Time India and China revert to teacher-taught relationship : Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

Time India and China revert to

teacher-taught relationship

Vanam Jwala Narasimha Rao

The Pioneer (12-06-2020)

In the recent past thousands of Chinese troops are believed to be inside the Indian territory along the de facto border. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh acknowledged that China had moved troops in significant numbers on the Line of Actual Control. He also ascertained that India will not infringe on anyone’s sovereignty and at the same time, India will not let anyone infringe on its sovereignty.

Sovereignty over two separated pieces of territory has been contested between China and India. Aksai Chin is located either in the Indian union territory of Ladakh or the Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang and forms part of the Kashmir conflict was the dispute. 38,000 square kilometres of Indian territory is under China's occupation in the Union Territory of Ladakh and that Arunachal Pradesh. The majority of Arunachal Pradesh territory is claimed by China as part of South Tibet, whereas this territory is administered by India.

Before 1962 Aksai Chin was under control of Indian Government. When Chinese invaded Tibet they captured Aksai Chin which was part of Ladakh. Chinese say it was part of Tibet or China. An agreement to resolve the dispute was concluded in 1996, including "confidence-building measures" and a mutually agreed Line of Actual Control.  

Two former senior Indian officials MK Narayanan, former National Security Advisor and Vijay Gokhale, former Foreign Secretary until January 2020 expressed the view that the ongoing border tensions with China along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) are unlikely to escalate in to a conflict with China. Meanwhile India and China held talks between their Foreign Ministers and agreed to follow a consensus that differences should be handled peacefully and should not become disputes.

According to External Affairs Ministry, India and China have agreed to continue military and diplomatic talks to peacefully resolve the border issue in accordance with bilateral pacts and guidance provided by leaders of the two countries. China too announced that it has reached an agreement with India in response to India’s announcement that troops from both sides had begun a partial disengagement.

The cultural relations between India and China can be traced back to very early times. There are numerous references to China in Sanskrit texts, but their chronology is sketchy. The Mahabharata refers to China several times, including a reference to presents brought by the Chinese at the Rajasuya Yajna of the Pandavas. The Arthasastra and the Manusmrithi mention China.

Encyclopedia Britannica describes Hinduism as a major world religion originating on the Indian subcontinent and also the oldest living religion on Earth. Its many sacred texts in Sanskrit and vernacular languages served as a vehicle for spreading the religion to other parts of the world, though ritual and the visual and performing arts also played a significant role in its transmission. Hinduism has nearly one billion adherents worldwide and was the religion of about 80 percent of India’s population. Despite its global presence, however, it is best understood through its many distinctive regional manifestations.

‘A Tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and Wisdom Spanning Continents and Time About India and her Culture’ by Sushama Londhe is a collection of quotations from some of the world's greatest philosophers, thinkers, scientists, and leaders. The book envisages a fresh look at Hinduism and her many traditions through the eyes of these great personalities.

There have been many books written over the years on Hinduism by scholars from both the West and the East. But, this book with beautiful paintings and illustrations takes a comprehensive look at the many facets of Hinduism.

Author of this book Sushama Londhe, an Indian went to the United States as a graduate student. In 1996, seeing a lack of quality resources on Hinduism available on the internet, she started a simple educational web page. Since then, this quest to promote India’s spiritual heritage has helped grow the web page into one of the largest and most respected websites on Hinduism. Among others in the book, she extensively quoted on Indo-China relations.

Until recently, India and China had coexisted peacefully for over two thousand years. This amicable relationship may have been nurtured by the close historical and religious ties of Buddhism, introduced to China by Indian monks at a very early stage of their respective histories, although there are fragmentary records of contacts anterior to the introduction of Buddhism. 

Hinduism and Buddhism, both have had profound effect on religious and cultural life of China. Chinese early religion was based on nature and had many things in common with Vedic Hinduism, with a pantheon of deities. 

According to DP Singhal’s India and World Civilization: "Never before had China seen a religion so rich in imagery, so beautiful and captivating in ritualism and so bold in cosmological and metaphysical speculations. Like a poor beggar suddenly halting before a magnificent storehouse of precious stones of dazzling brilliancy and splendour, China was overwhelmed, baffled and overjoyed. She begged and borrowed freely from this munificent giver. The first borrowings were chiefly from the religious life of India, in which China's indebtedness to India can never be fully told." 

According to Lin Yutang’s ‘The Wisdom of China and India’, "India was China's teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world's teacher in trigonometry, quadratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian Nights, animal fables, chess, as well as in philosophy, and that she inspired Boccaccio, Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and probably also old Aesop." 

‘The Wisdom of China and India’ is a very extensive collection of excerpts from Indian and Chinese Buddhist texts such as Rigveda, Upanishads, Ramayana, Panchatantra, Dhammapada, Tao, Confucius, and much more. Includes glossary of Hindu terms, pronunciation of Chinese names, and table of Chinese dynasties.

"India sent missionaries, China sending back pilgrims. It is a striking fact that in all relations between the two civilizations, the Chinese were always the recipient and the Indian the donor. Indian influence prevailed over the Chinese, and for evident reasons: an undoubted cultural superiority owing to much greater philosophic and religious insight, and also to a far more flexible script" observed by Amaury de Riencourt in his book ‘The Soul of India’. This philosophical study of India's history covers the earliest Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro civilizations of some five thousand years ago, the birth and evolution of Indian culture, the widespread contact with other Asian civilizations, as well as the convulsions of India under the onslaught of the West in the last two centuries.

Cultural and economic relations between China and India date back to ancient times. The Silk Road not only served as a major trade route between India and China, but is also credited for facilitating the spread of Buddhism from India to East Asia. China and India have also had some contact before the transmission of Buddhism. References to people called the Chinas, are found in ancient Indian literature. The Indian epic Mahabharata contains references to China.

And hence, let the olden golden days come back again and the relations between India and China continue in the same manner as was in the ancient days of Teacher-Taught essence.