang a leader to be condemned, as a usurper. Note the account does not use the word of ‘usurpation’ (ㆵԡ). Instead, the description says that ‘Wang Mang assisted the governance’ (⥟㦑䕙ᬓ). This would imply the author of the account lived during the period of the usurpation (9–23 CE) and was subservient to the usurper’s authority and thus careful not to make any adverse comment on his rule, which would have happened, if it was written later.

4 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, pp. 283–284. 5 Zhongguo zaijizhong Nanya shiliao huibian Ё೑䕑㈡ЁफѮ৆᭭∛㓪, Vol. I, pp. 7–8.

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The account is a valuable evidence of China’s early contacts with this big Indian state ‘Huangzhi 咘ᬃ’. Wang Mang ⥟㦑 seems to have intimate contacts with the king of this Indian state whose name cannot be traced from the Indian historiography. The account’s reference to this ‘Huangzhi 咘ᬃ’ state’s ‘showing up [in China] with presents since Han Emperor Wu’s time’ is interesting and important. The word ‘xian ⤂/presentation’ can suggest ‘tributary trade’ which would involve government envoys. Conventional wisdom identifies ‘Huangzhi 咘ᬃ’ as ‘Kanchipuram’ merely because ‘huangzhi’ could be the Chinese corruption of the first two syllables of ‘Kanchipuram’. But, we do not see Kanchipuram having such a glorious time from the reign of Han Emperor Wu (157–87 BCE) to that of Wang Mang (9–23 CE). On the other hand, this account is more appropriate for the state to be situated in Bengal which was a big and prosperous state in ancient times famous for its products of pearls, beryl, precious stones and rhinoceros. The mention of Chinese government-sponsored merchants bringing gold and silks to ‘Huangzhi 咘ᬃ’ is also interesting. This reconfirms India’s being an entrepot of Chinese silk that I have alluded to before. It also can lend support to the claim that Bengal had been Tagore’s ‘Amar Shonar Bangla/My Bengal of Gold’. May I add that in early times there was no concept of ‘gold’ in China which had never been rich in gold? The Chinese word ‘jin 䞥’ which means ‘metal’, acquired the meaning of ‘gold’ only after the advent of Buddhism in China. Gold mining started in China only during the Han Dynasty, and this was the time (a couple of centuries before and after CE) that the word ‘huangjin 咘䞥’ (literally, ‘yellow metal’, denoting ‘gold’) appeared to distinguish it from ‘baijin ⱑ䞥’ (literally, ‘white metal’, denoting ‘silver’) and ‘chijin 䌸䞥’ (literally, ‘red metal’, denoting ‘copper’). In the geographical account I have just quoted and translated, we see the word ‘huangjin 咘䞥/gold’ appearing in connection with ‘Huangzhi 咘ᬃ’. The interesting question is whether this is related to the Indian legend of ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’. The name ‘Daqin ໻⾺’ appeared in the first and third dynastic annals of China — ‘Shiji ৆䆄’ and ‘Hou-Hanshu ৢ∝к’ —, showing that some foreign traders had gone to China reporting that their country had this name. However, the Chinese accounts about this country show a lot of confusion. In the first place, the accounts put three different names

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together thinking they were the same country. The other two alternative names are ‘Lijian ⡕䶀’ or ‘Lixuan 咢䔽’ and ‘Haixi ⍋㽓’ which might have been mixed up. Second, in the accounts, ‘Daqin ໻⾺’ is defined as ‘xiyu guoming 㽓ඳ೑ৡ/name of a country in the Western regions’ — as I have said earlier, ‘xiyu 㽓ඳ/Western regions’ was also a general name for India. Third, the products of ‘Daqin ໻⾺’ included gold, silver, elephant teeth, rhinoceros-horn, ‘liuli ⧝⩗/beryl’, ‘langgan ⧙⥩/a green, pearl- shape precious stone’, ‘jinluji 䞥㓩㕑/gold-thread needlework’.6 From these descriptions, this ‘Daqin ໻⾺’ must be a country from the Indian subcontinent, not the general Chinese scholarly view of it being the Roman empire. I have pointed out the Chinese confusion about ‘Daqin ໻⾺’ in India and China.7 A crucial evidence is an account mentioned in the Section on ‘Foreign countries in the south and southwest’ (फ㳂㽓फ་Ӵ) of the second Chinese dynastic annals, ‘Hanshu ∝к’, about a group of foreign visitors who also performed magic shows. In this account, the people from ‘Daqin ໻⾺’ said: ‘We are people from Haixi ⍋㽓 which is Daqin ໻⾺. Daqin ໻⾺ is connected with Danguo ᦌ೑/Myanmar on its southwest.’ 8 Thus the placement of a country southwest of present Myanmar has to be India, and not any other place, certainly not the Roman empire. Confusion apart, we know that the states of India were very active in overseas trade in ancient times. My guess is there was an ancient state on the Indian coast that had trade and other contacts with China through the sea route. The names on the Chinese documents like ‘Daqin ໻⾺’ and ‘Haixi ⍋㽓’ are ancient Chinese corruptions of certain oral expressions in the Indian vernacular. The sound ‘Daqin ໻⾺’ could be a corruption of the Indian word ‘daksina/south’ which is just a guess without any proof.9

6 Zheng Qin 䚥⾺ (comp.), Ershiliu shi da cidian Ѡक݁৆໻䆡݌ (Dictionary of the 26 dynastic annals), volume on ‘dianzhang zhidu ݌ゴࠊᑺ/rules and systems’, Changchun 䭓᯹: Jilin People’s Press ঢ়ᵫҎ⇥ߎ⠜⼒, 1993, pp. 913–914. 7 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, pp. 45–46. 8 Wen Jiang ≊∳, Gudai Zhongguo yu Ya-Fei diqude haishang jiaotong সҷЁ೑ϢѮ䴲ഄ ऎⱘ⍋ϞѸ䗮 (Maritime communications of ancient China with Afro-Asian regions), Chengdu ៤䛑: Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences Press ಯᎱⳕ⼒Ӯ⾥ᄺ䰶ߎ⠜⼒, 1989, p. 46. 9 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 45.

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Ancient China’s Contacts with Gandhara and Kashmir We have to mention Gandhara, the prominent ancient state of the Indian subcontinent in the continental front that lasted from the early first millennium BCE to the 11th century CE. It was famously known as ‘Jibin 㕑ᆒ’ in ancient Chinese accounts. In India and China, my co-author cited from historical records the unhappy relations between the Han imperial court and the kings of ‘Jibin 㕑ᆒ’ called ‘Wutoulao Р༈ࢇ’ and ‘Yinmofu 䰈᳿䍈’ in Chinese records. It seemed that Han emissaries were killed by the Gandhara rulers. These episodes (including the names of the Gandhara rulers) cannot be collaborated from Indian records. Another Chinese name for Gandhara was ‘Guishuang 䌉䳰’ (transliteration of ‘Kushan’). Paradoxically, there was only an account about the number two ruler of ‘Guishuang 䌉䳰’ leading an army to attack the famous Chinese general, Ban Chao ⧁䍙 (32–102), in Central Asia in the year 90 CE. General Ban Chao refrained from engagement as his troop strength was inferior in number to the Gandhara force. But, he anticipated that the Gandhara troops would dispatch a contingent to Qiuci 啳ݍ (Kuca) for the supply of food, and he ambushed and vanquished the contingent, leading to a cease fire and subsequent withdrawal of Gandhara troops from Central Asia.10 It is rather intriguing that the great ruler of Gandhara, King Kanishka (ruling 128–151) does not seem to be known in China during his time. We had to wait for the great Chinese pilgrim, Xuanzang, of the 7th century to tell as a part of his account of Kashmir that ‘there was King Kanishka of Gandhara who was ruling 400 years after the Tathagata achieved nirvana’.11 That Kashmir has carried forward the heritage of ancient Gandhara and Kushana is testified to by the Chinese historical records. The Chinese term for Kashmir ‘jiashimiluo 䖺⑓ᓹ㔫’ was Xuanzang’s creation which is actually a transliteration. Xuanzang also commented that in the past it had been incorrectly called ‘Jibin 㕑ᆒ’. 12 The dynastic annals of Tang Dynasty used the term along with its variation ‘geshimi ㅛҔᆚ’.

10 Reference in Hou Hanshu ৢ∝к (Latter Han Annals) in its chapter on the biographies of General Ban Gu and General Liang Jin (⧁ṕ߫Ӵ). 11 In fascicle 3 on Kashmir (䖺⑓ᓹ㔫೑) of Da-Tang xiyu ji ໻૤㽓ඳ䆄. 12 Ibid.

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Except for early unhappy episodes, China maintained cordial relations with Gandhara/Kushana/Kashmir for many centuries. One name that came up in Chinese records was that of Sarvadarkhan, who was Kashmir’s ambassador to China during the Tang Dynasty. Chinese records call him ‘Sapodagan 㧼ယ䖒ᑆ’. When he returned to Kashmir in 751, Tang Emperor Xuanzong I ૤⥘ᅫ sent Zhang Taoguang ᓴ䷀ܝ to accompany him as the Chinese ambassador to Kashmir.13 The Chinese ambassador had an entourage of more than 40 people which returned to China in 753.14 There are some modern studies identifying Sarvadarkhan as a king of Kashmir which may not be true. The Zhang Taoguang embassy to Kashmir is very popular in China today because of the emergence of a famous Chinese pilgrim, Wukong ᙳぎ (731–812), whose original name was Che Fengchao 䔺༝ᳱwas a low-ranking government official in the embassy. He was very sick when the embassy was scheduled to return to China in 753, and was left behind in Kashmir. He was in the care of an eminent Kashmir monk whose Chinese name was ‘Sheliyuemo 㟡߽䍞ᨽ’ who had gone to China with Ambassador Sarvadarkhan. After Che Fengchao recovered, he was ordained and acquired the Buddhist name ‘Fajie ⊩⬠’. He learnt Sanskrit and Buddhist teachings from his guru, ‘Sheliyuemo 㟡߽䍞ᨽ’, who took him to tour all over India. Later, he left Kashmir and stayed at Kuca for three decades. In 790, he returned to the Chinese capital, Chang’an, and was received with honour by Tang Emperor Dezong who renamed him ‘Wukong’ and accommodated him in a famous temple. He translated some scriptures and wrote his experiences in India entitled ‘Wukong ru Zhu ji ᙳ ぎܹノ䆄’ (Wukong’s sojourn in Heavenly India). Wukong’s popularity today is partly due to the famous 16th century Chinese novel, ‘Xiyou ji 㽓 ␌䆄’ (Pilgrimage to the West) in which the main hero, the ‘Monkey King’ was named after him. A best-selling Chinese novel for the last 10 years titled ‘Wukong zhuan ᙳぎӴ’ (The life of Wukong) has added more fame and mystery to this pilgrim.

13 The Chinese records still mention Kashmir as ‘Jibin 㕑ᆒ’. 14 See J. Xianlin et al. (eds), Da-Tang xiyu ji jiaozhu (The annotated version of Xuanzang’s ‘Accounts on Western Regions compiled during the great Tang Dynasty), Beijing: Zhonghua Bookshop, 1985, p. 323.

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Eminent scholar-politician, member of Rajya Sabha of Indian Parliament and former Governor of Jammu and Kashmir, Dr. Karan Singh, often talks about ‘tea-drinking’ being a cultural affinity between China and Kashmir. There is a favourite tea preparation in Kashmir, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, all of which were parts of the ancient Gandhara or Kushana, called ‘Kahwah/kahwa/kehwa/qehwa’ using green tea which is believed to be an age-old tradition. This was before the popularization of tea-drinking in the Western world. People in these regions call tea ‘chay’ in accordance with its Chinese name ‘cha 㤊’ — not according to its Anglicized name ‘tea’. Perhaps, it is through the popularization of tea-drinking from Kashmir that in most of the Indian vernaculars tea is called ‘chay’ not ‘tea’. According to Niharanjan Ray (1903–1981), there was a major Chinese cultural influence on India, i.e., the creation of the famous chronicles of Kashmir, ‘Rājatarangin. ī (literally, ‘The River of Kings’) composed by a Kashmiri Brahmin, Kalhana, in the 12th century.15 Apart from the celebrated dynastic annals in China, this chronicles of Kashmir of eight centuries old is a unique phenomenon of world cultural history.

Tang Emperor Taizong and Indian King Harshavardhana The Tang Dynasty was a memorable period in China–India relations. There was the unique friendship between Emperor Taizong and King Harsha (Harshavardhana) of northern India. Passes on Himalaya and Karakorum opened up to facilitate contacts between China and India. The Tang emperor sent two ambassadors, Li Yibiao ᴢН㸼 and Wang Xuance ⥟⥘ㄪ, consecutively to the government of King Harsha. In 647, Ambassador Wang Xuance, on order of Emperor Taizong, arranged 8 monks and 2 workers from the Mahabodhi Monastery of Nalanda to go to Yangzhou ᡀᎲ City of Jiangsu ∳㢣 Province to teach the Chinese how to make sugar from the cane. China subsequently started to have her own sugar industry and later became a major sugar-producing country and exporter. Paradoxically, granulated sugar is called ‘cini/China’ in many Indian vernaculars. This was partly because granulated sugar was a

15 I heard him saying so when he lectured in Delhi University around 1965. I do not know whether he had made this observation in writing anywhere.

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Chinese invention and partly because in recent centuries granulated sugar was exported from China to India in no small quantities. In his second mission to India in 648, which occurred after King Harsha’s death, Wang Xuance helped defeat the usurper of Harsha’s regime, a person recorded in Chinese documents as ‘Nafudi Eluonashun 䙷ӣᏱ䰓㔫䙷乎’ or probably ‘Senapati Arunashva’, thus restored the reign of King Harsha’s sister.16 Famous pilgrim, Xuanzang, played a role in establishing the equation between Emperor Taizong and King Harsha. In Xuanzang’s Da-Tang xiyu ji ໻૤㽓ඳ䆄 (Accounts on Western Regions compiled during the great Tang Dynasty) there is a reference of ‘Mohe Zhina guo ᨽ䆗㟇䙷೑’ which is identified as ‘Mahacinasthana’.17 The reference occurred during the first meeting between Xuanzang and King Harsha of Magadha. Let me first translate the Chinese pilgrim’s account of the meeting:

Initially, I was invited by King Kumara and went from Magadha to Kamarupa. Just at that time, King Siladitya (King Harsha) was on tour at Kajangala. He instructed King Kumara: ‘Meet me along with the guest Sramana from Nalanda immediately!’ Then, we went to meet him. After thanking me for taking the trouble to come for the meeting, King Siladitya asked: ‘Where are you from? Any wishes?’ I replied: ‘I have come from the great Tang in search of Buddha dharma.’ Then, the King asked: ‘Where is the great Tang, and what are the places you have passed? How far is it from here?’ I replied: ‘Several tens of thousands of li to the northeast, it is the same country which Indians call Mahacinasthana.’18

We know that Xuanzang’s ‘Da-Tang xiyu ji ໻૤㽓ඳ䆄/Accounts on Western Regions compiled during the great Tang Dynasty’ was a serious work. It was virtually a report of his pilgrimage written for Tang Emperor Taizong, and submitted to the imperial court in 646. We also know that all versions of similar works (including Arthasastra) by

16 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 311. 17 See Ji Xianlin ᄷ㕵ᵫ et al., Da-Tang xiyuji jiaozhu ໻૤㽓ඳ䆄᷵⊼ (Annotated volume of Xuanzang’s Accounts on Western Regions compiled during the great Tang Dynasty), 1985, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookshop Ёढкሔ publication, p. 438. 18 This narrative is in Section 3 of fascicle 5 of Xuanzang’s Accounts on Western Regions. See ibid, p. 436.

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ancient Indian authors have appeared in print much after this date. We can conclude that Xuanzang’s reference to ‘Mohe Zhina guo ᨽ䆗㟇䙷೑/ Mahacinasthana’ is the earliest appearance of ‘Cina’ and ‘Mahacina’ in reliable documentation in the world. This is bound to be as the term ‘Cina’ predated even the identity of China or India, much before the Chinese textual tradition was established millennia ago. There must have been some written form of Arthasastra (which might have been a text originally passed down by oral tradition), but due to the want of paper, it has not been preserved. In another important book concerning Xuanzang’s Indian pilgrimage titled ‘Da Zi’ensi sanzang fashi zhuan ໻᜜ᘽᇎϝ㮣⊩ᏜӴ’ (Biography of the Tripitaka: Master of the great Ci’en Monastery) the above conversation between King Harsha and Xuanzang is also recorded. Below is my translation:

King Harsha:

Guruji (Master), you are from Cina. Your disciple [Harsha] heard that in your country there is a famous music named ‘Qinwang pozhen yue ⾺⥟⸈䰉Ф/Music of the victory in battle by the Prince of Qin’. Don’t know who is this Prince of Qin, and what has he done to win such high reputation?

Xuanzang:

The Prince of Qin is the present Son of Heaven of Cina today. Before he was enthroned he was the Prince of Qin’.… The Prince was the son of the Emperor. He answered the call of Heaven, raised the standard of revolution,… restored the peace of the universe… therefore this music was created.19

I have omitted much of the superlative descriptions of Xuanzang on Emperor Taizong. That Xuanzang had attracted King Harsha to establish diplomatic relations with the Tang ruler is very evident.

19 Huili ᜻ゟ and Yancong ᔺᚄ, Da Zi’ensi sanzang fashi zhuan ໻᜜ᘽᇎϝ㮣⊩ᏜӴ’ (Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the great Ci’en Monastery), reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookshop Ёढкሔ, 1983, p. 106.

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II. RARE CHINESE MARITIME VENTURES INTO INDIAN OCEAN Throughout Chinese history, we saw a super-state that was happy to live on land rather than venturing into the sea. China’s traditional preference to continental manoeuvres than maritime voyages can be understood for three reasons. First, China was a vast territory in historical times, in fact, too big to administer and develop. The need of expansion beyond the coastal lines never presented itself. Second, living on water, especially on the rough sea, was daunting. It was also an enormous task to build sea- faring ships which Chinese were hesitant to undertake. Third, China had a millennial tradition of situating themselves ‘within the four seas’ (ಯ⍋П ݙ) that was what they meant ‘tianxia ໽ϟ/all under Heaven’. Continental tradition absolutely opposed maritime tradition and this was very much an inner dynamic of Chinese civilization. There was however a burst of activity consisting of seven naval expeditions into the Indian Ocean during the first half of the 15th century. From the world perspective, Zheng He’s 䚥੠ (1371–1433) maritime ventures was comparable to the voyages of Columbus (1450/51–1506) or Dom Vasco da Gama (1460/69–1524). Columbus discovered a new continent by accident. Vasco da Gama succeeded in reaching India by sailing round Africa. Both contributed to the Age of Exploration. It is a common lament among the Chinese that after Columbus and Vasco da Gama died, thousands and millions of their followers followed their footsteps and by dominating the sea routes there was Western domination of the globe. Zheng He’s glorious feats were not followed up at all.

The Extravaganza of Admiral Zheng He’s Seven Expeditions into the Indian Ocean Viewed in isolation, the seven naval expeditions during 1405–1433 under Admiral Zheng He were outstanding historical events. They formed a marvellous diplomatic-cum-military operation with advanced shipbuilding and navigation skill. In a way, they demonstrated China’s capability to become a great maritime power. However, this was obviously not the intention of these seven expeditions. The super-state of China staged such a great maritime show somewhat accidentally and could be regarded as an

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aberration of Chinese civilization. What was unbelievable was the sudden upsurge of maritime effort and equally sudden demise. Thus far, Zheng He had never been celebrated as a national hero as such. His personal story is hardly known in China even by historians. He and his maritime ventures have never been a focus of Chinese history and culture in the intervening centuries. Now that China is embarking on a maritime programme the long forgotten memory of Zheng He is gradually being revived. The expeditions were the consequence of Zheng He’s execution of an imperial order from a quite unique Chinese ruler, Ming Emperor Chengzu ᯢ៤⼪ (reigning 1402–1424). Chengzu was a usurper and turned out to be an outstanding ruler. Six of the seven expeditions were dispatched by the government of Emperor Chengzu, only the last one was dispatched by Emperor Chengzu’s grandson and successor, Emperor Xuanzong ᯢᅷᅫ (reigning 1425–1425). The questions still remain: Why did the two Ming rulers (grandfather and grandson) create these seven expeditions? Scholars have bandied about a hypothesis without proof based on an incident. When the usurper, Zhu Di ᴅặ (1360–1424), i.e., the Prince of Yan ➩⥟, stormed the imperial palace of Emperor Huizong ᯢᚴᅫ (reigning 1398–1402), in Nanjing there was a big fire. Afterwards, the erstwhile Emperor’s body was not found, leaving open the possibility of his having escaped alive. The first six expeditions were sent out to search the where abouts of the deposed ex-ruler who, by the way was his own nephew. This hypothesis does not make sense because the first six expeditions stretched from 1405 to 1422. At the most, we could concede that the first expedition dispatched in 1405 was a search mission. There is doubt even about this. There were no big ships available for the ex-ruler to flee on. Emperor Chengzu was more likely to search for the missing ex-ruler on land throughout the country and abroad. The second Zheng He expedition occurred in 1408 and repeated in 1409, 1413, 1417, and 1421 during Chengzu’s reign. The second hypothesis is that the expansion of foreign trade drove these expeditions. This is not plausible also. Trade expansion can only be regarded as the consequence of the seven expeditions, not their motive. In the first mission, the armada had 208 ships with 27,800 soldiers and civilian officials on board.20 A trade mission would not be constituted in such

20 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 356.

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a fashion. In fact, the seven expeditions completely exhausted China’s economic vitality while the benefit from foreign trade was negligible in cost-benefit terms. So, the expansion of foreign trade should be ruled out as a motive for Zheng He’s expeditions. The flagship of the seven expeditions was called ‘baochuan ᅱ㠍/ treasure ship’ which should not be mistaken as treasure-hunting. The ship was virtually an imperial office on sea not designed to attack other ships. The character ‘bao ᅱ/treasure’ in its name, perhaps, had something to do with the personal title of Zheng He known as ‘sanbao taijian ϝᅱ໾ⲥ/ triple-jewel eunuch’. From the manner Zheng He and his team conducted themselves in the places they visited, one can easily see an air of arrogance. Of course, this arrogance was in keeping with the kind of style that had already been developed. John King Fairbank stigmatized this as the ‘tribute system’. The Chinese ruler had a habit of issuing ‘edicts’ to the kings of foreign states that had contacts with China. By all means, the seven maritime expeditions could be considered as satisfying the ego of Ming Emperor Chengzu and also his grandson, Emperor Xuanzong.

The Buddhist Orientation of Zheng He’s Expeditions Zheng He’s popular title may help us get an in-depth understanding. The Chinese term ‘sanbao ϝᅱ/triple-jewel’ is the Chinese translation of Sanskrit ‘triratna/ triple-jewel’, i.e., the Buddha-ratna, dharma-ratna, and Sangha-ratna. We know that the Ming ruling family was pro- Buddhist, and the founder-ruler of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang ᴅܗ⩟ (1328–1398) had the reputation of ‘a beggar-boy becoming the Son-of-Heaven’. He was a Buddhist monk before he led a revolutionary army to overthrow the Yuan/Mongol ancien regime which made him Ming Emperor Taizu ᯢ໾⼪ (reigning 1368–1398). The hall of the Ming palace where the emperor presided over the court sessions was named ‘sanbao- dian ϝᅱ↓/triple-jewel hall’. Zheng He’s original name was ‘Ma Sanbao 偀ϝֱ’ (the character ‘san ϝ/three’ indicated that he was the third child. The surname ‘Ma 偀’ was the sinicized version of ‘Muhammad’, showing the family’s Muslim origin. Ma Sanbao was captured by the Ming army in 1381 when he was a boy of 10. He became a eunuch and was placed at the service of the Prince

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of Yan — the soon-to-be Ming Emperor Chengzu. He contributed to the Prince’s usurpation of the throne and became a trusted official of the new regime. However, his Muslim origin prevented him an entry into the ‘san- baodian ϝᅱ↓/triple-jewel hall’ of the new emperor. Emperor Chengzu found a solution by changing his name into ‘Zheng He 䚥੠’ thus erasing his Muslim heritage. Meanwhile, there was a Buddhist monk, Daoyan 䘧㸡 (1335–1418) who was a close adviser of the Prince of Yan. It was Reverend Daoyan who put the idea of usurpation into the Prince’s mind. Emperor Huizong ᯢᚴᅫ, who succeeded his grandfather, Ming Emperor Taizu ᯢ໾⼪, made the mistake of consolidating his imperial power by diminishing the power of the princes. When the Prince of Yan faced persecution he was initially reluctant to rebel. Reverend Daoyan convinced him that it was Heaven’s mandate that he should overthrow the sovereign. After the Prince became Emperor Chengzu, the supreme ruler promoted the Reverend to the top- ranking position of the Tutor of the Crown Prince, and granted him a layman’s name ‘Yao Guangxiao ྮᑓᄱ’. The new status demanded that the Reverend had to wear imperial costumes to attend the Emperor’s court which he consented. But, he declined the Emperor’s grant of palatial accommodation attended by women. He maintained the life of an austere monk and stayed in his own temple. Here was a rare specimen of an imperial courtier who while attending the emperor’s policy-decision sessions returned to his religious lifestyle when the imperial court was not in session. But, the emperor had great respect and regard for him. Reverend Daoyan was the guru of future Emperor Xuanzong ᯢᅷᅫ who was especially reverential to the Reverend. There was a fact which has come to light only recently. Admiral Zheng He became a Buddhist after being baptized by Reverend Daoyan as a disciple of the ‘pusajie 㦽㧼៦/bodhisattva-sila’, and was given a Buddhist name ‘Fujixiang ⽣ঢ়⼹’ (literally, ‘in the bliss of auspices’). This fact was discovered in 2002 by the archaeological department of the Pinghu ᑇ␪ City of Zhejiang ⌭∳Province during renovations of a historical pagoda. They discovered a copy of the Lotus Sutra on the last page of which was written that the pagoda was donated by the ‘Buddhist officer Zheng He whose dharma-name is Fujixiang’(༝ԯֵᅬ䚥੠ˈ⊩ৡ⽣ঢ়⼹). The sutra is now preserved in the museum of the Pinghu ᑇ␪ City.

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Actually, famous modern Chinese historian, Feng Chengjun ރᡓ䩻 (1887–1946) had noticed as early as 1934 when he annotated Ma Huan’s 偀⃶ (the Arabic- and Persian-knowing interpreter in Zheng He’s entourage) account ‘Yingya shenglan ◯⎃㚰㾜’ (Excellent views of the sea coasts) which is an important eye-witness account of the expeditions. Feng Chengjun wrote in 1934 in the preface that there was a Buddhist monk, Shenghui 㚰᜻, who was also in Zheng He’s entourage. Shenghui saw a semi-religious text published in 1420 entitled Taishang shuo tianfei jiuku lingyan jing ໾Ϟ䇈໽བྷᬥ㢺♉偠㒣 (literally ‘the classic of the omnipotent power of Tianfei ໽བྷ/goddess in rescuing the distressed narrated by the emperor’),21 and discovered that on the last page of the text there was a note left behind by Reverend Daoyan 䘧㸡/Yao Guangxiao ྮᑓᄱ which said, ‘This text is published with the donation of the disciple of the ‘pusajie 㦽㧼៦/bodhisattva-sila’, Zheng He whose dharma-name is Fushan’ (Ҟ㦽㧼៦ᓳᄤ䚥੠⊩ৡ⽣୘ˈᮑ䋶ੑᎹߞॄ⌕䗮). 22 There is a little discrepancy of Zheng He’s dharma-name. Feng Chengjun’s version is ‘Fushan ⽣୘’ whereas it should be ‘Fujixiang ⽣ঢ়⼹’. But, Zheng He’s being a devout Buddhist was already known to Feng Chengjun as early as the 1930s. More important is the information provided by him about the semi-religious text of Taishang shuo tianfei jiuku lingyan jing ໾Ϟ䇈໽བྷᬥ㢺♉偠㒣 (literally ‘the classic of the omnipotent power of Tianfei ໽བྷ/goddess in rescuing the distressed narrated by the emperor’) which contained stories told by Emperor Chengzu relating to the Goddess’ rescuing Zheng He’s expeditions from maritime distress. This ‘tianfei ໽བྷ/goddess’ (more popularly known as ‘tianfei niangniang ໽བྷ࿬࿬/ goddess celestial mother’ is an extension of the legend of Bodhisattva Guanyin 㾖䷇ (Goddess of Mercy) or Goddess Xiwangmu 㽓⥟↡/ Uma — both symbols of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

21 Zheng He’s seven maritime expeditions yielded many legendary stories about a goddess named ‘Tianfei ໽བྷ’ (literally ‘the lady in Heaven’ which looks like the Chinese translation of ‘devi’) who repeatedly came to the rescue of Zheng He’s fleet during dangerous storms. This deity has always been worshipped by the coastal people of mainland China and Taiwan. 22 Feng Chengjun ރᡓ䩻 (ed), Yingya shenglan jiaozhu ◯⎃㚰㾜᷵⊼ (annotated version of ‘Excellent views of the sea coasts’, reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua Bookshop Ёढкሔ, 1955, p. 8.

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Feng Chengjun’s observation about Reverend Daoyan reveals that Daoyan was possibly one who put the idea of the expeditions into the Emperor’s head. Now that all the three major role players, the Emperor, the Reverend and the Admiral had links with Buddhism, we recognize the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ as a factor of these maritime expeditions to the Indian Ocean states. Returning to Ma Huan’s 偀⃶ ‘Yingya shenglan ◯⎃㚰㾜’ (Excellent views of the sea coasts), the book describes the Buddha’s travelling to ‘Xilanguo 䫵݄೑/the state of Ceylon’ and had his nirvana there. It says that the Buddha’s immortal body was preserved inside a Buddhist temple.23 This account invited criticism from Huang Xingzeng 咘ⳕ᳒ (1496–1546) whose book ‘Xiyang chaogongdian lu 㽓⋟ᳱ䋵݌ᔩ (Documentary data on tribute missions from the Western Ocean) which brought out the best parts of three first-hand accounts of the seven expeditions (Ma Huan’s included). Huang was a learned scholar and conversant in Buddhist history. He pointed out that Ma Huan’s narrative about the Buddha’s nirvana in Ceylon was a mistake.24 This controversy helps us see the sensitivity about the matters concerning Buddha in Zheng He’s seven expeditions. In contrast, one can see the general Chinese unfamiliarity with the Indian social composition, especially about the difference between Hinduism and Buddhism. For instance, Ma Huan’s accounts on ‘Kezhi ᷃ᵱ/Cochin/Kochi’ and ‘Guli স䞠/Calicut/Kozhikode’25 contain an interesting caste hierarchical order which might be true to historical reality. The highest caste is given the name of ‘Nankun फᯚ’, followed by the subsequent ranking of ‘Huihui ಲಲ/Muslim’, ‘Zhedi ૆ഄ’, ‘Geling 䴽Ҹ’, and ‘Mugua ᳼⪰/outcaste’. Feng Chengjun did some research and made the identifications as: ‘Nankun फᯚ’ being the Nair, ‘Zhedi ૆ഄ’ being the

23 Ibid, pp. 34–35. 24 Xie Fang 䇶ᮍ (ed), Huang Xingzeng’s 咘ⳕ᳒ Xiyang chaogongdian lu 㽓⋟ᳱ䋵݌ᔩ (Documentary data on tribute missions from the Western Ocean), Beijing: Zhonghua Bookshop Ёढкሔ, 1982, p. 84. 25 Here we have the 15th century Chinese name, the Anglicized name and the recently Indianized name within the brackets for these two places (now important cities of Kerala). We notice the similarity between the 15th century Chinese and the recently Indianized name, especially about Kochi.

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‘chitti’ (the rich), ‘Geling 䴽Ҹ’ being the ‘kling), and ‘Mugua ᳼⪰’ being the ‘mukuva). He was correct about the outcaste in south India named ‘Mukkuvar/Mukkuva’. His other identifications are problematic. First of all, he has wrongly identified the highest caste ‘Nankun फᯚ’ as the Nairs. We know that the Namboodiri Brahmins have had a long history of topping the Kerala social hierarchy. Ma Huan and other officials in Zheng He’s entourage did find out this, and the Chinese name ‘Nankun फᯚ’ is obviously the shorter form of the Chinese corruption of ‘Namboodiri’. About the two communities below the status of the ‘Huihui ಲಲ/Muslim’ (‘Zhedi ૆ഄ’, ‘Geling 䴽Ҹ’), there might be some mix up, or the Chinese corruption of the native names is too bad to be restored. The greatest mix up in Ma Huan’s accounts is the mis-identification of Hinduism as Buddhism. He wrote that in ‘Guli স䞠/Calicut/Kozhikode’, the king was a ‘Nankun फᯚ/Namboodiri’ who was ‘a devout Buddhist and respected elephants and cows’ (ዛֵԯᬭˈᇞᭀ䈵⠯). He also wrote that the king of ‘Kezhi ᷃ᵱ/Cochin/Kochi’ was ‘a devout Buddhist, ,respected elephants and cows, and built Buddhist temples’ (ዛֵԯᬭ ᇞᭀ䈵⠯ˈᓎ䗴ԯ↓).26 In a way, this mis-identification of Hinduism as Buddhism also reflects the Buddhist zeal of the Zheng He expeditions.

Relations Between China and the Indian States During Ming Dynasty The seven Zheng He expeditions were instrumental to an upsurge of relations between China and some Indian states on the coast during Ming Dynasty ᯢᳱ (1368–1644). Let me give some examples. China and Bengal: In all the Chinese accounts about Zheng He’s expeditions, the Indian state of Bengal figures prominently as ‘Banggela ὰ㨯ࠠ’ which is the earliest appearance of the name ‘Bangla’ in print the world has seen. In contrast, Bangladesh, the country was first born in 1972. We might event go a step further to give credit to the famous pilgrim of the seventh century, Xuanzang, for his account of ‘Bennafadanna guo ༨䙷Ӥᔍ䙷೑/ the state of Benavardhana’ which corresponds to the Sanskrit name of ‘Pundravardhana’. The transliteration of Xuanzang: ‘Bennafadanna

26 For all these descriptions of Ma Huan’s accounts see Feng Chengjun ރᡓ䩻, op cit, pp. 39, 43.

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༨䙷Ӥᔍ䙷/Benavardhana’ surely reveals ‘Bengla-vardhana’ — thus informing us the existence of a Bangladesh more than a millennium ago. The Ming documents have recorded 12 embassies from Bangladesh to the Ming capital, Nanjing, in 1405, 1408, 1409, 1410, 1411, 1412, 1414, 1421, 1423, 1429, 1438, and 1439.27 On a superficial look it is a dull laundry list of one of the ‘tribute states’ connecting China but this has profound implications. I see in these records the proactive state-to-state relations between China and Bangladesh with mutual respect and mutual benefit. There are two episodes deserving our attention: (a) Bangladesh asking for China’s help when it was invaded by its neighbour, and (b) Bangladesh presenting a giraffe to China which created a sensation in the Chinese capital. In 1420, the ambassador of Bangladesh arrived in China with a complaint that its neighbour, ‘Zhaonapuer ⊐㒇ᴈܓ/Jaunpur’, invaded its territory. It so happened that Jaunpur was also a friendly state having diplomatic and other contacts with China. Emperor Chengzu immediately dispatched an emissary, Hou Xian փᰒ, to Jaunpur with gifts and carrying his letter to the king of Jaunpur emphasizing friendship between neighbours.28 There is no record of the consequence of this Chinese intervention — presumably the Ming emperor’s letter worked. About the Bangladesh present of a giraffe, there are two accounts — the presentation was made first in 1414, and then in 1438. The Chinese had never seen the giraffe before, and identified it as the legendary animal ‘qilin 呦味’ (which was described as a deer-like animal with a horn on the head — somewhat similar to the ‘unicorn’ in Western legends).29 According to Chinese superstition, the appearance of the ‘qilin 呦味’ was a very auspicious omen. Emperor Chengzu who was the recipient of the first Bangla giraffe was thrilled, and asked a painting of the giraffe be made. Then, the painting of the giraffe also became a sensation. The original painting was

27 This information is provided by my co-author, Geng Yinzeng 㘓ᓩ᳒ (of Peking University). See Tan Chung 䈁Ё and Geng Yinzeng 㘓ᓩ᳒, Yindu yu Zhongguo — liangda wenmingde jiaowang he jidang ॄᑺϢЁ೑üϸ໻᭛ᯢⱘѸᕔ੠▔㤵 (India and China — interactions and vibrations between the two great civilizations), Beijing: the Commercial Press ଚࡵॄк 佚, 2006, pp. 229–236. 28 See Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 361. 29 I made a mistake in not identifying the Bangla gift as giraffe and said ‘most probably, a rhinoceros’. See Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 360.

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made by a court painter with a tribute composed and written by the Ming courtier and great calligrapher, Shen Du ≜ᑺ (1357–1434). This painting which had been a precious artifact of the imperial palace is now preserved in the Palace Museum in Taipei. An imitation of this painting is also a precious artifact of the museum of the Imperial Palace in Beijing. In addition, there were 16 volumes of poems on ‘ruiying qilin ⨲ᑨ呦味/giraffe the auspicious omen’ composed by the Ming courtiers as eulogies to Emperor Chengzu.30 Fei Xin 䌍ֵ (born in 1388), was another interpreter in Zheng He’s entourage who had given another first-hand account about the expeditions. He, like Ma Huan, wrote in his equally famous book ‘Xingcha shenglan ᯳ᾢ㚰㾜’ (Excellent views under the stars), like its sister-book, ‘Yingya shenglan ◯⎃㚰㾜’ (Excellent views of the sea coasts), described ‘Banggela ὰ㨯ࠠ/Bangla’ as a state ‘connecting the vajrasana/diamond seat in the west on which the Buddha attained enlightenment’. He also called the holy place ‘Shaonafuer 㒡㒇⽣ܓ’. Feng Chengjun ރᡓ䩻, the scholar who annotated the book, thought ‘Shaonafuer 㒡㒇⽣ܓ’ was a misprint of ‘Zhaonapuer ⊐㒇ᴈܓ’, the Chinese corruption of ‘Jaunpur’ — which is the name given in the official Ming annals.31 Another evidence of the Buddhist orientation of Zheng He’s expeditions is found here. The place of ‘vajrasana’ is Bodhgaya of Bihar, and Jaunpur is near Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh. This description by Fei Xin shows ‘Banggela ὰ㨯ࠠ/Bangla’ a fairly vast state, perhaps, extending to parts of Oudh. Fei Xin also recorded that a Chinese mission, led by an officer Hou Xian փᰒ (a well-known diplomat), visited the palace of the king of ‘Banggela ὰ㨯ࠠ/Bangla’ in 1412 and 1415. ‘Banggela ὰ㨯ࠠ/Bangla’ was a very rich and strong state according to the Chinese accounts. An important reference in the accounts is (my translation):

When they trade, they use silver which they call ‘tangjia ׬ԑ’, and cowry which they call ‘kaoli 㗗ཿ’. 32

30 Tan Chung 䈁Ё and Geng Yinzeng 㘓ᓩ᳒, op cit, p. 235. 31 Feng Chengjun ރᡓ䩻 (ed), Xingcha shenglan jiaozhu ◯⎃㚰㾜᷵⊼ (annotated version of ‘Excellent views under the stars’, reprint, Beijing: Zhonghua BookshopЁढкሔ, 1954, p. 39. 32 See Xie Fang 䇶ᮍ (ed), the annotated text of Huang Xingzeng’s ‘Xiyang chaogongdian lu 㽓⋟ᳱ䋵݌ᔩ’ (Account of the ceremonies of paying tribute by Western Ocean), Beijing: Zhonghua Bookshop, 1982, p. 87.

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-The two transliterations in this reference: ‘tangjia ׬ԑ’ (old pronuncia tion ‘tangka’) is the corruption of the Bengali word ‘thangka’ for the silver coin, and ‘kaoli 㗗ཿ’ is the corruption of the Bengali word ‘kauri’ for cowry. The latter reference takes us back to the Sanxingdui cowries. With this reference we seem to have half of the solution of the ‘Sanxingdui Civilization’ puzzle. We can almost feel certain that the people of ‘Sanxingdui Civilization’ traded with the ancestors of the people of ‘Banggela ὰ㨯ࠠ’ three thousand years ago. China and Kochi: ‘Kezhi ᷃ᵱ/Cochin/Kochi’ was another Indian state that figured prominently in connection with the Zheng He expeditions which visited Kochi every time except the first. Chinese documents recorded the Kochi embassy’s presence in the Ming capital seven times in 1404, 1411, 1415, 1416, 1421, 1423, and 1433. Through the 1404 embassy, the king of Kochi, ‘Keyili ৃѺ䞠/Koyil’ asked Emperor Chengzu to send a stele with his message to be installed on the hill of the country. This request was repeated by the Kochi embassy in 1411.33 Zheng He visited Kochi in 1408 and 1412. In the latter visit, he laid the stele on the hill of Kochi with an epigraph composed by him.34 The epigraph also contained a hymn composed by Emperor Chengzu which states (my translation):

O, southern mountain lofty Pacify the seaside country. Clouds from your mouth Bless the place beneath. Eliminate the troubles While elements in harmony, Drive away evil spirits Bumper harvest pretty. Your people in auspices, Forever safe and calamity free. Happy all year long leisurely, Entire family hardy and healthy. O, great be the mountain, and deep the sea,

33 Huang Xingzeng gave the date as 1412 which seems to be a mistake. 34 I have translated the entire text of the epigraph in Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 359.

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May this hymn bind us eternally. (៾ᕐफቅˈ԰䬛⍋䙺Ǆ৤⚳ߎѥˈЎϟ೑⋾ᑲǄᯊ݊䲼ᯌˈ㙗݊⚺ ❛ ԰ᕐЄいˈ⼯ᕐ⇯ཪǄᑛѢᮃ⇥ˈ䴵♒䴵⊈ˈᅸᆊ㚹ᑚˈᙴ␌ दቕǄቅП෥݂ˈ⍋П⏅⶷Ǆࢦℸ䡬䆫ˈⳌЎ㒜ྟǄ

The stele had long disappeared in Kochi, but the noble sentiments in the Emperor’s last line ‘xiangwei zhongshi ⳌЎ㒜ྟ’ or ‘our mutual bonds eternal’ is the true spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Other Indian states exchanged embassies with the Ming court of China in connection with the seven expeditions were ‘Guli স䞠/Calicut/ Kozhikode’, ‘Xiao Gelan ᇣ㨯݄/Quilon’, ‘Gambali ⫬Ꮘ䞠/Coimbatore’, ‘Zhaonapuer ⊐㒇ᴈܓ/Jaunpur’, ‘Suoli ⧤䞠/Chola’, ‘Jayile ࡴᓖࢦ/Kayal’, ‘Xialabi ໣ࠠ↨/Cambay’, ‘Wushalati Р≭ࠠ䏶/Gujarat’, ‘Ewa 䰓છ/ Ahmedabad’, ‘Kuchani びᆳ⊹/Kutch’, ‘Bakeyi ܿৃᛣ/Broach’, ‘Dahui ᠧಲ/Diu’, ‘Lani ࠠሐ/Gujarat’ etc.

III. ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ WENT UNDER WESTERN COLONIALISM Much water has flowed down the Yangtse and Ganga, and the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ lost much of its glitter when both China and India went under the domination of Western imperialism and colonialism. As the story is complex with profound misunderstanding, the history of this phase should be briefly recounted.

Western Destruction of Chinese Renaissance One of the greatest historical paradoxes in modern times is that though, from the world viewpoint, China started her process of decline from the 18th century onwards; from the Chinese viewpoint, 18th century was one of the best times in the development of Chinese civilization. Another paradox is that two of the greatest rulers of Chinese history belonged to the category of ‘Dalu 䵥㰣’ (Tartar/Manchu slaves) designated by Sun Yat-sen and his fellow-members of the ‘Xing-Zhong hui ݈ЁӮ/Revive China Society’ — I mean, Emperors Kangxi ᒋ❭ (reigning 1661–1722) and Qianlong ђ䱚 (reigning 1735–1795) of the Manchu Dynasty. During

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their reigns, with another good ruler, Emperor Yongzheng 䲡ℷ (reigning 1722–1735), in between, the entire duration from 1661 to 1795 was conceived as ‘Kang-Qian shengshi ᒋђⲯϪ’ (Booming Era from Emperors Kangxi to Qianlong) by Chinese historians. It was during this ‘Kang-Qian shengshi ᒋђⲯϪ/Booming Era from Emperors Kangxi to Qianlong’ that China expanded to the largest-ever size in all historical times territory-wise. Economically, China was the greatest powerhouse of the world with her GDP exceeding a quarter of the world’s total. Prosperity of urban areas, especially in Jiangsu ∳㢣 and Zhejiang ⌭∳ provinces, was unprecedented. Culturally, there was the establishment of the greatest libraries of the world, the compilations of Chinese dynastic annals, encyclopaedias, dictionaries and other reference series, and the number of books produced in China far exceeded the total of the rest of the world. The Chinese imperial palaces were the most magnificent on earth as testified by foreign visitors. Jesuit missionaries were employed by the Manchu imperial court as tutors and mechanical experts as the Chinese collections of made-in-Europe clocks and automatic toys surpassed any collections anywhere in the contemporary world. Economically, China was still ahead of other countries in production while militarily she was by no means a weak power of the world until the second half of the 19th century. Contrary to conventional wisdom, China was not defeated in the first ‘Opium War’ (1840–1842). But, she was duped into signing the unequal Treaty of Nanjing फҀᴵ㑺 (1842). The commander-in-chief of the British expeditionary force, Rear-Admiral George Elliot, was designated as British ‘Plenipotentiary’. The ‘expeditionary force’ was not designed to fight to kill, but to create panic among Chinese ruling elite so that China would come to the table to sign the treaty on the dotted line. The short-term goal of the Britons was to undo the damages of Commissioner Lin Zexu’s ᵫ߭ᕤ (1785–1850) ‘anti-opium war’. This was all part of the British magic of converting black opium into white silver. Victorian chivalry and scruples were set aside for profit.35

35 This refers to my theory that Britain first launched the ‘opium war’ on China from the 18th century onwards, Lin Zexu ᵫ߭ᕤ launched the ‘anti-opium war’ in 1839, and by a Parliament resolution, Britain launched the ‘anti-anti-opium war’ on China. See Tan Chung, China and the Brave New World: A Study of the Origins of the Opium War (1840–1842), New Delhi: Allied Publishers, 1978, Chapter 7: ‘The Anti-Opium and Anti-Anti-Opium Wars’, pp. 179–230.

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The long-term goal was to convert China into Britain’s ‘sub-colony ⃵Ⅺ ⇥ഄ’ (a term coined by Sun Yat-sen). China had far greater capability to call the British bluff and survive the nuisance of the coastal disturbances of the British expeditionary force. But, Manchu Emperor Daoguang’s 䘧ܝⱛᏱ (reigning 1820–1850) morale collapsed as he remarked in his edict issued to Ilibu Ӟ䞠Ꮧ, Viceroy of the Two Provinces of Jiangsu and Zhejiang ϸ∳ᘏⴷ, in 1840:

The English foreigners are like whales and crocodiles of the sea, coming and going in an unpredictable manner. But, seven of our provinces have to be alerted to face the menace. All the districts and prefectures adjacent to the coast have to make defence preparations. Yet our might and power cannot be employed in storming the enemy forts and conquering the enemy grounds. Can there be any justiﬁ cation for our wasting energy of the military and the civilians as well as the resources of the nation in this manner?... Is it not far better to use a word and a sheet of paper than to deploy millions of troops?36

‘Britain conquered India by accident’ is a well-known lie, but that China was duped into signing the Treaty of Nanjing is an obvious historical fact that goes unnoticed. The Chinese name for the Treaty was ‘Wannian heyue ϛᑈ੠㑺/A peace treaty for ten thousand years’. The millennial super- state which was at that time strong enough to meet the British aggression fell into the trap of the crafty ‘treaty system’ of Western powers. By putting her finger-print on the indenture she unknowingly sold herself as a semi- colonial slave. The British mastery in deception in the conclusion of the Treaty of Nanjing also helped her to camouflage the real nature of the ‘Opium War’. This enabled Britain to get away with an unprecedented crime that a modern civilized state could commit. Never before and since has a state sponsored international drug trafficking. The allegation of ‘state-sponsored’ is not an exaggeration. There was actually a ‘Ministry of Opium’, believe it or not. The official name was ‘Board of Customs, Salt and Opium’ and was part of the official British government governing the Indian subcontinent. We recall Tagore’s indignation against this evil British opium aggression on China.

36 Ibid, p. 220.

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In 1881, at the age of 20, Tagore wrote a Bengali essay titled Chine Maraner Byabsa (Death Traffic in China) condemning the opium trade in China by the British. It is said to be his first polemic, based on an English translation of a German book on the subject. The original Bengali essay was published in the Bengali literary journal Bharati which was started as a house-journal by the Tagore family. Later, returning from his first Western tour in 1882 at the age of 21, Tagore published a scathing condemnation in the Bengali journal Bharati on the Opium policy of the European Powers titled ‘Death Trade in China’. Again, as editor of the Bangadarshan (1905–1906), Tagore wrote an appreciation of Chinese life and ideals while reviewing the Letters of John Chinaman (1901) by the British historian and pacifist Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson (1862–1932). He published in 1932 Asia’s response to the call of the New Age (based on a speech he had delivered in Tehran in the same year) condemning the ‘greed of Europe which forced opium down China’s throat’. He also wrote in 1921 Sikshar Milan or Union of Cultures in which he observed:

When the Lord Buddha realized humanity in a grand synthesis of unity, his message went forth to China as a draught from the fountain of immortality. But when the modern empire-seeking merchant, moved by his greed, refused allegiance to this truth of unity, he had no qualms in sending to China the deadly opium poison, nay, in thrusting it down her throat at the cannon’s mouth.

It is interesting to see the political analysis of the Treaty of Nanjing as if the element of opium was non-existent. Opium was the big elephant in the room, which many Westerners conveniently ignored. According to my studies, from the end of the 18th century to the end of the 19th century, opium revenue (99% from the Chinese market) was the single-most important means for the ‘primitive accumulation’ for British industrialization.37 One of the top priorities of British ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’ vis-à-vis China was to make opium-trafficking legalized in China. The Manchu government refused to talk about it during the negotiations of the Treaty

37 Tan Chung, Triton and Dragon: Studies on Nineteenth Century China and Imperialism, Delhi: Gian Publishing House, 1986, Part II: ‘Imperialism’, Chapter 2: ‘Foreign mud on good earth: British opium enterprise vis-à-vis China’, pp. 151–205.

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of Nanjing. But, the unwritten clause of the Treaty was that China would allow British–Indian opium to flow into its territory. Subsequently, to its credit, the Manchu government persecuted Chinese opium dealers and thus hampered the expansion of the Chinese market for British–Indian opium. As a consequence, Britain had to fight the ‘Second Opium War’ (usually called the ‘Arrow War’) to force the ‘Treaty of Tianjin ໽⋹ᴵ㑺’ (1858) on China in which the Manchu government agreed to treat the import of opium as a legitimate ‘yangyao ⋟㥃/foreign medicine’. As a result, the Chinese who participated in this drug-trafficking became lawful merchants. The Treaty of Nanjing as well as all subsequent treaties China signed with Britain was drafted by the Britons in the language that Chinese could never master. Though there was a translated version in Chinese, it was only for decorative purpose. Afterwards, whenever the Britons wanted, they would accuse China for ‘violating’ the treaty and citing the English version in explanation which the Chinese mandarins could not comprehend. The ‘Treaty of Nanjing’ was like a hen that could lay eggs. One unequal treaty multiplied into many. Once Britain exacted the ‘Treaty of Nanjing’ from China the floodgates opened for other countries. The U.S.A. quickly followed suit to exact a ‘Treaty of Wangxia ᳯॺᴵ㑺’ and other powers (Russia, Germany, Japan etc.) started exacting a share of the booty without firing a shot.

British ‘Divide and Rule’ Over the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ The founding of British East India Company which gave Britain’s ‘East India trade’ a big boost inaugurated a new historical phase of British domination over the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. The misleading name of ‘East India trade’ connotes ‘British expansion towards India and China’. The active instrument of this expansion was the East India Company’s fleet of ‘East Indiamen’. This was a misleading term for the big ships weighing between 1100 and 1400 tons that performed the important voyage of the ‘China run’, in addition to shuttling cargo from India and Britain. It was this ‘East India trade’ under the auspices of the British East India Company and dutifully carried out by the ‘East Indiamen’ that gave birth to the British Empire with India as the most important centre of gravity.

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We gain an insight into Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s description of China as a ‘sub- colony ⃵Ⅺ⇥ഄ’ by relating it to the ‘British Raj’ of India. A triangular relationship existed between Britain, India and China. At the macro level, Britain was the ‘centre’ while both India and China were in a subordinate ‘periphery’ status. But, at the micro level, India was the ‘sub-centre’ of the British Empire in the East while China was the ‘sub-periphery’. Few people have noticed this hierarchical division within the British colony. India had the dubious distinction of being in a higher position as a British colony while China was in the most pathetic situation of a ‘sub-colony’. Britain used Indian territory to grow opium and launch its opium aggression on China. All the British warring expeditions against China were launched from Indian ports, and all the battles of British army in China were fought by the non-commissioned officers and soldiers recruited from various parts of the Indian continent. Sun Yat-sen also made an incisive observation on the British Empire’s indebtedness to the asset of India in 1917:

Britain minus India is but a third-class country… Being only three islands northwest of Europe, her territory is all over the globe, and she brags that the sun never sets on her land… How does she manage? It is not due to the Teutonic spirit, but [simply] due to the possession of the Indian colony. Only by possessing India can she control her colonies around the world (italics added). Only by possessing India has Britain become the leader and hegemon on earth… What has made Britain an empire is not the British islands, but India.38

This was indeed a brilliant analysis of the situation by an international leader. India was the jewel of the British Empire. If we add China’s contribution to Britain’s accumulation, by allowing Britain the privilege of monopsony on China’s tea trade, and the privilege of smoking the British– Indian opium, the historical role of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ in Great Britain’s rise in the 19th century is actually enormous and largely unacknowledged, let alone appreciated.

38 This is what I have translated from Sun Yat-sen’s ᄭЁቅ essay ‘Zhongguo cunwang wenti Ё೑ᄬѵ䯂乬’ (The issue of China’s survival). See Tan Chung, ‘Sun Yat-sen’s unique views on India’ in Tan Chung, Zhang Minqiu and Ravni Thakur (eds), Across the Himalayan Gap II, p. 55.

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One must admire the evil genius of the Britons for picking up India as the subaltern partner of the British Empire which, though unfortunate, was a success story of sort. The India–China colonial commonwealth worked smoothly for Britain because of the intra-‘Himalaya Sphere’ vitality. In other words, Britain exploited, albeit unconsciously, the potentiality of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ in the 19th and 20th centuries. More unfortunate is the historical development of the devaluation of spirit of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ among the people in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Of course, modern Indian thinkers have been less disparaging of their own civilization compared to their Chinese counterparts. Tagore is a prime example:

I have no hesitation in saying that those who are gifted with the moral power of love and vision of spiritual unity, who have the least feeling of enmity of others will be the ﬁ ttest to take their permanent place in the age that is lying before us, and those who are constantly developing their instinct of ﬁ ght and intolerance of aliens will be eliminated.39

He also said:

When India gave voice to immortal thoughts, in the time of fullest vigour of vitality, her children had the fearless spirit of the seekers of truth. The great epic of the soul of our people — the Mahabharata — gives us a wonderful vision of the overﬂ owing life, full of the freedom of enquiry and experiment.40

It is really unfortunate that China could not produce a Tagore during the 19th and 20th centuries, who could point to the soul of Chinese civilization as the uplifting force to come out of the abyss of the sub-colony status.

Thieves Taking Away the ‘Chinese Spirit ЁЁ೑㊒⼲೑㊒⼲’ When Tagore toured in China in 1924 by boat from Shanghai to Nanjing along the Yangtse, he made a very thoughtful observation. ‘I felt that my

39 Ibid, p. 275. 40 Uma Das Gupta, Rabindranath Tagore: My life in my words, p. 158.

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own sail had caught the wind, and was carrying me from my captivity, from the sleeping past, bringing me out into the great world of man.’ He added:

I knew, as I gazed on the scene, that vague dreams were ﬂ oating about in this atmosphere of sleeping souls, but what struck my mind more forcibly was the fact that when men are asleep they are shut up within the very narrow limits of their own individual lives…. Perhaps, though I could not see them, some prowling bands of thieves were the only persons awake, ready to exploit the weakness of those who were asleep.41

This is an apt analysis of the situation that China found itself. China was the sleeping giant, blind to the thieves of the Western world during the 18th–19th centuries. What followed was a disturbing lineage of Chinese patriotism. The modern Chinese patriots who symbolized the ‘awakened China’ began to admire the very culture of the thieves. They then tried to emulate them. The plan was to overthrow the internal ancien regime first and, then gain sufficient power to deal with the external challenges of the outside powers. Dr. Sun Yat-sen founded the ‘Xing Zhong hui ݈ЁӮ/Revive China Society’ in 1894. He then tried to mould China into a modern nation-state with the U.S.A. model in mind. For a century since that time, Chinese leaders have been in search of a silver bullet to solve the problem of the ancien regime. The reader will begin to see the folly of listening ‘to what the Westerners tell us with their confusing influence’, as Tagore had warned. Shengshi weiyan ⲯϪॅ㿔 (Alarming talks of the booming era) written by Zheng Guanying’s 䚥㾖ᑨ (1842–1921), one of the modern political classics which symbolized China’s waking up from her dream inside the cocoon, opened with the paragraph (I translate):

There is the Grand Preface in Yijing ᯧ㒣 (Book of Change) with the observation that “The upper half of universe is called Tao/dao, and the lower half of universe is called qi” (ᔶ㗠Ϟ㗙䇧П䘧ˈᔶ㗠ϟ㗙䇧П ఼).... What we say “Tao is made of yin and yang” (ϔ䰈ϔ䰇П䇧䘧).

41 Sisir Kumar Das, Tagore: Talks in China, p. 60.

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From this starting point, (Tao multiplies into the two) the two multiplies into the three, and the three multiplies into all beings, embracing all names and things, rhythms and atmospherics of the universe…. Such learning of the ancients spreads to the Far West which has developed the craftsmanship far superior to China’s. What has happened is that we pursue the fundamentals while they do the practical work; we propound general theories while they examine the intricacies of everything. Since the Qin ⾺ and Han ∝ dynasties China has been stereotyped and undisciplined, culture is lost, and scholars indulge in empty writings and abstract talks, never peep into manufacturing.42

First, Chinese intellectual elites woke up to realize China was lagging behind the modern West in science and technology. With ‘ziqiang 㞾ᔎ/ self-strengthening’ as their clarion call, they adopted the strategy of ‘Zhongxue wei ti, xixue wei yong/ЁᄺЎԧˈ㽓ᄺЎ⫼’ (Chinese learning remains the mainstay while taking advantage of the utility of Western learning). By and by, the ‘Chinese learning’ got neglected, even discarded. In contrast, India responded to the Western challenge by carrying forward with even greater vigour her tradition, witness the influence of Mahatma Gandhi and Tagore. China did the opposite by turned her anger against her own tradition. This new turn reached its extreme in Lu Xun’s 剕䖙 (1881–1936) writings, especially his and also China’s first modern novel, ‘Kuangren riji ⢖Ҏ᮹䆄ÿ or Diary of a lunatic, penned in April, 1918. Here is an excerpt from the novel (my translation):

In this place where man-eating-man has been an hourly occurrence for four thousand years, I begin to realize only today that I have also been in it for many years. My old brother runs the household while my younger sister has just died. Most probably, he is mixing her fl esh in the meals to feed us. I must have eaten the fl esh of my younger sister unconsciously. Now, it is my turn (to be eaten)…. I who have four thousand years of qualifi cations in human-fl esh eating was not initially in the know. Now I know the truth and feel extremely embarrassed in the public. Perhaps, there are some kids who have not eaten human fl esh. Let’s rescue the kids.

42 Xia Dongyuan ໣ϰܗ (ed), Zheng Guanying wenxuan 䚥㾖ᑨ᭛䗝 (Selected works of Zheng Guanying), 2002, Macau: Macau Association of History, pp. 157–158.

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The attack on the 4,000 year-old Chinese civilization was labeled as ‘chirende lijiao ৗҎⱘ⼐ᬭ/cannibal rituals and teachings. This extremist attack on Chinese civilization has a lineage that culminated in the disastrous Proletarian Cultural Revolution ᭛࣪໻䴽ੑ and the ‘ten chaotic years/कᑈࡼх’ (1967–1976) in China during the Mao Zedong Era. There was the movement called ‘chu sijiu 䰸ಯᮻ/getting rid of four old things’, i.e., ‘jiu sixiang ᮻᗱᛇ/old ideas’, ‘jiu wenhua ᮻ᭛࣪/old culture’, ‘jiu fengsu ᮻ亢֫/old customs’, ‘jiu xiguan ᮻдᛃ/old habits’. The movement was carried out by the Red Guards who raided the homes of scholars and burnt their books and manuscripts, destroyed temples and historical monuments. Overnight, the age-old ‘shenzhupai ⼲Џ⠠’, a board for daily worship on which was inscribed ‘tian ໽/Heaven’, ‘di ഄ/Earth’, ‘jun ৯/the ruler’, ‘qin ҆/ancestry’, ‘shi Ꮬ/Confucius’ were either destroyed by the Red Guards, or totally disappeared from every household. The ‘prowling bands of thieves’ labeled by Tagore took away not only China’s wealth and prosperity but also China’s millennial culture, China’s ‘shenzhupai ⼲Џ⠠’ and Confucius. The term for Confucius is the Indian equivalent of Gurudev (㟇೷ܜᏜ). I mention the term, Gurudev, or the literal equivalent of mentor-God, because it would be inconceivable for Indians to blasphemize or reject a Gurudev. Many historical monuments and artifacts were lost in the Cultural Revolutions. Had there not been Premier Zhou Enlai ਼ᘽᴹ, China would have been totally stripped off her old buildings, monuments and historical artifacts today. There are three generations of Chinese who have grown up relatively ignorant of their rich heritage and civilization. If one is charitable, one can say that the influence of the West still overwhelms the cultural psyche of the Chinese even today.

India Sustained Its Self-Confidence There is a famous saying that Britain handed Independence to the Indian leaders on a silver platter. By and large, there was a peaceful and smooth transition from colonial India to independent India. An interesting episode after Indian Independence was that many people in India tried to get a free ride on the train. When asked by the train conductors for tickets, they sounded shocked, ‘Still buy ticket? But we are independent now!’ This

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independent spirit is manifested even today in the form of frequent ticket- less travel. It was this peaceful and smooth transition that enabled the new India to skip over the newborn period after birth, and straight away proceed to walking. The Republic of India became a modern state and some ways as a reincarnation of the British Raj in the Westphalian Regime. The government infrastructure in modern India follows the hallowed traditions of the previous colonial regime. The British Raj had spent decades to perfect the Indian Civil Service (ICS) in colonial India. Nehru remoulded it into the civil services of the Indian republic. The Indian Army had been the mainstay of the Royal Army of the British Empire and took over the same traditions and structure seamlessly. Officially, the Rule of Law was the basis of the new India. The Law was a product of the British colonial rule of law. Our family experienced first- hand the manifestation of this Law. My father, Tan Yun-Shan and my mother, Chen Nai-wei 䰜З㫮 (1901–1980) both had their savings account in the Santiniketan Branch of the State Bank of India. The money in my father’s account came from his pension from Visva-Bharati. My mother had no pension, but her bank account was quite substantial because of the money given to her by the children. When both were alive, my father was always broke and my mother had to draw money from her account to support him. In 1980, my mother passed away, and there was the need to go to the court to make my father the beneficiary. I had to collect the necessary declarations from all the siblings to renounce our claim of inheritance in favour of my father. Taking a local lawyer along I then went to the local court at Bolpur, the nearest town to Santiniketan. We sat with the judge and we all discovered that this was the first case of its kind. It seemed that the court had never processed the heritage issue of a non- Hindu, non-Muslim family. The judge and his clerks pulled out very old law books dating back to British colonial times and searched for a way to admit the case. It was found that we, as Buddhists, could be admissible under the same law for Hindus, and the problem was solved! India purportedly has an independent incorruptible judiciary. There is also the outstanding phenomenon of ‘judicial activism’. Article 32 of the Indian Constitution says a ‘Public-Interest Litigation (PIL) may be introduced by a court of law by itself for the public interest. In filing such PIL

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the procedure is simple. A letter or even a telegram can be taken up for a court hearing. Chief Justice Prafullachandra Natwarlal Bhagwati and Justice Vaidyanathapura Rama Krishna Iyer of the recent Supreme Court have been quite famous for such activism. The capital of India had long been notorious for its pollution. The three-wheel auto-rickshaws would belch out smoke when powered by gasoline. The Supreme Court ordered the Delhi government to enforce a regulation that all auto-rickshaws be fitted with compressed natural gas starting from a specific date. Subsequently, I noticed a change in the amount of pollution in the city, although the respite was shortlived. Ancient Chinese records had admired India’s multiple harvests, up to four harvests a year. The famous British historian, Angus Madison, wrote:

Modern cotton mills were started in Bombay in 1851, preceding those in Japan by 20 years and China by 40. Production was concentrated on coarse yarns which were sold domestically and to China and Japan. Exports were half of output. 43

In 1820, the port of Bombay launched one of the world’s first steamers, the Snake with its engine designed by a Parsee. The British East India Company relied on the Bombay shipyard and Indian engineers and tech- nicians, mostly Parsee, for shipbuilding and the maintenance of its fleet of ‘East-Indiamen’. British Empire was the greatest producer of cotton textile with the factories mostly located in India. Mao Dun’s 㣙Ⳓ (pen-name of Shen Yanbing ≜䲕ބ) (1896–1981) famous novel Ziye ᄤ໰ (Midnight) refers to the import of ‘yangsha ⋟㒅/imported yarn’ by the British to China that ruined the hand-spun yarn industry of Chinese villages. The ‘yangsha ⋟㒅/imported yarn’ was produced in India. Subsequently, China accepted the India-imported ‘yangsha ⋟㒅/imported yarn’, but stub- bornly resisted the imported cotton textiles from Manchester. This has similarities with the handloom industry developed in India. In contrast to the Indian situation, there is the description that China could not produce even screws at the birth of the People’s Republic. At that time, India already had heavy industry (iron and steel). The relatively

43 Angus Madison, Contours of the World Economy, 1-2030 AD: Essays in Macro-Economic History, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, p. 128.

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weaker national business houses in China were nationalized by PRC during the 1950s. Today’s private business houses are new. The first were created only during the 1980s. China has been hampered by a relative absence of laws, a competent judiciary and a tradition of business enterprise.

IV. TAGORE AND NEHRU REVIVED THE SPIRIT OF ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ On the Indian side, there were Tagore and Nehru who kept the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ alive and reinvigorated.

Tagore’s Fury Against China’s Aggressors In addition to the fury over opium, the reader needs to be aware about Tagore’s stance against Japanese imperialism. Tagore was initially a great admirer of Japan. In 1905, he celebrated Japanese victory in the Russo- Japanese War which, according to Nehru, reflected the awakening of Asian spirit under the Western domination. Tagore’s friendship with Japanese art historian, Okakura Tenshin ݜҧ໽ᖗ (original name, Okakura Kakuzo ݜҧ㾝ϝ) (1863–1913) is now well documented.44 Japan was the Asian country that Tagore visited maximum number or times. When he delivered his first lecture in Japan in August 1916, Tagore praised Japan’s miraculous rise as if just ‘a change of dress’, not ‘the slow building of a structure’.45 Tagore had a very good Japanese friend Yona Noguchi 䞢ষ㉇⃵䚢 (1875–1947) who was the poet. When Noguchi visited Santiniketan in the middle of the 1930s, Tagore gave him a red-carpet reception. Wei Fengjiang 儣亢∳ (1912–2004), the first-ever Chinese student studying in Visva- Bharati, was dressed down by Tagore when Wei said something bad about Noguchi. ‘We must respect Japanese writers’, said Tagore to Wei. Nevertheless, Noguchi wanted to exploit Tagore’s soft feelings for Japan,

44 See Rustom Bharucha, Another Asia: Rabindranath Tagore and Okakura Tenshin, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2009. 45 See Tan Chung, ‘Towards an in-depth understanding of Tagore, China and Asia’, in Tan Chung, Amiya Dev, Wang Bangwei and Wei Liming (eds), Tagore and China, New Delhi: SAGE India, 2011, p. 192.

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when the former wrote a long letter to the latter on July 23, 1938, from Tokyo to justify Japanese aggression on China, which he described as ‘the inevitable means, terrible it is though, for establishing a new great world order in the Asiatic continent, where the “principle of live-and-let-live” would be realized.’ Despite his friendship, Tagore’s reply to Noguchi on September 1, 1938 is quite notable:

Humanity, in spite of its many failures, has believed in a fundamental moral structure of society. When you speak, therefore, of ‘the inevitable means, terrible it is though, for establishing a new great world in the Asiatic continent’, — signifying, I suppose, the bombing of Chinese women and children and the desecration of ancient temples and universities as a means of saving China for Asia — you are ascribing to humanity a way of life which is not even inevitable among the animals and would certainly not apply to the East… You are building your conception of an Asia which would be raised on a tower of skulls… The doctrine of ‘Asia for Asia’ which you enunciate in your letter, as an instrument of political blackmail, has all the virtues of the lesser Europe which I repudiate and nothing of the larger humanity that makes us one across the barriers of political labels and divisions. I speak with utter sorrow for your people; your letter has hurt me to the depth of my being. I know that one day the disillusionment of your people will be complete… China is unconquerable… Faced by the borrowed science of Japanese militarism which is crudely western in character, China’s stand reveals an inherently superior moral stature.

Noguchi’s second letter to Tagore on October 2, 1938 was of interest also. He wrote: ‘I wonder who reported to you that we are killing innocent people and bombing on their unprotected towns. Far from it, we are trying to do our best for helping them’. Noguchi forgot that there was Tan Yun- Shan at the side of Tagore whose family had been personally affected by Japanese aggression in China. Tagore had never written with such excitement and anger as he replied to Noguchi’s letters. In his second reply to Noguchi in the same month, Tagore lamented: ‘You must forgive me if my words sound bitter. Believe me, it is sorrow and shame, not anger, that prompt me to write to you. I suffer intensely not only because the reports of Chinese suffering batter

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against my heart, but because I can no longer point out with pride the example of a great Japan.’46 Noguchi probably expected Tagore to at least lay a wreath on the future grave of ‘Japanese militarism’ which both poets highlighted in their letters. Noguchi did not anticipate that he forced Tagore to take a stand and Tagore’s views crystallized on behalf of India and China and the ‘Himalaya Sphere’: ‘The great nation of Japan is dead forever!’

Jawaharlal Nehru’s China Sentiments The reader should take a look at the following quotations (along with the page numbers of the book):

There seems to me something unique about the continuity of a cultural tradition [in India] through fi ve thousand years of history… wide spread among the masses and powerfully infl uenced them. Only China has had such a continuity and cultural life. (p. 52) Yet, as a matter of fact, the Buddhist countries are full of evidence to the contrary [regarding Buddhism as a doctrine of life negation or denial], and the Chinese people are an outstanding example of what affi rmation of life can be. (p. 83) In India, as in China, learning and erudition have always stood high in public esteem… (p. 86) …there must have been a feeling that India was the hub of the world, just as China and Greece and Rome have felt it at various times. (p. 90) Both in India and China these domestic slaves formed a very small proportion of the population, and in this important respect there was thus a vast difference between Indian and Chinese society and contemporary Greek and Roman society. (pp. 118–119) I cannot get over the fact that Indian and Chinese civilizations have shown an extraordinary staying power and adaptability and… preserving their basic identity. (p. 144)

If I told my readers that a great Chinese thinker wrote these words, it would be believable. In fact, these were espoused by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, who was also a friend of my father, Tan Yun- Shan. The quotations are taken from Nehru’s classic The Discovery of

46 See Tan Chung, In the footsteps of Xuanzang, Chapter 35, ‘Poet to Poet’, pp. 207–215.

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India.47 I remember being surprised by reading these words for the first time when I started learning about India nearly 60 years ago. Nehru’s The Discovery of India has eight pages talking about India and China. The reader will understand that those eight pages started a journey for this author, a sort of process akin to the discovery of China. There are many quotations from Nehru both before Indian independence (1947) and after that I have compiled elsewhere.48 A few notable ones are given below:

The relation of China and India goes back to thousands of years. Many of our principles are similar and our gains and losses are complementary. (1939) The two formidable powers in the world are Russia and the U.S.A…. The two would-be mighty powers of the world are India and China. (1939) China, that mighty country with a mighty past, our neighbour, has been our friend through the ages and that friendship will endure and grow. (1946) China is the country for which I have the greatest admirations. (1950) I say that the most exciting countries for me today are India and China. (1954)49

Nehru presided over Indian politics when Sino–Indian border dispute reached the point of no return, and the 1962 war broke out. During the years of tension, Nehru had to make many anti-China statements. I remember when I presented in both India and China my deep conviction that Nehru was a ‘Sinophil’ my arguments were strongly contested by counter-evidences of what Nehru had said and done because of the statements made during and aftermath of the border dispute. Readers will detect a bias on my part. This conviction is inherited from my father, Tan Yun-shan, whose friendship with Nehru was not only personal, but also civilizational. Whenever Nehru visited Santiniketan, he never missed

47 I use the centenary edition of Jawaharlal Nehru, The Discovery of India, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1985. 48 Tan Chung (ed), Across the Himalayan Gap: An Indian Quest for Understanding China, New Delhi: Indira Gandhi Centre for the Arts and Gyan Publishing House, 1998, pp. 45–51. 49 Ibid, pp. 46, 47, 50, 51.

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calling on Tan Yun-Shan at Cheena-Bhavana and chatted with him for an hour or so. Whenever Tan Yun-Shan visited New Delhi, Nehru made a point to receive him either in South Block, or in his office in the Parliament. I recall that I had the privilege of joining their meeting in 1960 which lasted more than an hour over tea and snacks. China–India relations had already reached the nadir and war looked inevitable. Tan Yun-Shan purposely suggested that the two governments jointly celebrate Tagore’s birth centenary that was to fall in the next year in an effort to reduce Sino– Indian tension. After listening to my father’s suggestion, Nehru replied with a bitter smile that it might not be practical ‘now that we have this big argument’. I clearly remember he described the grave border dispute as ‘argument’, and throughout his conversation with my father he never used any bitterness or strong words against the Chinese government. Afterwards, whenever I thought of the border dispute, Nehru’s bitter smile emerged in my mind. Nehru was a very emotional and affectionate person. He was affectionate to China, to the Chinese like my father (and also to me), the two great Soong sisters and many others. He exchanged many letters with the younger Soong sister, Song Meiling (Mai-ling Soong) ᅟ㕢唵 (Madame Chiang Kai-shek) (1897–2003) from 1939 to 1945. In his letter to Song Meiling (Mai-ling Soong) on December 25, 1939, in the year of the onset of the Second World War, Nehru wrote:

In these days of dynamic change, with the future so uncertain, it is inevitable that our minds should try to peep into this future. I am quite convinced that China and India have an important part to play in world affairs and will play this part.50

In another letter to Song Meiling on July 12, 1940, from Allahabad after a brief holiday in Kashmir, Nehru wrote:

In Kashmir I was not far from Chinese territory and my thoughts often went to China and what was happening there…. mighty mountains stood as barriers between us.51

50 Jawaharlal Nehru Correspondence (preserved in the Nehru Memorial Museum & Library, New Delhi), File No. C-46 (J.N. Papers Part I, Vol. XIII), p. 4. (I had spent time in Teen Murti Bhavan reading the manuscripts in the 1970s.) 51 Ibid, p. 16.

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Song Meiling wrote passionate and long letters to Nehru both like a seasoned diplomat and as an affectionate friend. In her letter to Nehru on April 29, 1940, from Chungking/Chongqing 䞡ᑚ, she wrote:

What you have to say about the Government of India’s tendency to base its policy upon the foreign policy of the British Government is understood by us. Since we have never been able to get assistance in kind from the latter because of its own needs, it is not likely that the way will be made easier for us to get supplies from India… We feel here that too much consideration is given to the feelings of Japan. She is an aggressor or she is not; Britain is ﬁ ghting aggression or she is not. If she is, then she should be helping us to ﬁ ght Japan.52

Song Meiling’s long letter to Nehru on April 22, 1942 from Chongqing has this paragraph:

Please destroy the copy of the cables I enclose as they were sent in code. I think it might be wise if you destroy my letter, too, for they are only meant for you. But this point I leave to your discretion. Statesman and Vagabond, au revoir, — and soon!53

In a letter to the elder Soong sister, Song Qingling (Ch’ing-ling Soong) ᅟᑚ啘(Madame Sun Yat-sen) (1893–1981) Nehru wrote (on December 27, 1938 from Anand Bhawan, Allahabad):

…we have had innumerable great demonstrations in favour of the Chinese people and the whole of India has felt at one with them in their hour of trial. To send you our sympathy is a poor enough gift when you have to face great shudder… It is over 11 years ago that I had the privilege of meeting you for a short while in Moscow, but I have carried ever since a vivid and delightful memory of the meeting. You were good enough to send me later a photograph of yourself and Dr. Sun Yat-sen… This photograph has been a treasured possession of mine.54

52 Ibid, p. 11. 53 Ibid, p. 77. 54 J.N. Papers Part I, Vol. LXXX, p. 93. (File No. S-198)

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This letter is rich in civilization and state elements in India–China relations. The time was the second year of Japanese aggression on China which was also a year when Nehru and other public leaders of India organized country-wide ‘China Day’ activities to give moral support to China’s anti-Japanese war, and also collect donations in support of the fighting army led by the Communist Party of China. India was a British colony, and Nehru was only a leader of the Independence Movement. Nehru was leading an aid-China mass programme which had both civilization and state elements in China–India relations. We cannot over-emphasize the historical significance of this episode. There was an added civilization element in the affection shown by Nehru for the Chinese people and for Madame Song Qingling (Madame Sun Yat-sen). Nehru’s words of ‘sending you our sympathy is a poor enough gift when you have to face great shudder’ are particularly notable. Nehru tried to get Song Qingling invited to India before Independence, but the British colonial authorities denied a visa to Song. After Independence when Nehru became India’s first Prime Minister and Song Qingling became the Vice-Chairperson of China (also one of the Vice-Chairpersons of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress), Nehru could fulfil this long-standing wish to invite Song Qingling to India. In December 1955, Nehru sent a special Air India plane to Kunming to fetch Song Qingling who arrived in India on December 16. On December 18, there was a huge mass gathering in Delhi to welcome Song Qingling. Both Nehru and Song addressed the gathering that formed one of the high tides of India–China friendship. In 1937, Visva-Bharati Cheena-Bhavana was established by Tan Yun- Shan. Tagore invited Nehru to inaugurate it. Nehru promised but was prevented from doing so by sickness. Later, Nehru acceded to Tan Yun- shan’s request to become Honorary President of Sino–Indian Cultural Society and presided over its plenary meeting in 1945 at Visva-Bharati Cheena-Bhavana. His address to the meeting has become basic document for Indian diplomats and an important guideline for India’s China policy. He said in the speech, ‘It seems obvious to me that in the future India and China will necessarily come nearer to each other. By that I do not mean mere continuation of the ancient bonds, although they will of course be there. Taking an objective view of world situation as it seems to develop, it

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seems inevitable that in their own interests, China, India and some other countries of South East Asia will have to hang together and develop together, not only culturally but economically as well, through the contacts of trade and commerce.’ Nehru also said, ‘There is going to be no equilibrium in this world unless there is equilibrium in India, China and South East Asia. There is not going to be harmony or peace even for a short time, and much less for a long time, unless the problems of Asia are settled satisfactorily, unless aggression and interference by western countries in Asian affairs cease once for all.’ It was in this address that Nehru said famously: ‘A strong and united China and a strong and united India must come close to each other. Their amity and friendship will not only lead to their mutual benefit but will also benefit the world at large.’55

Nehru Led the Indian Support for China’s Anti-Japanese War Readers are also recommended to read Professor Lin Chengjie’s ᵫᡓ㡖 (of Peking University) article ‘Friendship-in-Need between Chinese and Indian people in Modern Times’ in my book, In the Footsteps of Xuanzang: Tan Yun-shan and India ,56 or download it from the internet after a Google search. I supplied some materials for the article and translated it into English. The materials reveal Tan Yun-shan’s input to the vital role played by Nehru in the mass support in India for China’s anti-Japanese war. As Song Meiling lamented on British–Indian government’s apathy towards China’s anti-Japanese struggle quoted above, Indian masses led by Nehru were pro-active in giving moral and also material support to China in the true spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Let me relate the two episodes in which Tan Yun-shan played a role in connecting Nehru to Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek 㩟ҟ⷇ (1887–1975) and Madame Chiang which is generally unknown. Chiang Kai-shek and his colleagues in the Government of the Republic of China made generous contributions to help Tagore’s Visva-Bharati establish the Cheena-Bhavana at Santiniketan. Chiang Kai-shek later also wished help from Tan Yun-shan to mobilize support from the Indian

55 Tan Chung, In the Footsteps of Xuanzang, pp. 181–182. 56 Ibid, pp. 153–167

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people for China’s anti-Japanese War which broke out in the same year as Cheena-Bhavana was established (1937). Tan Yun-shan worked hard on both Tagore and Nehru. He succeeded in persuading Nehru to visit the Chinese War Capital, Chongqing, and arranged Nehru’s trip to commence on August 20, 1939. Two days before Nehru’s flight to Kunming ᯚᯢ, Tan Yun-shan sent a wire message to Chongqing:

Calling Ch’ung-ch’ing/Chongqing — To Chief Secretary Zhu of the Headquarters of Kuomintang to be forwarded to: President Chiang, President Tai, Minister of Education Ch’en, further forwarding to President K’ung, Minister Yeh: Indian leader, Nehru, is scheduled to ﬂ y to China on the 20th. I have already welcomed him to China on your behalf. Kindly entertain him. Tan Yun-shan57 (䞡ᑚߚ䗕Ё༂ܮ䚼ᴅ⾬к䭓ᑊ䕀㩟ᘏ㺕ǃ᠈䰶䭓ǃᬭ㚆䚼䭓䰜ᑊ 䕀ᄨ䰶䭓ǃ৊䚼䭓䩻䡈˖ॄᑺ乚㹪ሐ䌿剕ᅮᓓ᮹亲ढˈᏆҷ㟈⃶䖢, ࠄ䇋ℒᕙǄ䈁ѥቅঽ)

I must explain that this wire message was sent by the Chinese Consulate at Calcutta (now Kolkata) through its own channel (not by commercial telegraph) in the name of Tan Yun-shan (who, perhaps, drafted the message). I need to introduce the persons addressed in this message:

‘zhongyang dangbu Zhu mishuzhang Ё༂ܮ䚼ᴅ⾬к䭓’: Chu Chia- hua (Zhu Jiahua) ᴅᆊ偙 (1893–1963), Chief Secretary of Kuomintang ೑⇥ܮ (KMT) ‘Jiang zongcai 㩟ᘏ㺕’: Chiang Kai-shek 㩟ҟ⷇, President of Kuomin- tang and supreme leader of the Republic of China ‘Dai yuanzhang ᠈䰶䭓’: Tai Chi-t’ao (Dai Jitao) ᠈ᄷ䱊 (1891–1949), President of the Examination Yuan, Chiang Kai-shek’s think-tank, was secretary to Sun Yat-sen and allegedly one of the founders of the Communist Party of China. He was a devout Buddhist, and powerful supporter of the establishment of Cheena-Bhavana, Tan Yun-shan’s friend and patron.

57 I have changed the English translation. Please compare it with the translation in ibid, p. 163.

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‘jiaoyubu zhang Chen ᬭ㚆䚼䭓䰜’: Ch’en Li-fu 䰜ゟ໿ (1900–2001), Minister of Education, then, but also one of the pillars of Kuomintang party. He and elder-brother Ch’en Kuo-fu 䰜ᵰ໿ (1892–1951) were known as the ‘CC faction’ of Kuomintang. ‘Kong yuanzhang ᄨ䰶䭓’: K’ung Hsiang-hsi (Kong Xiangxi) ᄨ⼹❭ (1880–1967), Chiang Kai-shek’s brother-in-law and the famous (or infamous) banker of Kuomintang China. He was, then, President of the Executive Yuan 㸠ᬓ䰶, i.e., the Prime Minister. ‘Ye buzhang ৊䚼䭓’: Yeh Kung-ch’ao (Ye Gongchao) ৊݀䍙 (1904– 1981), the then Foreign Minister.

This list has lined up all the important people of the Chinese government that would matter for ensuring Nehru’s fruitful visit to China. Tan Yun-shan knew some of them, but not all. Probably, the list was suggested by the Chinese Consulate to make everything smooth for Nehru. It was in this trip that Nehru established his personal friendship with Song Meiling/ Mai-ling Soong (Madame Chiang Kai-shek). Nehru, in coordination with Tagore, Tan Yun-shan and the Chinese Consulate, Calcutta, launched his ‘China Day’ programme to hold public meetings in support of China’s anti-Japan war efforts. The public meetings also called for donations which would be used to buy medicines badly needed by Chinese soldiers, especially those led by the Communist Party of China. Nehru also sent five Indian doctors to China led by his relative, Dr. Madan Mohan Lal Atal. Other doctors included the famous Dwarkanath Shantaram Kotnis who died in China in 1942, Dr. M. Cholkar, Dr. B.K. Basu and Dr. Debesh Mukherjee. The medicines were sent through Madame .Soong Ch’ing-ling’s China Defense League ֱिЁ೑ৠⲳ in Hong Kong The more important episode I want to highlight was when the Indian Congress was about to launch a massive and mighty ‘Quit India’ movement in 1942, in an attempt to get rid of British colonial rule. Yet, in 1942 the map of Asia looked particularly ominous for China’s fortunes. In China, the war front was at the most dangerous juncture. Japan was knocking at the door of India with Allied and Chinese forces retreating in Burma. Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek were most anxious to prevent the sudden collapse of the Indian ‘rear base’ which would mean the total cut-off of external supplies of weapons and food and everything.

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They dashed to India to talk to Nehru and through Nehru to Mahatma Gandhi. The intention of the visit had to be kept a secret. Hence, the Chiang Kai-shek couple was ostensibly paying a visit to Cheena-Bhavana and since Chiang Kai-shek had been a great donor to its establishment, this seemed reasonable. In the archives of Rabindra-Bhavana of Visva- Bharati, visitors can see a few photographs of Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek walking towards the gate of Cheena-Bhavana greeted by Tan Yun-shan. In one of the photographs there was Nehru standing by the side of Tan Yun-shan. This was all secretly arranged by Tan Yun-shan according to the demand of Chinese government. After the visit, Nehru followed Tan Yun-shan to board the special train for Chiang Kai-shek from New Delhi, and on board the train, Chiang Kai-shek and Nehru started their talks with Madame Chiang and Tan Yun-shan acting as interpreters. The talks continued in Calcutta, and Mahatma Gandhi boarded the train briefly at the Howrah railway station to join the talks. The talks resulted in a letter of Mahatma Gandhi to Generalissimo Chiang on June 14, 1942, which was drafted by Nehru:

I need hardly give you my assurance that, as the author of the new [Quit India] move in India, I shall take no hasty action. And whatever action I may recommend will be governed by the consideration that it should not injure China, or encourage Japanese aggression in India or China… …To you, to Madame Chiang and to the great people of China, I send my earnest and sincere wishes for your success. I look forward to the day when a free India and a free China will cooperate together in friendship and brotherhood for their own good and for the good of Asia and the world. 58

The implications of this statement are staggering. This is the first instance — in world history — of any independence movement in any country willing to even suspend its own struggle to support the struggle of the people of another country. It would not have been possible if the prin- cipals involved, Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru had not instinctively understood the larger picture and imbued with the spirit of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

58 See Tan Chung (ed), Across the Himalayan Gap: An Indian Quest for Understanding China, New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Art and Gyan Publishing House, 1998, p. 41.

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The other implication is the hypothetical scenario of ‘what if’ had the roles been reversed. Thus, to all the naysayers of Nehru not being a Sinophil or not getting the overall picture in China, let me chide them and consider the hypothetical scenario of whether Chiang Kai-shek or Mao Zedong would ever think about suspending their struggles to help India.

The Dharmacakra Became the Insignia in the Indian National Flag When Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru presented the Indian national flag to the Constituent Assembly on July 22, 1947, he said:

It is a fl ag which has been variously described, and some people have misunderstood it and have thought of it in communal terms; that some part of it represents this community or that, but when this fl ag was devised there was no communal signifi cance attached to it. We tried to fi nd out a fl ag which was beautiful to look at. We thought of a fl ag which would, in its combination and its separate parts, somehow represent the spirit of the nation, the tradition of the nation, the mixed spirit and tradition which have grown up in these thousands of years in India. So we devised this fl ag.

The original design of the flag was to have three horizontal stripes of green, white and orange, with Gandhi’s spinning wheel in the center. The orange colour represents the Hindu community, the green colour represents the Muslim community, and the white colour represents all other religious groups. While this design was debated in the Constituent Assembly, something else happened in New Delhi. The Chinese government had appointed Luo Jialun (Chia-Luen Lo) 㔫ᆊӺ (1897–1969) as the first Chinese Ambassador to India (from 1947 to 1950) which was an excellent choice. Luo was a frontline hero of the May Fourth Movement of 1919. He was a good scholar, having been the President of Tsinghua University of Beijing and the Central University of Nanjing. His daughter, Luo Jiufang 㔫Й㢇, remembered that the Chinese embassy in New Delhi was the first foreign mission of the yet-to-be-fully independent India. She reminisced: Leaders of this newly independent state often came to the Chinese embassy to reveal their thoughts and ask suggestions from my father on

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certain problems. Especially Nehru and his family, they came for meal just after a telephone call, and talked about various things.59

On July 26, 1947, Luo Jialun hosted a dinner for Mrs. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit (1900–1990), Nehru’s sister who was a prominent public figure in her own right. The dinner was to send off Mrs. Pandit to Moscow to become India’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union. It was attended by Nehru and many eminent people who arrived straightaway from the Parliament House and continued the Constituent Assembly debate on the national flag. Nehru at that time was the provisional government’s Prime Minister. Nehru and other guests wished to hear the Chinese host’s opinion. Luo Jialun hesitated, and said: ‘As an emissary from China, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment on this important decision regarding your new national flag.’ But the guests insisted. Then, Luo suggested to replace Gandhi’s spinning cakra with the Buddhist ‘dharmacakra’ — a suggestion everybody liked, according to Luo’s reminiscence. This was how the national flag of India was born.60 There is a general misconception about Buddhism. Wikipedia features an article on ‘Decline of Buddhism in India’, which reflects the prevalent view. Let me take the reader to another viewpoint. Civilization is a synthesis of spiritual and material dynamics which can best be analyzed by the Chinese concepts of ‘dao 䘧/Tao/dharma/spiritual values’ and ‘qi ఼/ implements/gadgets/social appearance’. Buddhism is a crystallization of Indian culture and endures forever with Indian civilization. When we think along this line, we separate ‘spiritual Buddhism’ from ‘monastic Buddhism’ which consists of temples, monks and nuns, and worshippers. We know that many Hindus in India, and Buddhists in China do not go to the temples. The Chinese saying ‘Buddha lives in my heart’ (ԯ೼៥ᖗЁ) is reflection of the spiritual power of Buddhism.

59 Luo Jiufang 㔫Й㢇, Luo Jialun yu Zhang Weizhen — Wode fuqin muqin 㔫ᆊӺϢᓴ 㓈Ḷü៥ⱘ⠊҆↡҆ (Luo Jialun and Zhang Weizhen — My father and mother), Tianjin ໽⋹: Baihua Literature and Art Publishing House ⱒ㢅᭛㡎ߎ⠜⼒, 2006, p. 8. 60 Excerpted from ‘The Creation of the National Flag of India and I’ by Chia-Luen Lo, published in Biographical Literature, Taiwan, Vol. 1, No. 4, September 1962. I am grateful to Professor Anand Yang for providing this information.

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We should always regard India as a Buddhist country with the ‘dharmacakra’ in the centre of Indian national flag for it reflects the essence of spiritual Buddhism beckoning to the world, wherever the Indian national flag flutters.

V. CHINA AND INDIA EXPERIMENTING NEW INTER-STATE RELATIONS One could say that the birth of the two modern states almost at the same time, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) on October 1, 1949 and the Republic of India (ROI) on January 26, 1950 was a scenario straight from Ji Xianlin’s created-by-Heaven-and-constructed-by-Earth. These two states reflecting old millennial civilizations were born at a juncture when the whole world was steeped in the feverish ‘cold war’ geopolitical paradigm of the West. How to make the two new-born states grow safely and steadily in the Western political environment that is antithetical to civilization has been a very hard and complicated task.

Mao Zedong ↯↯⋑ϰ⋑ϰ Mao Zedong ↯⋑ϰ (1893–1976) was a civilizational figure, albeit a con- troversial one. First, perhaps no other modern Marxist carried such a heavy bag of civilizational heritage like Mao Zedong. His early cultural grooming can be traced to a famous Hunan scholar, Wang Fuzhi ⥟໿П (better known as Wang Chuanshan ⥟㠍ቅ) (1619–1692). Wang had dedicated his life to the discourses of the ‘lixue ⧚ᄺ/yukti school’ and ‘xinxue ᖗᄺbodhicitta school’ which I have discussed in the last chapter, and developed a synthetic theory of ‘qi ⇨’ as substance and ‘li ⧚/yukti’ as objective rule. His ‘qi ⇨’ bears a resemblance of ‘Brahma/dharma’ of the Indian philosophy. Mao Zedong spent two years in ‘Chuanshan shuyuan 㠍ቅк䰶/Chuanshan Academy’, the institution founded by Wang Fuzhi/ Wang Chuanshan, before he plunged into revolutionary activities. Mao Zedong did not know any foreign language, and never studied abroad. During his time, Marxist writings had not been systematically translated into Chinese. This would mean that Mao’s access to Marxist theories was very limited. For, by the time he completed his course at the

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Chuanshan Academy, Mao was quite a substantial scholar conversant in the updated wisdom of Chinese civilization. It was from that position that he found it easy to appreciate the basic principles of Marxism. Mao was never pedantic, he was applying the Marxist ‘qi ⇨/dharma’ to the Chinese ‘li ⧚/yukti’, creating a kind of Marxism that best suited the Chinese reality. The original Marxism propagated by Karl Marx was heavily Eurocentric. Lenin and Stalin were heavily Russocentric, which ultimately resulted in a lot of polemics between the Chinese and Soviet Communist parties. Mao resisted forces that might drive China from its traditional trajec- tory. Some consider the PRC to be a second resurgence of China after the Tang dynasty. There is some truth to the 1950s phrase ‘Had there not been Chairman Mao there would not have been New China’ (≵᳝↯Џᐁህ≵ ᳝ᮄЁ೑) and is still true and relevant. It is as true and relevant as people say: ‘Had there not been Mahatma Gandhi there would not have been Indian independence’. Personality cult aside, the influence of such a strong personality cannot be denied on the formation of the new nation-state, Mao famously summed up the ‘san da fabao ϝ໻⊩ᅱ/three great dharmaratnas’ after the CPC victory and the birth of the PRC. These were first, the Party as the supreme leader, armed struggle (in Mao’s famous adage: ‘qiangganzili chu zhengquan ᵾᴚᄤ䞠ߎᬓᴗ/political power comes out of the barrel of the gun’), and the United Front (of the four great classes of the Workers, Peasants, Petit-Bourgeoisie, and National Bourgeoisie). Mao also stood Marx on his head by not only treating, but -also openly declaring the ‘pin xia zhong nong 䋿ϟЁݰ/poor and lower middle peasants’ as the prop of the Chinese Communist Revolution and treating the working class as a secondary priority. It was Mao’s grand wisdom of establishing the ‘geming genjudi 䴽ੑḍ᥂ഄ/revolutionary base areas’, and of adopting the ‘cong nongcun baowei chengshi Ңݰᴥࣙೈ ජᏖ/first conquer the countryside then the cities’ strategy that made it possible for CPC to become the ruling party of the super-state of hundreds of millions of people. One usually overlooked aspect was Mao’s insistence on China’s integrity and indivisibility. After the Battle of Huaihai (⏂⍋៬ᕍ) that made the winning side —, Kuomintang — the weaker force, the two superpowers, U.S.A. and U.S.S.R., secretly negotiated a partition of China along the Yangtse River. North of Yangtse was to be ‘Communist China’ and south of

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Yangtse was to be ‘KMT China’. Stalin, the most powerful leader of the Communist world, sent emissaries to pressure the CPC to conform to such a partition scheme. Had CPC been headed by a lesser giant of a man than Mao, modern history would have been written differently. There would not have been the ‘Zhongguo meng Ё೑Ṻ/Chinese dream’ today. Mao was defiant at the risk of alienating Stalin, and openly declared ‘No recurrence of Southern and Northern Dynasties’ (៥Ӏϡ᧲फ࣫ᳱ), and ‘Carry on the revolution to its end’ (ᇚ䴽ੑ䖯㸠ࠄᑩ). His choice of the Buddhist terminology ‘fabao ⊩ᅱ/dharmaratna’ in modern strategic discourse is notable. Let me tell a story about Mao which is not documented anywhere. Mao never travelled to any foreign country except the Soviet Union. But there was another foreign territory where Chairman Mao frequented, i.e., Indian Embassy in Beijing. He had not shown the same enthusiasm to any foreign embassy, even that of Soviet Union. His first visit to Indian Embassy was to attend the first Embassy celebration of Republic Day on January 26, 1951. He led a huge group of Chinese leaders to the Indian reception, joined by about 400 Chinese and foreign guests. In 1956, Mrs. Nehru, wife of R.K. Nehru, the Indian ambassador and nephew of Prime Minister Nehru, casually met Chairman Mao in a public gathering. She warmly invited the Chairman for dinner at the Indian Embassy. Mao said yes on the spot. Afterwards, Ambassador Nehru vigorously pursued the case and finally succeeded in getting Chairman Mao to the Indian Embassy for dinner. Unfortunately, the Embassy did not do homework on Mao’s food-habits. Mao being a native of Hunan ␪फ Province did not relish food that was not spicy. “Where is the Indian curry?” was the first sentence Mao uttered at the dining table, frowning at the dishes that the Indian Embassy conventionally served to non-Indian guests with moderate use of Indian ingredients. Ambassador Nehru, then, ordered all the dishes withdrawn and typical spicy Indian food be served. Mao had a hearty meal. After relishing Indian curry, Mao opened up during tea time. He said that ‘every Chinese wished to reincarnate in India in his/her future life.’ And his Indian hosts were taken aback by such a statement they had never heard of. This account was my personal communication with an Indian diplomat who was present there. I know that Chairman Mao was referring

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to the Chinese tradition of wishing the deceased ‘rong gui Xitian 㤷ᔦ 㽓໽’ (a glorious return to the Western Heaven). My hunch is that with his penchant for humour and dramatization, Chairman Mao must have said something like ‘Zhongguoren dou xiang qu Xitian toutai Ё೑Ҏ䛑ᛇএ㽓 ໽ᡩ㚢’ (Chinese wish to be reincarnated in India). Paradoxically, this Chinese tradition was not familiar to the bunch of modern Indian diplomats who played hosts. This account reveals that the Chinese guest was highly conversant with the cultural affinity between the two ‘civilization states’.

China’s Desire to Have Good Relations with India In his youth, Tan Yun-shan studied at the First Normal School at Changsha 䭓≭㄀ϔᏜ㣗 which was also Mao Zedong’s alma mater. Tan was one of Mao’s fans, and was also a member of ‘Xinmin Association ᮄ⇥ᄺӮ’ under Mao’s auspices. In 1950, Tan Yun-shan wrote a letter from India to his old friend, Mao, who was then the Chairman of China. After a brief mention of old memories, Tan put forward three suggestions before Mao: -in international rela ’צa) China should avoid ‘leaning on one side ϔ䖍) tions, and should pursue an independent foreign policy; (b) China and India should strengthen solidarity and friendship; (c) Communist Party of China and the Kuomintang should settle their disputes peacefully. In 1956, Tan Yun-shan visited China to see his motherland. He was received at the Zhongnanhai Ёफ⍋ Palace by Chairman Mao. At the meeting there were other Hunanese, most notably, Liu Shaoqi ߬ᇥ༛ (1898–1969) and Li Weihan ᴢ㓈∝ (1898–1969). who was also an alumnus of the First Normal School and a comrade of the ‘Xinmin Association’. Chairman Mao said to Tan: ‘I have read your letter. I had considered your three suggestions, but only accepted the second.’ In retrospect, Tan Yun-shan was somewhat prescient. In the formative years, the newly formed PRC was highly dependent on the Soviet experience. That was why Mao rejected Tan’s first suggestion which Mao over-emphasized when he ’צagainst ‘leaning on one side ϔ䖍 talked to Tan. Soviet experts were seen everywhere in China, and offered advice to every department of Chinese government. The Chinese missions abroad had their over-dependence on the local Soviet embassies. Chinese

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diplomatic activities virtually emulated the ‘Soviet big brother’, with respect to who should be invited and who should not. The only exception was the Chinese Embassy in India headed by General Yuan Zhongxian 㹕ӆ䋸 (1904–1957) who pursued a very different policy from the ‘Communist/us’-versus-‘non-communist/them’ policy of the Soviet Embassy in New Delhi. The year 1953 was the time when Chinese cinemas screened mostly Soviet movies. A Soviet documentary titled ‘Yindu ॄᑺ/India’ (dubbed in Chinese) was making rounds all over China. When Ambassador Yuan was in China reporting for duty he felt the film disrespectful to India. Following Yuan’s suggestion, the public screening of the documentary was stopped. Mao Zedong made the observation that ‘India-is-great-country, Indians- are-great people’ twice: first in 1951, then in 1970. On the reception at the first National Day celebration in the Indian Embassy, Beijing on January 26, 1951, Chairman Mao said (my translation):

Indian nation is a great nation. Indian people are great people. The two nations of China and India have maintained cordial friendship for millennia. Today when we celebrate the national day of India, we expect continuous solidarity of the two nations to strive for peace. People all over the world need peace, a handful of people only want war. India, China, Soviet Union and all the peace-loving countries and peoples should unite to work for peace of the Far East, and peace of the world.61

Mao repeated the first two sentences again — his exact words: ‘Yindu shi yige weida de guojia, nimen shi yige weida de renmin ॄᑺᰃϔϾӳ໻ⱘ ೑ᆊˈԴӀᰃϔϾӳ໻ⱘҎ⇥’ (India is a great country, you are a great people) on May 1, 1970 when he shook hands with the Indian Charge d-Affaires, Brajesh Mishra, in what was sensationally reported internationally as the ‘Mao smile’. 62 This was after the 1962 war when China–India relations had fallen to unprecedented Arctic freeze.

61 Translated from the quote in Zao Weiwen 䍉㫮᭛, Yin–Zhong guanxi fengyun lu (1949–1999) ॄЁ݇㋏亢ѥᔩ (Records of storms in India–China relations (1949–1999), Beijing ࣫Ҁ: Current Affairs Press ᯊџߎ⠜⼒, 2000, p. 34. 62 See ibid, p. 215.

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A Million Chinese Lined up the Streets to Welcome Nehru in Beijing Let us refresh our memory of Nehru’s 12-day historic visit to China along with his daughter, Indira Gandhi, in October from 19th to 30th, 1954. Prem Bhatia, Indian High Commissioner to Singapore during early 1970s, was one of the correspondents who had accompanied Nehru during that trip. He reported that on October 19, 1954, a million residents of Beijing lined up ‘the 10-mile route from the airport as Mr. Nehru, standing in an open car, drove past to the city’s main guest house’. Bhatia described the scene:

Never has your correspondent seen Nehru greeted in the cheerful but orderly manner… A million people, with hardly 50 unarmed policemen to control them… As we passed along in procession, laughing and jumping boys and girls clapped their hands and shouted “Long live India– China friendship.” Yet an hour before, covering the same route to the airport, we had seen no trace of these crowds. Where they had emerged from in the interval and how they had stood there without causing a riot would be regarded a miracle in India.63

We must note that Beijing was a traditional city without much population before the People’s Republic came into being. The master plan for the expansion of Beijing was just being finalized in the year (1954) when Nehru visited. If, indeed, one million of the residents of the Chinese capital went to the streets to greet the visiting Indian Prime Minister, few people would have been left at home. From Prem Bhatia’s description, the mammoth greeting for Nehru was both spontaneous and sponsored. The Beijing crowd emerging suddenly as if from nowhere has all the ingredients of a mystery. That it was organized at the instance of China’s top leaders was beyond doubt. What Bhatia has documented would probably never happen again in future. Nehru’s China visit came on the heels and very close after the over- whelmingly heavy-weight Soviet delegation to China led by top leaders, Khrushchev, Bulganin, and Mikoyan from September 29th to October

63 The Statesman, New Delhi and Calcutta, October 20, 1954.

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12th. The Soviet visit featured the rendezvous of top leaders of the two countries and yielded earth-shaking bilateral agreements, but not popular warmth. The Soviet delegation even turned down China’s offer of Mr. Shi Zhe Ꮬ૆ (1905–1998), Chairman Mao’s Russian-speaking secretary, as an in-house liaison officer, reflecting the tensions between the so- called ‘fraternal” countries at that time. It was notable that during the arrival of the weighty Soviet delegation just a couple of weeks ago no such crowds were seen. The two arrivals were very different in nature. The Soviet delegation arrived in Beijing by train in tight secrecy. Khrushchev would never have taken the 10-mile drive in an open car along with Mao Zedong or Zhou Enlai from the airport to the guest house passing through the city. We know that while Nehru’s China visit was very relaxed and both the hosts and the guests were at ease, the visit of the Soviet delegation was rather overcharged with seriousness and tension. There was an apparent deficiency of mutual trust, especial on the part of the Soviets towards their Chinese comrades. Nehru was very appreciative of the overwhelming popular greetings he had received from the Chinese people. In his ‘Note’ on the visit, Nehru wrote:

I received an extraordinary cordial welcome everywhere in China. This was not only an ofﬁ cial welcome but a popular welcome also in which millions joined. I was greatly impressed by it. It was clear to me that this welcome represented something more than political exigency. It was almost an emotional upheaval representing the basic urges of the people for friendship with India.64

Contrary to usual visits of foreign leaders to China when Premier Zhou did most of the talking, during Nehru’s 1954 visit, Chairman Mao enthusiastically joined the conversation with Nehru when the latter was in Beijing.65 Their conversations spread over many sessions sometimes

64 Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 4, p. 85. 65 I see online that there were four Mao–Nehru conversations on October 17, 19, 21 and 26. It is not clear whether the last conversation was Mao’s farewell dinner to Nehru which was not attended by other Chinese leaders.

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becoming very informal with only the interpreters at hand. Nehru’s ‘Note’ on the visit has some references to this:

Chairman Mao referred to the age-old association as well as to the new friendship between China and India. Both countries were struggling for peace. They had more or less common experiences in recent history and both countries needed to reconstruct their economies as both were industrially backward. The Chairman considered that India was industrially somewhat more advanced.66

I must specially mention the unreported anecdote of the farewell dinner Chairman Mao gave Nehru on the eve of the latter’s departure from Beijing. I discovered this anecdote by accident. My lamented good friend, Ambassador Vasant Paranjpe was the celebrated Chinese language interpreter of Nehru in that trip (and a couple of years after that). We met very frequently after he had retired from the Indian Foreign Service. In 1994, I was asked to guest edit a special issue of the Indian Horizons (official journal of the Indian Council for Cultural Relations) on ‘India and China’ and was eagerly looking for good articles. One evening, Paranjpe was in great mood and reminiscing his experiences in interpreting the Mao–Nehru conversation. After much persuasion, he agreed to write it down in the article for my special issue. The story is that on the eve of Nehru’s leaving Beijing and going to see other places of China, Chairman Mao arranged a farewell dinner at his official residence at the Zhongnanhai Palace. No other Chinese leader joined. After the dinner, Chairman Mao saw Nehru off by the side of the parking car and cited Qu Yuan’s poem while shaking Nehru’s hand. Below is what Paranjpe wrote:

My most unforgettable memory of Mao was when he bade goodbye to Pandit Nehru. We were in Zhongnanhai at Mao’s place. It was late in the evening, and the moon had come out. Mao escorted Nehru all the way to his car. While shaking Nehru’s hand, he suddenly came out with two lines from the Chinese classical poet, Qu Yuan, quoting him Mao said:

O, sadness can’t be sadder When parting companion

66 Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 4, p. 76.

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During my lifetime, And gladness can’t be gladder With a charming person, A buddy of a new kind.67 (ᚆ㥿ᚆ݂⫳߿⾏ˈФ㥿Ф݂ᮄⳌⶹ)

There was no reporter present, nor was there any Chinese report of the event. Had Vasant Paranjpe not written about it (and had I not publicized it) such a moving scene would have sunk into oblivion. Nehru wrote on March 17, 1950, to the chief ministers of all Indian states that ‘China is the country for which I have the greatest admirations’.68 When he penned this, these letters were top state secret, ruling out its possibility of being a diplomatic gesture. The same logic should apply to the above Mao farewell words. Mao uttered these words and claimed Nehru ‘A buddy of a new kind’ (ᮄⳌⶹ) without knowing Nehru had said three years ago that he had the greatest admiration for China among all countries. Nehru voiced his sentiment without anticipating that a million Chinese would line up to welcome his arrival in China, and Mao would claim him ‘A buddy of a new kind’.

‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’ — The New Mantra of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ We know that the song and slogan of ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’ (Indians and Chinese are brothers) was an echo of Mao–Nehru friendship which turned out later to be a topic of controversy, if not scorn, in India after the 1962 border-war between China and India. This is very unfortunate. I am glad to discover online a vivid account on Chinese reactions to the singing of famous Indian exponent of ‘Rabindra sangeet’ (Tagore music), Debabrata Biswas. Debabrata Biswas was an important singer of the

67 Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Indian Horizons, Vol. 43, Nos. 1–2, 1994, Special Issue ‘India and China’ (edited by Tan Chung), p. 152. In this quote, I have revised the English translation of the poem. Paranjpe’s original translation was: ‘There is no greater sorrow than the sorrow of departing alive. There is no greater joy than the joy of first meeting.’ 68 Jawaharlal Nehru: Letter to Chief Ministers, 1947–1964, New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987, Vol. 2, p. 25.

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Indian Cultural Delegation that visited China in Summer in 1953 and he had created the song of ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’, which he sang at various places in China. In an article written by Lü Wanru ৩ဝབ who was, then, working with ‘Chinese People’s Commission in the Defence of World -Peace’ (Ё೑Ҏ⇥ֱिϪ⬠੠ᑇྨਬӮ), the host of the Indian delega tion, she recounted that she and others not only mobilized full-house attendance to the performances of Indian artistes, but would brief the audience to clap warmly even if they could not understand and appreciate the music. Leaving before the end and dozing during the performance were considered unfriendly behavior and were proscribed. Yet, to her surprise, the Chinese audience appreciated Indian songs even when they could not understand them, especially ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’. At the last performance at Guangzhou, she and her colleagues on the host side ascended the stage to join all Indian performers to sing ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’ as the finale. The audience also joined in singing and creating a climax of India–China fraternity.69 Until bilateral relations deteriorated, the song was sung on every occasion when there was a reception of Chinese delegation in India. This was validated by no less a person than Premier Zhou Enlai who reported on his foreign tour to Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference on March 5, 1957 (my translation):

The enthusiasm of Indian people welcoming us beggars description…. In Delhi, a million people gathered at the civil reception to welcome us. In Calcutta, more than a million people attended the civil reception. On the streets of Bombay and Madras, along the 150 kilometre highway of the northeastern industrial area, from Asansol to Chittaranjan to Sindri there were endless thick welcoming crowds without gaps. Everywhere we went we heard the affectionate ovation of ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’ (Indian and Chinese people are brothers). 70

As Premier Zhou Enlai was moved by Indian people welcoming him with the ‘affectionate ovation’ of ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’, this was the acclamation of the laudable concept that India and China were ‘fraternal

69 www.cpaffc.org.cn/lswh/detail.php?id=857 , read on May 17, 2012. 70 Cited in Zhao Weiwen, Yin–Zhong guanxi fengyun lu (Stormy years of India–China relations), 2000, Beijing: Current Affairs Press, pp. 62–63.

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countries’ a perception totally absent from the geopolitical paradigm. The first person who described India and China as ‘brothers’ was Liang Qichao ṕਃ䍙 who said it in Beijing in 1924 mobilizing Chinese intellectuals to welcome Indian poet, Tagore. Then, Tagore also said it in his lectures in China in 1924. That the concept of ‘India and China are brothers’ became a popular Indian slogan during the 1950s was an indication of the implementation of the Tagorean perception under the Nehru regime. My optimism about the return of ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’ does not seem illusory as I read a news item from Belgaum of Karnataka state, India, dated December 6 2008: ‘The spirit of “Hindi–Chini BhaiBhai” was rekindled here when the 137-member Chinese Army contingent in India for a joint anti-terror exercise stunned their Indian counterparts when they sang with great respect and honour India’s national anthem. Around 90 soldiers of the 1st company of the infantry battalion of the Chengdu Military Area Command stood in line and sang “Jana Gana Mana” in uni- son, surprising Indian Army personnel during the official banquet hosted here at Maratha Light Infantry Regimental Centre here on Friday.’71 The warm Sino–Indian relations bolstered by ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’ during the 1950s were regarded as a honeymoon period of the Himalaya Sphere twins — China and India.

Tan Yun-Shan Trying to Become a Bridge Between India and China Tan Yun-shan (my father), was a Chinese scholar who settled down in India after he had gone there to teach in 1928. He established the ‘Sino– Indian Cultural Society’ in 1933 with the aim of helping Tagore build the ‘Cheena-Bhavana’ at his Visva-Bharati University. In September 1933, Tan wrote from Nanjing to Tagore:

I am sorry to say Mr. Aw Boon How, owing to his own unfavourable circumstances, has not yet fulﬁ lled his promise to build in Santiniketan a Chinese Hall [Cheena-Bhavana], but now the Chinese national leader Chiang Kai-shek and Mr. Tai Chi-tao, President of the Examination

71 http://www.andhranews.net/India/2008/December/6-Hindi-Chini-Bhai-77678.asp# ixzz1vAlvQk1L, read on May 17, 2012.

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Yuan of the National Government of China, have in an interview with me lately promised to do what Mr. Aw has failed to do. So I take the liberty of asking for your kind advice as to the necessary steps taken for its establishment, the approximate amount of ﬁ nance, and the need of fund, books and other equipments.72

Mr. Aw Boon How (better known in China as ‘Hu Wenhu’ 㚵᭛㰢) was the richest Chinese then. Both Tagore and Tan Yun-shan had met him in Singapore. After hearing that Aw Boon How wished to donate to the establishment of Cheena-Bhavana, Tan wrote to Mr. How asking him to spare a hundred thousand silver dollars. Mr. How replied that it was a mere pit- tance, but never followed on it. Then, Tan Yun-shan managed an audience with Chiang Kai-shek through the good office of Dai Jitao (Tai Chi-t’ao ᠈ᄷ䱊) and related to Chiang how Mr. Aw Boon How had betrayed his promise. Chiang immediately agreed to make good the unfulfilled financial aid and, thus things were done. Tan Yun-shan helped Tagore establish Cheena-Bhavana in Visva- Bharati, and Tagore appointed Tan as Director of Cheena-Bhavana. Nehru started to frequent Visva-Bharati to pay his respects to Tagore from 1930s onwards, and forged a steady friendship with Tan Yun-shan. After the death of Nehru, his daughter, Mrs. Indira Gandhi, who had studied at Visva-Bharati became especially respectful to Tan Yun-shan. In 1950, Tan Yun-shan wrote a letter from India to his old friend, who was now the Chairman of China, putting up three suggestions. A few years had lapsed after the letter was sent there was no reply. In 1955, I went to India to reunite with my parents. My father dished out the draft of the old letter from his files and asked me to make a copy and post it to the Chinese Embassy in India. Not long after, there came the response. The Chinese Embassy forwarded an invitation from Premier Zhou Enlai to Tan Yun- shan to visit China. In 1956, Tan Yun-shan was excited to visit China. He immediately wrote to his good friend, who was the top leader in India — Nehru. He thought this was a rare opportunity for him to become a bridge between the two countries, between his first motherland, China, and second motherland, India. He wrote

72 The original of the letter is lost. But, Tan Yun-shan had a hand-written copy in his diary which is now preserved in the Tan Yun-shan Sino–Indian Friendship Museum of Shenzhen University, in Shenzhen, China.

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to Nehru asking for the messages he could carry from New Delhi to Beijing. In fact, he was reprising the messenger role that he had undertaken in 1938 carrying a letter of Tagore from Santiniketan to Chiang Kai-shek.73 Nehru was always prompt in replying to Tan Yun-shan’s letters. This time it was not the case. The response did not arrive for days until there arrived from New Delhi, Mr. Anil Kumar Chanda, India’s Deputy Foreign Minister and Tan Yun-shan’s best friend. Chanda called to renew personal friendship, extend his best wishes to Tan for a fruitful journey, and conveyed Nehru’s reply to Tan in cordial candidness. ‘You are not an Indian national, certainly not a member of the Indian government’, said Chanda to Tan Yun-Shan who immediately realized that times had changed, and he could not play any role in the state element in India–China relations in the new political situation. There was a distrust of Nehru’s government on the part of the Communist International. This would have an impact on People’s Republic’s India policy as well. The adoption of Tan Yun-shan’s suggestion of befriending India could take effect only gradually. Let us see how Nehru was feeling the gradual change of attitude of the Chinese government. In his letter to chief ministers dated July 1, 1954, Nehru wrote:

The behaviour of the Chinese Government towards us was, during the ﬁ rst two or three years, on the whole, good, though there were a number of petty instances which we found rather irritating. To begin with also there was the usual Communist condemnation of some things in India. At the back of their minds they thought that we were tied up still with British policy. Gradually, however, the realization came that we were following an independent policy of our own and we took orders from nobody. This change may be dated from the date when we refused to sign the San Francisco Treaty.74 Since then, the behaviour of the Chinese Government was much better.75

73 See Tan Chung, In the Footsteps of Xuanzang, p. 6. 74 India, along with Burma and Yugoslavia, refused to attend the signing ceremony of the peace treaty between Allied Powers and Japan on September 8, 1951 at San Francisco because it had certain provisions constraining Japanese sovereignty and national independence. India signed a separate peace document, the ‘Treaty of Peace between Japan and India’ on June 9, 1952. 75 Jawaharlal Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, 1988, New Delhi: Government of India publication (distributed by Oxford University Press), Vol. 3 (1952–1954), pp. 586–587.

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In the formative years of the People’s Republic, Premier Zhou Enlai was Foreign Minister concurrently for several years. He was not only China’s foreign-policy-maker, but also had the authority to implement the policies. As China adopted friendly policy towards India, Zhou Enlai had a special regard for Tan Yun-shan. Tan Yun-shan had to give away the last copy of his own early works, Yindu zhouyou ji (travelogue of India) and Yindu congtan (Essays on India) to Premier Zhou. During several conversations that Premier Zhou had with Tan Yun-shan, he invariably cited what Tan Yun-shan had written in these books showing how photographic his memory was. It was on Tan Yun-shan’s suggestion and arrangement that Premier Zhou visited Tagore’s Visva-Bharati University and was con- ferred the honorary doctorate degree. My father was dedicated to Tagore’s ideas and ideals and his own mission in promoting friendship and understanding between India and China. He was also a man aloof from politics. He had resisted several temptations becoming a card member of the Kuomintang even though he had excellent relations with top leaders of the KMT. Tan Yun-shan continued to say what he thought he should say, and did what he thought he should do, through or outside the government channels. When Tan Yun- shan passed away in 1983, Mrs. Indira Gandhi who was then Prime Minister of India wrote a letter to me, saying:

He [Tan Yun-shan] was a great scholar and a man of true culture. Gurudev Tagore and my father [Jawaharlal Nehru] had affection and regard for him. He identiﬁ ed himself with Santiniketan and contributed immensely to a better understanding between the civilizations of India and China.76

The reader will thus witness a period of time, however short it may be, that China and India were in true spirit of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. The jewel created by this period is the ‘Five Principles’ of peaceful coexistence’ with the special Indian name ‘Panchsheel’.

76 Letter from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi to Prof. Tan Chung on February 22, 1983. A photo of the letter is in Tan Chung, In the footsteps of Xuanzang, p. 233.

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VI. ‘PANCHSHEEL’ — THE JEWEL OF ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ This modern word ‘Panchsheel’ is from the ancient Buddhist literature, ‘panca-sila’ which the Chinese translated as ‘wujie Ѩ៦/five taboos’. The first thing worthy of emphatic salutation is the new manifesto on international relations enunciated by the two great ‘civilization states’ for peaceful coexistence: (a) mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty; (b) non-aggression; (c) non-interference in each other’s internal affairs; (d) equality and mutual benefit; and (e) peaceful coexistence. These look very simple, but actually reveal a refreshing ideology and theory and practice of international relations. The Five Principles is imbued with profound sagacity of the two great civilizations of China and India, symbolizing an attempt on the part of the two ‘civilization states’ to replace the geopolitical paradigm with the ‘geo-civilizational paradigm’ in international relations. The world of nation states advocates only interests, not humanism and righteousness, and pursues power and competition that enhances oneself by striking the other down intentionally. The ‘dor- mant spirit of violence’ that ‘desecrates the spirit of Man’ could any moment give up the diplomatic pretence and ‘tear up humanity in an orgy of devastation’ in Tagore’s description. The Five Principles correct this at the fountainhead of international relations. The Five Principles is, in fact, the benign spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ versus the malignant spirit of ‘Westphalian Regime’.77 This simplified table compares the two:

Spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Spirit of ‘Westphalian Regime’ Pursuing Love Pursuing Power (Hard, Soft, or Smart) Vertical expansion (in culture) Horizontal expansion (in territory) Neighbours are ‘sisters/brothers’ Neighbours are rivals and competitors Boundary blind Boundary sensitive, obsessed, even dispute

77 I use ‘Westphalian Regime’ as many critics of modern Western world order are using. After the ‘Peace of Westphalia’ (1648), the Western world developed a hierarchical international order disguised by a modern international system euphorically called the ‘comity of nations’ sustained by a diplomatic network coupled with international organizations. The nature of this world order is the scramble for hegemony, and hot or cold wars.

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The Indian ideal of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’ (the whole world is one single family) and the Chinese ideal of ‘tianxia datong ໽ϟ໻ৠ grand harmony all under Heaven’ which are symbiotic in my view. The Five Principles remind us what Tagore had said in Tokyo in 1916. Tagore correctly sized up the ‘feeble and small’ spiritual power of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ vis-a-vis the ‘Westphalian Regime’ during the 1910s, but visualized that a time would come when the former would ‘sprout and grow, and spread its beneficent branches, bearing flowers and fruits’.

President Narayanan’s Succinct Summary of Historical Development My former Vice-Chancellor and friend,78 a career diplomat who was elected President of India (1997–2002), Honourable late K.R. Narayanan, delivered the keynote address at a seminar celebrating the Golden Jubilee of the Enunciation of Panchsheel under the auspices of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs on June 14, 2004 in Beijing:

It was Premier Zhou En-lai who put forward the Five Principles, for the ﬁ rst time, while opening the bilateral talks between China and India on the relations between two countries over the Tibetan region of China. Later when the formal negotiations started, Mr. Chang Han Fu, the leader of the Chinese delegation, reiterated these Principles as guidelines for the solution of outstanding problems between the two countries. The leader of the Indian delegation welcomed the Five Principles saying that though India had not formulated these principles as the Chinese side had done, she had been following them as the basis of her foreign policy since she attained Independence, and suggested, at the concluding session of the talks, that the Five Principles should be incorporated in the Preamble of the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between India and Tibet region ݇Ѣ㽓㮣ഄऎ੠ॄᑺП䯈ⱘ䗮ଚ੠Ѹ䗮णᅮ. 79

78 In 1978, I joined Jawaharlal Nehru University as Professor of Chinese. Mr. Narayanan just returned from his posting as Indian Ambassador to China and became the Vice-Chancellor of the University. We had already known each other earlier, and our friendship strengthened. 79 C.V. Ranganathan (ed), Panchseel and the Future: Perspectives on India-China Relations, Delhi: Institute of Chinese Studies, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies and Samskriti, 2005, p. xxi.

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We know that Sino-Indian talks on the Tibetan issue started in Beijing at the end of December, 1953. Premier Zhou Enlai received the Indian delegation at the Xihua Hall 㽓㢅ख़in Zhongnanhai Ёफ⍋ Palace and, for the first time, proposed the Five Principles. Narayanan started his career at Indian Foreign Service (IFS) from 1949, and was working in the Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi in 1953–1954. Thus, he would have first- hand information of the Sino–Indian talks. He continued in his address:

Prime Minister Nehru of India welcomed ‘Panchsheel’ with open arms and stated in the Indian Parliament that it was an ancient phrase in India that the Lord Buddha used in the moral context. He added that the phrase was adopted by the Indonesian Government and that when he heard it in Indonesia it struck him as a happy phrase, which he thought was of great importance to the world today. In China, the idea of the Five Principles can be traced back to ancient times. The great Chinese philosopher Confucius spoke of harmony in the midst of the differences and outlined certain ethical principles of human conduct. Thus it might be said that the Five Principles arose from the civilizational matrix of Asia and, in its modern form, as stated in 1954 in the Agreement between China and India, was a new and creative contribution to the theory and practice of International Relations from the ancient continent of Asia. 80

As Nehru observed, ‘Panchsheel’ was what ‘the Lord Buddha used in the moral context’ in ancient India. Narayanan added that it ‘arose from the civilizational matrix of Asia’. Here, we have the two Indian statesmen describing it as a civilizational gift from the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ for the modern world of ‘nation states’. At that time, Nehru was more famous internationally than Zhou Enlai. With Chinese and Indian advocacy, the ‘Five Principles’ of peaceful coexistence could have a place in the ‘modern diplomatic history’ of the ‘nation states’ world. This was, as Nehru said, ‘a new and creative contribution to the theory and practice of International Relations from the ancient continent of Asia’. Though the ‘Panchsheel/Five Principles’ of peaceful coexistence were originally made for China–India bilateral relations, it spread all over the world as

80 Ibid, p. xxii.

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an universal ideal norm for international relations. This point should be reiterated. We know that leaders of China and India, especially Zhou Enlai and Nehru, had worked hard in advocating these ‘Five Principles’ in international forums. They were written into the Sino–Burmese Border Agreement as well as bilateral agreements and joint statements of China and India and other countries. More important was their being adopted as a UNO resolution. This was mentioned by President Narayanan’s address also:

The United Nations accepted the Five Principles as a code of conduct for international relations. Mr. Dag Hammarskjoeld described Panchsheel as a reafﬁ rmation of the obligations and the aims of the United Nations. On December 11, 1957, three countries, Yugoslavia, Sweden and India, moved a resolution in the United Nations on Peaceful Coexistence containing the Five Principles, which was adopted unanimously by the world body.81

We must also note that the background of the birth of ‘Panchsheel/Five Principles’ reflects the complexity of China–India relations in the modern world context. Such a treasured civilizational gift should have deserved a better slot in diplomatic documents than the ‘Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between India and Tibet region ݇Ѣ㽓㮣ഄऎ੠ॄᑺП䯈ⱘ 䗮ଚ੠Ѹ䗮णᅮ’.

Causal Relations Between ‘Panchsheel’ and the ‘Non-Alignment Policy’ of India The Five Principles of peaceful coexistence was causally related to the Non-alignment Policy of India. This does not seem to be sufficiently understood in China. For instance, while the BRICS summit was meeting in New Delhi in March 2012, I saw the comment of an old friend, former Chinese ambassador to India, Mr. Pei Yuanying, who was interviewed by the reporter of The Global Times. He said that India had started adopting the Non-alignment Policy during the Nehru era which is ‘India’s forte that is much more terrific than Indian internal politics’. He further said: ‘Every [Indian] government since Nehru has been relatively excellent in

81 Ibid, p. xxiv.

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diplomatic skills.’ He added that ‘relatively speaking India’s geographical position is quite special’ and it ‘has no fundamental interest clash’ with the big powers of the world hence ‘Indian diplomacy can thrive from right to left and be smooth and slick on all sides’. China has been ‘too entangled in interest strives to please all and sundry’ hence unable to emulate India. (All these are my translations.) Nehru first used the term ‘non-alignment’ in 1954 at an international conference in Colombo, capital of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1954, though Mr. V.K. Krishna Menon, India’s ambassador to the U.N. had first used it in an address to the U.N. assembly in 1953. Nehru elaborated by citing the Five Principles of peaceful coexistence that he and Zhou Enlai had jointly enunciated. Then, at the famous Bandung Conference of 1955, Nehru with the tacit support of Zhou Enlai expanded the Five Principles into the ‘ten principles on promotion of world peace and cooperation’. These are:

1. Respect for fundamental human rights and for the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations. 2. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations. 3. Recognition of the equality of all races and of the equality of all nations large and small. 4. Abstention from intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another country. 5. Respect for the right of each nation to defend itself, singly or collectively, in conformity with the charter of the United Nations. 6. (a) Abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defence to serve any particular interests of the big powers. (b) Abstention by any country from exerting pressures on other countries. 7. Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country. 8. Settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliation, arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties own choice, in conformity with the charter of the united nations. 9. Promotion of mutual interests and cooperation. 10. Respect for justice and international obligations.

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Today, it is the consensus among historians that India’s Non-alignment policy and the world’s non-alignment movement were initiated at the Bandung Conference. I might liken Nehru’s mind on foreign policy to a forward-moving train which began its journey from the starting point of ‘Panchsheel’ in the beginning of 1954. In the second half of October that year, Nehru paid a 12-day visit to China, and the topic of the Five Principles figured in his talks with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. This is recorded in Nehru’s ‘Note on the visit to China’ dated November 14, 1954 which says:

It was agreed that if these principles were agreed to by other countries and acted upon by all of them, this would go a long way in removing tensions and fears. I agreed to this and pointed out that there was no doubt that there was a certain amount of fear in the minds of the smaller nations in Asia of China. That fear might have no basis, but the fact remained that there was that fear. Some of these countries were perhaps also afraid of India. It was essential, therefore, that this fear and suspicion should be removed. In the past, both the Chinese and Indian peoples had spread out to countries of South East Asia and there were considerable populations of overseas Chinese and overseas Indians. Chairman Mao agreed that these fears must be removed and nothing should be done which might cause apprehension to these countries.’82

In this ‘Note’, Nehru said that he had drawn the attention of the Chinese leaders about the nationality issue concerning Chinese in the countries of Southeast Asia, and Chinese leaders assured him that the matter would be settled.83 During the Bandung Conference in 1955, Premier Zhou Enlai made a sincere appeal to the Chinese community in Indonesia and other Asian countries to be loyal to the country of their residence. He also announced the Chinese government policy of non-recognition of dual nationalities of Chinese overseas. This was one of the bright spots of the Bandung Conference.

82 The ‘Note’ was an enclosure to Nehru’s letter to the chief ministers dated November 15, 1954. See Nehru, Letters to Chief Ministers, Vol. 4 (1954–1957), p. 79. 83 Ibid.

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Nehru’s ‘Note’ also informs us that when he was in China, Premier Zhou Enlai asked him about the Bandung Conference. Nehru told Zhou: ‘we had agreed on the principle of it but had not decided the details and that we were likely to meet soon at Djakarta [Jakarta] to consider this matter.’ Nehru’s ‘Note’ says: ‘Premier Chou [Zhou] welcomed the idea and it was evident from his talk with me that he would like China to be invited to it.’ 84 We know that Nehru took a keen interest in getting Zhou Enlai to attend the Bandung Conference. After the Kuomintang agent planted a bomb on board the ‘Kashmir Princess’ and killed part of the Chinese delegation, Nehru saw to it that a special Indian passenger plane secretly carried Zhou Enlai from Kunming to Indonesia and did his level best to project Zhou Enlai among the leaders of Asia and Africa.

India’s Selfless Support for China’s UN Permanent Seat We know that China emerged as one of Big Five in the United Nations Organization as she was a major force behind the victory of World War II. However, no sooner had the government of China, the Chiang Kai-shek regime, occupied the permanent seat of the Security Council than it was overthrown on the mainland by the new regime of People’s Republic of China. As the Western bloc led by the United States refused to recognize the latter, the representative of the former continued to occupy the UN permanent seat. India started moving the UN to expel the Kuomintang ambassador and seat the Chinese government representative in the Security Council as early as diplomatic relations between New Delhi and Beijing were established. Honourable K.R. Narayanan’s spoke at Fudan University on October 27, 1994 when he was the Vice-President of India:

[L]et me recall a small meaningful event of that [cold war] time. As we know China was kept out of the United Nations during the period. I happen to have come across in the writing of Nehru at the 10th anniversary of the United Nations at San Francisco in 1955 the question of China taking its place in the UN was discussed. In his letter to the Chief Ministers of Indian States dated July 20, 1955 Nehru wrote: ‘Informally

84 Ibid, p. 85.

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suggestions have been made that China would be taken into the United Nations but not in the Security Council, and that India should take her place in the Security Council. We cannot, of course, accept this as it means rallying out with China and it would be very unfair for a great country like China not to be in the Security Council. We have, therefore, made it clear to those who suggested that we cannot agree to this suggestion. We have gone a little further and said that India is not anxious to enter the Security Council at this stage, even though as a great country she ought to be there.’ 85

Recently declassified Indian documents reveal that when Nehru was in Moscow, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R., Nikolai Bulganin, made a similar offer to him on June 22, 1955. While talking to Nehru, Bulganin said: ‘we propose suggesting at a later stage India’s inclu- sion as the sixth member of the Security Council’. To this Nehru replied:

Perhaps Bulganin knows that some people in USA have suggested that India should replace China in the Security Council. This is to create trouble between us and China. We are, of course, wholly opposed to it. Further, we are opposed to pushing ourselves forward to occupy certain positions because that may itself create diffi culties and India might itself become a subject to controversy. If India is to be admitted to the Security Council, it raises the question of the revision of the Charter of the U.N. We feel that this should not be done till the question of China’s admission and possibly of others is fi rst solved. I feel that we should fi rst concentrate on getting China admitted.86

If Nehru were to adhere to the principles of the geopolitical paradigm in which national interests stood supreme and if, as many Chinese commentators say, Nehru had epitomized India’s ambitions of great power status, he would have behaved differently. However, in the two quotes by Nehru mentioned above we notice his lofty proclamation to the world that though India deserved to become a permanent member of the Security Council, he would not even raise the question when China was deprived

85 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 22. 86 Tan Chung, Rise of the Asian Giants: Dragon-Elephant Tango, 2008, Delhi: Anthem Press, pp. 247–248.

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her legitimate seat in the Security Council. This was not just an attitude of selfless denial, but also empathy towards China. Perhaps, it is time today for China to adhere to the Confucian virtue of ‘yi de bao de ҹᖋ᡹ᖋ’ (redeem one’s gratitude towards the benefactor) now that India is demanding the ‘revision of the Charter of the U.N.’, and wishing to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

VII. GEOPOLITICAL PARADIGM SABOTAGED ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ FRATERNITY China and India were pushed by an unseen hand to the tragic trough of 1962. I seem to have heard Tagore crying: ‘Not here, not here, elsewhere, some other place!’87

The Coming of the Tornado I was a frontline eye-witness to the sabotage of fraternity between the two great civilization-states by the geopolitical paradigms during the 1950s. My first India visit was in 1929 when I was just two-month old. I revisited India to reunite with my parents in 1955. I arrived during the high tide of ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’, and I was not only welcomed as a ‘Chini Bhai’ (Chinese brother), but also accepted as one who could contribute to better understanding of China in India. I was appointed Lecturer in Chinese in the National Defence Academy (NDA), Khadakvasla, by the Ministry of Defence of the Government of India in 1958. I was liked by the authorities, colleagues and cadets. I remember when I arrived at the National Defence Academy (NDA) at Khadakvasla as a Chinese language instructor in August 1958, the Academy was still steeped in the memory of Premier Zhou’s visit nearly two years ago. One thing that impressed the instructors and cadets most was when Zhou Enlai arrived at the weekly ‘Dinner Night’, he went around all the tables and shook the hands of all the thousand cadets. Zhou Enlai was

87 These words are the English translation of the key words of Tagore’s theme poem in his Bengali collection, Balaka (swan) cited from Aurobindo Bose (trans.), Rabindranath Taogre: A Flight of Swans: Poems from Balaka, London: John Murray, 1962, passim.

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famous for exceeding the etiquette rules of protocols to welcome and send off foreign diplomats too junior to be on his guest lists. His example was emulated by Marshal Ye Jianying ৊ࠥ㣅 (1897–1986), the Defence Minister and leader in charge of the daily affairs of Military Commission of the Communist Party of China. In December 1958, the NDA had their ceremonial celebrations of the end of the term, and Indian military leaders and military Attaché of foreign missions came to the Academy to attend the celebrations. I was appointed as the liaison officer for the Chinese Military Attaché, Senior Colonel Zhang Tong ᓴᔸ. In the celebrations, Zhang Tong met an old friend who had just returned from China as the Indian Military Attaché and was a brigadier in the Southern Command of the Indian Army. The Brigadier (I am sorry for not remembering his name) vividly described how Marshal Ye Jianying arranged a farewell party in honour of him, and breaking all the rules of the protocol to give him a warm send off. In the winter of 1959, I was transferred to New Delhi to reinforce Chinese language teaching at the School of Foreign Languages (also of the Ministry of Defence) immediately after the Sino–Indian border clash in which nine Indian policemen were killed. There was rumour on the campus of NDA that I was dismissed (even arrested) because of the border clash as I was a Chinese national. However, the Academy as well as my students gave me a warm send-off, and I moved with family and furniture by first class train at the government expense. I also enjoyed an out-of- turn allotment of government accommodation in New Delhi whereas others had to wait for several years to live in the government quarters in the Indian capital. In 1960, I accompanied my father, Tan Yun-shan, to see Prime Minister Nehru and saw the latter rather depressed in contrast to the cheerful Nehru who awarded me my undergraduate degree at the convocation of Visva-Bharati two years earlier. I also attended the birth centenary celebration of Tagore in New Delhi in 1961, and witnessed a verbal clash between the Indian Minister for Culture, Humayun Kabir (1898–1969), and the leader of Chinese delegation, Zhao Puchu 䍉ᴈ߱ (1907–2000). Finally, there was the 1962 war, and all the Chinese overseas in India were declared ‘security risk’. In 1963, the Ministry of Defence terminated my services as Lecturer in Chinese in NDA and the School of Foreign Languages. But,

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Prime Minister Nehru saw me after the termination and wrote to my father that he would wish me to get a good job in Delhi University. It was Nehru’s letter which enabled me to teach in Delhi University when all Chinese in India were under suspicion. In 1973, when I was attending the Orientalist Congress in Paris, many overseas Chinese scholars looked at my name card bearing the title ‘Head of Department of Chinese and Japanese Studies, Delhi University’ and said such a position was unthinkable in Europe and America at that time. On the whole, the transition from Sino-Indian fraternity to Sino–Indian tension was trouble-free for my father, myself, and the entire family unlike thousands of Chinese overseas being sent to the ‘concentration camp’ in Rajasthan. Thus, I was a witness to the vicissitudes of the border clash. I saw Nehru and Tan Yun-shan as the saddest persons in the world seeing such a development. Nehru who used to run two steps at one time while climbing stairs, suddenly lost his vigour after the 1962 war, and he died less than two years afterwards. Tan Yun-shan maintained his usual countenance only to shed his tears in the heart. My younger sister, Tan Wen (1936–1998), who was most dedicated to Tagore and Sino–Indian friendship, suffered her deepest agony in life when her Ph.D. mentor introduced her to a group of friends as ‘She is not one of the bad guys.’ Her confidence in Tagore’s vision of ‘colour-blind’ civilization was shaken.88 In a way, ‘Himalaya Sphere’ is being divided by the ‘Himalaya Boundary’.

China’s Deficiency in Trusting Nehru In understanding Nehru, we must not lose sight of his greatness while focussing on the hopeless dilemma he was in. Let me relate to the reader Nehru’s letter addressed to Tan Yun-shan dated April 10, 1938 in which Nehru observed:

China and India have stood for certain ideals in human life for ages past. These ideals must be adopted to the changing circumstances of the world today. But they must remain to guide us in the future as they have done in the past. I trust that it may be given to our two countries to cooperate together in the cause of world peace and freedom and that neither of us,

88 Tan Chung, In the footsteps of Xuanzang, p. 95.

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in good fortune or ill fortune, will lose our souls in the pursuit of some temporary advantages.89

India and China should not have, as Nehru admonished in this letter, lost ‘our souls in the pursuit of some temporary advantages’. That they did wanting to gain ‘temporary advantages’ over the border dispute which led to the 1962 war was a tragedy of Nehru and Mao Zedong in later years. The 1962 war virtually destroyed not only the lifelong ideal of Nehru, but also his international prestige. A couple of weeks after the ceasefire, Nehru went to Santiniketan to preside over the convocation of Visva- Bharati. Knowing that he was a man of quick temper, Indian and foreign correspondents gathered there to anticipate Nehru dressing down of China. When Nehru started speaking, he saw the never-wavering believer of Sino–Indian fraternity, Tan Yun-shan, sitting erectly in the front row, his inner anger against China at once disappeared. He threw out the notes of his official address, and started saying:

In the Visva-Bharati…. you have got the various departments. You have got the Cheena-Bhavan, under a distinguished Chinese scholar [Tan Yun- shan]. That is a good thing to remind you always that you are not at war with China’s culture or the greatness of China in the past or in the present. (emphases added) …. If you think that China as a country or the hundreds of millions of her people are your enemies, let me tell you they are not.90

One must appreciate the greatness of this man, who personally wounded and aggrieved, still had the gumption to throw away the official address and speak from his heart. It maybe that his friendship with Tan Yun-shan made him realize that he could not say anything hurtful but that is not likely for a powerful ruler like Nehru. Imagine, again, if you will the possibility of a Chinese leader or an American President to change a speech because of somebody in the audience and give a speech akin to Lincoln’s “better angels of our nature” impromptu. Returning to the earlier episode of Mao claiming Nehru as ‘buddy of a new kind’, I daresay if China had trusted Nehru as a ‘buddy of a new kind’,

89 Tan Chung, Across the Himalayan Gap, p. 47. 90 Tan Chung and Geng Yinzeng, India and China, p. 18.

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especially while dealing with India in connection with the Tibetan issue or border issue, there would not have been the 1962 war. The war broke out not because of anybody’s commission but everybody’s omission. The most important omission was China’s deficiency in trusting Nehru. In my article entitled ‘Nehru, Mao Zedong’s vanishing friend’ I have tried to analyze history without apportioning blame.91 In that article, I quoted the analyses of two important Chinese scholars to reveal their misconception and misunderstanding. Then, I described Nehru in these words:

If we treat Nehru’s political soul as a compound, it is made of three elements: (1) its basic spirit belonging to the Western civilization, (2) its idealistic and ideological ramiﬁ cation being enlightened, progressive and Left-oriented, and (3) its practical political grip intertwining with India’s enlightened self-interest.92

Now, with a new mindset of ‘Himalaya Sphere’, I think such an analysis too ambiguous to address the crux of the problem. I would like to amend my own description of the ‘basic spirit’ of ‘Nehru’s political soul’ belonging to the Western civilization. The ‘basic spirit’ of ‘Nehru’s political soul’ is a modern manifestation of the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ for sure! When we review what happened between China and India, we can grasp two different scenarios of the evolution of events. The first scenario was at a higher, spiritual level — at the level of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ — Nehru on the Indian side, and Mao and Zhou on the Chinese side were all proactive in an endeavour to create a brand-new India–China relationship on the geo-civilizational paradigm. The second scenario was at a lower, practical level — deviating from the height of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ — Nehru on the Indian side, and Mao and Zhou on the Chinese side became reactive to the diktat of the geopolitical paradigm of the ‘nation-states’ world. In my article I quoted two Chinese scholars who, to a certain extent, analyzed this contradiction while discussing Nehru. However, they spared the Chinese leaders the same scrutiny. This is partisan. It is illogical, certainly

91 Tan Chung, Zhang Minqiu and Ravni Thakur, Across the Himalayan Gap (II), Chap- ter Fourteen, pp. 184–203. 92 Ibid, pp. 192–193.

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unjust, to say that when China–India relations deteriorated it was only the responsibility of the Indian side, not the Chinese side. Both were to be blamed equally. In fact, when look back at the development in Tibet, and also along the border between China and India, we can clearly see that Chinese leaders were both proactive and reactive. They were proactive because they were consolidating and empowering China’s integration and unification with an iron determination. They were reactive because integrating Tibet into China, though by all means legitimate and within the sovereignty of China, involved certain inherited historical and international complications in which they had to exercise caution and show conciliation. In comparison, Nehru could not be proactive, but had to be reactive as the developing situation was happening inside Chinese territory. On the whole, Nehru handled the Tibetan issue well, and did his best to prevent the internationalization of the Tibetan issue. Regarding the border issue, Nehru had to be reactive to both China’s assertiveness and the domestic ‘national interest’ of India. This is not to say that the prioritization of ‘national interest’ on the part of both India and China should inevitably lead the two countries to war. Returning to the problem of China’s deficiency in trusting Nehru, I think it was a fact, it was unfortunate, but not unavoidable. I think there were three reasons which created this unfortunate outcome. The first reason was the absence of expertise around top Chinese leadership that had an in-depth understanding of the modern Indian psyche in general, and the personal background and thinking of Nehru in particular. Had there been a person like Tan Yun-shan in the think-tank of Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai it would have made a great difference. But, Tan Yun-shan only had a two-hour conversation with Mao in 1956, and two long sessions with Zhou Enlai in 1956 and 1959 in life. On top of it, in the years of Mao and Zhou, there was no institution of think-tank, and all important ideas in policy-making emerged from the secret meetings between Mao and his close comrades-in-arms. In such a circumstance, Chinese leadership was incapacitated for a true understanding of Nehru. The second reason was ideology. According to the orthodox communist position, there was a great divide between the ‘communist/us’ and the ‘non-communist/them’, and there was a certain limitation to the level of

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trust by a communist to a non-communist. Though both Mao and Zhou were great statesmen with a high vision, the majority of the ruling elite in PRC were not. In such a situation, we could not expect Chinese decision- making constantly maintain a ‘we-trust-you’ stance vis-à-vis Nehru and India. The third and most important reason was the asymmetry in international standing between Nehru on one hand and Mao and Zhou on the other. Nehru’s popularity in the Western world posed a huge problem. Today, such a problem is unlikely to occur as China is maintaining cordial relations with the Western world. But, during the 1950s and 1960s, the Western world and China were on opposite sides. In the black-and-white psyche of China, Nehru’s lying in the grey zone could not evince great trust among Chinese leaders. It was regrettable, even tragic, that Mao and Nehru could not trust each other. Had both of them realized the importance of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ such a tragedy would not have occurred. However, the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ was there to rescue and prevent a bad situation from worsening. What Nehru said in the wake of the 1962 war that India would never be ‘at war with China’s culture or the greatness of China in the past or in the present’ is the voice of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. However, as a happening within the ‘Himalaya Sphere’, even the tragedy of 1962 had consequences that seemed unusual among nation states. First, the two countries did not become enemies after the 1962 war. As I have quoted earlier, Prime Minister Nehru said in the wake of the war that India was ‘not at war with China’s culture or the greatness of China in the past or in the present’. New Delhi and Beijing did not break diplomatic ties. Indian representatives at the UNO continued to sponsor resolution of restoring PRC’s rightful place in the Security Council. Second, friendly sentiments resumed even before the two governments could sort out their differences. It is important to note here the unusual ‘Mao smile’ episode.

The ‘Mao Smile’ Brought Back the Spring Wind in 1970 The 1962 war hurt India more than China, and even today the wound in the hearts of many Indians have not been healed. This is not easily understood in China, especially among the young generations. When Tan

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Yun-shan lamented that China and India who were ‘brothers’ should not have fought this war, he was consoled by his best friend, Indian Minister Chanda, that even brothers could fight, but they could remain brothers afterwards. This dichotomy is helpful for us to understand the post-1962 China–India relations. The 1962 war reflects the momentary loss of cool, self-control, reasonability and tolerance in contravention of the spirit of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. After the 1962 war, China and India were still brothers, and not foes. When the 1962 war broke out, the Indian Ambassador to China, G. Parthasarathi, was on duty leave in India. After the war, he did not return to Beijing, and the Indian mission in China slipped into a lower level being headed only by a Charge d-Affaires. There suddenly burst out the ‘Mao smile’ that made international headline news. Chairman Mao made an important conciliatory gesture to India when he talked to the Indian Charge d-Affaires, Brajesh Mishra, on May 1, 1970 on the rampart of the Tian’anmen ໽ᅝ䮼 Gate during the May Day parade. In September 1996, I organized a seminar on ‘India and China Looking at Each Other’ at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), New Delhi, and invited the recipient of the ‘Mao smile’, Ambassador Brajesh Mishra, to talk about the historic event. I recorded what he had said:

[O]n the 1st of May 1970 the heads of mission were lined up on the ramparts of the Tiananmen and to our surprise Chairman Mao was present there. So there we were lined up in order of precedence, and I was virtually the last one just after the British CDA. Chairman Mao went to each head of mission, shaking hands. Then he came to the British CDA, who congratulated Chairman Mao on the satellite which the Chinese had sent up then the Chairman replied, ‘My greetings to the Queen, and we wish her the same success’. Then he came to me and said: ‘My greetings to President Giri and to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’, and then, he uttered the famous words: ‘How long can we keep on quarrelling like this?’ Then he kept quiet for a moment and said ‘Let us be friends again’.93

Just about a few weeks later, my father, Tan Yun-shan, went to New Delhi, and was received by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi at the Parliament

93 Tan Chung, Across the Himalayan Gap, p. 438.

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House exactly in the same room where her father-predecessor, Prime Minister Nehru, received Tan 10 years ago. I was present also. Mrs. Gandhi was a young student at Santiniketan when Tan Yun-shan helped Tagore build the Cheena-Bhavana. She treated Tan Yun-shan with all due respect. I had accompanied my father to see Mrs. Gandhi several times, and every time she was just a quiet listener. However, in the 1970 meeting, she took the initiative to ask Tan Yun-shan what he thought was the implication of the ‘Mao smile’. I do not remember the exact conversation now. My father who was a fellow-alumni of Chairman Mao, which Mrs. Gandhi knew, spoke as if he understood Mao inside out, which might not be true. I left the meeting with the impression that Mrs. Gandhi was convinced by Tan Yan-Shan that Mao was deliberately sending a message that China wanted to befriend India again. In the aftermath, there was a huge international conference commemo- rating the 50th year of the ‘Asian Relations Conference’ in 1996 under the auspices of the India International Centre which was, then, headed by a good friend, Ambassador Eric Gonsalves. During one session, I was sitting beside a former minister in Mrs. Gandhi’s cabinet, Mr. Inder Kumar Gujral (1919–2012) who later became India’s Prime Minister from April 1997 to March 1998. After a Russian scholar presented his paper, Mr. Gujral inter- vened and mentioned that immediately after the ‘Mao smile’ episode, Indian Prime Minister, Mrs. Gandhi expressed her willingness to improve India–China relations, and Mr. Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin, the then Prime Minister (Chairman of the Council of Ministers) of the Soviet Union rushed to New Delhi to stop her. He insinuated that the Chinese were ‘untrustworthy’. Those were the days of climax of the ‘Cold War’, and India was virtually in the ‘Soviet Bloc’ while China was out of it. Soon after there was the Indo–Pak War, the independence of Bangladesh and the conclusion of the Indo–Soviet Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation (1971) which further prevented India from normalizing relations with China. In spite of all such international complexity, a positive development of the ‘Mao smile’ was from 1971 onwards, the Indian government started to express the wish of elevating the India–China diplomatic equation to the normal ambassador level which was ultimately realized in July 1976 with the new fifth Indian ambassador, K.R. Narayanan arriving in the Indian embassy of Beijing.

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Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘Ice-Breaking’ Mission 1988 I remember before the then Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi embarked on his China trip in 1988, there was strong opposition both in the Indian government (even officers in the Ministry of External Affairs) and among the Indian public. One of the main reasons of opposition was the absence of proper, let alone warm, Chinese invitation. Mr. Kunwar Natwar Singh, then the Minister of state in the Ministry of External Affairs, convened a small conference at the India International Centre, New Delhi, attended by think- tank experts and veteran journalists to mobilize popular support. I was present at the conference. Mr. Natwar Singh, I remember, reiterated that in the 1950s through 1960, the Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai, had visited India four times, and there was no justification, certainly not in keeping with the principle of reciprocity, that until then, no return visit of the Indian Prime Minister had been made. Strange enough, when I related this later to the India experts in China, none of them realized that Zhou Enlai had visited India four times overlooking the principle of reciprocity of diplomatic protocol.

Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai’s visits to India: First visit, June 25–28, 1954: Talks with Prime Minister Nehru, President Rajendra Prasad’s reception, Delhi civic reception, broadcast over All India Radio. Most important of all, the two prime ministers issued a ‘Joint Statement’ on June 28, advocating the ‘Panchsheel/Five Principles’ of peaceful coexistence. Second visit, November 28–December 10, 1956: Speech in the Indian Parliament, talks with Prime Minister Nehru, visit to Visva-Bharati University and being awarded the highest degree of Deshikottama (D.Litt. Honaris causa), visit to National Defence Academy, Khadakvasla. Third visit, January 24–25, 1957: On his way home after visiting the Soviet Union and Afghanistan, specially to talk with Prime Minister Nehru. Fourth visit, April 19–25, 1960: Dedicated to border talks with India leaders.94

94 See Guo Shulan 䛁к݄ (comp), Zhong–Yin guanxi dashi ji Ёॄ݇㋏໻џ䆄 (Major events of China–India relations) (1949–1986), issued by the Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences Ё೑⼒Ӯ⾥ᄺ䰶Ѯ⌆໾ᑇ⋟ⷨお᠔, Beijing: September 1987 (for internal circulation only), pp. 11, 23, 24, 41.

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Returning to the issue of the absence of a warm Chinese invitation to Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi, it was almost true. In December 1987 when China’s Vice Minister for Foreign Affairs, Liu Shuqing ߬䗄॓, was in New Delhi for routine meeting he delivered a letter to his Indian counterpart inviting Rajiv Gandhi to visit China without informing the press. The invitation seems to be a cumulative effect after a secret visit of Parmeshwar Narayan Haksar (1913–1998) to China as Rajiv Gandhi’s ‘special envoy’ in May 1987 and the subsequent stop in Beijing by India’s Minister of External Affairs, Narayan Dutt Tiwari in June on his way to Japan.95 On the whole, it was Rajiv Gandhi who was pro-active in improving the India–China relations. Rajiv Gandhi’s trip to China was greatly appreciated, and he was given a warm welcome by Deng Xiaoping 䙧ᇣᑇ (1904–1997) who was the supreme leader of post-Mao China. Among all the Chinese books discussing relations between PRC and POI, I find ‘Yin–Zhong guanxi fengyun lu ॄЁ݇㋏亢ѥᔩ/Stormy years of India–China relations’ written by my late-lamented friend, Zhao Weiwen 䍉㫮᭛more positive and objective than others. The book has six chapters, and the fifth chapter is titled ‘Yin– Zhong youhao xin pianzhang ॄЁটདĀᮄ㆛ゴā/A “new chapter” in India–China friendship’ which begins with a detailed discourse on Rajiv Gandhi’s China visit in 1988. I remember the author’s visit to India during one monsoon season in 1990, losing countless number of umbrellas including one borrowed from my wife. The loss of umbrellas was more than compensated by her gain of enormous information and tremendous insight about India. Zhao Weiwen expounded that there were two Indian camps during the regime of Mrs. Indira Gandhi which still existed after Rajiv Gandhi became the new Prime Minister. The ‘pro-China group’ (҆ढ⌒), as she described, thought that the ‘package deal solution’ (ϔ᧑ᄤ㾷އᮍḜ) put forward by Zhou Enlai and later repeated by Deng Xiaoping for the border dispute was favourable to India. This proposal would reciprocate Chinese recognition of the McMahan Line in the eastern sector with Indian recognition of the Chinese position in western sector. Then, there was the ‘pro-Soviet group’

95 C.V. Ranganathan and Vinod Khanna, India and China: The Way Ahead after ‘Mao’s India War’, New Delhi: Har-Anand Publications, 2000, pp. 60–61.

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(҆㢣⌒), as she put it, which was opposed to the India–China reconcilia- tion because of the Soviet anti-China attitude. There was a setback to this camp when Mikhail Gorbachev made his famous speech in Vladivostok in July 1986, expressing friendship with China without prior consultation with India which was at that time a strategic partner of the Soviet Union. Still, there was a strong group in India that opposed to Rajiv’s China visit. Zhao Weiwen analyzed the additional dynamics in favour of Rajiv’s trip to China. First, there was the Swedish Bofors gun scandal haunting his administration. Second, there were communal clashes and instability in Kashmir and the northeastern states. Third, there was severe disunity within the Congress Party. Rajiv Gandhi wanted to take the China trip to enhance his prestige in order to win the election in 1989. 96 While I do not fully agree with Zhao’s analyses, I think she had a grip of the Indian situation. Of course, her analysis is only from the geopolitical perspective, and she did not have the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ in mind. The highlight of Rajiv Gandhi’s ice-breaking China visit was his meeting with Deng Xiaoping in the Hall of the People’s Congress, Beijing. In that meeting, Deng made one of the most famous observations of his life. Let me translate this for the reader again:

There are two tasks in the world which have to be undertaken simultaneously: one is establishing a new international political order, another is establishing a new international economic order. In today’s world, only 1/5 of the countries are developed, the rest 4/5 are developing or underdeveloped countries. The total population of China and India is 1.8 billion, more than a third of the world population. Our two countries have shared responsibilities to humanity. We must take advantage of the peaceful international circumstances to develop ourselves. People are talking of the next century as the ‘Asia-Paciﬁ c century’ as if the century is already here. In fact, the real ‘Asia-Paciﬁ c century’ will arrive only after China, India and other countries of this region become developed.97

Rajiv Gandhi responded to the Chinese complaint of ‘frying the cold rice’ with a sensible proposal, setting up two Vice-Minister-level Joint

96 Zhao Weiwen, op cit, pp. 299–303. 97 Ibid, pp. 309–310.

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Working Groups (JWG): one specially devoted to border negotiations and another promoting trade and investment.98 As Zhao Weiwen pointed out, India under the leadership of Rajiv Gandhi courageously defied the anti-China move of ‘sanction’ and ‘boy- cott’ in the wake of the June 4th tragedy in 1989. When the first session of the JWGs was scheduled from June 30 to July 4, 1989, the American President George H.W. Bush telephoned Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to cancel it, and the latter refused to oblige.99 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi created history by lecturing to the faculty and students of the Tsing-hua University ⏙ढ໻ᄺ, Beijing, a tradition that has been more or less maintained by subsequent Indian leaders visiting China. In his address on December 21, 1988, Rajiv Gandhi said:

Thirty years ago, my grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, came to China as a messenger of peace and goodwill and found here a spirit of both peace and goodwill. Between India and China the spirit is now being kindled. The coming together of India and China in the early ﬁ fties was a development of historical international importance. Not only did it presage friendship between the two most populous nations of the world, counting between them a third of all humankind, it represented what was for the time an almost unique example of two great nations, with two totally different economic and social systems, coming together to give a practical demonstration of peaceful coexistence among different systems…. Together, India and China articulated a new philosophy summed up in the Panchsheel, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence…. …… We are summoned by our past to the tasks which the future holds. We have a mutual obligation to a common humanity. India and China can together give the world new perspectives on a new world order, which will ensure peace among nations and justice among peoples, equity for each and prosperity for all, freedom from fear and freedom from want, a world where we live together in happiness and harmony.100

98 Ranganathan and Khanna, op cit, p. 61. 99 Zhao Weiwen, op cit, p. 317. 100 Tan Chung, Across the Himalayan Gap: An India Quest for Understanding China, pp. 5, 6, 11.

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The first paragraph of this Rajiv quote is a repetition of what Nehru said in his speech at the Beijing civic reception on October 23, 1954 which says: ‘I have come to you as a messenger of peace and goodwill, and I have found here both the spirit of peace and goodwill. So I have felt in harmony with my surroundings, and my faith in the future has been strengthened.’101 I think it is useful that we compare Rajiv Gandhi’s words with what his grandfather, Nehru, had said in Beijing. Here are some excerpts of Nehru’s remarks:

I have found here both the spirit of peace and goodwill… There can be only one world devoting itself in friendly cooperation between its different parts to the advancement of humanity. …… Going back to the dawn of history, both [India and China] have received through the ages innumerable streams of thought and culture from outside and have absorbed them and made them their own powerful personalities. They have changed and adapted themselves from time to time, and now, after long years of suppression, they have changed again and are blossoming out in various ways. These new revolutionary changes in China and India, even though they differ in their content, symbolize a new spirit and a new vitality which is ﬁ nding expression in the countries of Asia.102

Jawaharlal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi were two generations apart, but we see the two spoke in Beijing with the same sentiments reflecting the spirit and ideal of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Nehru’s words of India and China ‘blossoming’ after ‘long years of suppression’ actually has echoes of Tagore from his 1916 Tokyo speech.

VIII. CONCLUSION I end this chapter here as it will be followed up by a whole chapter — Chapter 4 — to wrap up the present development of the two countries and

101 See the Sunday Statesman, Calcutta, October 24, 1954, p. 1. The reporter’s report of Nehru’s speech in a civil reception in Beijing on October 23 presided over by Major Peng Zhen ᕁⳳ (1902–1997). 102 Ibid.

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bring the book to its end. In this chapter, we focus on state-to-state relationship with the civilization element following our discourse like we see our own shadows while walking under bright moon shine. Readers may remember my section on ‘China shone upon by the ‘bright moon ᯢ᳜ of Buddhadharma’ in Chapter 1, our discourse on state relations between China and India is in the same scenario of being shone upon by the moonshine of the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ as we see the two new-born ‘nation-states’ of China and India had to travel in dark night of the post- World-War ‘Cold War’ jungle. Readers can see that in this chapter, I have divided the entire duration of China–India state relations into two phases. Before the birth of the Republic of India in 1950, India was a civilization sphere having numerous states, thus China–India relations could not be one-on-one state relations. That is to say, one-on-one China–India state relations are modern with only 64 years of experience. Compared to millennial civilizational relations, the two nation states are like toddlers. The Five Principles arose from kindergarten kids. But the constant pressure to do all the wrong things, and with the inexperience of youth, China and India have stum- bled in the spat of 1962. The question of rising up and facing the responsibilities of civilization is important for becoming an adult. My heart aches when I look at the recent and current status of created- by-Heaven-and-constructed-by-Earth China-India relations. If my observation above sounds a little uncharitable it is dictated by the geo-civilizational paradigm to draw our serious attention. However, our confidence in the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ of the civilization twins of China and India remains unimpaired. We see its manifestations in the birth of ‘Panchsheel/ Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence’, in the emergence of the slogan of ‘Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai’, in what Nehru said that India was ‘not at war with China’s culture of the greatness of China’ when the dust of 1962 war had hardly settled down, as well as in the ‘Mao smile’ longing for Chindian friendship. The modern avatars of ancient civilizations have arrived in this Anglobalized world with renewed energy and refreshing characteristics which I shall spell out in the next chapter.

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CHAPTER 4

‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ INTO UNIVERSAL PROSPERITY

‘Himalaya Sphere’ is not a sphere with a visible border. We cannot categorize it as a ‘universe’, a ‘world’, a ‘region’, a ‘commonwealth’, or a ‘comity’ because these are concepts of our ‘nation-states’ world that ill-fit in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ which exists in the spiritual and civilizational arena. ‘Himalaya Sphere’ is the cradle and home of two civilization twins — China and India — along with other civilizations and cultures, but it is neither the geographical nor the conceptual superstructure of China-plus- India-plus-other-lands world. I am not saying ‘Himalaya Sphere’ is just an illusion, nor is ‘Himalaya Sphere’ a myth. It is like an environment that provides air and water for the civilization twins to live and grow, to remain verdant. As Tagore observed, China and India never tried to destroy each other and render each other into ruins. On the contrary, each is a blessing, inspiration, encouragement, supporter, and guarantee for the long life and sustainability of the other. Why? It is because of ‘Himalaya Sphere’! Both the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and Republic of India (ROI) are mega-inventions of the Chinese and Indian politics. In another 25 years the PRC will celebrate its centenary at a time of fulfillment of the ‘Chinese dream’, with China possibly becoming the greatest economic powerhouse of the world. All this makes the modern development of China unrivalled by all previous historical dynasties. The ROI marks the appearance of unprecedented democratic, independent and unified polity in the Indian subcontinent. India has developed steadily and is the world

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famous software services superpower, being a new-emergent country with second fastest GDP growth in the past two decades. It will soon become the third greatest economic powerhouse of the world. There has never been such a political entity in history like ROI which symbolizes three scenarios: (a) unprecedented unification of the Indian subcontinent, (b) unprecedented billion-class gigantic democratic infrastructure, (c) unprecedented incredible India shining in both traditional and modern glories. First, unification was a rare phenomenon in historical times, but there is an unprecedented unity and integrations today thanks to the administration of the ROI. (The Partition resulting in the separation of Pakistan and Bangladesh is the mischief of British colonialism.) Sardar Vallabhbhai Jhaverbhai Patel, the first Home Minister of ROI, solved the thorny problem of the former Indian states ruled by the ‘Maharajas’ in a masterstroke and for that earned a reputation of ‘India’s Otto von Bismarck’.1 Second, India’s being the largest ‘democracy’ of the world has eclipsed the high reputation of the U.S.A. and France in the world of democratic politics. Third, as the words ‘Incredible India’ greets every foreign visitor by air, sea and land, India does attract hundreds of millions of tourists from home and abroad for her diverse cultural out- looks and the fusion of tradition and modernity. A century ago, in 1913, Tagore won the Nobel Prize for Gitanjali in which there is a verse ringing:

The traveller has to knock at every alien door to come to his own, and one has to wander through all the outer worlds to reach the innermost shrine at the end. My eyes strayed far and wide before I shut them and said ‘Here art thou!’

From these lines, we feel as if Tagore had envisaged the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ travelling astray at times but ultimately being guided by its civilizational navigator to return to the original path. Today, we see exactly a China which has now returned home after knocking the ‘alien doors’ of Adam Smith, George Washington, and Karl Marx, and is now ‘reaching the innermost shrine’ of the ‘Chinese spirit’ (Ё೑㊒⼲), pursuing the ‘Chinese road’ (Ё೑䘧䏃) and dreaming the ‘Chinese dream’ (Ё೑Ṻ).

1 Wikipedia, ‘Vallabhbhai Patel’.

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Tagore made a very important observation in his famous essay Nationalism: ‘I believe that it does India no good to compete with Western civilization in its own field. But we shall be more than compensated if, in spite of the insults heaped upon us, we follow our own destiny.’2 The Chinese policy-makers, too, come to the same conclusion today: ‘China cannot ditto the political system and development model of other countries. If she does that there will not only be the problem of acclimatization, also a disastrous consequence.’ (Ё೑ϡ㛑ܼⲬ✻ᨀ߿೑ⱘᬓ⊏ࠊᑺ੠ থሩ῵ᓣˈ৺߭ⱘ䆱ˈϡҙӮ∈ೳϡ᳡ˈ㗠ϨӮᏺᴹ♒䲒ᗻৢᵰǄ) These were what the top Chinese leader, Xi Jinping д䖥ᑇ, said at the College of Europe at Bruges, Belgium, on April 1, 2014.

I. ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ ON THE MARCH The two millennial civilization-states of China and India have stood the challenges of nation-states modern world well and been leading their respective robust existence and growth. Perhaps, no other image than the table below can give us a better perspective when we discuss the two countries’ future prospects.

Development prospects of China and India in 20303

CHINA INDIA U.S.A. WESTERN EUROPE JAPAN

Population (million) 1,458 1,421 364 400 121 Per capita GDP (1990 int $) 15,763 7,089 45,774 31,389 30,072 GDP (billion 1990 int $) 22,982.8 10,074 16,662 12,556 3,488

We are not taking these figures for their absolute value as they are just one scholar’s estimates. But, as a perspective they are instructive and

2 Uma Das Gupta, Tagore on Education and Nationalism, p. 276. 3 Angus Maddison, Contours of the World Economy, p. 174.

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insightful. If we total up the figures of China and India we get a population of 2.879 billion (comparing to 885 million of U.S.A., Western Europe and Japan altogether), and a GDP of 33.0568 billion (comparing to 32.706 billion of U.S.A., Western Europe and Japan altogether). The overall picture is the reinvigoration of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ that inspires confidence.

India’s Evolution Versus China’s Revolution Scholars, especially Indian scholars, are fond of comparative studies between ROI and PRC. Actually, the two are as asymmetric as orange and apple — like the Americans are fond of saying. In our modern world, especially in the United States, we frequently hear about the ‘power dynamics’. Fareed Zakaria, in his book, Post-American World and the Rise of the Rest, discusses three global ‘tectonic power shifts’ in the last 500 years — from the rise of Western Europe in the 15th century to the on-going global transformation of hegemonic power, i.e., the U.S. domination of global economics, politics, science and culture, to a more equitable scenario which he calls the ‘truly global order’. Though I am immersed in Tagore’s antipa- thy to the pursuit of ‘Power’, I do see the benign influence (which may be conceived as ‘power’) of a civilization which is free from national chauvinism and racial arrogance — the bane of our world of ‘nation-states’. I see this influence/power of Indian civilization spreading new ideas and ideals to other countries, and I see this influence/power of Chinese civilization attracting world attention today. These are the manifestations of the modern mega-inventions of China and India. When people talk of the ‘leverage’ supported by economic and military might today, such a ‘leverage’ falls only in the material arena. I have quoted Zheng Guanying’s 䚥㾖ᑨ observation earlier in the last chapter in which he had cited the adage from Yijing/Book of Change that ‘The upper half of universe is called Tao/dao, and the lower half of universe is called qi’ (ᔶ㗠 Ϟ㗙䇧П䘧ˈᔶ㗠ϟ㗙䇧П఼), it is in the value systems of China and India we see the prioritization of the quest for the spiritual power ‘dao 䘧/ Tao’ than materialism ‘qi ఼/implements’. The ‘leverage’ of Indian civilization in ancient times was not supported by economic and military might, but wrought by spiritual values which in Chinese terminology is ‘dao 䘧/ Tao’, and in Indian parlance, ‘dharma’.

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When we look at the ethos of Chinese and Indian civilizations, we see both are evolution-oriented. But, there is a subtle difference. Nehru once did use the letter ‘r’ to define the difference. Indians tend to respect the rhythm of momentum and just let the vehicle of progress drive itself (that is just what a good car-driver should do). For India, evolution means evolution-by-itself, progress means natural-progress. China, on the other hand, does not seem happy enough with such a mood. So, as Nehru observed, there is the letter ‘r’ in the Chinese mood — not ‘evolution’, but ‘revolution’. While India travels a mile, China travels an extra mile. As Mao Zedong ↯⋑ϰ said: ‘Ten thousand years? Too long! We don’t let off a single morning and evening.’ (ϔϛᑈ໾Йˈাѝᳱ໩).4 ROI is not able to rival such an intense goal-chasing rhythm of PRC. Contrary to ROI in which the infrastructure of governance had been laid out by its predecessor, the British Raj, PRC was demolishing the governing machine of the ancien regime to establish everything de novo. Mao Zedong described the situation as ‘chongqi luzao 䞡䍋♝♊/build a new kitchen’. These two different circumstances created all the difference between PRC and ROI. Continuity marks the rhythm of ROI, change marks the rhythm of PRC. While PRC was born with the rhythm of change, its initial emphasis was not on stability hence we see one political movement after another. We see the repeated creation and reversal of innovational institutions and processes, forward movements alternating with backward movements. In the agricultural sector there has been a three-stage (mutual-aid teams, cooperatives and people’s communes) collectivization movement leading to its final collapse — now most of the country has returned to individual farming household system before the movement. In commerce and industry, we see private ownership first being transformed into the so-called ‘gong-si heying ݀⾕ড়㧹/state-private joint-ownership’ and finally the elimination of private entrepreneurs and today’s sudden upsurge of the capitalists — even going a step further of allowing them to become members of the CPC. In comparison, such zigzag development is seldom seen in ROI.

4 FromMao Zedong’s ↯⋑ϰ poem, Manjiang hongghe Guo Moruo tongzhi ⒵∳㑶g੠䛁≿ 㢹ৠᖫ (Echoing Comrade Guo Moruo — the style of ‘Manjiang hong/All river is red’.

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After being hijacked and put in their present positions, both China and India — the civilization twins of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ — have accepted the challenge of the West, and wish to give the best account of themselves in this our ‘nation-states’ world of ruthless competitions. In their respective responses to this common challenge, China is more impatient, agitated and taking an extra step in marching forward than India. On balance, PRC is constantly running and leaping forward while the momentum of ROI is slow and steady. The proverbial race between the rabbit and tortoise is not relevant here. China and India are still civilization twins of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ between whom the idea of ‘racing’ does not stir. China might cherish an ambition of racing with the U.S.A. because the latter is the leading power of the world. Racing with India has never been expressed in any quarter in China. On her part, India might like to be ahead of China, but this has never been a strategic goal of India. What is important, neither China nor India sees any useful purpose of racing with each other. Tagore’s follow-our-own-destiny guideline can make the two millennial civilizations co-exist peacefully and harmoniously.

Tricolour Revolutions of India ‘Colour revolution’? No, not the political types of ‘Rose Revolution’ in Georgia (2003), nor the ‘Orange Revolution’ in Ukraine (2004). These so-called ‘colour revolutions’ I am going to discuss have taken place in Indian agriculture, milk industry and fishery. The colours are exactly the tricolours in the Indian national flag — hence they were, indeed, ‘revolutions’ inspired by the tricolour flag. The green colour created the ‘Green Revolution’ that solved India’s food supply problem. The white colour created the ‘White Revolution’ that made India a major producer of milk and dairy products of the world. The yellow colour created the ‘Golden Revolution’ that enhanced India’s fishery export power. ‘Green Revolution’ made a facelift in India’s socio-economic life in the early decades of ROI. I remember, soon after I moved to New Delhi, the capital of India, in the winter of 1959, I and family members were registered in the ‘ration’ system of the city. The ‘ration card’ served like our identification just as the driver’s license in the U.S.A. My wife and

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I automatically became ‘voters’ in Indian elections though we still had our Chinese passports. The introduction of the ‘ration’ system from 1960 onwards was because of shortage of food supply (with famines taking place frequently) and the merchants’ indulgence of hoarding. Meanwhile, India was dependent on the ‘Agricultural Trade Development and Assistance Act’ (better known as the ‘Public Law (P.L.) 480’ of the U.S.A. which shipped food grains to India against Rupee (a non-convertible currency) payment. For more than a decade from 1954 onwards India consumed 40% of the total ‘P.L. 480’ food supply from the U.S.A. The renowned agro-scientist and geneticist, Dr. Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (who is going to turn 90 in 2015), was the ‘Father of the Green Revolution in India’. In Swaminathan we have another modern icon of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. He combined his dedication to scientific truth, to environment, and to people’s welfare. From 1972 to 1979 he was Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Then, he became the Minister of Agriculture from 1979 to 1980. Later, he assumed the position of Director-General of the renowned ‘Magsaysay Institute’, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) from 1982 to 1988. In 1987, he was awarded the ‘World Food Prize’. It was under the proactive initiative of Dr. M.S. Swaminathan and the ICAR that revolutionary measures were taken by the Indian farmers — using scientific farming methods, high-yielding seeds, introducing ‘double-cropping’ and so on. With the farmers’ enthusiastic participation, the government’s job was made easy for concentrating energy in research and providing help and guidance to the farmers. The Indian ‘Green Revolution’ not only basically solved India’s problem of self-sufficiency, but also inspired other countries in Asia to enhance food production through the use of high yielding varieties (HYV) of seeds along with other scientific farming methods. India’s ‘White Revolution’ should not be mixed up with the movement launched by the King of Iran, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, in 1963 to legitimize the Pahlavi dynasty which had the same name. In the ‘Green Revolution’ we had the hero and father-figure of Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, but the ‘White Revolution’ was launched by the unsung heroes of the milk- farmers who wrought the revolutionary leap in milk production in India from 20 million metric tons in 1970 to 70 metric tons in 2000 — making

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India the second largest milk producer of the world, next only to the U.S.A. The difference between these two milk producing giants lies in the mode of production. Whereas in the U.S.A. milk is produced by large capitalist modern firms, in India it is produced by small milk-farmers who are in a sort of cooperative with proactive government partnership. This is an excellent example of the interplay between the top-to-bottom dynamics and bottom- to-top dynamics. India not only has the largest cattle population of the world (amounting to 20% of the world’s total) but also the largest population of cattle owners. The smooth and harmonious life of a super cattle population and cattle-owners population is worthy of emulation by China. The ‘Golden Revolution’ (also called ‘Blue Revolution’) refers to India’s miraculous increase in recent decades in fishery production, especially the golden shrimps. It is a similar movement like the ‘white revolution’ combining the top-to-bottom dynamics with bottom-to-top dynamics. The Government of India established the Commission for Fishery Development to channel funds and training personnel for the mass movement. India has increasingly become a leading fishery exporting country, thanks to the ‘Golden/Blue Revolution’. Its major markets are in the European Union, U.S.A., China, and Japan. These tricolour revolutions in India were quiet events (only the ‘Green Revolution’ acquired some fame). Of course, the term of ‘revolution’ is rather euphoric. There are even talks of ‘Silver Revolution’ in the improvement of production of ‘Egg and Poultry’, ‘Yellow Revolution’ referring to ‘Edible Oil’, and so on. We can go back to Nehru’s observation of China and India’s evolution with or without the letter ‘R’. All the Indian ‘Revolutions’ in the arena of agriculture are essentially ‘evolution’ according to Nehru’s logic.

‘World’s Factory’ (China) and ‘World’s Office’ (India) The most impressive achievement of PRC in the new century is China’s earning the reputation of ‘world’s factory’ (being a manufacturing giant), and that of ROI is making India the ‘world’s office’ (being a software superpower). There is, of course, exaggeration and dramatization in these descriptions, but still a great compliment for these two new-emergent

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developing countries. There is indication that the growth of the two countries of China and India has gone a long way ahead. How China becomes the ‘world’s factory’ is the interaction of two stories. The first story traces back to Mao Zedong’s resolve to catch up with U.S.A. The Soviets, who were helping China to industrialize during the 1950s, had a theory that a country’s power came from iron-and-steel production. Then, the greatest iron-and-steel producer was the U.S.A. with an annual production of 100 million tons. According to the Soviets, the Americans wasted a lot. Anyone who could produce 70 million tons (70% of the U.S. production) virtually caught up the Number One industrial power of the world. Mao was under the influence of this theory. During the period of the ‘Great Leap Forward’ (໻䎗䖯) — between November 1957 and December 1958 — he launched a mass movement called ‘quanmin liangang ܼ⇥⚐䩶/entire population producing steel’. After virtually stopping all other aspects of development, the movement yielded (by December 1958) 8 million ton of steel (with 3 million ton of trash) at an enormous cost. I daresay no other country would attempt such a weird experiment of trial and error. Even China would not had there not been Mao’s idiosyn- crasy for bravado. Let me quote a serious, audacious, fantastic and provocative observation of Mao (my translation):

The population of the U.S.A. is only 170 million. Our country is many times that number. We also have abundant resources. Our climate conditions are about the same. It is doable that we catch up with the U.S.A.… They produce 100 million ton steel with 170 million people. Can’t you produce 200 to 300 million tons?… The U.S.A. has only 180 years of history. Sixty years ago, it could only produce 4 million ton steel, we are 60 years behind it.… You have so many people. You have such a big place. Your resources are also so abundant. It is said that you have a socialist system that is quite superior. Then, after 50 to 60 years you still can’t surpass the U.S.A. How rotten you would look? You would be expelled as a member of our earth! ,䌘⑤гЄᆠˈס㕢೑া᳝ϔғϗगϛҎষˈ៥೑Ҏষ↨ᅗ໮޴) ׭ᴵӊ䎳ᅗᏂϡ໮ˈ䍊Ϟᰃৃ㛑ⱘǄ…ҎᆊϔғϗगϛҎষ᳝⇨ ϔϛϛৼ䩶ˈԴ݁ғҎষϡ㛑᧲ᅗϸϛϛৼǃϝϛϛৼ䩶ਔ˛…

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㕢೑ᓎ೑া᳝ϔⱒܿकᑈˈᅗⱘ䩶೼݁कᑈࠡгা᳝ಯⱒϛৼ, ៥Ӏ↨ᅗ㨑ৢ݁कᑈǄ…Դ᳝䙷М໮ҎˈԴ᳝䙷Мϔഫ໻ഄᮍ, 䌘⑤䙷МЄᆠˈজ਀䇈᧲њ⼒ӮЏНˈ᥂䇈ᰃ᳝Ӭ䍞ᗻˈ㒧ᵰԴ ϾҔМḋᄤਸ਼˛䙷ህ㽕ҢڣњѨǃ݁कᑈ䖬ϡ㛑䍙䖛㕢೑ˈԴ᧲ ഄ⧗Ϟᓔ䰸Դⱘ⧗㈡!)5

In this observation there is both humour and earnestness, both dramatization and realism, both confidence and sombreness. There was enormous energy and urge behind it. Deng Xiaoping 䙧ᇣᑇ who succeeded Mao as China’s next Supremo reversed much of Mao’s development strategy but maintained Mao’s energy and urge to push China onto an accelerated track of economic growth. This was the other story that coincided with the story of Mao’s ‘iron-and-steel dream’. Again, Deng’s story was the combination of two — one internal and another external. Internally, he came to the conclusion that China could not get rich by keeping aloof from the globalization led by the capitalist developed economies. Externally, the capitalist developed economies were shedding the so-called ‘sunset industries’ (໩䰇ᎹϮ). It so happened that iron-and-steel industry was in this category, and U.S.A. was out-sourcing it to whosoever wanted to take. Today (in 2013) the world’s total steel production is 1,607 million tons and almost half of it, i.e., 779 million tons is produced by China (exceeding 800 million in 2014). The entire European Union produces only 165.6 million tons followed by Japan’s 110.6 million, U.S.A.’s 87 million, India’s 81.2 million, Russia’s 69.4 million, and South Korea’s 66 million.6 So China would not be ‘expelled as a member of our earth’, and Mao Zedong can smile in his Heavenly Abode. The iron and steel industry is the mother of all industries, and the substance of all hardware. Mao’s vision has founded China’s current development on good stead — empowering the ‘world’s factory’ in maintaining its unshakable advantageous standing. Of course, apart from the sacrifice of environment and other sectors, PRC has a problem now of over-capacity

5 Mao Zedong xuanji ↯⋑ϰ䗝䲚 (Selected Works of Mao Zedong), Vol. V, Beijing: People’s PressҎ⇥ߎ⠜⼒, 1977, p. 296, Mao’s speech to the first session of the preparatory meeting for the 8th Party Congress on August 30, 1956. 6 Wikipedia, ‘List of countries by steel production’ citing statistics of World Steel Association, accessed on March 29, 2014.

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of iron and steel production — leading to reduced profit, slowing down quality improvement, and acute competition with European producers. Another problem is the over-dependence on foreign (especially Australian and Indian) supply of iron ore. May I add that the statistics cited above do not tell the quality of steel these countries produced. Mostly, the Chinese (also Indian) product is of lower quality, and China still needs to import special high quality steel for certain purposes. In other words, the erstwhile Soviet theory of reaching 70% of the U.S. steel production means catching up the world’s best is a totally misleading proposition. However, China’s having been misled to achieve such a strong base in steel production today is a blessing in disguise. As steel is, indeed, the basis of industrialization, China is in an enviable position to expand its manufacturing industry at free will. China’s ‘world’s factory’ status cannot be easily dethroned in future. On the other hand, the U.S. has been regretting for outsourcing a part of its steel industry. A couple of years ago when the U.S. Army wanted to design a new armoured car against the IED of the Taliban, they discovered that the U.S. had outsourced the factory to China that produced the steel needed. India’s becoming the ‘world’s office’ and a software superpower is also the interaction of two stories. The first story is the invention of ‘zero’ and the digital system by the ancient Indian mathematician-astronomer Aryabhata (476–550), and the second is the U.S. pioneers like Bill Gates who lead the world into the digital system. When Bill Gates started the Microsoft, he found himself surrounded by able assistants who had inherited Aryabhata’s digital mind — Indian computer experts. One of them, Satya Nadella Chowdary, a former-IAS officer, has been nominated by Bill Gates to succeed him as the new CEO of Microsoft in 2014. The Indian software industry has a thrust for export. For many years, the CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) for the Indian software industry has been 52.6% (for the software export industry 55.04%). Though with such high growth rate, India does not have a high share in the world software market. However, there is potential as India possesses the world’s second largest pool of scientific manpower, which is also English speaking and is coupled with good quality of work and low cost of manpower.

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Indian information technology includes IT Services and Business Process Outsourcing (BPO), the contribution of which in 2012 amounts to US$100 billion, i.e., 7.5% of India’s GDP. The five prominent Indian IT giants are (1) Tata Consultancy Services with its headquarters in Mumbai, (2) Cognizant Technology Solutions whose headquarters were moved from Chennai to Teaneck, New Jersey, U.S.A., (3) Infosys and (4) Wipro, both Bangalore-based companies, and (5) HCL Technologies at Noida.7 The IT industry of India has very great potential for development. A news report of March 2014, indicates China and India soon becoming the giant producers of smart cell phones. India’s ‘Micromax’ and China’s (Beijing-based) ‘Xiaomi ᇣ㉇’ may well dominate world market in the near future. The Beijing ‘Xiaomi’ product has 4 varieties with attractive fashion and functions. The Indian ‘Micromax’ has very competitive prices — the lowest only US$50 a piece. The smart cell phone is a product fusing hardware and software, and China and India climbing to the top in the field is a new opening for the ‘world’s factory’ and the ‘world’s office’.

The World’s Fastest Economic Growth The PRC and ROI have shot into prominence on world stage in recent years because of their fast GDP growth, which is a rare commodity among developed countries today. The current debate in China is whether this ‘favourite child’ (ᅴܓ) and the obsession of the Chinese government at various levels, i.e., the GDP growth, should not be abandoned. This reminds us that in the early years of PRC, China did not even recognize the concept of GDP. It was the political turmoil in the end of 1980s coupling with the dismemberment of the Soviet Union that GDP suddenly became central to PRC’s development strategy. This was formulated as a benign circle between ‘gaige ᬍ䴽/ reform’, ‘fazhan থሩ/development’, and ‘wending 〇ᅮ/stability’ that ‘reform promotes development, development promotes stability, and stability promotes reform’ (ҹᬍ䴽֗থሩҹথሩ֗〇ᅮҹ〇ᅮ֗ᬍ 䴽). It was this strategy that has ensured peace and stability in PRC for a quarter of a century as well as its tryst with fast-track GDP growth. It is

7 Wikipedia, ‘Information technology in India’, accessed on March 29, 2014.

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not just the GDP growth, but also a steady process of reform and re- adjustment of internal development rhythms and measures. Today, few Chinese intellectuals are in a mood to condemn the ‘Yellow River Civilization’, but there are still many who wish China to become a ‘Blue Ocean Civilization’. For about two decades China had maintained a double digit GDP growth which has come down to around 8% in the last few years. My friend, Professor John Mearsheimer of University of Chicago, has been worried about China’s fast track GDP growth. He wrote (in 2001):

The GNP of the United States is $7.9 trillion. If China’s per capita GNP equals Korea’s, China’s overall GNP would be almost $10.66 trillion, which is about 1.35 times the size of America’s GNP. If China’s per capita GNP is half of Japan’s, China’s overall GNP would then be roughly 2.5 times bigger than America’s. For purposes of comparison, the Soviet Union was roughly one-half as wealthy as the United States during most of the Cold War. China, in short, has the potential to be considerably more powerful than even the United States.8

Today, even Chinese scholars feel that China should not go on the road of fast track GDP growth now that China’s GDP is already 12% of the world’s total. The resources on earth will not be able to afford to have China’s per capita GDP equal to that of the developed countries. Meanwhile, the new leadership led by Xi Jinping д䖥ᑇ and Li Keqiang ᴢܟᔎ, in a new directive issued in March 2014, has removed the growth of GDP from the evaluation of the performances of the presiding officers of local governments at all levels. For three decades, ROI did not pay any attention to the GDP growth. I remember when I was teaching in Delhi University in the 1960s and 1970s, I used to frequent the Department of Economics (the famed ‘Delhi School of Economics’) because of talks and discussions on China’s economic problems. I noticed the tall hefty Professor Raj Krishna (1926–1985), an influential agricultural and development economist and traditionalist among many left-leaning colleagues (like Professors K.N. Raj and

8 John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2001, p. 398.

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Amartya Sen). He was the inventor of the term ‘Hindu rate of growth’ which not only suggested a kind of easy-going mood in the Indian economic development (in contrast to the new emergent ‘Asian Tigers’ of Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong and Singapore), but also had a dig at the ‘socialistic’ system of Indian politics. The ‘Hindu rate of growth’ (around 3%) survived Professor Raj Krishna for some years until India launched the economic reform (better known as ‘liberalization’ and the abandonment of the ‘License Raj’) when P.V. Narasimha Rao was the Prime Minister and Manmohan Singh was the Finance Minister. Economist Arvind Virmani, Chief Economic Advisor to the Government of India, invented the new term ‘Bharatiya rate of growth’ which signified that the curse of the ‘Hindu rate of growth’ was broken. India’s GDP growth rate slowly increased and reached the peak of 9% in 2007. It was the time when the reputation of the ‘BRICS’ countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and later South Africa joined) rose high, and China and India drew special world attention for having the highest GDP growth.

The Population Superpowers on Earth The commonality between the two mega-inventions of PRC and ROI was the super sizes of population in both the countries. At the time of writing, PRC is the world’s Number One with 1,355,692,576 people while India comes next with 1,236,344,631.9 With a younger population and faster growth rate India will occupy the Number One seat in a couple of decades. The two countries now have 2.5 billion people amounting to 40% of humankind. For thousands of years there had never been any feeling of unwanted population in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. In the foregoing pages I have, time and again, referred to the emphasis on ‘ren Ҏ/humans’ in Chinese civilization. This is not the case in the Western Hemisphere. Ancient Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle began to worry about over-population that would surpass the means of support for their living. But the Prussian ruler of the 18th century, ‘Frederick the Great’ (reigning 1740–1786) had the idea of population being ‘the wealth of the State’. It was the British

9 The world fact book of CIA, accessed on March 28, 2014.

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priest, Reverend Thomas Malthus (1766–1834), who emerged as the great authority of population theory. It was the impact of Malthus that the theory of eugenics began to emerge which, unfortunately, got mixed up with Hitler’s Nazism. If there is obsession with the population problem on the part of PRC which has somewhat entangled itself with the ‘one-child’ policy dilemma it has nothing to do with the neglect of humanity or human rights. Mo Yan 㥿㿔, the Nobel Prize Winner for Literature (2013), wrote his new novel of ‘Wa 㲭/Frog’ which has provided a deep insight into the problem. The novel either intentionally, or unwittingly, offers a laudable justification of PRC’s ‘one-child’ policy through the mouth of one of its secondary roles thus:

Who among us as women does not love children? One, two, three, even ten are not too many. The Party and the state also love children. Just see how Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou smile so emotionally when they see children. It is a kind of love from the inner heart. What for have we been doing the revolution, the ultimate aim is to let our children live happily. Children are the future of the state, and the treasure of the state. However, presently we are facing with the problem. If we don’t have family planning our children might not have (enough) food and clothing, nor opportunity of going to school. Therefore, we have to gain the macro humanism by being micro inhuman.’10

PRC’s entanglement with the population problem may be the particular involvement of four Mr. ‘M’s: Malthus, Marx, Ma Yinchu 偀ᆙ߱ (1882–1982), and Mao Zedong. We still remember the famous remarks of Hu Yaobang 㚵㗔䙺 (1915–1989), a former General Secretary and Chairman of CPC, in the late 1970s that Mao’s incorrect criticism of a single person, i.e., Ma Yinchu, led to the unwanted increase of several hundred million people. PRC was founded on Marx’s pro-human sentiments which completely rejected the Malthusian population theory. Both Ma Yinchu and Mao Zedong were on the side of Marx against Malthus. Ma Yinchu was one of PRC’s leading economists in the early years of PRC who was greatly respected by the leaders of the country. He was given

10 Mo Yan, op cit, pp. 133–134.

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the important assignment of President of Peking University. PRC government followed his suggestion to conduct the first census in 1953 in which it was discovered that the population of PRC rose to 600 million from 400 odd million when PRC was founded. Ma Yinchu, then, led a team of faculty and students to travel to various places to inquire about China’s population growth, and repeatedly suggested the government to control population. Finally, he published his famous book ‘Xin renkou lun ᮄҎষ䆎/New theory on population’ in 1957. In the book, Ma pointed out that population was a great resource, but also a great burden. China must control the huge population and improve its quality. He also made it clear that he was opposed to the Malthusian theory, but China’s excessive population and scarcity of capital formed a serious contradiction, and Chinese population would reach 1.6 billion 50 years later if there was no proper control. Unfortunately, Ma Yinchu’s serious policy recommendation got mixed up with the upsurge of other critical opinions which provoked Chairman Mao to launch his ‘anti-rightist’ movement. Ma Yinchu fell among the ruins of collateral damage. Both Ma Yinchu and Mao Zedong were stubborn while Mao was a bit vicious not only wrongly accusing Ma for smuggling Malthus through the back door, but also vilifying Ma for being a Chinese descendant of Malthus, saying: ‘The name of Malthus is Ma, Ma Yinchu’s name is also Ma. If someone wants to defend his foreign ancestor to the end, what can we do?’ Ultimately, Chairman Mao did agree to adopt family planning. The second census in 1964 discovered the population of PRC having reached the neighbourhood of 700 million. This was the year when the State Council established the Commission for Family Planning (䅵ߦ⫳㚆ྨਬӮ). In 1974, Chairman Mao endorsed on the ‘Report of Economic Planning for 1975’ with the remark of ‘population control is a must’ (Ҏষ䴲᥻ࠊ ϡ㸠). In 1973, the apex body, i.e., the ‘Birth Control Team’ was in place within the State Council, and in 1978 (two years after Mao Zedong had passed away), the language of ‘guojia tichang he tuixing jihua shengyu -೑ᆊᦤ׵੠᥼㸠䅵ߦ⫳㚆/the state advocates and carries out birth plan ning’ was written into the revised Constitution of PRC. In 1980, the Central Committee of CPC addressed a letter to all members of the Party and the Communist Youth League advocating the ‘one-child’ policy, asking

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them to implement it and persuade others to implement it. After that the ‘one-child’ policy became mandatory with incentive and disincentive measures. Whatever the drawbacks of the ‘one-child’ birth control policy of PRC, the generation born in and after the 1980s have been better looked after and reared up in the true eugenic spirit. The only child in the family — receiving the attention of the parents (two persons) and the grand-parents (four persons) — are nicknamed ‘xiao huangdi ᇣⱛᏱ/little emperor’, enjoying ample human affection and care, albeit often being spoiled. As the families, especially the urban families, are reconciled with the only child, be it a boy or girl, and offer their best abilities to the growth and development of the new comer of the family, for the first time in history Chinese girls are really equal in importance and status as the opposite gender. PRC features the unique phenomenon of ‘yinsheng yangshuai 䰈ⲯ䰇㹄’ (yin/female gender becomes robust and yang/male gender crumbling) in a country of millennial male chauvinism. Awareness of birth control has been high in India from the 1960s onwards with the popularization of the use of contraceptive means. In the early 1970s, when there was the brief period of ‘Emergency’, Sanjay Gandhi (1946–1980), the second son of Prime Minister Mrs. Indira Gandhi, vigorously pursued an arbitrary family planning policy. He imposed a quota of sterilization on local authorities, and the enforced quota resulted in not only the sterilization of men with two children or more, but even unmar- ried young men, like vagabonds and street vendors. Though such practices were never repeated during the post-Emergency period, the populace of India has developed an aversion to family planning since then. Today the Indian population growth situation revealed two different worlds. In the so-called ‘bimaru/sick states’, the growth rate remains high (a 4-point fertility rate in Bihar, the highest in India, followed by 3.5 in other ‘bimaru/ sick states’) as compared to the below 2.1 level in Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Tamil Nadu, Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Punjab and Sikkim. China and India being the greatest attraction for human population is central to our ‘Himalaya Sphere’ perspective, and huge human population concentrating on the soil of China and India not only to consume natural resources but also to produce social wealth. There is no precise statistics of historical times. But, according to historians like Angus Maddison, the two

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countries/areas of China and India had 40–50% of the population and wealth of the entire world for many centuries before the 18th century. In this perspective, population means wealth and the creators of wealth. Today, the world has come around to recognizing humans as assets and pay attention to human resources upbringing, i.e., education and skill-training.

IIT — The Jewel of India In 2005, U.S. Congress graciously acknowledged the contribution of Americans of Indian origin to the development of U.S. economy. In gossip circles, people often say we are in the ‘Information Technology’ (IT) era, and the ‘I’ in ‘IT’ stands for ‘India’. This is because many among the pioneers who launched the ‘IT’ are Indians most of whom were the products of the 10-odd Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) which were founded by the founder Prime Minister, Nehru, during the 1950s and 1960s. This was an eye-opener to Chinese commentators who began to admire Nehru’s foresight in paying attention to the establishment of high- standard institutions of higher education and production of first-rate intellectual elites for the good of India’s development. Prestigious Indian colleges such as the Presidency College (now Presidency University) of Kolkata, Saint Stephen’s College of Delhi, Saint Xavier’s College of Mumbai (to name a few), have their alumni distinguishing in different walks of life both in India and abroad. The Nehruvian legacy of human resource development was carried forward by Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who changed the name of ministry of education into ‘Ministry of Human Resource Development’. Today, Indian intellectual talents distinguished themselves more and more in the international organizations and various institutions, even government organizations in the U.S.A. and other countries. In addition, the American telephone services are increasingly manned by Indians some of whom speak elegant English and most of whom operate in India. This Indian tryst with the Information Era has fired up English language learning in Indian schools. Late former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s creation of the ‘Ministry of Human Resources’ is not only a name-changer, but also a ‘game-changer’, to

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use a fashionable American phrase. It is the realization that population is asset, and humans are capital for development. ROI’s dedication to the rearing up of human resources can be traced back to the Nehruvian Era with the establishment of a series of higher educational institutions for this purpose. They are named ‘IIT’, a clear emulation of the reputed MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Founded in 1861, MIT which has established the new method of laboratory instruction and an emphasis on applied technology at the undergraduate and graduate levels in close cooperation with the industry made a great contribution to the industrial revolution of the U.S.A. When Prime Minister Nehru addressed the first convocation of the first IIT at Kharagpur (near Calcutta/Kolkata) in 1956, he said it represented ‘India’s urges’, and ‘India’s future in the making’. Today, there are 15 IITs in India: (1) IIT Kharagpur (established in 1955), (2) IIT Bombay (established in 1958), (3) IIT Khanpur (established in 1959), (4) IIT Madras (established in 1959), (5) IIT Delhi (established in 1963), (6) IIT Guwahati (established in 1994), (7) IIT Roorkee (established in 2001), (8) IIT Bhubaneswar (established in 2008), (9) IIT Hyderabad (established in 2008), (10) IIT Gandhinagar (established in 2008), (11) IIT Patna (established in 2008), (12) IIT Jodhpur (established in 2008), (13) IIT Indore (established in 2009), (14) IIT Mandi (established in 2009), and (15) IIT Varanasi (established in 2012).11 ‘Travel to America to meet your old fellows’ is the consensus among the alumni of IIT Kanpur. Look at the alumni associations of this institution: the ‘Yahoo group of the Delhi chapter of the IIT Kanpur alumni’, ‘Dallas IITK Chapter’, ‘IIT Kanpur — USA Midwest Chapter’, ‘iitk-seattle /for IIT K Alumni association of pacific northwest’, ‘iitalumni-seattle’, ‘iitkwest- coast’, ‘iitkwestcore’, ‘IITK UK Alumni’, ‘IIT K France chapter’ etc. These addresses provide a world map of the foot-prints of the graduates of IIT Kanpur. Other IITs, though not so globalized as IIT Kanpur, are also well recognized world-wide. The name ‘IIT’ shot into global prominence because it gave a powerful push of the Information Technology (IT) revolution as few higher educational institutions of the world did. First of all, it was the IIT Kanpur graduate, Nagavara Ramarao Narayana Murthy, who first flew the

11 Wikipedia, ‘Indian Institutes of Technology’, accessed on March 31, 2014.

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standard of IT and IIT simultaneously. He was the co-founder of Infosys, for that he earned the nickname of ‘India’s Bill Gates’. In 2013, he was awarded the honour of ‘25 Greatest Global Indian Living Legends’ along with Mankombu Sambasivan Swaminathan (our ‘Green Revolution’ hero), Amartya Sen, Ratan Tata, Mukesh Ambani, and others. The participation of IIT graduates in the IT revolution both in India and abroad (especially in the U.S.A.) has been outstanding with innumerable unsung heroes. The IIT fruition speaks volumes of Nehru’s far-sightedness in steering India straight onto the frontline of advancement of science and technology of our modern times, availing of India’s advantage of English language proficiency (in the case of IT revolution, both the Indian proficiency of English language and the DNA of Aryabhata’s genius of mathematics) not available to China. The IIT scenario exemplifies the importance of population superpower backed up by human resources development. Here, we are reminded by the theory that being the most skilful (as if with the fingers of the alchemist) race of the world, China has effortlessly assumed the status of the leading manufacturer of the world. If fingers are the forte of PRC, English and Mathematics have helped ROI to keep pace with the progress of the modern world. In tradition, China had a legacy of ‘dushuren 䇏кҎ/book-readers/ intellectuals’ which was comparable to India’s prioritization of the ‘intellectual’ Brahmin caste. As it was in the past so it is now that a potentially bright ‘book-reader/intellectual’ brings glimmer to the family and even the village in rural China. The ‘one-child’ policy of family planning accentuated the Chinese tradition of ‘wang zi cheng long ᳯᄤ៤啭/expecting the son to become a leaping dragon’ which has its modern supplement of ‘wang nu cheng feng ᳯཇ៤޸/expecting the daughter to become a flying phoenix’ for the families having only a single female child. Accompanying the exuberant expectations for the human resource development of the future generation is the maximum input of the parents’ time and resources in the upbringing of the future generation. Among all ethnic groups in the U.S.A. today, the parents of the Chinese and Indian communities have the highest investment in children’s education, both materially and spiritually, yielding positive results.

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The Role of Peking University ࣫࣫Ҁ໻ᄺҀ໻ᄺ — A Topic for Introspection China does not have the IIT institutions which have accumulated six decades of experience of development and an international status for China to emulate. Of course, PRC has left no stone unturned to develop technical educational facilities at various levels all over China. Today, India and China have the second and third largest armies of scientists and tech- nicians after the U.S.A. However, the brightest stars of higher educational institutions are Peking University ࣫Ҁ໻ᄺ and Tsing-hua University ⏙ढ໻ᄺ which also are the oldest modern educational institutions of China. On March 5, 2014, Mr. Ke Yang ᷃ᴼ, the Executive Vice-President of Peking University ࣫Ҁ໻ᄺ, while speaking at the second plenary session of the Twelfth Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Ё೑Ҏ ⇥ᬓ⊏णଚӮ䆂, reported what a parent said to his/her ward who had just joined the university: ‘I don’t send you to study in Peking University to hope you earn a salary of 8,000 yuan a month in future. I look forward to your becoming an officer of the provincial ranking.’ While reporting this, Ke Yang thought the parent’s words sadly symbolized the failure of Chinese education.12 In recent years, a Peking University graduate, Lu Buxuan 䰚ℹ䔽, has evoked heated public discussions. Lu Buxuan was born and brought up in the relatively backward Chang’an 䭓ᅝ County in Shaanxi 䰩㽓 Province, studied hard and fulfilled his wish to enter Peking University as a topper. After graduating from the University’s Department of Chinese Language and Literature he was sent to the diesel engine factory of his home place as a worker much against his wish and liking. Then, he came out of the public sector system to try his luck as an entrepreneur with a series of failures. Finally, in 1999, he opened a butcher shop in his home place. In 2003, the media highlighted him in the sensational news of a ‘talented man of literature of Peking University selling pork on the street of Chang’an’. In 2005, he published a book entitled ‘Tufu kan shijie ሴ໿ⳟϪ⬠’ (The world through the eyes of a butcher). In 2008, he joined a senior alumnus,

12 News report, Renmin ribao Ҏ⇥᮹᡹ (People’s Daily), p. 1.

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Chen Sheng 䰜⫳ (who was also a successful butcher) to start a ‘Butcher’s school’ at Guangzhou ᑓᎲ and became an honorary instructor. In April 2013, Lu Buxuan was invited to his alma mater — Peking University — to deliver a lecture as a popular star, and he opened with an apology of ‘I have brought blasphemy to my University’ (㒭↡᷵ᢍњ咥) which has sparked an intellectual debate all over China. A young talent of Chinese literature trained by China’s best higher education institution becoming a successful butcher has raised many questions about the culture of PRC. A successful butcher does not need to be trained in the Department of Chinese Literature of China’s best university, and the University had not done anything for the creation of a successful butcher. If Peking University were to start a department training successful butchers it would not have attracted young talents like Lu Buxuan, and few parents would have liked their would-be-dragon son or would-be-phoenix daughter to join. Of course, from another angle, a university is different from a vocational training place, and it is common in modern societies of all countries that the university products of various disciplines do not necessarily end up in the careers they are trained for. By the way, the new Prime Minister of PRC, Mr. Li Keqiang ᴢܟᔎ, is also a product of Peking University while the University has never had any course to train a prime minister. It is just accidental that Peking University has produced a prime minister in Li Keqiang and a butcher in Lu Buxuan which are neither a blasphemy nor anything to be especially proud of. Whatever it may be, the ‘university culture’ is assuming increasing prominence in China today just as the ‘palace culture’ and ‘temple culture’ in ancient China. The state and society have invested an enormous amount in the making of a university graduate. Yet, when the news appeared that there would be almost 7 million university graduates (breaking historical record) in China in 2013, the media was alarmed, some even described it a ‘terrible news’. The sense of alarm arose because there should be 7 million new jobs to absorb these new members of the elite into the system. A commentator likened this upsurge of job-seeking to a cavalry brigade dashing through a single-log bridge. That many would fall through is to be expected. While writing, I see mass agitations of Taiwan student agitation against the services agreement relating to the 2010 Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement between mainland China and Taiwan, would open up

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as many as 80 industries including banking, brokerages, and e- commerce to business across the Taiwan Strait. Most of the young participants of the agitation did not know the right and wrong of the movement. But, they are a social group that is virtually whiling away their time without serious jobs. Today, ‘unemployment’ among educated youths in the world has become a serious problem. There has been a 50% rise in the youth unemployment rate in northern Spain and 30% in Ireland. In the ‘Euro zone’ the unemployment rate is 23.3% and it is 20.5% in Britain. The average rate of unemployment in the G20 countries is 20.4%. On the one hand, the world economy is in a depressing state and job opportunities are not increasing proportionately to meet the demand of the increase in work force. On the other hand, enterprises all over the world are getting smaller and more efficient, lower working opportunities are decreasing while higher-pay posts are not finding competent employees. The new trail blazed by Lu Buxuan of becoming an avatar of success through the butcher’s avenue after graduating from China’s leading elitist university does not have any universal appeal, even in China. I see online a recent report of a sixth grade primary school student in Wuhan becoming a popular hero for writing in his essay: ‘My ideal is to become a rich man driving cars of famous brands and living in luxurious residence.’ His teachers and the school authorities tried to find out what went wrong in the education system. They found the school text books replete with stories of martyrs sacrificing their lives for the cause of revolution, without any advocacy for personal gains and enjoyment of material life. The general feeling was that kids would not take the text books, nor the noble words teachers chanted in the classrooms seriously, but would draw real inspiration from their money/status-minded parents and the larger society in which only the wealthy and powerful were respected. The most important place in creating noble people is the society, not the schools and universities with their pedantic approaches of education.

II. EXUBERANT ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT IN ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ Coming to the arena of economics, especially the modern time economics, much of the glimmer of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ seems to have eclipsed.

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True, we are on an altogether new turf than what I have covered in the last three chapters. But, modern time economics is nobody’s grandfather’s property while China and India are not real new comers in the contemporary context of globalization. There is much conceptual confusion floating around. One of the confusions was created by the German philosopher, Max Weber (1864–1920), that the traditional cultures of Confucianism and Hinduism could not generate the ‘spirit of capitalism’, hence China and India lagging behind modern industrial progress vide his classic, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. However, China and India are increasingly gathering reputation for their proactive capitalist enterprises after the Harvard economist, Professor Tarun Khanna, published his famous book, Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours,13 in 2007. Reality is more convincing than great theories of Weber, or X, Y, Z.

An Ever-Enterprising ‘Himalaya Sphere’ Is ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ an asset of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’? Yes and no! Yes, because the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ had been enjoying economic prosperity, trade and commerce, and handicrafts industry for millennia before the rise of the ‘spirit of capitalism’ in the Western Hemisphere. The more than 5,000 pieces of cowries (the ancient Indian currency) in the collection of the Sanxingdui site is an indication that currency was in use more than three thousand years ago in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ whereas in Europe, the use of currency is only modern practice. No, because the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ in its real sense is a popular modern Western culture which has now become a global phenomenon. This yes-and-no dichotomy should not lead us to the wrong conclusion drawn by Weber that the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ and the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ are like water and fire — unable to accommodate one another. To quote the popular analyses of the Western world, the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ is founded by the ‘enterprising’ spirit (which both the Chinese and Indian societies are famous for). Apart from being ‘enterprising’, the

13 Tarun Khanna, Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China and India are Reshaping Their Futures and Yours, Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2007.

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entrepreneur has to be especially inventive, risk-taking, far-sighted, with organizational skills, knowing how to revitalize socioeconomic activities, focussing on public good, and maintaining missionary zeal. I can well cite a Chinese example as an exemplary illustration. There was a 17th century Chinese intellectual who had a tryst with the cause of medicine named Yue Xianyang Фᰒᡀ (1630–1688) whose grandfather started settling in Beijing as medical practitioner. Yue Xianyang (the grandson) was initially employed in the palace hospital as a clerk. He not only studied medical books, but also collected medical prescriptions for various ailments. He left his job and established his druggist store named ‘Tongrentang ৠҕූ’ (the name ‘Tongren ৠҕ’ means ‘treating everyone equally with love’). The store became famous for the supply of quality medicine with effective prescriptions. In 1954, the store became a joint-venture with the state participation, but its proprietor, Yue Songsheng Фᵒ⫳ (1908–1968), the 13th generation of posterity of Yue Xianyang Фᰒᡀ, continued to be its general manager (unfortunately he committed suicide after being insulted by the Red Guards during the ‘Cultural Revolution’). The store is still China’s best today with branches all over the world (in London, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Sydney, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Jakarta, Bangkok, and Dubai). Karl Marx made the orthodox definition of five stages of social evolution beginning from the ‘primitive communist society’, progressing into the ‘slave society’, ‘feudal society’, ‘capitalist society’, and ‘socialist/communist society’. China’s voluntarily claiming to have made a direct entry into the ‘socialist society’ from the ‘feudal society’ strengthened the suspicion that pre-modern China could not generate capitalism by itself. There were academic discussions in China about this theme. The discussions centered around a famous observation of Mao Zedong in his essay, ‘Zhongguo geming yu Zhongguo Gongchandang Ё೑䴽ੑϢЁ೑݅ѻܮ/Chinese revolution and Chinese Communist Party’ that ‘commodity economy’ (ଚક㒣⌢) existed within the Chinese feudal society which symbolized the ‘germination of capitalism’ (䌘ᴀЏНⱘ㧠㢑), and China was slowly developing into the capitalist society without foreign capitalist influence.14

14 Mao Zedong xuanji ↯⋑ϰ䗝䲚 (Selected Works of Mao Zedong), Beijing: People’s Ҏ⇥ߎ⠜⼒, 1992 edition, Vol. II, p. 626.

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Such discussions (including Mao’s famous observation) were objectively the refutation of Weber’s bigoted assertion that the ‘spirit of capitalism’ (that is the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’) could not find a favourable climate in the social milieu of China and India. In fact, commercial houses, business communities and market places in China and India have a much longer history than the developed capitalist countries of the world. Western travellers like Marco Polo, Ibn Battuda and many others to China and India were greatly impressed, and from their travel accounts it was China and India (especially China), not the Western Hemisphere, that were thriving with the ‘spirit of capitalism’ — albeit they did not use such a terminology. Tarun Khanna named his book ‘Billions of Entrepreneurs’ (which is the magnitude of the populations of China and India) to suggest that most of the people of the two countries are potential entrepreneurs, and that there is exuberant ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ in the two countries. He has given many examples of the complementarity and collaboration between the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ of China and India one of which is the joint- venture between the Indian firm Mahindra & Mahindra and the Nanchang फᯠ Municipal government to produce a low-powered tractor which has a good sale in the U.S.A.15 Khanna comments further:

Anand Mahindra’s shepherding of the Nask-Nanchang collaboration… are examples of a new relationship, a new dance, which is cropping up in many places between China and India….

For want of a better term, I call this dance mutualism. However, I need to qualify the feel-good quality the term usually connotes by pointing out that the mutualism currently existing between China and India contains mutual cooperation, but also some mutual tension. China and India are learning that acting in their own best interests can mean working together, and any good feeling that might result between them would be more of a fringe beneﬁ t than the main goal. In using the term mutualism I mean to point to the very real possibility that China and India will in time learn to capitalize on each other’s strengths and compensate for each other’s weakness.16

15 Tarun Khanna, op cit, pp. 10–11. 16 Ibid, pp. 14–15.

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What Khanna has pointed out is that the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ has an angle of ‘mutualism’, and their common ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ can guide them to ‘capitalize on each other’s strengths and compensate for each other’s weakness’. Of course, as he has also pointed out that there is a process of going through ‘mutual tension’ while doing ‘mutual cooperation’ — a process of learning.

Mixed Economy to Optimize Private Development Energy Khanna’s example of ‘dance of mutualism’ between the private Indian firm, Mahindra & Mahindra, and the Nanchang फᯠ Municipal government of China is the complementarity between the Indian private ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ and the Chinese public ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. This proves that the ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ is not the monopoly of capitalists. However, in economic development, we need both the private and public ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. From day one, ROI has been paying attention to private ‘entrepreneurial spirit’, and has been famous for its vibrant ‘mixed economy’. Prime Minister Nehru has been repeatedly quoted (and I am repeating it here) for realizing the importance of the private enterprises:

I have no shadow of doubt that if we say ‘lop off the private sector’ we cannot replace it. We haven’t got the resource to replace it, and the result would be that our productive apparatus would suffer… Why should we fritter away our energy in pushing out somebody who is doing it in the private sector?… Therefore you must not only permit the private sector, but I say, encourage it in its own ﬁ eld.17

Though he was not, Nehru’s words sound like questioning the wisdom of the PRC in ‘pushing out’ the private sector in the 1950s. I was still in China when the storm was coming. From 1952 onwards, a peaceful, slow- moving and rather smooth movement of the ‘wufan Ѩড/five antis’ (anti- bribing, tax evasion, pilferage of state properties, shoddy work, and stealing economic intelligence) was unfolding, targeting the capitalists. The government also announced a 5-grade evaluation of the private firms

17 Ibid, p. 127, citing The Oxford History of Indian Business.

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vis-à-vis these five unlawful behaviours. The five categories (to which all private firms in China were to be graded) are: (1) ‘shoufahu ᅜ⊩᠋/lawful firms’, (2) ‘jiben shoufahu ෎ᴀᅜ⊩᠋/basically lawful firms’, (3) ‘banshoufa banweifa hu ञᅜ⊩ञ䖱⊩᠋/semi-lawful (and semi-unlawful) firms’, (4) ‘yanzhong weifahu Ϲ䞡䖱⊩᠋/serious unlawful firms’, and (5) ‘wanquan weifahu ᅠܼ䖱⊩᠋/completely unlawful firms’. Contrary to the land-reform movement in which the landlords had to face the wrath of the peasants in mass gatherings (some of them were even beaten to death on the spot), the ‘Five Antis’ movement (that mainly took place in the biggest cities of Shanghai Ϟ⍋ and Tianjin ໽⋹) segregated the capitalists from the workers. While the government sent propaganda teams into the factories to mobilize the workers to disclose the unlawful activities of the firm, it organized the capitalists to hold meetings of ‘criticism and self-criticism’ in posh hotels out of public view. It was the capitalists themselves who agreed to the evaluation of their firms in these meetings. Ninety five percent of all the private firms belonged to the first two commendable categories. Then, the capitalists returned to their firms where a celebration of ‘Victory’ of the movement was held. This was followed up by an all-country movement of converting the private firms into ‘gongsi heying ݀⾕ড়㧹/join state-private ownership’. By 1956, except some small shops and worshops, the private sector disappeared completely in PRC. I must highlight the role played by two eminent Chinese capitalists, Rong Yiren 㤷↙ҕ (1916–2005) and Wang Guangying ⥟ܝ㣅 (1919– ) in this peaceful elimination of the private sector in PRC. Rong Yiren was the Number One capitalist of China before and during the birth of PRC. He played the crucial role of persuading fellow-capitalists in Shanghai to cooperate with the government during the ‘Five Antis’ movement. He was the first to donate all his properties to the state. In 1957, he earned the reputation of ‘hongse zibenjia 㑶㡆䌘ᴀᆊ/red capitalist’ and became the Vice-Mayor of Shanghai. In 1978, he became one of the Vice-Chairpersons of the CPPCC (Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference). In 1959, he was appointed the Vice-Minister of Textile Industry and also the Chairman and CEO of the first-ever Chinese International Investment Company (Ё೑೑䰙ֵᠬᡩ䌘݀ৌ). From 1983 to 1992, he was one of the Vice-Chairpersons of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress

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(China’s parliament). In 1985, he joined the CPC (Chinese Communist Party). From 1993 to 1996, he was the Vice-Chairman (Vice-President) of PRC. The pro-active role Rong Yiren played in Shanghai Ϟ⍋ to ensure the success of the ‘Five Antis’ movement (1952–1956) was played by Wang Guangying in Tianjin ໽⋹. Like Rong Yiren, Wang Guangying was born in a capitalist family, and himself had tried his hand in ‘entrepreneurial spirit’ with considerable success. Unlike Rong Yiren’s family, Wang Guangying’s family had left-leaning politics — four of the eleven siblings were veteran members of the CPC. His younger sister, Wang Guangmei ⥟ܝ㕢 (1921–2006), joined the underground activities of CPC in Beijing, and became an interpreter of Communist China in 1946 with the U.S.A. negotiation team, she joined the CPC and married the CPC leader, Liu Shaoqi ߬ᇥ༛ (1898–1969) in 1948. Wang Guangying shared with Rong Yiren the reputation of ‘hongse zibenjia 㑶㡆䌘ᴀᆊ/red capitalist’ [Rong Yiren received the nickname from Marshal Chen Yi 䰜↙ (1901–1972), the first PRC Mayor of Shanghai and, later PRC’s Foreign Minister while Wang Guangying received it from Premier Zhou Enlai]. For more than six decades, Wang Guangying has had many diplomatic assignments of the PRC, but his repeated request of joining the CPC was affectionately declined — the reason: his non-CPC status would make a greater contribution to China than that of a CPC member. Thus concluded a chapter of early career of PRC what is officially called ‘siying gongshangyede shehuizhuyi gaizao ⾕㧹ᎹଚϮⱘ⼒ӮЏНᬍ䗴/ socialist transformation of the private-ownership industry and commerce’ which is today undone as a historical mistake. PRC committed the mistake of trying to eliminate the private sector to show allegiance to Marx’s bigoted 5-stage social evolution. From the moment China’s ‘capitalist’ (private) sector disappeared (in 1956) to its return with a vengeance from the 1980s onwards,18 PRC had to grapple with the most difficult problem of economic development — how to ‘gaohuo jingji ᧲⌏㒣⌢/enliven the economy’. For more than a decade, there was a great debate among PRC’s decision-makers about the true nature of ‘socialism’.

18 It became a vogue in the 1980s and 1990s that Chinese left their public sector jobs to try their luck as successful entrepreneurs which was called ‘xiahaiϟ ⍋ /going down the sea’.

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Without an ideological mindset, we can leisurely say that ‘socialism’ is not the Chinese dream — the real Chinese dream is make China rich and strong (ᆠᔎ). For those who had the ideological burden, they saw it through a different prism. There was the vociferous mantra chanted by the ‘Gang of Four’ (ಯҎᐂ)19 that ‘We prefer the socialist weeds to the capitalist paddy’ (ᅕ㽕⼒ӮЏНⱘ㤝ˈϡ㽕䌘ᴀЏНⱘ㢫). The mantra was chanted during the most chaotic period of Chinese intellectual history, hence it is difficult to discover the real owner of this intellectual property now. It was chanted when Mao was still alive (albeit a little fatuous), but no one has attributed to Mao for this saying. With the exit of the ‘Gang of Four’ during the post-Mao Era, the great debate also came to an end, buried in Deng Xiaoping’s 䙧ᇣᑇ famous remark that ‘poverty is not socialism’ (䋿かϡᰃ⼒ӮЏН). Deng Xiaoping not only chanted this mantra, but also created the new vogue of ‘zhifu 㟈ᆠ/getting rich’ all over the country with a strategy of allowing a part of the society ‘xianfu ܜᆠ/ getting rich first’, and, then, empowering China to pursue ‘gongtong zhifu ݅ৠ㟈ᆠ/getting rich together’. This strategy signifies PRC’s welcoming back the capitalist class after it expelled them out of the country in the 1950s. Not only capitalists are welcomed back to PRC, they are welcomed back affectionately. They are now designated as ‘you Zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi shiyede jianshezhe ᳝Ё೑⡍㡆⼒ӮЏНџϮⱘᓎ䆒㗙/builders of the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ — without the pejorative title of ‘capitalist’. Meanwhile, The Constitution of CPC has changed its definition from ‘the vanguard of the Chinese working class’ into ‘the vanguard both of the Chinese working class and of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation’ — thus, opening the door for the ‘builders of the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’/the entrepreneurs of the private sector. In 1985, when China’s erstwhile Number One Capitalist, Rong Yiren, joined the CPC, he was shy to publicize his new status as a ‘communist’ while the man who shared his reputation of ‘red capitalist’, Wang

19 The ‘Gang of Four’ that had its heyday in the last years of Mao Zedong Era included the semi-separated wife of Mao, i.e., Jiang Qing ∳䴦(1914–1991), Zhang Chunqiao ᓴ᯹ḹ (1917–2005), Yao Wenyuan ྮ᭛ܗ (1931–2005), and Wang Hongwen ⥟⋾᭛ (1935–1992).

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Guangying, was declined the CPC membership to enhance his contribution to PRC. Today, it is an entirely new scenario that the new entrepreneurs of PRC can cash in the reputation of the CPC and vice versa in the resurgence of PRC’s mixed economy.

PRC’s ‘Red Entrepreneurs’ (㑶㑶㡆ӕϮᆊ㡆ӕϮᆊ) In recent decades, there has been a new glimmer in the Party Congresses of the CPC, viz., the appearance of the representatives of the ‘red entrepreneurs’ (㑶㡆ӕϮᆊ). This is a term apparently with a common denomi- nation — they are ‘entrepreneurs’ and they are ‘red’ (communists). A deeper inquiry reveals two categories of people. One category is, of course, the owners of private enterprises who become members of the CPC. Another category is those veteran members of the CPC who, by virtue of being leaders of a village (or a group of villages), have assumed the status of ‘entrepreneurs’ of collective ownership. They represent the convergence of, indeed, ‘building the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ from various starting points. Let me give two examples of the second category. The late lamented Wu Renbao ਈҕᅱ (1928–2013) was a very unique person. He had very little education, and rose as the secretary of a small party branch of CPC of a poor village, Huaxicun ढ㽓ᴥ of the Jiangyin ∳䰈 County of Jiangsu ∳㢣 Province from 1957 onwards. During the early 1980s, the great majority of the collective (‘People’s Commune’ model) rural institutions had been disbanded. Wu Renbao, as the leader of the village, persuaded the fellow-villagers to stick together and began to establish modern enterprises with collective ownership. Before long, he converted the original 0.96 square kilometre village of 667 people into a unique entrepreneur groupe. Today, Huaxicun’s ‘economic territory’ is 35 square kilometres with a 35,000 population. It has trade and investment connections with abroad, and is virtually a well-known international tourist sight. All original villagers of Huaxicun are now shareholders of the enterprise. In 2010, the turn over of Huaxicun was 51.2 billion yuan (RMB) with a per capita income of 85,000 yuan after tax deduction. Huaxicun has earned the reputations of the ‘first village of China’ and the ‘first village of world’. In the middle of lush green paddy fields, there is the

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prominent 72-storey (taller than the Chrysler Building of New York) five- star posh hotel, the ‘Long Wish Hotel International (啭Ꮰ೑䰙໻䜦ᑫ). Though it still bears the name of ‘Huaxi Village’, Huaxicun is comparable to a modern-day capitalist enterprise, but its ownership remains socialist. It is the ensign of socialist economic development albeit this exemplary ‘Chinese model’ is extremely difficult to duplicate. After the demise of Wu Renbao, his fourth son, Wu Xie′en ਈणᘽ (1964– ) has succeeded him as the Head of Huaxicun, Secretary of the CPC Committee of Huaxicun, and the President and CEO of the Huaxi Enterprise. Many other family members are Party secretaries, and Wu Renbao’s granddaughter, Wu Fang ਈ㢇 is the Vice-Mayor of Jiangyin City ∳䰈Ꮦ (originally the Jiangyin County). Moreover, every member of Wu family is a millionaire capitalist and hence huge sums of capital are at his/ her disposal. Yet, Wu Renbao was recognized, and is still remembered as the ‘most famous peasant of China’. Wu Renbao has erased the differentia- tion between a ‘peasant’ and an ‘entrepreneur’, and between socialism and capitalism. The emergence of Wu Renbao can be described as an avatar of ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ which is the fusion of egalitarian ‘socialist’ principle with the entrepreneurial spirit — Weber’s ‘spirit of capitalism’. I have just now alluded to the prominence of Wu Renbao’s family members in this socialist–capitalist enterprise. There is a strong evidence to show the domination of the noble ‘tianxia weigong ໽ϟЎ݀/ everything is for the public good’ spirit in this enterprise. From 1961 to date, the Huaxi Enterprise has maintained its transparent account books, honestly kept by six consecutive accountants none of whom has been related to the Wu family. In other words, all the economic transactions and cash movements of the Enterprise are above suspicion — completely free from corruption or bribing or any hanky-panky transactions. Any organization of the world that is run in this manner reaches the zenith of clean and selfless administration. Let us take up the second example of Guo Fenglian 䛁޸㦆 (1947– ) who came to the limelight during the rage of ‘nongye xue Dazhai ݰϮᄺ ໻ᆼ/Dazhai as the model of agriculture’ in the 1960s and 1970s. She was one of the top leaders of the Dazhai ໻ᆼ Brigade which was created by the will of Chairman Mao as the example of collectivization for emulation.

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She participated in the 11th Party Congress and was elected as a Candidate Member of the Central Committee of CPC in 1977. In 1980, she left Dazhai to join a research institution for fruit-growth. In 1991, she returned to Dazhai as its Party Secretary and started leading the village into modernization. In 1992, she founded the Dazhai Economic Development Company (໻ᆼ㒣⌢ᓔথᘏ݀ৌ) and became its CEO while she was simultaneously the Vice-Head of the Xiyang ᯨ䰇 County (the higher authority guiding the development of Dazhai). At the height of the ‘nongye xue Dazhai ݰϮᄺ໻ᆼ/Dazhai as the model of agriculture’ vogue, visitors from all over the country came to learn how the peasants there lived and worked. During the post-Mao Era, when the glitter of Dazhai faded, it still attracted tourists, especially those who wanted to revisit history. Guo Fenglian grasped this critical factor and developed some industries, and constructed the Hutoushan 㰢༈ቅ Forest Park to enhance the attraction of Dazhai as a tourist spot which, in turn, increased the economic power and per capita income of the Dazhai Village. In this way, the professional government cadre, Guo Fenglian, became an example of ‘red entrepreneur’. Let me give two examples of the first category of PRC’s ‘red entrepre- ⧗neurs’. First, the famed ‘from-blacksmith-to-billionaire’ Lu Guanqiu 剕ݴ (1945– ) who has a similar status of Wu Renbao’s son, Wu Xie′en ਈणᘽ, and Guo Fenglian 䛁޸㦆 as both the CEO and Party Secretary of one of China’s largest companies in the private sector, has a slightly different road of career development than the other two. While Wu (also his father, Wu Renbao) and Guo are ‘red’ Party leaders first and entrepreneurship later, Lu Guanqiu first distinguished himself as a successful entrepreneur, and his becoming ‘red’ (Party Secretary) was a subsequent development. He was a school drop-out at the age of 15, and began to struggle as a ‘worker’ from 16 onwards. In 1969, he and 6 friends managed to raise a capital of 4,000 yuan and started a primitive workshop repairing agricultural implements. The workshop began to grow under his leadership in a similar spirit of Wu Renbao — making himself and those around him living better. He repeatedly applied for CPC membership and was admitted in 1984. His enterprise grew from strength to strength and he attained the personal status of the CEO-cum-Party Secretary. In 1990, he became the Vice- President of the All-China Association of Entrepreneurs of Township and

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Village Enterprises (Ё೑е䬛ӕϮᆊणӮ), while its President was the Minister for Agriculture, He Kang ԩᒋ (1923– ). Today, Lu Guanqiu 剕ݴ ⧗ is as internationally famous as his firm, Wanxiang Company (ϛ৥䲚 ಶ㨷џሔ), which is regarded as the ‘world leader’ of motor parts producer. In 2001, he bought UAL, a company listed on the NASDAQ. Now he has 26 overseas enterprises. He has reportedly won a bankruptcy auction for the assets of Fisker Automotive, the manufacturer of the Karma plug-in hybrid sports car. 20 Liang Wengen ṕ〇ḍ (1956– ) was sent to an ordnance factory after graduating from the Zhongnan University Ёफ໻ᄺ in 1983. In 1986, he resigned from the job and established a factory with three partners producing solder. The factory developed into the ‘Three-One Group’ (ϝϔ䲚ಶ) producing machinery. In 2007, he had the honour of being the richest person of Hunan ␪फ Province with a personal asset topping 18.8 billion yuan. He had long been wanting to join CPC, the dream realized after 18 years. In 2012, he attended the 18th Party Congress as a representative of the entrepreneurs from the private sector. In 2013, he was honoured as one of the 100 ‘Private entrepreneurs having outstanding contribution to national industry’ (ᇍ⇥ᮣѻϮ䋵⤂ध㨫ⱘ⇥㧹ࡳ࢟ӕϮᆊ). Speaking of ‘red entrepreneurs’ of China, we cannot overlook one name which is somewhat shrouded in mystery. Ren Zhengfei ӏℷ䴲 (1944– ), the founder-CEO of the internationally renowned Chinese company, Huawei ढЎ, is a household name in China. He studied architecture in college and worked in an architecture firm until he joined the infrastructure- engineering unit of the army where he rose from the ranks to the Vice- Director of a construction unit to build a turn-key factory for producing synthetic fibre imported from France. According to reports, his job in the army was pure technical, and he had no military rank. His outstanding contribution to the army project resulted in his participation in the All- China Science Conference in 1978 and the 12th Party Congress in 1982. In 1983, the army disbanded the infrastructure-engineering unit, and Ren Zhengfei worked in a company in Shenzhen ⏅ഇ for a few years. Then, he established Huawei in 1987. The company is now China’s largest telecom

20 See Forbes: The World Billionaires #416 Lu Guanqiu.

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hardware producer with sales of US$29.4 billion in 2010.21 The mystery about Ren Zhengfei ӏℷ䴲 and his Huawei ढЎ Company in India, U.S.A. and other countries is their close connection with the Chinese army for which there is no convincing proof. We also do not know his position in the CPC (even whether he is a card member of the Party) besides the fact that he attended the 12th Party Congress in 1982.

Forbes’ Honour Roll Moving Towards the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ From the narrative above, it is clear that we cannot discuss any rich person of the world without getting information from the renowned Fortune bi-weekly magazine of New York, owned by Forbes, Inc., and its publications online. Decades ago, the realm of ‘Forbes: The World Billionaires’ was completely dominated by people from the Western world. It is still dominated by this set of people, but more and more names of Indians and Chinese (‘citizens’ of India and China) have gained entry in the honour roll of Forbes’ Fortune magazine, especially in the last couple of decades. I consider this new phenomenon as an augury of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ being blessed by Goddess Lakshmi (the Hindu deity of wealth) as a result of laudable performance by the Indian and Chinese ‘entrepreneurial spirit’. Knowing that the names and their rankings would change rapidly, I shall base my discussion on the information as obtained on April 12, 2014. We see among the world’s 100 richest people quite a few avatars of new rising ‘Himalaya Sphere’ whose feats I shall illustrate shortly. I want to exclude the fairly long-standing rich Hong Kong-based Chinese whose cases actually do not belong to the arena of our discourse in this chapter (but are somewhat related to the colonial past of Hong Kong). The people thus excluded are Li Ka-shing ᴢ௝䆮 (world’s 14th richest with a personal wealth of US$34.3 billion), Lui Che Woo ৩ᖫ੠ (ranked 30th with US$21.3 billion), and Lee Shau Kee ᴢܚ෎ (ranked 32 with US$20.4 billion).

21 Forbes: The World Billionaires #193 Ren Zhengfei.

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After such exclusions, we have a picture of the Number One ranking ‘Himalaya Sphere’ entrepreneur in Mukesh Ambani whose world ranking is 29 with a personal wealth of US$22.2 billion, followed by Lakshmi Mittal of world ranking 49 with US$16.8 billion, followed by Azim Premji of world ranking 56 with a personal wealth of US$15.9 billion, ,ᵫ of world ranking 61 with US$15.2 billionع⥟ followed by Wang Jianlin followed by Dilip Shanghvi of world ranking 79 with a personal wealth of US$13.5 billion, followed by Ma Huateng 偀࣪㝒 of world ranking 83 with US$13.1 billion, followed by Zong Qinghou ᅫᑚৢ of world ranking 99 with a personal wealth of US$11.5 billion. These seven Indians and Chinese inject high hopes for the future development of the civilization twins in the cut-throat competitions of our ‘nation-states’ globalized world. Let me briefly recount the respective feat of these seven new heroes. First, Mukesh Ambani’s (1957– ) meteoric rise to fame may be euphorically described as the success of ‘the capitalist cause with Indian characteristics’. He inherited from his late father, Dhirubhai Ambani (1932–2002), a new firm, the Reliance Textiles, established in 1966. The two siblings of the Ambani family, Mukesh and his younger brother, Anil, had a three-year dispute over the property, and finally patched up and split the already famous Reliance into two with Mukesh kept the petrochemicals, oil and gas units along with the flagship company, Reliance Industries, while Anil created a new group called ‘Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group’ and got newer businesses like power, telecommunications, financial services and enter- tainment. Both retained rights to the Reliance name. Today, the combined wealth of the Ambani family could rank second in the world, and Mukesh and Anil have been known as the ‘richest siblings of the world’. Mukesh Ambani’s personal wealth topped US$43 billion in 2008 and ranked him as the fifth richest person of the world, but he remained the richest Indian even when his fortune fluctuated. He not only developed his father’s enterprise, but has considerably expanded it into new fields. He set up the Reliance Communications Limited which is in the forefront of information and communications technology and high tech areas. He created the world’s largest grassroots petroleum refinery at Jamnagar which had the capacity to produce 660,000 barrels per day (33 million tonnes per year) in 2010. His entrepreneurship integrated with

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petrochemicals, power generation, port and related infrastructure. In 2010, he received the ‘Global Vision Award’ from the Asia Society, was honoured by NDTV India as the ‘Business Leader of the Year’, was awarded the ‘School of Engineering and Applied Science Dean’s Medal’ by the University of Pennsylvania, and was recipient of ‘Global Leadership Award’ from the Business Council for International Understanding, Washington. True to his name, Lakshmi Mittal (1950– ) is blessed by the Goddess of Wealth. In 2006, the already powerful steel tycoon, Lakshmi Mittal, bought the important European steel giant, Arcelor (a multi-national firm of Spain, France, and Luxembourg), and established ArcelorMittal with its headquarters located in Luxembourg. It produced 93.6 million tonnes of crude steel in 2012 and became the world’s largest steel producer of the world. Mittal is the Chairman and CEO and owning 38% of ArcelorMittal. He was rated as the 8th richest person in the United Kingdom in 2002, but was not a British national. He maintains his Indian citizenship till date. In 2011, he was declared by Forbes as the 6th richest person on earth. His rank has dropped because of some business loss, but is still one of the 50 richest of the world. ArcelorMittal, under its unique Indian proprietor, Lakshmi Mittal, is a giant Europe-centered global factory of 260,000 employees (2011 figure) 37% of whom are in Western Europe, 14% in North America, and the rest in South America, the Middle East and Africa. The feat of Lakshmi Mittal symbolizes the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ embracing the globe. With the encouragement of the government of ROI, he is expanding ArcelorMittal’s production base in India by setting up a mining enterprise in Jharkhand by investing Rs50,000 crores (nearly US$1 billion). Mr. G Mohan Kumar, Secretary of Steel of ROI, is (at the moment of writing) asking his counterpart in the Coal Ministry to expedite the approval of the project. The state government of Karnataka has already transferred 2,660 acres of private land to ArcelorMittal for its future expansion in India. The world’s 56th rich man, Azim Premji (1945– ), is a Bangalore-based tech-tycoon. In 1966, when he was a 21-years old student at the Stanford University in California, U.S.A., he had to cut short his studies due to the demise of his father, Mohamed Premji and inherit the ownership of a company, Wipro (originally ‘Western India Products Limited’), which had been essentially a manufacturer of vegetable and refined oils. Azim

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Premji’s vision and familiarity with modern enterprises gave a face-lift to the fortune of Wipro in less than half a century. In 1989, Azim Premji started a joint venture with the leading U.S. firm, General Electric Co. (GE) for medical systems and founded Wipro GE Medical Systems Ltd for the manufacture, sales, and service of diagnostic and imaging products. Premji’s made Wipro the sole representative of Sun Microsystems in India in the early 1990s. In 1997, Premji launched the ‘Six Sigma’ initiative for assimilation. Premji made Wipro one of the pioneers of the IT and computing industry during its nascent stages in the 1970s–1980s. While focussing Wipro’s energy on IT, Premji has been doing his best to offer consumer care, lighting, healthcare and infrastructure engineering in India. He has diversified Wipro’s products to include hydraulic cylinders and truck tipping systems, talcum powder and ‘Wipro Baby Soft’ and other baby toiletries, fluorescent lamps, personal computers and laptops. Azim Premji has collaborated with a major global telecom firm, Royal Dutch telecom, to establish a joint venture for providing internet services in India. In 2013, his Wipro Limited was the world’s 7th largest, and India’s third largest IT Consulting and System Integration services company, a huge multi-national company with 900 large enterprise corporations in 61 countries and a working force of 147,000 employees. Azim Premji is reputed to be ‘Asia’s most generous person’ with US$4.4 billion given-away shares. ᵫ (1954– ), is also theع⥟The world’s 61st richest man, Wang Jianlin richest man of PRC. He is a ‘red entrepreneur’, having attended the 17th Party Congress. His father was a ‘Long March’22 veteran. In 1971, he followed his father’s footsteps and joined the army. In 1986, when he demobilized from the army, he was a middle-ranking cadre of an army academy. Now that he has the honour of becoming the richest man of PRC, Wang looked back with satisfaction to say that if he were still in the

The ‘Long March’ (䭓ᕕ) of the Red Army (㑶ݯ) which took place from October 1934 22 to October 1936 is the euphoric term of a strategic ‘Plan B’ that saved the Red Army from total annihilation. Retreating from its guerilla base in the Jinggangshan ѩݜቅ area in Jiangxi ∳㽓 Province, the Red Army, under the new leadership of Mao Zedong ↯⋑ϰ, successfully reached the Yan’an ᓊᅝ caves of Shaanxi 䰩㽓 Province to plan for its resurgence.

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army, he might just rise to the rank of a general which would have been ‘meaningless’. The rise of Wang Jianlin saw the emergence of a new Chinese company named ‘Wanda ϛ䖒’ which started as a state-owned firm in 1991 under his charge. Wang volunteered the Wanda Company as an experiment field for structural reformation and in 1992, the state-owned Wanda Company was transformed into Wang Jianlin’s private Wanda Company. Wang owns 75 department stores, 85 shopping plazas and 51 five star hotels in China today. He also bought the U.S. movie chain AMC, and listed it on the New York Stock Exchange in 2012. Among Wang’s ambitious development projects is to develop an ‘Eastern Hollywood’ (ϰᮍຩ㦅ല) at Qingdao 䴦ቯ(which is officially known as the ‘Movie Industrial Park of the Eastern Movie Capital at Qingdao/䴦ቯϰᮍᕅ䛑ᕅ㾚ѻϮುऎÿ) with an initial investment of 30 billion yuan. Another ambitious project is to build the ‘Wanda City’ (ϛ䖒ජ) at Wuxi ᮴䫵which will become a sort of Disneyland. The world’s 79th richest man, Dilip Shanghvi (1955– ) is India’s third or fourth richest (after Mukesh Ambani and Lakshmi Mittal, but on par with Azim Premji). He is the founder-managing director of Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Limited (which he created in 1983), currently the largest drug maker of India. His Sun Pharmaceutical Advanced Research Company Ltd. (which he created in 2007) is an International pharmaceutical company engaged in research and development of drugs and delivery systems. At the moment of writing, Dilip Shanghvi’s Sun Pharmaceutical Industries is in the process of taking over the famous Delhi-based Ranbaxy Laboratories from Japanese firm Daiichi Sankyo, which may be completed within 2014. When this happens, Sun Pharmaceutical Industries will become the largest pharmaceutical company in India and the 5th largest specialty generics company in the world. We have two more ‘Himalaya Sphere’ members of the world club of ‘100 richest persons’: the 83rd ranked Ma Huateng 偀࣪㝒 (1971– ) and the 99th ranked Zong Qinghou ᅫᑚৢ (1945– ) both Chinese. Quite similar to the success story of founder of facebook Mark Elliot Zuckerberg (1984– ), Ma Huateng owes his success to his website named ‘QQ’ (official name ‘Tencent QQ/㝒䆃QQ’) which is a social media of sorts — also described as ‘China’s answer to AOL’. Ma Huateng’s ‘cell phone Tencent QQ

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network’ (᠟ᴎ㝒䆃㔥) is fitted in most of the smart cell phones in China. Today, you often hear Chinese, especially the young, say to each other ‘Q me!’ just as formerly people say ‘Call me!’ Ma Huateng’s QQ has more than 200 million registered websites, and had 784 million active users doing instant messaging in 2012. Ma Huateng’s web-portals, e-commerce and multi-player online games not only brought him personal fortune, but also created a ‘Q culture’ (Q᭛࣪) in China. Zong Qinghou, as a card member of CPC, qualifies as another ‘red entrepreneur’ of China. He has climbed to top with the Wahaha ࿗જજ Group (official name the ‘Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co., Ltd./ᵁᎲ࿗જ જ䲚ಶ᳝䰤݀ৌ’of Hangzhou) of which he is both the Chairman and CEO. The Chinese name ‘Wahaha ࿗જજ’ connotes the ‘laughing kid’, and the company specializes in producing delicious and nutritious food, especially drinks. In 1989, Zong Qinghou took a critical step towards success by launching the ‘children’s liquid nutrients’ (ܓス㧹ݏষ᳡⎆) targeting the vigorous demand for providing good nutrition in the one-child family society of China. In this way, an exclusive beverage producer like Zong Qinghou bags the honour of the third richest entrepreneur in China in a unique way. As we highlight the seven richest men of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ who belong to the world club of ‘100 richest persons’, we cannot afford to omit a bright star of the Indian business circles, Ratan Tata (1937– ), the progeny of India’s century-old pioneer entrepreneur family — the Tatas. Actually, the TATA Group has been doing well, from strength to strength, although it has been eclipsed by the new generations of enterprises like the Reliance Group of the Ambanis. Twenty-eight out of the Tata Group’s 96 business houses are companies listed in various stock exchanges. It is one of the top 50 business groups of the world. The reason that Ratan Tata’s name never figures in Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires is because the main owner of the ‘Tata Sons’ is not Ratan Tata but various charitable organizations developed and run by Tata Group. Ratan Tata’s loss is the society’s gain. This is the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. Forbes brought out from Beijing a Chinese report entitled ‘2014 Zhongguo dazhong fuyu jieceng caifu baipishu 2014 Ё೑໻ӫᆠ㺩䰊ሖ䋶 ᆠⱑⲂк’ (White paper of wealth of the popular rich strata in China for 2014) on April 16, 2014 in which there are estimated 14 million

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rich entrepreneurs in China in 2014 concentrating on finance, trade and manufacturing. Sixty percent of these China’s nouveau riche fall in the age group between 30 years and 50 years. I do not know whether Forbes brings out similar report on India’s nouveau riche which would provide a good comparison. Through the success stories of these richest Indians and Chinese we see the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ on the move, moving from its traditional leisurely rhythm I illustrated at the outset of this chapter, and moving towards the ‘Anglobalization’ of futuristic development. The sudden emergence of these and a great number of other Chinese and Indian nouveau riche demonstrates the triple potentials of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ civilization twins in holding their grounds and overcoming the challenges of the modern, even post-modern times: (a) China and India are backed up by millennial civilizational wisdom, (b) both countries have a super population base long distinguished by their diligence, intelligence, craftsmanship, entrepreneurship, adaptability and survivability, (c) both countries have the blessings and backing of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ which, as I have hinted earlier, is the land of billions of potential billionaires. In this sense, seven or eight is too small a number to sufficiently demonstrate the limitless extent China and India can achieve in the coming years and decades. In this chapter, I have made a left-handed compliment for the evil genius of the British Empire and for the smooth working of the ‘East Indiamen’-conducted India–China colonial commonwealth to remind readers about the intra-‘Himalaya Sphere’ vitality. These seven success stories have sketched the bright future for our ‘Himalaya Sphere’ in the future to come. Logic and wisdom demand that people of independent India and liberated China are wiser than the British colonizers of yesteryears, and that India and China do better to explore the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ vitality and potentiality. This way we can avoid letting ‘Himalaya Sphere’ down once again, as we did a couple of centuries ago.

PRC Welcoming Back Private Entrepreneurial Energy Infusion A few pages earlier I have related to PRC’s elimination of the capitalist element of the economy in the middle of 1950s. This was followed by the

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gradual return of the new entrepreneurs in the private sector which I have also illustrated. In November 2013, the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of CPC passed an important resolution titled ‘Some Major Issues about Deepening the Reform Comprehensively’ (Ё݅Ё༂݇Ѣܼ 䴶⏅࣪ᬍ䴽㢹ᑆ䞡໻䯂乬ⱘއᅮ) in which a clear picture of China’s economic pattern has emerged. The Resolution, for the first time in PRC history reiterates ‘vigorously develop a mixed ownership economy’ (⿃ᵕ থሩ⏋ড়᠔᳝ࠊ㒣⌢) — while ROI has, from day one, persistently ensured a healthy development of the ‘mixed economy’ (except for a brief period of nationalization of private banks during Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s regime). The PRC scenario, as detailed by the Third Plenum Resolution, is a conglomeration of ‘state-owned capital’ (೑᳝䌘ᴀ), ‘collective capital’ (䲚ԧ䌘ᴀ), and ‘non-public capital’ (䴲᳝݀䌘ᴀ) in a manner of ‘owning shares of one another’ (Ѹঝᣕ㙵) and ‘blending together’ (ⳌѦ 㵡ড়). The Resolution ‘allows’ (encourages) the interaction and interconnection between the state-owned capital and private capital and the creation of more and more ‘mixed ownership economy’. It ‘allows’ (encourages) private capital investing in the projects of the state-owned capital, and the staff and workers of the ‘mixed ownership’ enterprises to become shareholders. In his ‘government work report’ (ᬓᑰᎹ԰᡹ਞ) to the People’s Congress in March 2014, Premier Li Keqiang ᴢܟᔎ said the government will work out detailed procedures for absorbing ‘non-state capital’ (䴲೑ ᳝䌘ᴀ) in the development of such traditionally exclusive state-owned fields like monetary institutions, petroleum, electric power, railway, telecommunication and resources exploration. He mentioned, in particular, the need of reform and opening up of the railway investment policies. We know that China was, in recent years, having an astounding development of railway and fast train transportation, she is having the world’s most ambitious future development plan in it. It is reported that China will sink two trillion yuan investment in the rapid railway transport development in the next 15 years, amounting to an annual average of 130 billion yuan in comparison to the present level of 50 billion a year. The Resolution highlights that ‘the market has a decisive role in allocating resources’ (Ꮦഎ೼䌘⑤䜡㕂Ё䍋އᅮᗻ԰⫼), that ‘direct

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government allocation of resources’ (ᬓᑰᇍ䌘⑤ⱘⳈ᥹䜡㕂) should be drastically cut down, and that the government only plays a role in ‘maintaining macro-economic stability’ (ֱᣕᅣ㾖㒣⌢〇ᅮ), ‘strengthening and optimizing public services’ (ࡴᔎ੠Ӭ࣪݀݅᳡ࡵ), ‘guaranteeing fair competition’ (ֱ䱰݀ᑇゲѝ), ‘strengthening market supervision and management’ (ࡴᔎᏖഎⲥㅵ), ‘ensuring market order’ (㓈ᡸᏖഎ⾽ᑣ), and ‘preventing market dysfunction’ (ᓹ㸹Ꮦഎ༅♉). Apropos President Ronald Reagan’s famous adage, ‘Government is not a solution to our problem government is the problem’, may generate a mixed feeling among Indians, but few Chinese would agree. So far, the PRC government has been far more pro-active not only it ‘direct allocation of resources’, but also various controls of socioeconomic activities of the people. This leads me to the opinions of active commentator and writer, Mr. Gurcharan Das, former CEO of Proctor & Gamble India whose lectures at the University of Chicago I have enjoyed greatly. In an interview with Asia Blog, in the Spring, 2014, he advocated the ‘great need to bring dharma to capitalism’. His latest book, India Grows at Night: A Liberal Case For A Strong State,23 has wished India to grow in daytime, and become a state that takes quick and decisive action with a rule of law to ensure those actions are legitimate and accountable to the people. He observed: ‘While China has to fix its politics, India has to fix its governance. Whoever will do so first, will win the race’. 24 Interestingly, the views of Gurcharan Das seem to converge with those of the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of CPC, viz., the state should be a healthy force to ensure the smooth functioning of a lively market which Das conceives as ‘dharma-in-capitalism’, while the PRC calls it ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’. The Third Plenum shows that China is fixing its politics, while Gurcharan Das wishes that India can fix its governance after the 2014 general election. Both China and India need to renew themselves, re-invent themselves, race against themselves, but not race with each other. The ‘Himalaya Sphere’ needs to catch up with the progress of times, not to tear itself asunder. The

23 Published by Allen Lane (Penguin) of New Delhi, 2012. 24 asiasociety.org/blog/asia/interview-gurcharan-das-dharma-ca ... accessed on April 10, 2014.

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‘Himalaya Sphere’ has billions of potential entrepreneurs, and is surely in a position to enter central stage of the developed world.

The Socialist Cause with Chinese Characteristics A little earlier we have been struck by the unique examples of the ‘red entrepreneurs’ of China who transcend the boundaries between socialism and capitalism. It is from their examples we have picked up the refreshing label of ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ (᳝Ё೑⡍㡆⼒Ӯ ЏНџϮ). The reason for reiterating ‘having Chinese characteristics’ (᳝Ё೑⡍㡆⼒ӮЏНџϮ) combines PRC’s desire to integrate with the Anglobalized world yet loyal to the ‘Chinese dream’ of PRC’s founding fathers who were basically followers of Karl Marx — perhaps with an additional dedication to the ‘Confucian’ idealism of ‘tianxia datong ໽ϟ ໻ৠ/grand harmony all under Heaven’, the Chinese echo of ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam’. I have mentioned earlier, in this chapter, PRC’s futile experiment in mobilizing the ‘entire population/ܼ⇥’ into steel production only to create 8 million ton of steel (with 3 million ton of trash) between November 1957 and December 1958. This episode may be described as pursuing ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ in the wrong way. Then, the Deng Xiaoping Era improved upon the Mao Zedong Era by a novel idea of ‘zhu chao yin feng ㄥᎶᓩ޸/attracting the phoenix by building the nest’.25 ‘Building the nest’ was to modernize China’s infrastructure, while the ‘phoenix’ targeted was the foreign investment. This has been an enduring success story now known internationally. Translating onto the ground, this novel idea has helped sustain the vogue in Chinese 䏃/first build the road, thenׂܜˈknown as ‘yao zhifu, xian xiulu 㽕㟈ᆠ get rich’. Today, the highway network in China is almost as impressive as in the U.S.A. because of this new approach. It is a story of mobilizing the ‘entire population/ܼ⇥’ into, not steel production, but road building. And it is a story of pursuing ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ in the right way.

25 This was a popular slogan among China’s policy-makers during the 1980s.

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Of course, the crucial element in this story is not the road, but the foreign investment — not the nest, but the phoenix — and the integration of socialist PRC into the capitalist Anglobalized world economy. The whole thing has been a story of two experiments. In 1957–1958, there was a failed experiment in pursuing ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’. From 1980s till today there has been a successful experiment of pursuing ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’. The 1957–1958 experiment failed because of PRC’s isolation from the capitalist Anglobalized world economy. The 1980s-today experiment succeeded because of PRC’s interconnectivity with the capitalist Anglobalized world economy. Here, we find the first essential element of pursuing ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ — socialist PRC interconnecting with the capitalist Anglobalized world economy. We see that PRC’s failed experiment of 1957–1958 in pursuing ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ took place immediately after PRC eliminated ‘capitalism’ from China’s socio-economic structure. Then, from the Deng Xiaoping Era till today, we see the glorious return of the private sector not only with ‘capitalism’ but also with a large number of ‘red entrepreneurs’. And, today, the statement ‘vigorously develop a mixed ownership economy’ has been reiterated in the Communist Party document. Here, we find the second essential element of pursuing ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ — socialist PRC embracing capitalist elements for the development of national economy. Neither capitalism, nor socialism, is the goal. It is but the means for providing a better life. Capitalism, especially monopolist capitalism, can provide a better life for only a small minority of the society, whereas socialism has an expansive field for more and more people to prosper. During the Mao Zedong Era, PRC launched the movement of the ‘wufan Ѩড/five antis’ to strengthen socialism — essentially pursuing an ‘anti’ (rich) approach. Deng Xiaoping’s ‘poverty is not socialism’ brought ‘Chinese socialism’ back to the ‘getting rich together’ (݅ৠ㟈ᆠ) track. Today’s PRC is a success story of ‘getting rich/㟈ᆠ’. It is not only the success story of Deng Xiaoping and other not-so-rich famous leaders of PRC (former Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao ⏽ᆊᅱ, was an exception),26

26 There was the New York Times exposure of Wen Jaibao’s wealth on October 25, 2012, which is universally known.

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ᵫ, Maع⥟ but the success story of Wu Renbao ਈҕᅱ, Wang Jianlin Huateng 偀࣪㝒, Zong Qinghou ᅫᑚৢand many other rich Chinese. Let us go back to the famous passage ‘datongpian ໻ৠ㆛’ (Essay on Grand Harmony) of Liji ⼐䆄 (Book of Rites) which I cited in Chapter 1 in which the ideal ‘datong ໻ৠ/Grand Harmony’ was discussed. The discussion was followed up by a scenario of ‘xiaokang ᇣᒋ’ which was not an ideal condition. However, from the 1980s onwards, Deng Xiaoping began to conceive this scenario of ‘xiaokang ᇣᒋ’ as a goal of ‘moderate prosperity’. This goal has been pursued in the past, and ‘quanmian jianshe xiaokang shehui ܼ䴶ᓎ䆒ᇣᒋ⼒Ӯ’ (construction of a society of universal moderate prosperity) by the year 2021 when the CPC celebrates its centenary is now a loudly pronounced goal of the ‘Chinese dream’. There is ambiguity about this ‘quanmian xiaokang shehui ܼ䴶ᇣᒋ⼒Ӯ/universal society of moderate prosperity’. What I understand is that it is not to have China’s per capita GDP reaching the level of moderate prosperity, but there would not be any poor people in the society. Here, we find the third essential element of pursuing ‘the socialist cause with Chinese characteristics’ — socialist PRC pursuing the goal of capitalist middle class for every Chinese.

III. AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT IN THE ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ China has had a glorious agricultural power because of government attention which should trace back to Han Emperor Wen ∝᭛Ᏹ (reigning -BCE) whose ‘zhongnong 䞡ݰ/prioritizing agriculture’ and ‘qin 157–180 nong ҆ݰ/personal participation in agriculture’ policies have become a household word in historical studies. Tourists to Beijing know the famous ’ݰയ/Temple of the God of Agricultureܜ monument of ‘Xiannongtan where emperors used to perform ceremonies of earth breaking and harvesting before the 20th century. The tradition for such ceremonies was created 2,000 years ago by Han Emperor Wen. Though leaders of PRC have not continued such ceremonies, the spirit of ‘zhongnong 䞡ݰ/prioritizing agriculture’ and ‘qinnong ҆ݰ/personal participation in agriculture’ still lives in their policy-making. From its inception, the top-most authority of

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the PRC, i.e., Central Committee of CPC (Ё݅Ё༂) and the State Council of the central government (೑ࡵ䰶) have always issued their joint Instruction No. 1 (ϔো᭛ӊ) on agriculture and rural development. There used to be a propaganda line of the PRC authorities that ‘China has sustained the livelihood of 22% of the world’s population with only 7% of the world’s arable land’ (using 1950s statistics). The cynics today point out that such a phenomenon probably had existed for several hundred years, if not longer, and should not be cited as the achievement of PRC alone.

The Peasantry-Base of the CPC In Chapter 3, I have almost described the Chinese ‘pin xia zhong nong 䋿ϟЁݰ/poor and lower-middle peasants’ as the darling of Mao Zedong just like the working class was the darling of Karl Marx. While the Chinese peasants eulogized Mao as the ‘Saviour Star’ (ᬥ᯳) which is the Chinese folklore version of ‘Bodhisattva’, the PRC relied heavily on the peasants for primitive accumulation for its industrialization programme in the initial stage. This reminds us that during war time, the peasants of the CPC ‘Liberated Areas’ (㾷ᬒऎ) had always given a mighty support to supply the frontline of the PLA (earlier the Red Army) with food grains, even when they themselves lived in poverty. However, in PRC, the peasants have never felt they have been cheated, exploited and betrayed by the ruling Party and government. Chinese peasants have shown such enormous loyalty to the PRC authorities that we do not find duplication in any other country. China, like India, was one time a country of acute grain shortage to feed its own people. As self-reliance was the mantra of Mao Zedong Era, PRC has always been sensitive to foreign criticism that the huge population of China was fed by food grains produced by other countries. The twin strategic pillars of Chinese development during the 1950s and 1960s were ‘yi liang wei gang ҹ㊂Ў㒆/food grain being the keylink (of development)’ and ‘yi gang wei gang ҹ䩶Ў㒆/steel being the keylink (of development)’. The PRC authorities at all levels have been very particular about grain production. This vigorous directive yielded positive results that from mid- 1990s over-production of grains became a problem for the country. PRC produced as much as 466.62 million metric tons of grain in 1995, and

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created a historical record of 512.3 million tons of annual grain production in 1998.27 There is the great news of what is reported in the Chinese media as ‘shi lianzeng क䖲๲/ten consecutive increases’ in China’s food grain production. In 10 years (2004–2013), China’s grain production not only never reduced, but had a growth rate of near 4% which was an outstanding feat judging from the high base of production and the unpredictability of weather changes and the natural calamities. The chart below shows the details:

Annual food grain production of PRC28 (million metric tons)

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 469.47 484.02 498.04 501.60 528.71 530.82 546.48 571.21 589.58 601.94

Just like it has been distinguished as the world’s leading producer of steel for decades, PRC has always been the largest grain producer of the world. In this way, China has not been expelled from the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. An important reason that China has maintained its membership of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ is the relentless effort and dedication of the outstanding Chinese peasant agricultural scientist, Yuan Longping 㹕䱚ᑇ (1930– ), the internationally famous ‘father of hybrid paddy’, who is now in his eighties. For more than three decades, his continuously improved paddy seeds have been popularized in farming not only in China but also abroad. In 2012, this resulted in more than 11 billion kilogram increase in China’s rice production. It is no exaggeration to say that the creativity of Yuan Longping has ensured China’s self-sufficiency in food grain regardless of China’s population growth. Yuan Longping’s creativity deserves recommendation and publicity for many reasons. First, when people think of invention and creation in our times their mindset is dominated by the concept of ‘science and

27 See Tan Chung, Rise of the Asian Giants: Dragon-Elephant Tango, New Delhi: Anthem Press, 2008, p. 57. 28 news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2014.../c_119688266.ht..., accessed on April 17, 2014.

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technology’ which is a monopolized domain of Western civilization. Much of the creative energy in China (so also in India) for the last 60 odd years have been spent in copying the Western advancement in order to put China (so also in India) on the map of ‘advanced countries’. Whether this kind of advancement is really for the good of China (so also in India) in the long run does not seem to be anyone’s concern. Yuan Longping’s creativity is Chinese and non-Western, focussing attention on China’s lifeline of food production and his achievements are directly related to the livelihood of Chinese people. The second point which is related to the first is the unrealistic Chinese dream of a caterpillar seeing its salvation in transforming into a butterfly. The development culture of China is to move away from the millennial rural ambience to create as many New Yorks or Singapores as possible at great cost. China’s salvation lies in multiplying the success story of Yuan Longping a thousand or a million times. Third, China (so also India) is the inventor of ‘rice culture’ as I have discussed in Chapter 1. I would describe ‘rice culture’ as a part of the very existence of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. This perspective makes us view Yuan Longping’s achievement as the life-saver of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. It would be a shame if any time in future that China and India ceases to be substantial rice- producers of the world.

China’s ‘Land to the Tiller 㗩㗩㗙᳝݊⬄㗙᳝݊⬄’ Principle In Chapter 2, I have highlighted the impact of the Buddhist concept of ‘pingdeng ᑇㄝ/upeksa/equality’) on Chinese society. At the nascent stage, the king owned all land in China. Then, private ownership of land was allowed, and land property was considered the safest investment of the rich. The amalgamation of land allowed land ownership in China concentrating in small numbers of families, while the peasants who rented the land of the landlords were bled white by the latter. Chinese peasants were inspired by the Buddhist concept of ‘pingdeng ᑇㄝ/upeksa/equality) rose in rebellion from time to time, but the principle of equality in land ownership was never raised. The first Chinese statesman to advocate the principle of ‘land to the tiller’ (㗩㗙᳝݊⬄) was Sun Yat-sen who could live to the day to see its implementation. The irony was two years after he died in 1925, his successor of the Kuomintang ೑⇥ܮ (KMT), i.e., Chiang

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Kai-shek 㩟ҟ⷇, expelled Mao Zedong ↯⋑ϰ and other communists and triggered the civil war (1927–1937). In Chinese history, this civil war is called ‘tudi geming zhanzheng ೳഄ䴽ੑ៬ѝ/war for land revolution’ with the CPC advocating Sun Yat-sen’s principle of ‘land to the tiller/㗩㗙᳝݊⬄’ and Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT opposed to it. Then, PRC wrote it in its Constitution in 1954 after the country-wide ‘Land Reform’ (ೳഄᬍ䴽) moment, and the KMT government in Taiwan ৄ⑒ also implemented it a couple of years later. While the Taiwan implementation of the ‘land to the tiller/㗩㗙᳝݊⬄’ principle remained smooth, the PRC pursuit has run into trouble. This was largely the making of Mao Zedong who had a passion for novelty. We know that in India, too, there was ‘land reform’, but the economic vulnerability of the peasants could not prevent their land being taken back by old and new landlords reducing them to rural have-nots once again. Mao was keen to prevent this from happening, and he launched a movement after the ‘land reform’ to organize vulnerable peasants into ‘mutual-aid teams’ (Ѧࡽ㒘). Then, Mao went a step further to launch the ‘cooperative -transformation’ (ݰϮড়԰࣪) movement by emulating the Soviet institu tion of the collective farm. Then, he went even further to convert the rural cooperative societies into ‘People’s Communes’ (Ҏ⇥݀⼒) surpassing the Soviet collective farms. What was meant for enhancing the socialist content of Chinese rural institutions, Mao virtually abandoned the ‘land to the tiller/㗩㗙᳝݊⬄’ principle he had enthusiastically expounded with great success. Initially, the serious farming households treasured their long dreamed land ownership and declined to join the ‘mutual-aid teams’ (Ѧࡽ㒘). They were branded as ‘dangan hu ऩᑆ᠋/households going alone’. Here, readers must realize that in PRC, especially during the Mao Zedong Era, the sociopolitical trend has been top-down (unlike India’s bottom-up). Apparently, a movement was launched on voluntary basis (people could decline to join). Actually a massive sociopolitical pressure was built up by the government, the cadres, the activists, and neighbours, even family members who toed the dominant line. Those ‘dangan hu ऩᑆ᠋/households going alone’ could not fight against the tide, and ultimately succumbed. By the way, the so-called land ownership in PRC is compliant to the millennial law that all land of China belongs to the state. When the

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peasants were awarded the ownership of a piece of land that originally belonged to the landlord, they actually obtained the ‘right of utility of the land’ (ೳഄՓ⫼ᴗ), not the ‘right of owning the land’ (ೳഄ᠔᳝ᴗ) which remained with the government. This equation enabled the PRC authorities change the rural institutions at will. Chinese peasants who were virtually alienated from their land rights were unhappy though, in name, they lived in the ‘communist society’ as members of the ‘people’s communes’. There were three disastrous years (1959–1962) combining natural calamities and man-made disasters. After that when life gradually returned to normal, a new phenomenon emerged, viz., farmers did not work sincerely on the Commune land, but nursed their respective little spot around the corner of their houses (called ‘ziliu di 㞾⬭ഄ/allowed private land’) into high-yielding farming showpiece. It was this phenomenon that made the post-Mao authorities of PRC discontinue the institution of the ‘People’s Commune’ and restore the house-hold land ownership of the pre-‘mutual-aid teams’ days. Today, only a small number of pockets in rural China where zealous ‘People’s Commune’ peasants still bind together while some of them, like Huaxicun and Dazhai, are doing quite well. There are other examples as well.

PRC’s ‘Red Villages’ in the Stormy Anglobalization The story of Wu Renbao we saw a few pages earlier is the story of survival of the socialist rural social institutions of PRC in the storm of Anglobalization that has swept China in the last three decades. It is a story of a ‘red entrepreneur’ establishing a ‘red village’ — Huaxicun — in PRC. Huaxicun is just one of hundreds of such villages because we know that from 2004 onwards, every year there has been the honour roll of ‘ten best villages of moderate prosperity’ (Ё೑कՇᇣᒋᴥ) as a result of evaluat- ing hundreds of cases — Chinese villages that can qualify as ‘villages of moderate prosperity’ (ᇣᒋᴥ). If this were the universal phenomenon of PRC, then one of the ‘Chinese dreams’ of becoming ‘a universal society of moderate prosperity’ by the year 2021 would have been materialized. However, there are millions of villages in PRC, and a large number of them are anything but ‘societies of moderate prosperity’. To transform all of them into models of ‘moderate prosperity’ would be a tall order. Yet, from

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the examples of Huaxicun and more as illustrated below we can see bright prospects of China’s rural development. The examples illustrated are of two broad categories. There is the category, like Huaxicun, Nanshancun फቅᴥ, Liuzhuangcun ߬ᑘᴥ, Nanjiecun फ㸫ᴥ, Donglingcun ϰኁᴥ and others, in which Chinese peasants are led by devout communist leaders, have stuck to the socialist road of development of the Mao Zedong Era, while adapting to the changing environment, obtaining dividend from their collective diligence and intelligence, selfless and entrepreneurial spirit, and making where they live a place of ‘moderate prosperity’ amidst serious moral degeneration and environmental pollution in PRC. These villages may be likened to the civilizational oases of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ besieged by the desert of spiritual decadence and environmental pollution of the Anglobalization. Another category consists of the villages which are a part of the anglobalized Chinese cities, where the peasants enjoy a share of the dividend of urbanization and modernization. These villages may be likened to the caterpillar of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ living the ‘butterfly dream’ without, or with minimal agony. I am giving the examples of Tengtoucun ⒩༈ᴥ of Ningbo ᅕ⊶ City of Zhejiang ⌭∳ Province and Changjiangcun 䭓∳ᴥ of Jiangyin ∳䰈 City, Jiangsu ∳㢣 Province as illustration. In the first category, Nanshancun फቅᴥ of the Yantai ⚳ৄ City of Shandong ቅϰ Province is almost a replica of Huaxicun. It used to be four production teams of a commune dismembered after 1978.29 The 800 odd villagers of about 260 households lived in poverty to brave the severe challenges when Deng Xiaoping led the country into Anglobalization. The Party leadership of Nanshancun first developed industries to make the village prosperous. After that, Nanshancun expanded its enterprises to 11 neighbouring villages and established a new prosperous rural area of 4,868 people of 1,566 households with a total asset of 17.5 billion yuan, annual turn over of 12.6 billion yuan (second to Huaxicun’s 51.2 billion) and a per capita income of 15,000 (compared to Huaxicun’s 85,000 yuan). The ‘old’ and ‘new’ villagers of Nanshancun all live in garden-villas with modern amenities, having good jobs, well-educated children, and the

29 A Commune Ҏ⇥݀⼒ was a three-tier organization with Commune Headquarters on top with several Production Brigades ⫳ѻ໻䯳 under it. Every Production Brigades ⫳ѻ ໻䯳 had several Production teams ⫳ѻ䯳 under it.

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seniors enjoying pension and welfare. The ‘new’ villagers of Nanshancun describe themselves ‘being transformed into moderate prosperity from petty peasantry overnight’ (ϔ໰П䯈⬅ᇣݰবᇣᒋ), and ‘one step climb to the devapura/paradise’ (ϔℹⱏϞњ໽ූ). What a story! Such things only happen in the ‘Himalaya Sphere’! There is no mystery about the transformation of the Nanshancun. Its twin-engine to prosperity is industry and tourism — exactly like Huaxicun. The village emulated Huaxicun to form a modern enterprise called ‘Nanshan jituan फቅ䲚ಶ/Nanshan Group’ which runs industries of textiles, aluminium, coal, construction materials, power-generation, wood, architecture, brewery, high-tech, and so on. Tourists find it to be a modern .(township which is popularly called ‘a new city of the peasants’ (ݰ⇥ᮄජ It has an institution of technology named ‘Yantai Nanshan Xueyuan ⚳ৄफቅᄺ䰶/Nanshan College of Yantai’ with 15,000 students — the first-ever college established by a village in China.30 In this category there is also Liuzhuangcun ߬ᑘᴥ of Qiliying ϗ䞠㧹 Town of Xinxiang ᮄе County (now a City) of Henan ⊇फ Province which has risen to fame with its leader, Shi Laihe ৆ᴹ䌎 (1930–2003) who joined the CPC in the first year of PRC, and was received nine times by Chairman Mao Zedong. The fame of ‘Liuzhuang ߬ᑘ’ (meaning ‘Liu village’) was famous during the Mao Zedong Era. But, there was a problem. In 1956, during the rage of ‘cooperative transformation’, Shi Laihe, as the Party Secretary of Liuzhuangcun, defied the instruction of the authorities to merge with neighbouring villages to create a cooperative farm, and kept the village as a small autonomous production team. During the Cultural Revolution, Shi Laihe was branded by the ultra-left leadership as a ‘black model worker’ (咥ࢇ῵), and Liuzhuangcun was criticized for breeding capitalism. Shi Laihe convened a meeting of all the cadres, CPC and Communist Youth League members to debate on the ‘Gang of Four’ slogan of ‘We prefer the socialist weeds to the capitalist paddy’ for three days and nights. There was consensus in the village that the aim of socialism was to expand production by all means — rejecting the ‘socialist weeds’.

30 Readers who know Chinese can google ‘फቅᴥ’ to get this and more information about Nanshancun.

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The downfall of the ‘Gang of Four’ and the prevalence of the ‘getting rich’ advocacy of the Deng Xiaoping Era boosted up the socialist entrepreneurial spirit of Shi Laihe and his Liuzhuangcun which was China’s first village to achieve ‘moderate prosperity’ in 1980. In 2008, the industrial turnover of the 1,600 people village was 1.98 billion yuan and the per capita income after tax deduction was 20,000 yuan plus. Now, all villagers have moved into modern villas of 472 square metres with central air-condition. Children enjoy free education from kindergarten to high school. There is pension for the retired and total free health care.31 Nanjiecun फ㸫ᴥ of Linying Ј乪 County of Luohe ┃⊇ City, Henan ⊇फ Province has a reputation of ‘the first village of communism’ (݅ѻ ЏН㄀ϔᴥ) which is unique. It has another euphoric name of ‘red billion dollar village’ (㑶㡆ғܗᴥ) which combines redness with richness realizing the dream of PRC. Its richness story goes back to the early 1990s when the assets of the village topped 100 million yuan, one of the few Chinese villages to achieve it. But, its history of redness is much longer than that of its richness. During the Mao Zedong Era, the village was greatly inspired by the ‘Mao Zedong Thought’ and dreamed of constructing a ‘tiny communist society’ (݅ѻЏНᇣ⼒Ӯ) locally. The exit of the Mao Zedong Era in late 1970s and Deng Xiaoping’s advocacy of ‘let some people getting rich first’ (䅽ϔ䚼ߚҎܜᆠ䍋ᴹ) all seem a climate change that would chill the enthusiasm of such pursuit. But, the resolve of the villagers of Nanjiecun remained firm. They swam with the tide to start some enterprises to expand the village treasury and continued with their egalitarian distribution system from the beginning to date. It is a fascinating story. In the beginning, the PRC cadres (all those who joined the Party and government services with revolutionary ideas and assigned a job in the establishment) were taken care of according to a system called ‘gongji baogan zhi կ㒭ࣙᑆࠊ/all taking care of supply-system’ in which there was just a little pocket money monthly, but food, clothing and all other expenses of living were provided by the state. What Nanjiecun has been to all villagers is just similar — they call it the distribution system of

31 Readers who know Chinese can google ‘߬ᑘᴥ’ and ‘৆ᴹ䌎’ to get this and more information about Liuzhuangcun.

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‘gongzi+gongji Ꮉ䌘+կ㒭/wage plus supply’. Villagers have work and are paid certain minimal wages. All the grains, meat, cooking oil they need are provided by the village. Housing, education, healthcare are free. Children of the villagers who go out to college are sponsored (financed) by the village. In addition, the village organizes weddings and other celebrations and funerals for the villagers. During festivals, the village sends special food and coupons for enjoyment. The village complex has a cultural park, library, archives, hospital, health club, kindergarten, primary, middle and high school, newspaper, broadcast station and TV station. Every year, there are 400,000 visitors from all over China to see the village.32 In this category, there is also Donglingcun ϰኁᴥ, a village of the Chencang Town 䰜ҧ䬛 of Jintai District 䞥ৄऎ of Baoji ᅱ叵 City of Shaanxi 䰩㽓 Province which is a replica of Huaxicun in western China. The success story of this village is largely due to its leader, Li Heiji ᴢ咥䆄 (1958– ) who combines the honour of a ‘model worker’ and a ‘guan’ai yuangong youxiu minyong qiyejia ݇⠅ਬᎹӬ⾔⇥㧹ӕϮᆊ/excellent private entrepreneur who loves and cares for employees’. His twin-honour arises from his dual role as the Party Secretary and administrative head of the village as well as the Chairman and CEO of the enterprise of the village named ‘Shaanx Dongling Industrial and Commercial Group Shareholder Company Limited’ (䰩㽓ϰኁᎹ䌌䲚ಶ㙵ӑ᳝䰤݀ৌ). He is really not a capitalist (with no asset of his own), but a socialist administrator of PRC. His goal of getting more profit and development for the company is to make all the 210 families and 812 people of the village moderately prosperous. In 2012, the per capita income of the village reached 100,000 yuan, and the average asset of every household was 3 million plus. A special feature of the village is to provide every household two luxurious accommodations of a flooring area between 138 and 168 square metres. Li Heiji’s master plan is to have the income of the village company topping 200 billion yuan by the year 2020. I relate these stories so hurriedly as if everything has been easy and smooth. But, starting an industry is always risky business. I have omitted recounting Nanjiecun’s painful experience in getting investment and

32 Readers who know Chinese can google ‘फ㸫ᴥ’ to get this and more information about Nanjiecun.

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fighting off debt. Li Heiji and his comrades of Donglingcun often times haunted by the fear that their factory might have to shut down. Once, in the 1990s, Li Heiji violated the regulations of the government and the commerce department sealed off his factory. He was facing imminent arrest had not a leader in the authorities showed leniency. Risk-taking has been Li Heiji’s road to success, but he was risking his own social existence and political career for the public good of his village.33 I shall give a couple of examples to illustrate the second category of PRC’s ‘village of moderate prosperity’ (ᇣᒋᴥ). First, Tengtoucun ⒩༈ᴥ of Ningboᅕ⊶ City of Zhejiang ⌭∳ Province has been most famous largely due to its having had prominent visitors like Jiang Zemin ∳⋑⇥ (1926– ) when he was the General Secretary of CPC and Chairman of PRC and many Chinese and international dignitaries. The village was poor decades ago, and poverty was a stigma to the villagers as the neighbouring villages would not allow their girls to marry the youngsters of Tengtoucun, however smart they might be. ‘They won’t find a wife in lifetime!’ That is how the neighbours mocked. Villagers of Tengtoucun, especially the youngsters, decided to wipe out the stigma of ‘poverty’ for the village. For 16 years (1965–1980), they worked hard collectively to transform the fields into level rectangular shapes crisscross by irrigation and drainage channels. This created two positive results. First, the village has high-yielding fields that greatly enhanced production and living standards. Second, a facelift was given to the appearance of the village. This encouraged the villagers to go a step further to renovate their houses and beautify the surroundings by creating lawns and growing flowers both on the land and in the pots. By the turn of the century, Tengtoucun became a place of excellent sceneries with parks, orange orchards, green corridors, landscapes and miniature plants in pots (Ⲛ᱃). Meanwhile, from 1993 onwards, Tengtoucun led the country by creating a village-level environment protection committee. This environmental protection committee of Tengtoucun has zealously guarded the clean air of the village. It has turned down 50 pollution-prone industrial projects in two decades. The government encouraged its efforts

33 Readers who know Chinese can google ‘ϰኁᴥ’ and ‘ᴢ咥䆄’ to get this and more information about Donglingcun.

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by allotting 80 million yuan of grant to embark on three projects named ‘lantian 㪱໽/blue sky’, ‘bishui ⹻∈/azure water’, and ‘lüse 㓓㡆/green’ respectively. For more than a decade, Tengtoucun has been the richest village of the entire province with per capita income exceeding 13,000 yuan in 2012, and earned the reputation of China’s ‘AAAA area for environmental tourism’ as well as one of the ‘10 best natural villages of the world’. The tide has changed, and all pretty girls of neighbouring villages vie with one another to seek the hands of the young men of Tengtoucun. This is, indeed, an interesting and impressive story of economic growth and social change. However, we should not misunderstand Tengtoucun as a flag of anti- industry and anti-modernization. It also, like other ‘villages of moderate prosperity’ has its industrial enterprise called ‘Tengtou Group Company’ (⒩༈䲚ಶ݀ৌ). We see four industrial areas in the village with 60 enterprises producing garments, electronics, bamboo and wood handicrafts, paper-boxes and stainless steel wares. Its products are exported to ten odd countries like Japan, U.S.A., Britain, Italy, and South Korea.34 Changjiangcun 䭓∳ᴥ of Jiangyin ∳䰈 City, Jiangsu ∳㢣 Province, is another example of this category. One special feature of Changjiangcun is its location on the bank of the Yangtse River (Chinese name ‘Changjiang 䭓∳’) at its lower stream. The village utilized this advantageous geography to convert itself into the port of the Jiangyin City, conducive to its industrial growth. Another special feature of the village industry is the ample supply of electric power with eight high-tension transformers ensuring plenty of power. The village started its industry in 1973 and its initial success was commended by Chairman Mao. By 1993, the asset of the village topped 100 million yuan and became the third village of Jiangyin to achieve it. (We note that the flag of PRC’s ‘villages of moderate prosperity’, i.e., Huaxicun, is in the same area.) In 2005, the village invested 500 million yuan to build a port that could be the anchorage of ships of 10,000 tons plus. In 2008, the asset of the village reached 28.9 billion yuan, and its turnover reached 27.8 billion yuan.

34 Readers who know Chinese can google ‘⒩༈ᴥ’ to get this and more information about Tengtoucun.

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From 2006, the village provided fund for every household to buy shares of the enterprise of the village named ‘Jiangsu New Changjiang Industrial Group Company Limited’ (∳㢣ᮄ䭓∳ᅲϮ䲚ಶ᳝䰤݀ৌ) and realized the goal of ‘every family lives in the villa, everyone is a shareholder, and every household has savings’ (ᆊᆊԣ߿๙ˈҎҎ᳝㙵ӑˈ᠋᠋᳝ᄬℒ) which was, then, unique in the country and abroad. In 2010, the village distributed 100 grams of gold and 100 grams of silver to every household to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of the village two years in advance.35 We can make two observations from these success stories of PRC’s ‘red villages’. First, they reiterate the famous Chinese saying ‘where there is a will there is a way’ (᳝ᖫ㗙џコ៤).36 If all the millions of Chinese villages were as dedicated, determined, diligent, intelligent with entrepreneurial spirit, PRC would have been a ‘society of universal moderate prosperity’ (ܼ䴶ᇣᒋ⼒Ӯ) by now. Second, apparently, it looked so easy and smooth for the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ caterpillar in living the butterfly dream which seems too good to be true. A painless metamorphosis of a backward agricultural society into advanced industrial society has never taken place on earth. It is doubtful that this can happen in PRC. It seems that one village’s success is a hundred villages’ failure as we shall see below.

The ‘Hollow Villages’ ぎぎᖗᴥᖗᴥ Victimized by Urbanization These success stories, however, are exceptions. The general trend of Chinese development is the heavy cost of ‘industrialization’ and ‘urbanization’ at the expense of rural development. India has also a similar problem though not yet getting the critical attention it deserves. A particular Chinese phenomenon to note is the repeated reiteration of finding solutions for the ‘sannong ϝݰ/three rural’ problems, i.e., the problems of nongye ݰϮ/agriculture’, ‘nongcun ݰᴥ/countryside’, and ‘nongmin‘ ݰ⇥/peasants’, from the 1960s onwards. This indicates the vulnerability of

35 Readers who know Chinese can google ‘䭓∳ᴥ’ to get this and more information about Changjiangcun. 36 The Latter Han Annals ৢ∝кin the chapter on Geng Yan 㘓ᓛ

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the agriculture, the countryside and the peasants in a country that concen- trates its energy in industrialization and urbanization. During the 1950s, China (so also India) was heavily influenced by the Soviet development model of prioritizing industrial development and according heavy industry the top primacy. The Chinese development strategy in terms of precedence placed heavy industry at the top, light industry in the middle, and agriculture at the bottom. During the beginning of the 1960s and fresh from the disaster of the ‘Great Leap Forward’, Premier Zhou Enlai ਼ᘽᴹ advocated the reversal of the development priority from ‘zhong qing nong 䞡䕏ݰ’ (first heavy industry, then light ,industry, then agriculture) to ‘nong qing zhong ݰ䕏䞡’ (first agriculture then light industry, then heavy industry) along with the slogan of ‘sige xiandaihua ಯϾ⦄ҷ࣪/four modernizations’ — the modernization of agriculture, industry, defence and science and technology, placing the ‘modernization of agriculture’ at the top place. Though the slogan of ‘four modernizations’ and the place of honour for the ‘modernization of agriculture’ has endured till today, the Chinese development strategy has never really placed the agricultural development as well as rural development at any importance largely because of the mindset of the ‘four modernizations’ within which the other three modernizations are closely interrelated while the ‘modernization of agriculture’ is not, hence, left high and dry. Only the ‘modernization of agriculture’ is the flesh and blood of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. The other three ‘modernizations’ are the darling of the Anglobalization. This is tantamount to say that Anglobalization stands in the way for the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ in taking care of its own flesh and blood. A disastrous consequence is the Chinese countryside being ‘drained hollow’ (ぎᖗ࣪). People go to most of the Chinese villages to see the remnants of poverty and backwardness today. Bad roads, shabby houses, schools with dilapidated buildings, poor quality of teaching, ill-equipped medical care facilities and so on. Worse still, virtually all the able-bodied labourers and young women of the countryside have gone to the urban centres to contribute to the creation of the ‘workshop of the world’ that is China, and rural houses have become unoccupied, and the agricultural lands unattended in a large number of places. The ethnographic human existence of today’s countryside of China is described as the ‘liushou budui

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⬭ᅜ䚼䯳/troops left-behind in the rear’ with a badge of ‘unit 386199’ (386199 䚼䯳). This, of course, is a joke, not a true army unit. The three pairs of numbers represent three Chinese festivals. The first double digits ‘38’ represents the ‘March 8 Day’ (ϝܿ㡖), the ‘Women’s Day’ of China. The second double digits ‘61’ represents the ‘June 1 Day’ (݁ϔ㡖), the ‘Children’s Day’ of China. The third double digits ‘99’ represents the ‘September 9 Day’ (бб㡖), the traditional Chinese festival of remembering the dead ancestors — in this case, a dark innuendo of the old folks in the last leg of their life’s journey. When foreign tourists go round Chinese countryside they still see lush green fields signifying booming agriculture. Even in the ‘hollow villages’ agricultural production still receive plenty of human attention. Peasant households still keep their treasured ‘right of utility of the land’ even when someone else are tendering their fields. The structure of Chinese rural economy is called ‘cultivated land under house hold contract’ (ᆊᒁᡓࣙ 㗩ഄ), meaning the state has contracted the ‘right of utility of the land’ to the peasant households and recognized the peasant households allottees as legal owners of the ‘right’. Those who want to cultivate the fields have to rent or buy the ‘right of utility of the land’ from the peasant households. The ‘right of utility of the land’ are still in the hands of innumerable small peasant households, but Chinese agriculture today is managed by three categories of production institutions: (a) small peasant households, (b) family farms (with rented or bought ‘right of utility of the land’), and (c) peasants’ cooperatives. By the end of 2012, there were 877,000 family farms cultivating 13.4% of the total cultivated land of the country. The number of peasants’ cooperatives numbered 689,000 by 2012. The ‘Himalaya Sphere’ civilization twins are trying their level best to develop agriculture and can learn from each other. For instance, China can learn a good deal from India’s ‘white revolution’ and develop milk production and dairy products. For the ‘green revolution’, China, too, is a veteran and excels in irrigated farming. But, it can benefit from India’s expertise in dry land farming, in fully utilizing the rain water. Exchange of high-yielding seeds and farming technology can be mutually beneficial. In short, both countries remain within the arena of mutual blessing, inspiration, encouragement, supporter, and guarantee of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’.

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IV. INDUSTRIALIZATION AND URBANIZATION IMPACTING ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ The rise of China and India today is good news, but it is not Tagore’s we-follow-our-own-destiny approach, it is not the destiny of ‘Himalaya Sphere’, but a devious road of development pushed by the Anglobalization. If left to itself, the agriculture-oriented ‘Himalaya Sphere’ would never have opted to the Anglobal industrial development which is basically hurting Mother Earth — amounting to depravation of the innate spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. I would even go a step further to describe the zealots of industrialization and urbanization as living the ‘butterfly dream’, leading China and India to endure the agony and affliction of the caterpillar- butterfly metamorphosis — becoming a chrysalis before emerging as a butterfly. I support the option for butterfly-dream industrialization not because I like it, but there is no alternative for China and India. Can 40% of humanity still dally in the 18th century mode of production and lifestyle, while the rest of the world ferried to the yonder shore of the 21st century? The ‘Himalaya Sphere’ has to be carried to the 21st century as well whether willingly or by duress.

Industrialization and Urbanization of China by Duress I was eye-witness to China’s development strategy being hijacked by the Westphalian Regime. I visited China in 1988 when there was great political confusion. After Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev put down the price of the fate of the Soviet Union to bid for the Nobel Peace Prize, his Chinese counterpart, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Zhao Ziyang 䍉㋿䰇(1919–2005) who was not much a socialist to begin with, encouraged the production of a TV documentary film titled ‘He shang ⊇⅛/elegy of the Yellow River’ which basically condemned the ‘Yellow River/yellow earth Civilization’ (咘㡆᭛ᯢ) and wanted China to transform into a ‘Blue Ocean Civilization’ (㪱㡆᭛ᯢ). In the documentary, a picture of the 19th century British East India Company ship was shown as the icon of epoch-making progress. I had done much research about that ship nicknamed the ‘East Indiaman’ and my heart caught fire by anger.

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I told my Chinese friends that the ship the ‘He shang ⊇⅛/elegy of the Yellow River’ documentary was highlighting was the most notorious pirate ship on high seas for centuries, and a modified version of that ship was the old faithful of British ‘Gunboat Diplomacy’ that had ruined China. Soon after that there was the June 4 tragedy in 1989 and the dismissal of Zhao Ziyang 䍉㋿䰇. The spirit of Chinese civilization is typically described as ‘A tree may be as high as thousands of feet, its leaves fall back to its root.’ (ᷥ催गϜ, 㨑৊ᔦḍ) In this documentary ‘He shang ⊇⅛/elegy of the Yellow River’ we find the idea of wipe the Yellow River (Huanghe) valley from the earth and load millennial Chinese civilization on the notorious ‘East Indiaman’. This would never have been from a genuine Chinese mind, but the voice of a virus masquerading a Chinese intellectual in the PRC. That there was the force of sabotage to the healthy development of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ is beyond doubt. PRC was forced to the corner mercilessly. As I have mentioned some pages earlier, China was forced onto the GDP-obsessed fast-track of economic growth in order to maintain sociopolitical stability — in other words, avoiding the beaten track of the Soviet Union. It symbolized the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ being pushed into the arms of Anglobalization in order not to be destroyed by it — like communist Russia was. Thus, communist China is under duress to adopt the present mood and pace of industrialization and urbanization. This is more of a calamity than celebration for PRC and for the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. One factor which accentuated China’s animation of industrialization and urbanization was PRC’s top-down governing pattern. In order to be efficient, PRC encouraged increasingly larger and larger development zones led by a mega-city as what is called ‘longtou 啭༈/dragon head’. The most famous examples are the ‘Changjiang sanjiaozhou jingjiqu 䭓∳ϝ㾦 ⌆㒣⌢ऎ/economic zone of the Yangtse delta’ led by Shanghai (which is a great success in hastening the development of Zhejiang ⌭∳ Province), and ‘Zhujiang sanjiaozhou jingjiqu ⦴∳ϝ㾦⌆㒣⌢ऎ/economic zone of the Pearl River delta’ led by Guangzhou, integrating the two ‘special economic zones’ of Shenzhen ⏅ഇ and Zhuhai ⦴⍋. The Yangtse Delta Zone is regarded as the ‘first pole’ (㄀ϔᵕ) of Chinese economic development and the Pearl River Delta Zone the ‘second pole’ (㄀Ѡᵕ). There is an

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intention to create the ‘third pole’ by combining Beijing ࣫Ҁ, Tianjin ໽⋹ and Hebei ⊇࣫ Province which is not as smooth as the creation of the first and second ‘poles’. Another factor which accentuated China’s animation of industrialization and urbanization was the internal ‘competition’ within the PRC authorities. More industries and urban constructions would mean more feathers on the caps of the governors, hence province raced with province, city raced with city in new projects of industrialization and urbanization till they burst at the seams. On the one hand, the PRC development strategy is to build mega-urban centres with enormous economic power and using such centres (especially Shanghai, Guangzhou and the Beijing-Tianjin combination) to galvanize regional development; on the other hand, these powerful economic centres possess enormous attraction to humans and wealth of the country. As a result, cities of enormous population have emerged.

Super Urban Centres of China and India As the number one superpower of population, China now tops the world in mega-cities. Shanghai with a huge permanent population of 13.6 million living in its central areas attracts simultaneously about 10 million floating population. So does Beijing with 21.5 million people, 8 million of whom are not permanent residents. Next come Guangzhou with 6.8 million, Tianjin with 5.7 million, Wuhan with 5.7 million — all of them attracting several million floating population. The bad news is these and some other big cities are facing an uncontrollable population growth. In January 2014, the Beijing Municipal government issued an alarm that there is the need of another Beijing city in 10 years to accommodate the ever-increasing population growth. Though much smaller (about a third) in territory than China, India is fast catching up China as the most populous country. The Indian picture of over-urbanization is similar though, more due to popular movement and mobility than the design of the government. According to semi- official sources, metropolitan Mumbai, the biggest city of India, is home for 18.4 million people making it one of the biggest cities, if not the biggest, of the world. Delhi, not far behind, is home for 16.3 million. Kolkata,

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with its suburbs, accommodates 14.1 million. These three mega-Indian cities are competing with China’s Shanghai and Beijing for crowded streets and market places as well as traffic jams. Chennai (with 8.7 million), Bangalore (with 8.5 million), Hyderabad (with 7.7 million), Ahmedabad (with 6.4 million) are not far behind. With seven mega-cities, India is even more urbanized than China in a sense. India is a free-country and Indians are free to live anywhere as they wish. China, on the other hand, has had a ‘hukou ᠋ষ/residential registration’ system which is centuries old. For two thousand years, the Chinese government has been maintaining a register of the number of ‘hu ᠋/ families’ and ‘kou ষ/people’ of the country. The unprecedented efficient administration of PRC has maintained this population-register fairly well, and succeeded in restricting horizontal mobility of people especially from the countryside to the city. This control was broken by the huge exodus of surplus rural labourers into the cities during the sort of ‘gold rush’ after Deng Xiaoping enunciated the ‘Reform and Opening Up’ to help create the ‘workshop of the world’. On the Indian side, we have to take note of the large number of illegal immigrants into India from Bangladesh, which is to the tune of several hundred million over the years. Most of these Bangladesh illegal immigrants have settled in Kolkata and Delhi. The municipality of Mumbai has distinguished itself for the ‘BEST Undertaking’ which is the acronym of ‘Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking’. But, in recent decades, international scholars have been busy studying the collapse of Mumbai’s municipal administration. This transformation from ‘BEST’ to collapse underlines the serious consequence of urbanization in India. Yet, the municipal administration of Mumbai is not more chaotic than that of Kolkata and Delhi. There are two fundamental contradictions causing chaos in India’s mega-city urbanization. First, there is a contradiction between the old and the new. All the mega-cities of India have developed through expansion and renovation. Delhi, for instance, has expanded beyond the traditional limits of the ‘Delhi state’ into the territories of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh. The old administrative rhythm is broken, while a new rhythm is yet to emerge. Second, there is the contradiction between the demand and supply of public utility facilities and government provision of administration,

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security, and welfare. Corruption and inefficiency on the part of government officials add injustice to injury. Mega-cities create acute problems for accommodation and transportation. Solutions to these problems in India which is a democratic country are routed through popular channels than government planning. Being a resident of Delhi for more than four decades, I knew two kinds of popular channels of urbanization that helped resolve the accommodation problem. One, which is with the blessings of the municipal authorities, is cooperative housing with land provided by the government at very nominal rate, while one hundred people forming a ‘housing society’ to build their collective home. Another which is rather illegal with people occupying unused public land and building houses on it. The government is reluctant to evict and demolish, and the unauthorized colonies ultimately get legalized by the state legislature in course of time. For the solution of the transportation problem of Delhi, we see a combination of efforts both from the government and the populace. We see also an array of metro-trains, buses, cars, motorcycles/scooters, scooter-rickshaws, and cycle-rickshaws in addition to bicycles as means of transportation. Urbanization in India has a universal outlook, but also has Indian characteristics. It creates first-generation city-dwellers, first generation urban property-owners and car-owners, first generation car-drivers. Modern and posh houses emerge, but some house-owners still ask the kids to use the open space as toilet like the villagers do. People decorate their new cars like villagers decorate their new cows or buffaloes. Many of the cars have an over-decorated rear window so much so that the driver cannot see the rear view from the mirror — a serious traffic hazard. Lane-discipline cannot be enforced, and every two-lane road carries five-line traffic on crowded roads. Traffic is not stopped by red lights at junctures, where the policeman is rarely seen. Stray cows still wander on speedy roads. More disturbing is the marriage procession after dusk transforming the entire road into a dancing floor. Labourers bath on the pavement during the day and sleep on it at night. The description of Bob Marley’s ‘Concrete Jungle Lyrics’ is absent. The phenomenon of ‘concrete jungle’ presents itself in Chinese urbanization, which shows more order and government efficiency. There is an element of excessive administration and regulation erasing the human face. Roads are too wide that the elderly pedestrians cannot cross within

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the green light’s duration. Cars do not stop before street-crossing pedestrians. Chinese cities are described as “urban centres where humanity is missing” (ⳟϡ㾕Ҏⱘජ䬛) meaning too ruthless to accommodate human considerations. There are increasing complaints by the urban residents that ‘urban centres are unsuitable to live’ (ජ䬛ϡᅰሙ), that they are ‘monotonous’ (ग㆛ϔᕟ) and ‘life is boring’ (⫳⌏ऩ䇗), municipal utilities for the public are wanting, traffic is too crowded, and environment deteriorating. Two thirds of China’s 600 odd big cities suffer from water shortage, while 100 of them from acute water shortage.

China’s ‘Nongmin Gong ݰݰ⇥Ꮉ⇥Ꮉ/Peasant Workers’ Problem The greatest sociopolitical problem of China’s urbanization is the phenomenon of exodus of ‘nongmin gong ݰ⇥Ꮉ/peasant workers’, i.e., the rural population who flock the urban centres as labourers. Their numbers exceeded 250 million by the end of 2011 (30 million of them are whole- family migrant labourers). This phenomenon grew with the unfolding of the Deng Xiaoping model of ‘Opening-up and Reform’ and China’s failure-to-success metamorphosis. While the countryside remained relatively quiet and inactive, some of the coastal areas, especially Guangdong ᑓϰ Province was geared up to play the role of the ‘workshop of the world’. Labourers were in great demand in these areas, while they were in surplus in the countryside. The demand of labourers in the mushrooming urban centres has been multiple. First, China has paid great attention to infrastructural constructions, especially good roads, to attract foreign investment. This made innumerable construction teams from rural China to work on the construction sites in the urban centres. Then, the new factories demand workers most of whom come from the countryside. Rich and old city dwellers need the countryside to supply domestic servants and house nurses. Then, new towns and townships demand service sectors like hotels, restaurants, recreation centres and so on, and create employment opportunities for the migration population. From early 1980s onwards, wave after wave of this migration population surged from China’s countryside into her cities without respite.

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/From 2010 onwards, the demographics of China’s ‘nongmin gong ݰ⇥Ꮉ peasant workers’ community underwent a transformation from the first generation into the second generation, viz., increasingly dominated by those who were born after 1980, and the characters of the new generation were fairly different from those of the old generation. On the whole, the new generation is more adaptable to urban lifestyle and more eager to become urban dwellers. However, the overall policy of PRC still discriminates against the nongmin gong ݰ⇥Ꮉ/peasant workers’. Initially, they were not allowed to go‘ for the residential registration called ‘hukou ᠋ষ’ (literally ‘door and mouth’) of the urban centres which has been the rule of the PRC from its establishment. This non-registration as permanent city residents means exclusion from the welfare system enjoyed by the citizens. In recent years, the rule has been relaxed a little bit and today more than a 100 million long-time city-dwelling nongmin gong ݰ⇥Ꮉ/peasant workers’ have obtained ‘chengzhen hukou ජ‘ 䬛᠋ষ/city resident’ status. Even after they became the new ‘citizens’ they have been discriminated regarding employment, housing, medical care, education of children, and social security measures. In the past, such discrimination was generally tolerated by the older generation as their very aim to work in the cities was to earn more than what they could get at home so that they could remit money home to let their children live better and have a better -future. Now, the new generation of the ‘nongmin gong ݰ⇥Ꮉ/peasant work ers’ — the very hope of the older generation who cherishes the ambition for a better future and wants to merge into the mainstream of the urban crowd — does not have the same patience. Not only this generation lacks the enormous patience and ability to endure hardship as shown by the first generation, but also their anguish of not fulfilling their personal dreams of working in the cities often turns sour. /Also, many of the second generation of the ‘nongmin gong ݰ⇥Ꮉ peasant workers’ have grown up in the countryside as ‘liushou ertong ⬭ᅜܓス/house-keeping children’, viz., in the rural environment under the care of grand-parents or relatives, while their parents worked in the /cities. When they entered the cities to become the ‘nongmin gong ݰ⇥Ꮉ peasant workers’ themselves, they immediately plunged into a kind of ‘cultural gap’. All this contributed to the increasing crime rate among the nongmin gong ݰ⇥Ꮉ/peasant workers’ and the social tension between‘ them and the local urban population.

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There is also an acute family/marriage problem of those ‘nongmin gong ݰ⇥Ꮉ/peasant workers’ who have to leave their wives behind in the countryside. During the long duration of separation with their spouse, they formed their temporary homes in their work places, and created the phenomenon of ‘linshi fuqi Јᯊ໿ྏ/temporary husband and wife’ (its total number has exceeded a hundred thousand) which is not a small social issue in present-day China. Legally, such a ‘marriage’ (even if it is just co-habitation) violates the law. Socially, it corrupts morality. The authorities have maintained a non-interference attitude, and the media are hot and hostile. Ultimately, women would be victimized by this abnormal phenomenon more than men. There is an episode showing how government efforts in helping alleviate the difficulties of ‘peasant workers’ have not been able to succeed. In 2005, the authorities invested 75 million yuan (of Chinese currency, RMB) and constructed a residential complex (of 13 six-storey buildings and a total of 600 residential units) especially for the 300,000–400,000 ‘peasant workers’ of Changsha 䭓≭, the capital city of Hunan ␪फ Province. The buildings are modestly luxurious in a scenic ambience with sufficient facilities (including health spar), while the monthly rent is only 70 yuan which is the daily rate of a very cheap hotel. After nine years, only one of the 13 buildings has become residence of the ‘peasant workers’. The other 12 have had no ‘peasant worker’ takers for whom they were built. Some of them were used for other purposes, some were even sold out to buyers who could afford. The project which was announced nearly a decade ago amidst fanfare as a ‘minxin gongcheng ⇥ᖗᎹ⿟/project to win the hearts of people’ for the ‘bianyuan ren 䖍㓬Ҏ/marginalized people’ has ended mutely. On the one hand, comfortable accommodations were built for the marginalized ‘peasant workers’ could not find takers while, on the other, the ‘peasant workers’ who deserved to be accommodated with certain comforts and security prefer to live in shanty houses near their work-places. This paradox reveals the real difficulties in living in urban centres, especially big cities. The conditions of accommodation account for only a part of the problems the citizens face. Transport expenses, marketing facilities, and social environment and so on are other factors. Such complications under- line the difficulties in introducing the ‘human face’ factor into the social engineering of urbanization in a traditionally rural society like China.

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Chinese Cities Blanketed by Hazardous Haze 䳒䳒䴒䴒 Whereas there has been no dearth of pious intentions on the part of PRC’s policy planners and governors, we hear the complaint of ordinary Chinese today: ‘Poison in the air of the sky, poison in the water of the rivers, poison in the soil of the earth, poison in the dishes on the table’ (໽ぎЁݦⴔ ↦⇨ǃ⊇⌕Ё⌕ⴔ↦∈ǃೳຸЁᬷⴔ↦㋴ǃ令ḠϞᨚⴔ↦㦰).37 This is how the common people describe the environment they live in or feel/ fear they are living in China today. I want to highlight the problem that has devastated the morale of the common people in big urban centres in the last couple of years — the problem called ‘wumai 䳒䴒/fog and haze’. From 2011 onwards, hazardous haze began to blanket China’s cities, especially Beijing, Shanghai and also Shenyang ≜䰇 in the northeast. The haze was formed by airborne particles known as ‘PM2.5’ which is harmful to health. The U.S. Embassy in Beijing has been monitoring the air and issuing out warning bulletins for years while the Chinese government initially did not take it seriously. Great 11th century Chinese poet Su Shi 㢣䕐 /Su Dongpo 㢣ϰവ (I have alluded to in Chapter 1) left behind a famous description of Chinese environment:

A brilliant shine Of the sun white, Floating clouds there Vacate the clear sky Automatically. (ⱑ᮹ϔ✻ˈ⍂ѥ㞾ᓔ)38

But, residents of Shanghai and Beijing (and other Chinese cities) can only understand these words pedantically, not from real life today. Occasional visitors, like me, to Shanghai and Beijing hardly see the sun,

37 See Jia Weilie 䌒ि߫, ‘Quanshehui hangshi “qingjie xiaofei”guan ܼ⼒Ӯ༃ᅲĀ⏙⋕⍜ 䌍ā㾖’, in Huanqiu shibao ⦃⧗ᯊ᡹ (Global Times), March 14, 2014., accessed online on March 12, 2014. 38 From Su Shi’s 㢣䕐 poem, ‘He duanming qi 䌎ッᯢਃ’ (Benediction for virtue and enlightenment).

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let alone blue sky. In 2013, the complaint from the press reports I read and from people I met was particularly vocal. A friend who teaches in Tongji University ৠ⌢໻ᄺ, Shanghai, told me: ‘I was travelling from Shanghai to Nanjing completely under the hazardous haze. As a mother I began to worry about the next generation: What kind of life is in store for them?’ Chairman Mao Zedong’s signature poem ‘Xinyuanchun·xue ≕ು᯹·䲾’ (Snow — in Xinyuanchun tune) is being paraphrased in various cities into ‘Xinyuanchun·mai ≕ು᯹·䴒’ (Haze — in Xinyuanchun tune). In March 2013, a scientist recited the Beijing version of the paraphrased verse when the newly elected Chinese leader, Xi Jinping д䖥ᑇ attended the scientists’ group discussion of the first plenary conference of the 12th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and drew laughter from the delegates and reporters in the room. Mao’s ‘Snow’ poem was compose when he was flown by a U.S. military plane from the Yan’an ᓊᅝ Caves to Chongqing 䞡ᑚ to participate in the peace talks with Jiang Kai-shek 㩟ҟ⷇. It was his first sky-view of the landscape of the frozen north China as he rhymed (my translation):

Rivers and mountains What a charming bride! Countless braves have vied For her with ravenous eyes. (∳ቅབℸ໮࿛ˈᓩ᮴᭄㣅䲘ゲᡬ㝄)

The Beijing version of the paraphrased verse changes this into:

Fog and haze What a hazardous sky! Countless beauties have put on Gauze masks below their eyes. (ぎ⇨བℸ㊳㊩ˈᓩ᮴᭄㕢ཇ᠈ষ㔽)

The mockery is vivid. In January 2014, the Indian press, led by The Times of India, published some comparison between the air pollution of the capitals of India and China — New Delhi and Beijing respectively.

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There was difference in opinion about which was more polluted and which was more determined to tackle the problem. Whatever it may be, there is no denying the deterioration of the charm of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ because of industrialization and urbanization. On March 13, 2014, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang ᴢܟᔎ said in his press conference after the conclusion of the second plenary session of the 12th People’s Congress that the Chinese government had declared war against ‘wumai 䳒䴒/fog and haze’. ‘We are not declaring war against our Heaven God’ (ϡᰃ䇈৥㗕໽⠋ᅷ៬), he clarified, ‘but to declare war against our own crude production-mode and lifestyle’ (㗠ᰃ㽕৥៥Ӏ㞾䑿㉫ᬒⱘ⫳ѻ੠⫳⌏ᮍᓣᴹᅷ៬). We look forward to the early return of bright horizons of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ in the near future.

V. SORTING OUT INTRA-‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ PROBLEMS Our ‘Himalaya Sphere’, that is ‘created by Heaven and constructed by Earth’, is not for Humanity to deconstruct and destroy. Theoretically, we can blame ‘Anglobalization’ for leading ‘Himalaya Sphere’ down the garden path, but no longer is India a subaltern-partner of Anglobalization, nor is China. Thus, when we say the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ has embarked on a devious road of development by duress, we are reproaching China and India as the culprit. They have failed to protect ‘Himalaya Sphere’ and to translate the millennial spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ to the ground reality of China–India relations today. Our world seems to be too ruthlessly realist- oriented to pay respect to the civilization element in international relations. We must right this wrong immediately. While doing it, several issues need to be put in proper perspective.

Controversy of the Tibet Issue The PRC achieved unification within the boundaries of China. The so-called ‘Tibetan buffer’ between China and India automatically disappeared. There is an international controversy about whether the Chinese government authorities actually controlled Tibet after it was integrated into China during the Yuan Dynasty ܗᳱ(1271–1368). Tibet was part of

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China, de facto or de jure. For instance, Wikipedia’s entry on ‘Tibetan sovereignty debate’ quotes the present Taiwan government’s maintaining a cabinet-level ‘Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Commission 㩭㮣ྨਬӮ’ and Chiang Kai-shek’s claiming Tibet as ‘a part of Chinese territory’ after being exiled to Taiwan as a proof of the overall position of Tibet as an inalienable part of China. From the civilizational perspective, the controversy is even more meaningless. The special culture and lifestyle developed on the Himalaya/Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau had always been a unifying, not dividing factor between the two civilization twins of India and China. The overall trend of history is Tibet’s eagerness in integrating itself into rather than seceding from China. Though there was war between the Yuan (Mongol) army and Tibetan army, the Tibetan authorities maintained quite good relations with the Yuan imperial court. In fact, during the Yuan/Mongol and Qing/Manchu dynasties, Tibet was most deeply integrated with imperial Chinese authorities and enjoyed a high social and cultural status in China. Tibetan was one of the four official languages (Manchu, Chinese, Mongol, and Tibetan) of the Manchu imperial court. In addition, the two Dalai Lamas 䖒䌪୛௯, i.e., the 5th Dalai, Lobsang Gyaco 㔫ḥ௝᥾ (1622–1682), and the 7th Dalai, Gaisang Gyaco Ḑḥ௝᥾ (1720–1757), became political rulers of Tibet because of the powerful backing of the Manchu rulers. Tourists who visit the Potala Palace Ꮧ䖒ᢝᅿ can see the imperial order to Dalai Lama issued by the Manchu Emperor Qianglong ђ䱚ⱛᏱ (reigning 1735–1795) and the Tibetan copper coins bearing the name ‘Qianglong ђ䱚’, which were issued by this Chinese emperor’s order for special circulation in Tibet. The central authorities of Ming Dynasty ᯢᳱ (1368–1644) in between the Yuan/Mongol and Qing/Manchu dynasties were relatively weaker than the two foreign-blood regimes before and after it. At that time, Tibet was a divided country without a single unifying authority. During the early years of the Ming Dynasty, the imperial government at Nanjing फҀ more or less maintained the kind of sovereignty over Tibet like its Yuan/Mongol predecessor. As the central government was less powerful than before in enforcing this sovereignty, it showed a special gesture of welcoming the Tibetan local political-cum-religious leaders to pay respects to the Chinese emperor and asked the local governments en-route between Lhasa and

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Nanjing to extend hospitality to the travelling Tibetan ‘tributary’ groups. In the beginning, these groups had only 30–40 people a year. In the 1450s, the number increased to 2,000–3,000, resulting in complaints from the local governments to the imperial court. Consequently, Ming Emperor Xianzong ᯢᅾᅫ (reigning 1464–1487) had to issue an order in 1465 restricting the frequency of the Tibetan ‘tributary’ missions to once in three years. In addition, the size of a mission could not exceed 150 people, and the rank of the mission leader should not be lower than ‘guoshi ೑Ꮬ/ rajyaguru/state-ranking master’. The order was repeated by him and also subsequent Ming rulers. 39 Then there is Zhou Xiyin’s ਼䫵䫊 theory that the celebrated ‘Great Yu’ (໻⾍), the most reliable Chinese ruler who can be picked up among so many ‘cultural heroes’ in legends was, by racial origin, a Qiang 㕠, the parent race of the Tibetans. When we look at the problem in contemporary politics, it is a problem of China’s internal development albeit complicated by the cold war atmosphere of our ‘nation-states’ world. An illustration of the cold war interference in this conflict was the formation of the dare-devil guerrilla force called in Tibetan ‘mdo stod chu bzhi sgang drug bod kyi bstan srung dang blangs dmag’ and in Chinese ‘Sishui liugang wei-Zang zhiyuanjun ಯ∈݁ቫि㮣ᖫᜓݯ’ (the Four Rivers, Six Ranges Tibetan Defenders of the Faith Volunteer Army) trained and financed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in collusion with the refugee Kuomintang government in Taiwan. President Nixon’s order in 1974 terminated assistance and ended this chapter. The reader will notice that the mainstream of Indian politics led by Nehru and his followers stood firmly on the side of China on the question of Tibet. Nehru overruled his conservative colleague, Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel’s strong opposition, and renounced British Raj’s special rights in Tibet. He earnestly hoped for a conciliatory process of unification of China. In his debate with Patel, Nehru also brushed aside the latter’s observation that ‘Even though we regard ourselves as friends of China, the

39 See Zheng Qin 䚥⾺ (ed), Ershiliu shi da cidian Ѡक݁৆໻䆡݌ (the great dictionary of the 26 dynastic annals) Volume on ‘dianzhang zhidu ݌ゴࠊᑺ/laws and systems’, Changchun 䭓᯹: Jilin People’s Press ঢ়ᵫҎ⇥ߎ⠜⼒, 1993, pp. 995-996. See also www.wxyysy.com/ebook/hotup.asp?id=52772.

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Chinese do not regard us as their friends’. He was full of confidence that ROI and PRC could become close friends. Nehru played an unseen role in ensuring Dalai Lama’s trip to Beijing for peace talks via India in 1954.

The ‘Boundary Dispute’, the Cancer of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ With a ‘Himalaya Sphere’ perspective it is highly ludicrous, simply insane, to cut the sacred Himalaya asunder by dividing it into ‘Indian territory’ and ‘Chinese territory’. Yet, such a stupidity is being pursued by our contemporary posterity of the great civilizations of the East on both sides of the Himalaya. There cannot be any honourable justification for such a stupidity except to show that we Chinese and Indians are more loyal to the European spirit of ‘divide and rule’ than the Europeans themselves. In fact, there is almost no European loyal to the European spirit of ‘divide and rule’ now. Today, in the European Union, borders are virtually meaningless. Anyone can crisscross its length and breadth with an ‘Intercity’ Rail Europe pass, speaking English and spend with an American Express credit card with considerable ease. For millennia there was no boundary line between the two civilizations of China and India. Of course, those were the days that there was no modern army, nor modern means of transportation. But, the existence of modern army and modern means of transportation does not justify the necessity of transforming boundary-blindness into boundary-sensitivity and boundary-mania. Even if a boundary is a must, it is not necessary to degenerate into the ugly mood of land-grabbing and territory-scramble. The irony is both in China and India large chunks of land in the plains are lying idle because of the paucity of funds, but precious funds in addition to lives are wasted by both countries in grabbing the land where no blade of grass grows and human beings struggle to survive. If, in theory, there must be a border between states it can be done with civility as the boundary between U.S.A. and Canada. This is an example for Chinese and Indians to follow on the daunting heights of Himalaya. It is senseless to waste precious resources and sacrifice lives in surveying, demarcating and creating, let alone defending, a useless line 4,000–5,000

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metres and more above sea-level, while vast rural areas of China and India are desperately needing resources for development. What about the ‘territorial dispute’ which people have been talking in gusto? It was reported that Mao Zedong once remarked that he could be held criminally responsible if on his watch the Chinese territory shrunk from the size he had read from the school text books. There is a hint in this report that he was unable to solve the so-called ‘territorial dispute’ between China and India. Similar psychological effect constricted Nehru as well. By definition, ‘territory’ is the land under active administration. But, the ‘territorial dispute’ in the current Sino–Indian border dispute is about such land which has never, at any time, been under the active administration of the governments of PRC and ROI. If you have not actively administered it, it is not really your territory. In this sense, which is common sense, there is virtually no ‘territorial dispute’ between the two countries. If there is no ‘territorial dispute’, there is no border dispute as well. Already much time and energy, tons of papers, and heavy bills of telecommunications have been wasted on gaining an upper hand in such a ‘territorial dispute’ to no avail. The Government of India sent an eminent historian, Dr. S. Gopal, to London to burrow into the archives of the British Raj for such a purpose, and he almost met a Chinese official there for the same purpose. My good friend, late lamented Ms. Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea of Delhi University started saying loudly in the Indian media that such legalistic and historic approach could not solve the border problem, but a ‘political solution’ could do it. The process of China–India negotiations on the border dispute is like a saga. Premier Zhou Enlai was exemplary in his diligence in such talks. Especially his visit to New Delhi from April 19 to 25, 1960 during which he had six sessions totaling 17 hours with Nehru, in addition to patiently listening to Vice President, S. Radhakrishnan, Home Minister, Govind Ballabh Pant, and Finance Minister, Morarji Desai and explaining the Chinese position. Meanwhile, border negotiations at the official level never stopped from the very beginning of the border dispute. During the historic China visit by the Indian Prime Minister, Rajiv Gandhi in December 1988, Li Peng ᴢ吣, complained that the official border talks were as useless as the Chinese saying ‘chao lengfan ♦ދ佁/frying the stale cold rice’. The Chinese saying of ‘chao lengfan ♦ދ佁/frying the stale cold rice’ is

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something like the Americans say, ‘recycling the trash’. Indian reporters picked this up a little inaccurately, and the Indian press flashed the news about the Chinese description of the border talks as ‘flies on the cold rice’. My friend, late lamented Giri Deshingkar was on television at that time. When he was asked about the meaning of Chinese saying of ‘flies on the cold rice’, he was embarrassed as he could not come up with a suitable answer. I had to chuckle at the absurdity of the situation when I saw his television interview. The border dispute is not just trash, but a cancer growing inside the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. If the cancer cannot be removed, the two great ‘civilization states’ of China and India will not live as healthy countries. There are Chinese sayings like ‘dang ren burang ᔧҕϡ䅽/no hesitation in righteous commitment’ and ‘jian yi yong wei 㾕Н࢛Ў/chivalric spirit in fighting injustice’ which are opposed to the normal courteous attitude of ‘qianrang 䇺䅽/yielding to others’. Today, what we see in the stalemate of the border dispute is both sides yielding the initiative to the opponent, and the virtue of ‘no hesitation in righteous commitment’ and ‘chivalric spirit in fighting injustice’ is missing. The Indian side, probably, is keener than China to have an early solution of the dispute because the border dispute is like a sword of Damocles hanging over its development. The Chinese side, on the other hand, is not showing the same enthusiasm as Premier Zhou Enlai had shown earlier. Decades ago, when the two sides discussed the progress of bilateral relations, the Indian side made the resolution of the border dispute a prerequisite to normalization and all-out development of relations while China wished normalization and all-out development of relations proceed simultaneously with the search for a resolution for the border dispute. Today, after the Indian side has conceded to the Chinese request, China is showing even less enthusiasm in solving the border dispute, reiterating the complexity of the problem and hesitating in making any forward move. I see the absence of a clear vision and long-term strategy in China’s relationship with India. Two vital perspectives are missing from the mindset of China’s India policy-making. The first perspective is, as I have hinted a little earlier, China is a pro-active party and India a reactive party in terms of the Tibet issue and the border dispute. If China, as the pro-active party does not make a forward move, the stalemate will continue. The second

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perspective is the interlocking of China–India relations with the stability of Tibet. This is especially true because the Dalai Lama enjoys high prestige in the Western world. Interested forces are utilizing it as a backup to the subversive activities against China. The danger is that the longer the Tibet issue is left hanging in thin air, the question of territorial integrity of Tibet being a part of China becomes more prominent. Strangely, no Chinese leader, nor Chinese think-tank, sees the clear advantage of a friendly and fraternal India in helping China maintain stability in Tibet. People forget that during the Hindi–Chini Bhai Bhai period, Nehru had quietly persuaded Dalai Lama to return to Tibet, and it is no coincidence that Dalai’s flight from Tibet occurred at the same time with the escalation of China–India border tension.

The ‘Tranquillizer’ for the Border Region The root cause of the 1962 war was the misconceived ‘territorial dispute’, and that misconception has compounded the wrong-doing. The post-war situation witnessed a massive movement of arms and troops on the border. Mao Zedong invented the term ‘wuzhuang gongchu ℺㺙݅໘/armed coexistence’ when tension rose along the Sino–Indian border in late 1950s. Today, this border is one of the world’s heaviest armed areas. The way out of this morass is to nourish the millennial civilizational ties. This may awaken China and India from the stupor of blind national interests and substitute boundary-blindness. The ‘Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquillity along the Line of Actual Control in the India–China Border Areas’ (1993) and the ‘Agreement on Confidence Building Measures in the Military Field along the Line of Actual Control in the India–China Border Areas’ (1996) popularly called the ‘CSBMs’ were welcome developments. Perhaps, the best pieces written on the topic are the twin-articles, ‘Three Agreements and Five Principles between India and China’ (pp. 505–518) and ‘Building confidence with China’ (pp. 519–534), by Professor Swaran Singh of Jawaharlal Nehru University in the book I edited in 1998, Across the Himalayan Gap. He made a refreshing point that the India–China ‘CSBM’ agreements were the flower and fruit of the wisdom of the two civilization states, not ‘the byproduct of the post-Cold War peace dividend. Global factors could have

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been much more influential in moulding the European style CSBMs’.40He considered the two India–China ‘CSBM’ agreements the corollary of the Five Principles agreement. Another refreshing point made by Swaran Singh is that the 1993 India- China ‘CSBM’ agreement was preceded by the mutual conciliation between the armed forces of the two countries. There was the exchange of visits in 1990 and 1992 between the National Defence College, New Delhi, and the National Defence University, Beijing, and the ex-Indian Defence Minister, Sharad Pawar’s China visit in July 1992.41 Today, the 1993 India–China ‘CSBM’ agreement is called ‘Border Peace and Tranquility Agreement’ (BPTA), and on top of it, a new agreement called ‘Border Defence Cooperation Agreement’ (BDCA) was signed between the two governments on October 23, 2013. This new BDCA agreement stipulates that the two countries should share strategic information with each other, that the Indian and Chinese military headquarters will set up a hotline, and that there would be ‘no tailing’ of each other’s patrols in disputed forward areas. A new development is the setting up of a regular bilateral monitoring institution consisting of officials of foreign and defence ministries of both the governments. The officials are currently having their 6th round of meetings in Beijing at the time of writing (April 30, 2014). Officials meeting more frequently round the table over a cup of hot tea than soldiers provoking each other in the cold wild of the Himalaya have silenced the war-crying media in recent months. There has been no indication that both sides actually want to fight another war. It is a scenario of an arms race based on mutual paranoia. The purpose of armed forces along the border becomes unintelligible and illogical. A soldier from South India told a friend that it was a good posting for a year or two on the border, having good life without any tension, and spiced with the occasional socializing with the Chinese soldiers on the other side. The Chinese soldiers on the other side probably felt the same way. On August 15, 2004, a 46-member Chinese delegation of the border troops and families arrived at the Indian border post to celebrate India’s

40 Tan Chung, Across the Himalayan Gap: An India Quest for Understanding China, p. 519. 41 Ibid, pp. 520-521.

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Independence Day.42 I read a report on the internet that on August 28, 2004, more than 10 Indian soldiers in the western sector of the border entered the Burang Zong of Tibet (Chinese name ‘Pulan District ᱂݄ও’) to participate in a joint mountaineering exercise. In the beginning of 2014, the Indian Army Eastern Command’s Tawang Garrison under the Gajraj Corps organized a new year celebration at the 16,000-feet Bumla Pass in Arunachal Pradesh and invited the Chinese troops and families on the other side of the fence to join. The Chinese press published some photographs of the event without any detailed report. By the way, the Chinese call it ‘Zangnan diqu 㮣फഄऎ/south of Tibet region’ as they have not officially recognized Arunachal Pradesh. The point is that both sides want a peaceful border and wish amicable relations between the two armed forces. Why bother with this effort in the first place to place troops? The ‘CSBM’ superstructures seem rather superfluous to maintain peace and tranquility along the border. Praising ‘CSBMs’ as progress and advancement in China–Indian relations is as laughable as running a big circle backwards and returning to the same spot to claim ‘achievement’. There can be no better peace and tranquillity along the border than withdrawing all the troops. The example to follow is the USA–Canada border. There are tangible benefits to this proposition. India saves precious funds to invest in other places. Instead of building roads on the border, infrastructural development in other neglected areas could take place. China will gain more. Without the Chinese troops there the entire region will feel more relaxed and traditional international border trade will return in great gusto. The psychological effect is the biggest benefit. The Chinese press has been blaming Indian media for flying the balloons of ‘Chinese aggression’ and ‘Chinese threat’ every now and then, all of which is true. But China should realize that it is the Chinese troops along the border that provide abundant fuel for the bogey of ‘Chinese aggression’ and ‘Chinese threat’. If I were in a position to advise Chinese decision-making, I would urge China to take the first step by withdrawing the troops unilaterally and see whether the Indian side would reciprocate. Even if India would not feel embarrassed by not reciprocating there would be no worry for China.

42 news.xinhuanet.com › ೑䰙乥䘧 (international channel), accessed on March 20, 2014.

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In the first place, China was always in a more pro-active position than India, and India was, is, and will always be in a rather reactive, even passive position. Second, India has a big quarrel with Pakistan while her relations with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal are a bit frayed. Inside India there are numerous armed rebellions. Kashmir is unsettled. There are secessionist tendencies among the northeastern states. Third, the economic and military power of China is, by consensus, much greater than that of India. A democratic polity of India would not allow the government to do like the Chinese say ‘yi luan ji shi ҹॉߏ⷇/hitting the rock with an egg’. If, worst of the worst, India does take the adventurous step of advancing troops, China could always re-insert troops.

Roses Blossom with the Thorn There are some roses blossoming with the thorn of the border issue. High- level visits have been a regular feature between China and India after Rajiv Gandhi’s tour. Then Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s China visit in 2003 was a particularly memorable event. When he (and his party, Bharatiya Janta Party) was in the opposition, Vajpayee was regarded as the right leader in the right party. After he became the Prime Minister of India (from 1998 to 2004), he became ‘the right leader in the wrong party’. As an opposition leader he had one time been prominently ‘anti-Nehru’ and ‘anti-China’, his prime-minister-ship earned him the reputation of a ‘Nehruvian statesman’ and one of the top Indian leaders most friendly to China. Vajpayee was a reputed Hindi poet. On the eve of his China visit, the Hong Kong based South China Morning Post reported that he was writing a poem in praise of China in order to add luster to his would-be historic visit. When the reporter of Beijing’s The Global Times interviewed him at his New Delhi official residence, he replied that political affairs would not allow him time to compose poems. But, he might compose poems during his China visit when he sees China’s beautiful sceneries.43 The brightest spot of Vajpayee’s 2003 China visit was the ‘Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Cooperation Between the

43 english.people.com.cn › Opinion, ‘Indian PM Wants to Write Poem for China — People’s Daily Online’.

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Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China’ which he signed on June 23, 2003 with the Chinese Premier, Wen Jiabao ⏽ᆊᅱ, given below:

Leaders from both countries noted with satisfaction the progress made over recent years in bilateral relations. This is conducive not only to their respective development, but also to regional stability and prosperity. The two sides recalled the historical depth of their friendly contacts. China and India are the two largest developing countries of the world with centuries-old civilization, unique history and similar objectives. Both noted that the sustained economic and social development in the two countries, representing one third of humanity is vital for ensuring peace, stability and prosperity not only in Asia but also in the whole world

….

The two sides agreed that China and India have a mutual desire for good neighborly relations and have broad common interests. They agreed to fully utilize the substantial potential and opportunities for deepening mutually beneﬁ cial cooperation. Friendship and cooperation between the two countries meets the need to: promote the socio-economic development and prosperity of both China and India; maintain peace and stability regionally and globally; strengthen multipolarity at the international level; and enhance the positive factors of globalization. 44

The famous anecdote doing rounds in the Indian press during and after the historic Vajpayee visit was his telling his counterpart, Premier Wen, that there should be a political solution of the border dispute. He said that the border negotiation structure between the two governments was outdated and ineffective. In order to reflect the political will of the high command, it should be headed by the ‘special representatives’ of the two prime ministers. Hearing this, the soft-spoken Wen Jiabao said that this could be considered, and China would inform India later who would be her ‘special representative’ for the new institution. ‘No,’ relied Vajpayee,

44 www.fmprc.gov.cn/.../...Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China, ‘Declaration on Principles for Relations and Comprehensive Cooperation Between the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of India’.

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‘not later, but now’. It was decided on the spot that Brajesh Mishra (then, India’s National Security Advisor) and Dai Bingguo ᠈⾝೑ who was de facto in-charge of China’s foreign affairs would be leading the new dispensation of border negotiations. Another dividend from the 2003 Vajpayee visit was the decision of the so-called ‘sanbu zou ϝℹ䍄/three-step solution’ for Sino–Indian border dispute which is not well reported in India. This ‘three-step solution’ was decided in the first meeting of the ‘special representative’ in Beijing in 2003 as below: The first step: deciding the guidelines for solving the border dispute. The second step: deciding the framework for implementing the guidelines. The third step: implementing and demarcating the border. It is reported that in the fifth meeting of the special representatives in Beijing in April 2005, the ‘guidelines’ for solving the border dispute were arrived at signifying the completion of the first step. Yet, the second step of implementing the guidelines has not covered much ground, and there is no clear picture of both sides’ maps of the ‘Line of Actual Control’. To describe the present status of China–India border negotiation, we might say, as it is fashionable to say in China today, that the negotiations have entered the ‘shenshui qu ⏅∈ऎ/deep water zone’. Once again, negotiation meetings have returned to the ‘frying the cold rice’ situation of pre-Rajiv Gandhi China visit days. The ‘political will’ of resolving the border dispute is wan- ing, hence it is futile to raise the border negotiations to any higher level. Former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has created historical record for twice visiting China and twice receiving and talking to his Chinese counterpart in New Delhi in addition to issuing six ‘India–China Joint Declarations/statements’ (four with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and one each with Chinese Chairman Hu Jintao 㚵䫺⍯ and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang ᴢܟᔎ). On the Chinese side, Premier Wen Jiabao holds the record of two India visits, two summit talks with his Indian counterparts, Vajpayee and Singh, in Beijing and issuing four ‘China–India Joint Declarations/statements’. I was specially invited to New Delhi to witness Wen Jiabao’s India visit in 2010, received the ‘Friendship Award’ from his hand, and participated in a small discussion on cultural exchanges chaired

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by him. In that trip, Premier Wen visited the Tagore School in New Delhi. When asked by the students whether he had read any poem of Tagore, Wen Jiabao immediately took out from his pocket the old Chinese anthology of Tagore’s poems which he had used in his student times.

VI. ‘HIMALAYA SPHERE’ STRATEGIC AND COOPERATIVE PARTNERSHIP When he went to New Delhi to attend the 17th meeting of ‘Special Representatives’ on the border issue, Yang Jiechi ᴼ⋕ㆾ, Member of the State Council of PRC and China’s top official for conducting foreign relations, wrote a special article for The Indian Express, New Delhi, entitled ‘Joining Hands, and Dreams’. The title which is the work of Yang’s translator/ interpreter (although Yang is a first-class English speaker and writer) is far less expressive than his Chinese original wording ‘Zhongguo meng he Yindu meng xixixiangtong Ё೑Ṻ੠ॄᑺṺᙃᙃⳌ䗮’ ,45 which should have been truthfully translated as ‘Chinese dream and Indian dream are echoes to each other’ or such sentiments. I am not eyeing for an assignment as Chinese government translator, but just using the episode to demonstrate the unbounded fraternity of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ which is so often constricted in our Anglobalized world. In Yang’s article, the two countries are categorized as ‘the most dynamic emerging markets and new powerhouses of the Asian economy’. This provides the foregoing discourse of this chapter with a succinct summary. Yang’s article also says, ‘We have worked for mutual benefit and greater exchanges and cooperation, benefiting the 2.5 billion people of our two countries. We have developed a new model of relations that enables us to advance bilateral ties by accommodating each other’s concerns and properly handling differences.’ I see this as the voice of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ and virtually a powerful vindication of what has been discussed in the foregoing pages. Yang Jiechi voiced all this before he sat

45 According to Yang Jiechi’s article, ‘Zhongguo meng he Yindu meng xixixiangtong Ё೑Ṻ ੠ॄᑺṺᙃᙃⳌ䗮’ (Chinese dream and Indian dream are echoes to each other) was what Chinese Chairman Xi Jinping had said in October 2013, in Beijing when he received the Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh.

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with his Indian counterpart, Shivshankar Menon, National Security Advisor of the government of India who has promised to write a ‘Foreword’ for this book. I am very grateful and gratifying, and look forward to realization of both the Chinese dream and Indian dream which, as Yang Jiechi says, ‘are echoes to each other’ (ᙃᙃⳌ䗮). Yang says:

Both Chinese and Indian dreams are about enhancing national strength, achieving national prosperity and pursuing national renewal, and they represent the shared aspiration of the 2.5 billion people of our two countries and that of the developing world. (Ё೑Ṻ੠ॄᑺṺ䛑ᰃᔎ೑ᆠ⇥Ṻ੠⇥ᮣ໡݈Ṻˈড᯴њϸ೑ ғҎ ⇥ⱘ݅ৠᖗໄˈгড᯴ᑓ໻থሩЁ೑ᆊⱘ݅ৠᖗໄǄ)

I am happy to see these remarks and would wish the nightmares between the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ civilization twins have ended now that both China and India are having their sweet dreams. Sixty years ago, when Zhou Enlai and Nehru jointly created the ‘Panchsheel’ few people, if any, would have dreamed China and India in such central and strong status as they are now. In a way, the China–India economic and trade connectivity is nothing short of a miracle. I used to involve myself in the promotion of trade between India and China during the 1980s and 1990s with great disappointment. Indian business people complained to me that their Chinese counterparts could not be trusted. Chinese business people complained to me that their Indian counterparts could not be trusted. My good friend, Ambassador TCA Rangachari, who was then the Joint Secretary in charge of the East Asian Division of the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi, analyzed that the absence of ‘vested interests’ was the cause of the sluggish trade front. The situation has recently changed dramatically. The volume of India– China trade leaped from US$2.3 billion in 2000–2001 to US$59.62 billion in 2010–2011, an increase of 26 times in 10 years. And both governments are confident of further raising it to US$100 billion by 2015. China is now India’s number one trading partner. India still has a long way to go to become the number one trading partner of China. The potential of China–India trade lies in the strength of the two countries’ populations.

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More than 1 out of 3 people in the world belong to the ‘Himalaya Sphere’. According to the ‘World Fact Book’ of the CIA, the per capita GDP of China (in PPP terms) was about US$9,800 in 2013, and the same of India was US$4,000. It would not be impossible to raise the per capita trade between China and India to US$1,000. In that case, the bilateral trade of the two countries could reach US$2,500 billion. In recent years, the steady increase in people-to-people contacts between China and India is also phenomenal. Whereas the number of Indian students in Chinese universities did not exceed 100 in 2001, there were as many as 10,237 Indian students in Chinese universities in 2012, and the increasing trend is being maintained. Comparing with the total Indian population, the number is insignificant. A new phenomenon is that many Chinese youths are going to study in Indian universities on their own. In 2013, I met a Chinese girl from Guangdong ᑓϰ Province studying Korean language in Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. She said, the expenses were lower than studying in Chinese universities, and well-qualified teachers from Korea were a luxury not easily available in Chinese universities. The renowned 7th century pilgrim, Yijing Нޔ (635–713) composed a gatha (poem) entitled ‘qiufa ganfu ∖⊩ᛳ䌟’ (Feelings on pilgrimage) to describe the great age of pilgrimage:

During the period from Jin to the Southern and Northern regimes in addition to our Dynasty Tang, high pilgrims from Chang’an set out in groups of hundreds, not even ten remain when they return. Posterity cannot imagine how hard the pioneers had been: On the distant journeys unending freezing with the blue sky, rivers of sands drown the sun when all energies gone dry. Those who know not what’s put in, think it so easy to study Buddhism.

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䭓ᅝ˗এҎ៤ⱒᔦ᮴कˈৢ㗙⛝⾏⫣∖ڻᰟᅟ唤ṕ૤ҷ䯈ˈ催) ⶹࠡ㗙䲒Ǆ䏃䖰⹻໽ଃދ㒧ˈ≭⊇㬑᮹࡯⮆ⅮǄৢҎ㢹᳾䇭ᮃᮼ, ᕔᕔᇚ㒣ᆍᯧⳟǄ

In ancient times, ardent Chinese students to India travelled perilous terrains for months and years, knowing that mostly they would not survive and return. Today, Delhi is well linked with Beijing ࣫Ҁ, Shanghai Ϟ⍋, and Guangzhou ᑓᎲ, and Kolkata with Kunming ᯚᯢ, Bangalore with Chengdu ៤䛑, Hyderabad with Xi’an 㽓ᅝ by direct flights, each journey taking only a few hours with no risk to life. We can confidently expect enormous expansion of people-to-people contacts in the near future between the two countries. On April 12, 2005, India and China issued a ‘Joint Statement’ in New Delhi (signed by the two prime ministers, Manmohan Singh and Wen Jiabao) declared the establishment of ‘an India–China strategic and cooperative partnership for peace and prosperity’. Nevertheless, in the past decade, this new ‘strategic and cooperative partnership’ has offered no solution to resolve the border dispute which will not go away if no procedures are taken to remove it. For itself, the ‘strategic partnership’ is just an instrument of the geopolitical paradigm, and the geopolitical paradigm is the root cause of the border dispute. Only the geo-civilizational paradigm which is boundary-blind can root out the border dispute. Only the geo- civilizational paradigm which treats neighbours as ‘brothers/sisters’ can return China–India relations to the care of the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’. China and India can establish the true ‘strategic and cooperative partnership’ only in the spirit of Himalaya Sphere’.

VII. CONCLUSION The spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ will guide China and India in their respective journeys towards the goal of prosperity. China and India will march hand-in-hand so that all the 2.5 billion people may be provided with moderate prosperity. The story of Huaxicun extending the prosperity of 667 people to 35,000 is worth duplicating. Rich Chinese villages can extend prosperity to all Chinese villages, and rich India villages can extend prosperity to all India villages. China can extend prosperity to India, and

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India can extend prosperity to China. This may be easily said than done, but it will be an exciting experiment and noble pursuit. Even partial success makes it worthwhile trying. By making the extension of prosperity a vogue of ‘Himalaya Sphere’, the development orientation of not only China and India, but also of the world will change. Let China and India first take the lead, more and more countries would join. The spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ vigorously spreads the message of peace and harmony radiating through ‘Panchsheel’ signed 60 years ago (April 29, 1954). China has currently raised the issue with the U.S.A. for establishing a ‘new type of great power relations’ (ᮄൟ໻೑݇㋏)46 which amounts to making ‘Panchsheel’ the guiding principle of U.S.–China relations. China made this move in view of the impending interchange of ‘Number One’ and ‘Number Two’ positions of economic power (between U.S.A. and China) which proved to be uneasy and even perilous judging from past experience. I am absolutely confident that history would not repeat itself when China eventually takes the place of the U.S.A. as the world’s ‘Number One’.47 I see the new leadership of China has also raised the issue with India for the establishment of a ‘new type of great power relations’ although not saying so specifically. The motivation for a China–India ‘new type of great power relations’ is entirely different from that on the China–U.S. front, and the replacement of the world ‘Number One’ status is not an issue. What is involved is the changed world status for both China and India — China in ‘Number Two’ position now moving towards ‘Number One’ position, while India is becoming ‘Number Three’ shortly and will stay in the position for many decades (vide Maddison’s 2030 estimate of India’s US$10.074 billion GDP against Japan’s 3.488 billion). The ‘new type of great power relations’ in the spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ can become the cornerstone of the bilateral and trilateral relationship in the 21st century between the world’s top-three economic powers — U.S.A., China and India.

46 The Chinese formulation of ‘new type of great power relations’ (ᮄൟ໻೑݇㋏) was repeatedly advocated by Xi Jinping during his visits to the U.S. in 2012 and 2013. The Americans term it as ‘New Model of Major Power Relationship’. 47 Unlike the U.S.–U.K. war in the 1812 that signified the U.S. replacement of U.K. as world ‘Number One’.

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The spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ calls for the rejuvenation of the ‘ cinabhumi ’-highlighted and China–India-pivoted Eurasian trade now with its new avatar of ‘silk road’. It is significant to note that a new concept of ‘sichouzhilu jingjidai ϱ㓌П䏃㒣⌢ᏺ/silk road economic zone’ is being conceived in China’s development strategy which initially concen- trates on the expansion of China–Central Asia relations but will eventually cover China–India interconnectivity. This new Chinese concept that aims at promoting good neighbourliness through enhancing regional prosper- ity48 reverberates with India’s ‘Look East’ strategy. We look forward to the emergence of a new ‘Suvarnabhumi/Golden Land’ dream from the boom of trade and economic contacts under the rubrics of ‘silk road economic zone’ and ‘Look East’. The spirit of ‘Himalaya Sphere’ will ensure the triumph of ‘geo- civilizational’ paradigm over the present geopolitical paradigm in international relations. In other words, the two millennial ‘civilization-states’ of China and India which are now like oases besieged by the desert of ‘nation states’ will make the sand dunes verdant and humanity will enjoy a new world order of the ‘Himalaya Sphere’ cherishing the ideal of ‘tianxia datong ໽ϟ໻ৠ/grand harmony all under Heaven’ and ‘Vasudhaiva kutumbakam/the whole world is one single family’.

48 The concept originated from Xi Jinping’s lecture in July 2013 at the Nazarbayev University of Kazakhstan.

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INDEX

1962 war 245, 248, 251, 255 Anyang civilization 28 AAAA area for environment ArcelorMittal 293 tourism 313 Arthasastra 23, 26 Across the Himalayan Gap: An Indian Arunachal Pradesh 335 Quest for Understanding China Aryabhata 135, 267 (1998) 209, 216, 244, 248, 253, Ashoka, King 108 334 Asian Tigers 270 Across the Himalayan Gap: Atal, Dr. 215 A Chinese Quest for Understanding Avalokitesvara (see Guanyin) India (2014) 245 ai jiangshan (love for ‘rivers and Ba-shu wenhua (Ba-shu culture) mountains’/the state) 152 16, 17, 19 ai meiren (love for beautiful woman) bagua (Eight Diagrams) 53 152 Bai Juyi 59–66, 151–153 Amar Shonar Bangla (My Bengal of Baimasi (Monastery of white horses) Gold) 24 96, 123 Ambani, Dhirubhai 292 Bakeyi/Broach 194 Ambani, Mukesh 292 balaka (swan) 48 Amoghavajra 102, 114, 115, 131, Ban Chao 179 133 Ban Gu 48 Anglobalization 317 Bandung Conference 238 Anglobalized world 301, 339 Banggela (ancient Chinese name Anguosi (temple pacifying China) of “Bangla”) 25, 190, 192 128, 129 Bangladesh 191

345

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Baoguosi (temple redeeming BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) gratitude to China) 129, 131 268 Baoguosi (temple safeguarding Brahmaputra/Yarlung Tsangpo/ China) 128–130 Yaluzangbu river 5, 6 Basu Dr. 215 Brahmatmakya/tianren heyi Battle of Huaihai 220 (integration of the universe and BDCA (Border Defence Cooperation humanity) 63, 146 Agreement) 334 British Empire 200 Bencao gangmu (compendium British Raj 199 of metria medica) 137 Buddhayasas 97, 98 BEST (Brihanmumbai Electric bukenqu Guanyin (Bodhisattva Supply and Transport) undertaking, Guanyin/Avalokitesvara who Mumbai 320 refuses to leave) 108 Bhaisajyaguru (god of medicine) 58 Bulganin, Nikolai 224, 240 Bharatiya rate of growth 270 Butcher’s School, Guangzhou Bhatia, Prem 224 278 Bhattacharjea, Mira Sinha 331 butterﬂ y dream 314, 317 Bhattacharyya, Benoytosh 113 Billions of Entrepreneurs: How China Cai Yin 94 and India are Reshaping Their caishi wenhua (vege-diet culture) Futures and Yours 280, 282 139, 140 bimaru (sick) states 273 Cancongshi (Family of silkworm Bingche xing (Troops Marching) 165 bundles) 22 Biswas, Debabrata 227 cattle culture 9 Blue Ocean Civilization 269, 317 Cen Shen 125 Board of Customs, Salt and Opium Cen Xi 124 196 Central Intelligence Agency bocai/bolengcai/palenga (spinach) (CIA) 329 137 cha wenhua (tea culture) 140 Bodhidharma 116–118, 167 Chan/dhyana/zen 85, 167, 168 Bodhiruci (a) 102 Chan/zen culture 142,167 Bodhiruci (b) 102 Chanakya/Kautilya/Visnu Gupta Bodhisattva Dizang (Ksitigarbha) 23, 24 106, 107, 112 Chanda, Anil Kumar 231 Bodhisattva Puxian (Samantabhadra) chanding wenhua (Chan/dhyana/ 106, 107, 110, 111 meditation culture) 142 Bodhisattva Wenshu (Manjusri) Chang’an 123, 132, 341 106, 107, 109, 110 Changhen ge (Song of Eternal boundary dispute 330–333 Lament) 152

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Index 347

Changjiang sanjiaozhou jingjiquan Chinese World Order: Traditional (economic zone of the Yangtse China’s Foreign Relations, The 74 delta) 318 Chirende lijiao (cannibal rituals and Changjiangcun red village 308, 313, teachings) 203 314 Cholkar, Dr. 215 Changzheng (the “Long March” of the Chongqi luzao (build a new kitchen) Red Army) 294 261 Chao lengfan (frying the stale Chongqing/Ch’ung-Ching, war rice) 331 capital 211, 214 Che Fengchao 180 Chowdary, Satya Nadella 267 Cheena Bhavana 210, 212–214, 216, Chu Guangxi 125 229, 244, 249 Chuanshan shuyuan (Chuanshan Chen Guofu/Ch’en Kuo-fu 215 Academy) 219, 220 Chen Lifu/Ch’en Li-fu 215 Chuanxiang jiao (religious sect Chen Naiwei 204 passing down the incense) 117 Chen Sheng 278 Chun wang (Spring aspiration) 165 Chen Tao 166 Chunqiu fanlu (the quintessential Chen Yi 285 Spring and Autumn) 39 Chengdu 12, 16, 22, 23, 37, Cidu (porcelain capital) 143 342 Ci’en (compassionate mother) Chiang Kai-shek 107, 213, 215–217, Monastery 40, 41, 124 229, 231, 306, 328 Cina 27, 183 China and the Brave New World: Cinabhumi 23–25, 27 A Study of the Origins of the Opium Cishi (see Mile) War 195 civilization states 259 China Defense League 215 civilization twins 257 China should be expelled from Cognizant Technology 75 the earth if not catching up with Confucius 75, 76, 105 the USA in steel production 265 Confucianism 123 Chindia 19, 55–57, 62, 98, 106, 140, Contours of the World Economy 259 158 cotton culture 8 Chinese civilization sphere 33 CPC (Communist Party of China) Chinese dream 257, 258, 340 261, 285–287, 289, 298, 303 Chinese International Investment created by Heaven and constructed Company 284 by Earth (see tianzao dishe) Chinese People’s Consultative CSBM (Conﬁ dence and Security Conference 277, 284 Building Measures) 333, 334 Chinese road 258 Cui Hu 85 Chinese spirit 200, 258 Cultural Revolution 268

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348 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Daxueshan (Great Snow Mountain) dizang fahui (ceremony invoking i.e., Himalaya 41 the blessings of Bodhisattva Dahui/Diu 194 Ksitigarbha) 112 Dai Jitao/Tai Chi-t’ao 214, 229, Djakarta 239 230 Dong Zhongshu 39 Dalai Lama 330, 333 Dongfang Shuo 43, 44 Damo laozu (Bodhidharma the Donglingcun red village 308, 311, 312 patriarch) 116 Du Fu 119, 125, 126, 165 dangan hu (household going Du Mu 120 alone) 306 Duan Wenjie 48 Daoji, Chan master 83 Duan Yu 16 Daoxuan 31, 32, 40, 41 Dunhuang 47, 48, 81, 84, 123 Daoyan 187–189 Dunhuang Manuscript 123 Daqin 175, 177, 178 Das Gupta, Uma 18, 259 East India Company 198 Das, Gurcharan 299 East Indiamen 198, 317 Das, Sisir Kumar 202 Emperor Daoguang 196 Da-Tang xiyuji (Accounts on Western Emperor Kangxi 67, 194, 195 Regions compiled during the great Emperor Qianlong 194, 195, 328 Tang Dynasty) 41 Emperor Shizu of Yuan Dynasty datong (grand harmony) 301 (Kublai Khan) 107, 112 Datong pian (essay on grand Emperor Yongzheng 195 harmony) 73, 301 entrepreneurial spirit 283 Dayanta (great swan pagoda) 124 Epang Palace 120 Dazangjing (Chinese Tripitakas) Ewa/Ahmedabad 194 101 Dazhai 288, 289 Fabaozhi lu (dharmaratna marga) 94 Delhi University 243 Fairbank, John King 74 Deng Xiaoping 251, 252, 266, 286, family planning, China 272 301, 310 family planning, India 273 Deng Xiaoping Era 301 Fan Zhongyan 153, 154, 156, 157 Desai, Morarji 331 Fawang/Dharma-raja (Buddha) 158 Deshikottama 250 Fei Xiaotong 75 dharmacakra 118, 218 Fei Xin 192 Dharmaratna 94, 96, 108, 175 Feilaifeng (peak that has ﬂ own here dharmaratna marga (see Fabaozhi lu) from India) 66, 140 Dictionary of Greek and Roman Feng Chengjun 188, 192 Geography 20 Feng Youlan/Fung Yu-lan (see Tagore’s Dishi (Chinese version of God Indra) conversation with Feng Youlan) 41 First Normal School, Changsha 222

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 348348 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM 9”x 6” b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Index 349

ﬁ rst village of communism 310 Golden Millet Tathagata (jinsu rulai) Five Principles of Peaceful 60 Coexistence (see Panchsheel) Golden revolution/Blue revolution Foguangshan, Taiwan 117 264 Forbes’ Honour Roll 291 Gondwana 3, 21 Fortune magazine, New York 291 gongji baogan zhi (all-taking-care Fotudeng/Buddhacinga 97 supply-system) 310 Fudan University 239 gongsi heying (state-private joint Fumuguan (parent ofﬁ cer) 64, 67, ownership) 261, 284 151 gongtong zhifu (getting rich Fuxi 49, 51 together) 286, 301 Gonsalves, Eric 249 Gaisang Gyaco, 7th Dalai Lama 328 Gopal, Dr. S 331 Ganbali/Coimbatore 194 Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich 317 Gandhara 179, 180 Great Leap Forward 265 Gandhi, Indira 224, 230, 232, 248, Great Yu 28, 37 249, 273, 298 Green revolution 262, 263 Gandhi, Rajiv 250–254, 274, Guanding guoshi (rajyaguru who 331 baptized the emperor) 114, 115 Gandhi, Sanjay 273 Guanyin (Avalokitesvara/Goddess of Gang of Four 286 Mercy) 82–84, 104–107, 188 Ganga river 5, 32, 33, 106 Gugong bowuguan (Imperial Palace Ganga–Mekong Suvarnabhumi Museum), Beijing 39 Project 24 Gugong bowuyuan (Imperial Palace Gao Shi 125 Museum), Taipei 39 gaohuo jingji (enliven the economy) Guishuang 179 285 Gujral, Inder Kumar 249 Gaoseng zhuan (Biographies of Guli/Calicut/Kozhikode 189, 194 eminent monks) 99 Guo Fenglian 289 garuda 13 Guo Shulan 250 Gates, Bill 267 Geng Yinzeng 23, 26, 27, 59, 111, Haksar, Parmeshwar Narayan 251 114, 117, 132, 136, 138, 146, 168, Hammarskjoeld, Dag 236 173, 176, 178, 182, 185, 191–193, Han Emperor Ling 120 240, 244 Han Emperor Ming 94, 95, 101 Gengzhe you qitian (land to the Han Emperor Wen 302 tiller) 305, 306 Han Emperor Wu 26, 43, 164, 175, George Elliot, Rear Admiral 195 177 Gitanjali 258 Han Lin’er 162

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 349349 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India 9”x 6”

350 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Han Shantong 162 Hu Wenhu/Aw Boon How 229, 230 Han Yu 128, 160 Huang Xingzeng 189 Hangzhou 63–65, 67 Huangdi (see Yellow Emperor) Harappan civilization 8, 9, 19 Huanghe (see Yellow river) harmony ethic 158 Huangzhi 25, 175–177 Harsha, King (see Harshavardhana) Huawei 291 Harshavardhana 182, 183 Huaxicun 287, 307, 308 He Kang 290 hudou (foreign bean), broad He Yaohua 11 bean 137 hei laomo (black model worker) 309 hugua (foreign gourd), cucumber hemp culture 8 137 Heshang (Elegy of the Yellow River) Huguosi (temple protecting China) 317, 318 128, 129 High pilgrims from Chang’an set out Huijiao 99 (for India) in groups of hundreds, Huili/Matiyukti? 66 not even ten remain when they Huineng 117, 168 return 341–342 hukou (residential registration) 320, Himalaya mountain construction 323 movement 3 huma (foreign hemp), pepper 137 Himalaya Sphere 1, 2, 6–8, 10, 18, Huo Qubing 94 19, 21, 23, 27, 29, 32, 34, 35, 38, 42–44, 46, 51, 52, 57, 63, 74, 91, IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) 93, 111, 113, 114, 116, 118, 171, 274–276 194, 198, 216, 232, 233, 235, 241, Ilibu 196 243, 245, 262, 263, 270, 279, 280, In the footsteps of Xuanzang: 292, 295–297, 299, 305, 308, 309, Tan Yun-shan and India 208, 214, 314, 316, 327, 330, 332, 339, 340, 231, 232, 243 342–344 India and China: The Way Ahead after Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai (Indians and ‘Mao’s India War’ 251 Chinese are brothers) 227–229, India grows at night 299 241, 247, 248, 257, 333 India International Centre 249 Hindu rate of growth 270 Indian dream 339, 340 hollow villages 316 Indian Horizon, The 226 Hong Merchants, Canton/Guangzhou India’s Diplomatic Relations with the 142 East 174 Hong Xiuquan 79 Indira Gandhi National Centre for the hongse zibenjia (red capitalist) 284, Arts 248 285 Indus river 5, 32, 33 Hou Xian 192 Infosys 268

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 350350 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM 9”x 6” b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Index 351

Jayile/Kayal 194 kauseyam cinabattaska cinabhumija Ji Xianlin 1, 2, 4, 23, 32, 173, 182 (The Chinese cocoons and Jiaguwen (Oracle Script) 28 Chinese fabrics are the products Jiang Qing 286 of China) 23 Jiang Zemin 122, 312 Ke Yang 277 Jiangshan ruci duo jiao, yin wushu Kezhi/Cochin/Kochi 189, 190, 193 yingxiong jin zheyao (Rivers and Khadakvasla 224 mountains, what a charming bride! Khanna, Tarun 280–283 Countless braves have vied for her Kharagpur 275 with ravenous eyes) 326 Khrushchev, Nikita 241 jiebai xiongdi (sworn god-brothers) Kim Qiaoque 112 78 KMT (Kuomintang/Guomindang) Jindezhen 143 221, 306 Jing ye si (reﬂ ections on a quiet kong/sunya/zero 135 night) 68 Kong Xiangxi/Kung Hsiang-hsi 215 Jingangjing (Diamond sutra) 103 Kongqi ruci zaogao, yin wushu meinu Jinsha 12 dai kouzhao (Fog and haze, what a jinsu rulai (see Golden Millet hazardous sky! Countless beauties Tathagata) have put on gauze masks below jinzhen bozhang (removing cataract their eyes) 326 with a gold needle) 135 Kosygin, Alexei Nikolayevich 249 Jiulongbi (nine dragon wall) 39 Kotnis, Dr. 215 Ju miaotangzhi gao ze you qi min, chu Krishna, Raj 269 jianghuzhi yuan ze you qi jun (Care Kuangren riji (Diary of a lunatic) for the people from the top of the 194 imperial court, and care for the Kublai Khan (see Emperor Shizu of ruler from the remoteness of rivers Yuan Dynasty) and lakes) 154 Kuchani/Kutch 194 Kumara, King 182 Kabir, Humayun 242 Kumarajiva 97–99, 102, 133 Kaiyuan 11 kungfu (martial art) 116 Kanbujian rende chengzhen (urban Kushana 180 centres where humanity is missing) 322 land reform 284, 306 Kanishka 179 Lani/Gujarat 194 Karan Singh, Dr. 181 Laozi 71–73, 105 Kashmir 179–181, 210, 336 Laughing Buddha 105 Kasyapa Matenga 94–96, 108 Laurasia 3 kauseya (Chinese cocoon) 23, 26 Lee Shao Kee 291

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 351351 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India 9”x 6”

352 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Li Bai 59–62, 68, 70, 74, 75, 141, Longguosi (temple enriching China) 164, 165 128 Li Heiji 311, 312 Longshan civilization 28 Li Junqiu 163 Lu Buwei 37 Li Ka-shing 291 Lu Buxuan 277–279 Li Keqiang 278, 298, 327, 338 Lu Guang 98 Li Peng 331 Lu Guanqiu 289, 290 Li Shizhen 137 Lu Jiuyuan 128, 157, 168 Li Yibiao 181 Lu Wanru 228 li zhang (barrier to the understanding Lu Xun 202 of truth) 149 Lu Yu 140, 141 Liang Emperor Wu 67 Lufeng 11 Liang Qichao 58, 59, 229 Lufengpithecus 11 Liang Shuming 144 Lufengpithecus Kaiyuansis 11 Liang Wengen 290 Lui Che Woo 291 Lianhuasheng dashi (lotus-born sage Luo Jialun/Lo, Chia-luen 217, 218 guru) (see Padmasambhava) Luo Jialun yu Zhang Weizhen — Wode License Raj 270 fuqin muqin (Luo Jialun and Zhang Lin Chengjie 213 Weizhen — My father and mother) Lin Zexu 195 218 Line of Actual Control 333 Luo Jiufang 217, 218 Lingyinsi (temple for the sacred Luo Yin 86 vulture to rest) 66, 140 Luoyang 19 Linji sect 117 Lushi Chunqiu (Mr. Lu’s Discourse on linshi fuqi (temporary husband and Spring and Autumn) 36 wife) 324 Liu Shaoqi 285 Ma Huan 189, 192 Liu Shuqing 251 Ma Huateng 292, 295, 296, 301 Liu Xie 99, 100, 147 Maddison, Angus 259 Liu Yuxi 127,134 Magadha 182 Liu Zhirong 37 Mahacina 183 Liu Zongyuan 127 Mahacina Tara (Goddess of Great liushou budui (troops left behind in China) 113 the rear) 315–316 Mahacinasthana (see Mohe Zhina Guo) liushou ertong (house-keeping Mahatma Gandhi 216, 220 children) 323 Mahindra & Mahindra 282, 283 Liuzhuangcun red village 308–310 Manasarovar 41 Lixue (Yukti School) 150 Manjusri (see Bodhisattva Wenshu) Lobsang Gyaco, 5th Dalai Lama 328 Mao smile 247, 249, 255

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Index 353

Mao Zedong 78, 203, 217, 219, 221, Minxin gongcheng (project to win the 223, 225, 226, 238, 244–249, 261, hearts of the people) 324 265, 266, 281, 282, 303, 306, 308, Mishra, Brajesh 248 326, 331, 333 Mittal, Lakshmi 292, 293 Mao Zedong Era 306, 310 mixed economy 283 Mao Wenxi 166 Mo Yan 271 Maravijaya/xiangmo (Buddha prevails moding fangzhong (guru-shishya/ over the demons) 62 master-disciple relations) Marx, Karl 268, 281, 285, 303 169–170 Mdo stod chu bzhi sgang drug bod kyi Mogao Grottoes (see Dunhuang) bstan srung dang blangs dmag/Sishui Mohe Zhina Guo/Mahacinasthana liugang 182, 183 wei-Zang zhiyuanjun (the Four Monastery of White Horses (see Rivers, Six Ranges Tibetan Baimasi) Defenders of the Faith Monastic Buddhism 118 Volunteer Army) 329 Mount Emei 110–111 Mearsheimer, John 269 Mount Jiuhua 111–112 mega-cities 321 Mount Putuo 107–108 Mengzang weiyuanhui Mount Wutai 108–110 (Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs Mozi jian’ai (Mozi’s universal Commission) 328 love) 169, 170 Menon, Shivshankar 240 Mukherjee, Dr. 215 Menon, VK Krishna 237 Mutual-aid team 306 Miaogaoshan (good lofty mountain), i.e., Mount Sumeru 41 Nagarjuna 134 Microsoft 267 Nalanda Monastery 102 mijiao (secret teaching), Tantra Nanchang Municipal Government 115 282, 283 Mikoyan, Anastas 224 Nanshancun red village 308, 309 Mile (Maiterya), future Buddha 87, Nanjiecun red village 308, 310, 311 104–106, 161, 162 Narayanan, RK President 234, 235, Ming Emperor Chengzu 185, 192 239 Ming Emperor Huizong 185, 187 Nation States 257 Ming Emperor Taizu (see Zhu National Defence Academy Yuanzhang) (NDA) 241, 242 Ming Emperor Xianzong 329 Nehru, Jawaharlal 206, 208–212, Ming Emperor Xuanzong 185, 187 214–217, 224, 226, 231, 238, 240, Ministry of Human Resources 243, 244–247, 250, 253, 254, 261, 274 274, 275, 331

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 353353 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India 9”x 6”

354 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Nehru, RK 221 Pant, Govind Ballabh 331 Nehru’s Letters to Chief Ministers Paramartha 102 225–227, 231, 238 Paranjpe, Vasant 226, 227 Nehruvian Era 275 Parthasarathi, G 248 Neo-Confucianism 144 Patel, Sardar Vallabhbhai 329 New city of the peasants 309 Patil, Pratibha President 96 Nilotpala upasaka/Qinglian jushi 60, Pawar, Sharad 334 61 Pei Yuanyin 236 Ningguosi (temple tranquilizing Peking University 277 China) 128–131 Peng Zhen 254 Ninivaggi, Frank John 135 People’s commune 306, 308 Noguchi, Yona 206, 207 pig culture 10 Non-alignment Policy 238 PLA (People’s Liberation Army) 303 nongmin gong (peasant workers in pin xia zhong nong (poor and the cities) 322–324 lower-middle peasants) 303 nongye hezuohua (cooperative pingdeng/upeksa/samata (equality) transformation of agriculture) 306 305 nongye xue Dazhai (Dazhai Brigade Pingdengwang/upeksa-raja (king of is the agricultural model for equality) 159 emulation) 288, 289 Pinqiong bushi shehuizhuyi (Poverty is Nuwa 49, 50 not socialism) 286 Pipa xing (Song of the guitar) 152 One-child policy 271 population means wealth and the Opium War 196 creators of wealth 274 Orientalist Congress, Paris PRC (People’s Republic of China) (1973) 243 206, 257, 260–262, 268, 270, 277, Oxford History of Indian Business, 278, 283–285, 287, 289, 297, 301, The 283 303, 304, 306, 307, 309, 312, 318, 323, 337 Padmabhumi (lotus land) 67 Premji, Azim 292–294 Padmasambhava 114, 115 Premji, Mohamed 293 Palace culture 119, 121 Presidency College, Calcutta/ Panchsheel (Five Principles of Kolkata 274 Peaceful Coexistence) 88, Ptolemy, Claudius 22, 24 233–236, 238, 250, 253, 255 Pusajie (bodhisattva-sila) 187, 188 Panchseel and the Future: Perspectives putixin (bodhicitta) 85, 149, 168 on India-China Relations 234 Pandit, Vijaya Lakshmi 218 Q culture 296 Pangu 48 Qiang race 27, 37, 38, 329

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 354354 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM 9”x 6” b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Index 355

Qiangganzili chu zhengquan (political red entrepreneurs 287 power comes out of the barrel of red villages 307 the gun) 220 Reliance Company 292 qilin (giraffe) 191 Ren Zhengfei 290, 291 Qingguosi (temple purifying China) Renwang (King of benevolent 128 governance) 133 Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau 2–4, 18, rice culture 6 20, 34 rilun/surya-cakra (wheel of the Qinglian jushi (see Nilotpala upasaka) sun) 148 qinnong (emperor doing agricultural Rise of the Asian Giants: Dragon- labour) 302 Elephant Tango 304 Qinshihuangdi Emperor 119, 121 ROI (Republic of India) 257, 258, Qiufa ganfu (Feelings on pilgrimage) 260–262, 268, 270, 275, 337 341 Roman Rolland 93 Qu Yuan 50, 226 Rong Yiren 284, 285 quanmian jianshe xiaokang shehui ronggui Xitian (a glorious return for (construction of a society of a Chinese to the Western Heaven/ universal moderate prosperity) India) 222 302, 314 Ross, Francis 140 quanmin lian gangtie (entire population producing steel) 265 Sakyamuni 131 Quanshehui hangshi ‘qingjie xiaofei’ Sakyaraja 131, 133 guan (Let the entire society realize Sakyaraja sutra 114, 132–134 the vision of ‘clean consumption’) Saletor, Bhasker Anand 174 325 Saint Stephen’s College, Delhi 274 Saint Xavier’s College, Bombay/ Rabindra Bhavana 216 Mumbai 274 Rabindra sangeet (Tagore music) sanbu zou (three-step solution of 227 Sino-Indian border dispute) 338 Rabindranath Tagore: Talks in China sannong (three rural problems) 202 314 Radhakrishnan, Sarvepalli, Santiniketan 209, 213, 231 Vice President 331 Sanxingdui 12, 14, 17, 19, 20, 22, 32 Raj, KN 269 Sanxingdui Civilization 12–16, Ramapithecus 10, 11 19–22, 27, 32, 42 Ramarajya 74 satyam shivam sundaram 79–81, 83, Rangachari, TCA 340 85–88 Ranganathan, CV 234 satyam sivam advaitam (see satyam Rao, PV Narasimha 270 shivam sundaram)

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 355355 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India 9”x 6”

356 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

School of Foreign Languages 242 Sima Qian 44, 45, 48 Second Opium War 198 Singh, Kunwar Natwar 250 Security Council 239, 240 Singh, Manmohan, Prime Minister Sen, Amartya 270 338 Sengyou 145 Singh, Swaran 333 Sengzhao 80 Sino-Indian Cultural Society 212 Serica 22, 23, 27 Sishierzhang jing (Forty two chapters sericulture 9 of scriptures) 95 Shang Dynasty 28 Sivapithecus 11, 12 Shanghvi, Dilip 292, 295 Smith, Adam 258 Shaolinsi (Shaolin Monastery) socialist cause with Chinese 82, 116 characteristics 300, 301 Shaonafuer (see Shaonapuer/ socialist transformation of the Zhaonapuer) private-ownership of industry and Shaonapuer/Zhaonapuer/Jaungpur commerce 285 192, 194 Song Emperor Taizong 166 Shen Du 192 Song Emperor Taizu 166 Shendu/Hindu/India 174, 175 Song Emperor Zhenzong 144 Shengshi weiyan (Alarming talks of Song Meiling/Soong Mai-ling the booming era) 201 (Madame Chiang Kai-shek) 210, Shenxiu 167 211, 215 shenzhupai 203 Song Qingling/Soong Ching-ling Shi Laihe 309, 310 (Madame Sun Yat-sen) 210, 215 Shi Zhe 225 spirit of capitalism 279 Shihao li (Ofﬁ cial of Shihao) 165 spiritual Buddhism 118 Shijia fangzhi (Gazetteers of Stalin, Joseph 221 Sakyamuni Land) 31 Statesman, The (Daily newspaper, Shiwu bencao (Analysis of the New Delhi and Calcutta) 224 vegetations of our food) 136 strategic and cooperative partnership Shuguo (Shu state) 21, 27 342 Shuren shehui (society struggle ethic 158 of acquaintance) 75 Su Shi (Su Dongpo) 59, 60, 65, 70, sichouzhilu jingjidai (silk road 71, 74, 325 economic zone) 344 Sub-colony 196, 199 Sichuan Basin 3 Sui Emperor Wen 130, 161 Sichuan Institute of Nationality Suju (vegetarian ofﬁ ce) 139 Studies 37 Sulian laodage (Soviet Big Brother) sihaizhinei (within four seas) 74 223 Silk Road 25, 94 Sumeru 39, 41

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 356356 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM 9”x 6” b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Index 357

Sun Simiao 58, 59 Tang Emperor Suzong 115 Sun Yat-sen 74, 194, 196, 199 Tang Emperor Taizong 52, 54, 55, sunyata 134 82, 95, 109, 132, 155, 163, 181 Suoli/Chola 194 Tang Emperor Wuzong 55, 104, 129, super urban centres 319 130 Surya-cakra (solar wheel) 13, 14, 21 Tang Emperor Xizong 130 sushi wenhua (vegetarian culture) Tang Emperor Xuanzong I 114, 153, 139 180 Suvarnabhumi (golden land) 24, 25 Tang Emperor Xuanzong II 129 Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok 24 Tang Empress Wu 50, 51, 95, 124 Suzhou 63, 64, 67 Tantric cult, Sino-Indian 58 Swaminathan, Dr. Mankombu Tata Consultancy 268 Sambasivan 263 Tata, Ratan 296 temple culture 118, 119–122, 278 Tagore, Rabindranath 18, 19, 24, 25, TencentQQ 295 80, 88, 89, 92, 93, 103, 118, 197, 200, Tengtoucun red village 308, 312, 313 206, 207, 215, 229 230–232, 241, tianren heyi (see Brahmatmakya) 243, 254, 258, 260, 317, 339 tianxia datong (grand harmony all Tagore and China 206 under Heaven) 74, 234, 300, 344 Tagore’s conversation with Feng tianxia taiping (peace and security/ Youlan/Fung Yu-lan 88–89 grand equality all under Heaven) Taiji/T’ai-chi (Chinese version of 159 ‘Anuttara-samyaksa-sambodhi’) tianxia weigong (everything is for the 147 public good) 288 Taiping tianguo 161 tianzao dishe (created by Heaven Taiping yulan (Essay for the Perusal of and constructed by Earth) 2–6, His Majesty in the Taiping Era) 50 32, 219, 255 Tan Yun-shan 55, 57–59, 112, Tianzi (son of heaven) 30 204, 210, 212–214, 216, 222, 229, Tibet 246, 327–329, 333 230–232, 243, 244, 246, 248, 249 tiny communist society 310 Tan Yun-shan Zhong-Yin Youyiguan Tragedy of Great Power Politics, (Tan Yun-shan Sino-India The 270 Friendship Museum), Shenzhen Treaty of Nanjing 196–198 230 Treaty of Tianjin 198 Tang Emperor Daizong 114, 131, Treaty of Wangxia 198 180 tricolour revolution 262, 264 Tang Emperor Gaozong 50, 52 Triton and Dragon: Studies on Tang Emperor Gaozu 54, 55, 126, Nineteenth Century China and 161 Imperialism 29, 197

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 357357 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India 9”x 6”

358 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Tsing-hua University 253 wang zi cheng long (expecting the son Tudi geming zhanzheng (War of land to become a leaping dragon) 276 revolution) 306 Wannian heyue (ten-thousand year Tudi shiyong quan (right of land peace treaty) 196 utility) 307 Washington, George 258 Tufu kan shijie (The world through Weber Max 279, 282 the eyes of a butcher) 277 Wei Cou 163 Wei renmin fuwu (Serving the Vasudhaiva kutumbakam 63, 72–75, people) 78 78, 234, 300, 344 Wei Zheng 155 Vajpayee, Atal Behari 336, 337 Wen Jiabao 337, 338 Vajrabodhi 114, 115 Wen Yiduo 50, 51 Vajrayana/Adamantine Vehicle Wenxin diaolong (carving out a dragon 113, 114 from the heart of literature) 99 village of moderate prosperity Westphalian Regime 204, 233 312 wheat culture 7 Vimala-prabha mahadha-rani 103 White revolution 263 Vimalaraksa/Premraksa 99 Wipro 268 Virmani, Arvind 270 World’s Factory 264, 265 Visva-Bharati 212, 213, 216, 229, World’s Offi ce 264, 267 230, 232, 244, 250 Wu Fang 288 Wu Renbao 287, 288, 301, 307 Wahaha 296 Wu Xie’en 288 Wanda Company 295 wufan (fi ve antis) movement 283 wandering ascetic 92, 93, 103, 106, 119 Wuhan University 107 Wang Fuzhi/Wang Chuanshan 219 wuhu sihai (camaraderie among Wang Guangmei 284, 285, 286–287 people from fi ve lakes and four Wang Han 166 seas) 75, 76 Wang Hongwen 286 wujie (fi ve taboos) 233 Wang Jianling 292, 294, 295, 301 Wukong 180 Wang Mang 176, 177 wumai (hazardous haze) 325 wang nu cheng feng (expecting Wushalati/Gujarat 194 the daughter to become a fl ying Wushan Ape Man 12 phoenix) 276 wuzhuang gongchu (armed Wang Shouren (see Wang Yangming) coexistence) 333 Wang Vimalakirti 76 Wang Wei 59, 60, 62, 76, 77 Xi Jinping 259, 339 Wang Xuance 181, 182 xiahai/going down the sea (to become Wang Yangming 59, 148,157, 168 an entrepreneur) 285

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 358358 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM 9”x 6” b1937 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Index 359

Xialabi/Cambay 194 Xinwang rulai/Hrdaya-raja- Xian tianxiazhi you er you, hou Tathagata’ (The mind-controller tianxiazhi le er le (Be the fi rst to who is the Great One who has thus worry the worries of the world, and come) 147 the last to enjoy the enjoyment of xinxing daguo guanxi (new type of the world) 153 great power relations) 343 xianfu (some people getting rich Xinyuanchun-xue (Snow — in fi rst) 286, 310 Xinyuanchun tune) 326 xiang women zishen cufangde Xiwangmu (Chinese Goddess shengchan he shenghuo fangshi lai Uma) 42–48, 54, 188 xuanzhan (declare war against our Xiyang chaogongdian lu (Documentary own crude production-mode and data on tribute missions from the lifestyle) 327 western ocean) 189 xiangjiao/elephant religion Xuanzang 40, 41, 52, 53, 68–70, 102, (Buddhism) 125 104, 126, 127, 179, 182, 183, 190 xiangmo (see maravijaya) Xiannongtan (Temple of the God of Yandi (god of fi re) 16, 28 Agriculture) 302 Yang Jiechi 339, 340 Xiaogelan/Quilon 194 Yangshao civilization 28 xiaohuangdi (little emperor) 271 Yangtse river 4, 5, 26, 32, 33, 35 Xiaomi 268 Yangtse river civilizations 17 Xie Fangde 8 yangyao (foreign medicine), i.e., Xingcha shenglan (Excellent views opium 198 under the stars) 192 Yao Guangxiao 187, 188 Xingershang weizhi dao, xingerxia Yao Wenyuan 286 weizhi qi (The upper half of Yao Xing (Emperor of Latter universe is called Tao/dao, and the Qin) 97, 98 lower half of universe is called qi/ Yao zhifu xian xiulu (fi rst build the gadgets) 260 road then get rich) 300 Xingguosi (temple rejuvenating Ye Gongchao/Yeh Kung-ch’ao 215 China) 128–130 Ye Jianying 242 Xingyun, Reverend 117, 118 Yellow earth civilization 317 Xingzhonghui (Revive China Society) Yellow Emperor 16, 21, 28, 38 194 Yellow river 4, 5, 32, 33, 35 Xinmin xuehui (New People’s Yellow River Civilization 269 Association) 222 Yi de bao de (redeem one’s gratitude Xinwang dari/Hrdayaraja-Vairocana’ towards the benefactor) 241 (The mind-controller who is the Yi gang wei gang (steel being the Great Sun) 147 keylink) 303

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360 Himalaya Calling: The Origins of China and India

Yihetuan (Boxer rebellion) 117 Zhang Qian 26, 174, 175 Yijing 102, 104, 341 Zhang Taoguang 180 Yijing (Book of Change) 201 Zhang Tong 242 Yin–Zhong guanxi fengyun lu (Stormy Zhang Zai 145–147, 157 years of India–China Zhao Puchu 242 relations) 228 Zhao Weiwen 223, 228, 251–253 Yindu Congtan (Essays on India) 232 Zhao Ziyang 317, 318 Yindu Zhouyouji (Travelogue of Zhaonapuer/Jaungpur India) 232 (see Shaonapuer/Shaonafuer) Yilanzi Jiejue fang’an (package deal zhen shan mei (see satyam shivan solution for Sino-Indian border sundaram) dispute) 251 Zheng Guanying 260 Yinguo baoying/karma/retribution Zheng He 184–190, 192, 193 159 Zhizhe le shui, renzhe le shan Yingya shenglan (Excellent views of (The sagacious loves the river the sea coasts) 188, 189, 192 while the humanist loves the Yinshan zhengyao (Essentials of what mountain) 36 we drink and eat) 136 Zhong-Yin zhenming (Chindia yiqi boluan (army under the righteous motto) 55 standard to right the wrong) 161 Zhongguo (Middle Kingdom) Yixuan 117 28–32, 55, 129 youguo youmin (state-minded and Zhongguo cunwang wenti (The issue people-sensitive) 151 of China’s survival) 199 Yuan Longping 304, 305 Zhongguo geming yu Zhongguo Yuan Zhongxian (ﬁ rst PRC Gongchantang (Chinese ambassador to India) 223 revolution and Chinese Communist Yuanmou 11 Party) 281 Yuanmou Ape Man 11, 12 Zhongguo meng he Yindu meng Yuanmoupithecus 12 xixixiangtong (Chinese dream and Yue Xianyang 281 Indian dream are echoes to each yuelun (wheel of the moon) 148 other) 339 Yulin grottoes 84 Zhongguo renmin baowei shijie heping weiyuanhui (Chinese Zakaria, Fareed 260 People’s Commission in the Zangnan diqu (south of Tibet Defence of World Peace) 228 region) 335 Zhongguo tese shehuizhuyi shiyede Zhang Chunqiao 286 jianshezhe (builders of the socialist Zhang Dainian 144 cause with Chinese characteristics) Zhang Hanfu 234 286, 287

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Index 361

Zhongnanhai 226, 235 Zhu Zhaozhi 144 zhongnong (prioritization of Zhujiang sanjiaozhou jingjiquan agriculture) 302 (economic zone of the Pearl River Zhongwen qingwu (Prioritizing delta) 318 civility and minimizing the use of zibenzhuyide mengya (germination of force) 166 capitalism) 281 Zhou Dynasty 28 ziqiang (self-strengthening) 202 Zhou Enlai 107, 203, 228, 230, 232, Zong Bing 82 234, 235, 238, 241, 246, 247, 250, Zong Qinghou 292, 295, 296, 301 285, 315, 331 Zuckerberg, Mark Elliot 295 Zhou Xiyin 37, 38 Zurcher Erik 94 Zhu Xi 59, 128, 147, 148, 150, 157 Zhu Yuanzhang (Ming Emperor Taizu) 159, 186, 187

bb1937_Index.indd1937_Index.indd 361361 22/26/2015/26/2015 6:03:186:03:18 PMPM May 2, 2013 14:6 BC: 8831 - Probability and Statistical Theory PST˙ws

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PHOTO GALLERY

Photo 1. The author’s father, Tan Yun-shan (right), with great Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore (centre), and Jawaharlal Nehru (left) at Santiniketan in the early 1930s.

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Photo 2. (above) The author, a two-month old, at the gate of poet Tagore’s residence at Santiniketan in 1929 after being christened ‘Asoka’ by the poet, (below) The author, 84, at the same gate in 2013.

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Photo 3. The author shaking hands with Prime Minister Nehru in 1958 at Santiniketan during the convocation of Visva-Bharati University.

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Photo 4. The author and wife paying their respect to old friend, President KR Narayanan, at the Rashtrapati Bhavan in 1997.

Photo 5. The author receiving the Indian civil award, Padma Bhushan, from President Pratibha Patil in 2010.

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Photo 6. The author receiving honorary degree, Deshikotama, at a special convocation of Visva-Bharati in 2014.

Photo 7. The author being nominated as Honorary Academician of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences in 2013.

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Photo 9. The author welcoming Ji Xianlin to the Delhi University reception in the Arts Faculty in 1978.

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Photo 10. The author (first left) with China’s doyen of India studies, Ji Xianlin (second left), and co-author of India and China, Geng Yinzeng (first right) outside Ji Xianlin’s residence within the campus of Peking University in early 1990s.

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