some interesting quotes:
"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."
(source:
The Soul of India – by Amaury de Riencourt p 141 and 161)
"The contact with poets, forest saints and the best wits of the land, the glimpse into the first awakening of Ancient India's mind as it searched, at times childishly and naively, at times with a deep intuition, but at all times earnestly and passionately, for the spiritual truths and the meaning of existence - this experience must be highly stimulating to anyone, particularly because the Hindu culture is so different and therefore so much to offer." Not until we see the richness of the Hindu mind and its essential spirituality can we understand India...."
"India was China's teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world's teacher in trignometry, quandratic 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."
(source:
The Wisdom of China and India - By Lin Yutang p. 3-4).
Henry Rudolph Davies (1865 - ) says that Besides Buddhism, Shaivism was also popular in Yunan as is manifest from the prevalence of the cult of Mahakala there. This ancient Indian colony in the south of China was the cradle of Sino-Indian cultural relationship for a long time.
It was an important outpost of Indian cultural expansion along the eastern land-routes, which
Colonel Gerolamo Emilio Gerini (1860 -1913) author of
Researches on Ptolemy's geography of eastern Asia (further India and Indo-Malay archipelago p. 122 -124has described as follows:
“During the three or four centuries, preceding the Christian era, we find
Indu (Hindu) dynasties established by adventurers, claiming descent from the Kshatriya potentates of northern India, ruling in upper Burma, in Siam and Laos, in Yunnan and Tonkin, and even in most parts of southeastern China. From the Brahmaputra and Manipur to the Tonkin Gulf we can trace a continuous string of petty states, ruled by those scion of the
Kshatriya race, using the Sanskrit or Pali language in official documents or inscriptions; building temples and other monuments after the Indu (Hindu) style and employing Brahmana priests for the propitiatory ceremonies, connected with the court and state. Among such Indu (Hindu) monarchies (Theinni) in Burma, of Muang Hang, C’hieng Rung, Muang Khwan and Dasarna (Luang P’hrah Bang) in the Lau country; and of Agranagara (Hanoi) and Campa in Tonkin and Annan.”
“The names of peoples and cities,
recorded by Ptolemy in that region, however few and imperfectly preserved, are sufficiently significant to prove the presence of the Indu (Hindu) ruling and civilizing element in these countries, undoubtedly not so barbarous as the Chinese would make them appear.”
“It is evident through the medium of those barbarians that
China received part of her civilization through India.”
Among these colonies Tagong and upper Pugan were called Mayura; Prome was Sriksetra; Sen-wi (Theinni) was Sivirastra; Muang Hang, Chieng Rung and Muang Khwan were the three divisions of Ching Rung kingdom, which the prince of Yong, named Sunandakumara, united under Mahiyagananagara; Luang P’hrah Bang was Dasarna; Hanoi was Agranagara; Tagaung was Brahmadesa (P’o-;o-men), where a Sanskrit inscription, dated in Gupta era 108 – 426 A.D. refers to Hastinapura, situated in that country; and, of course, Yunana was Purvavideha or Gandhara. Thus, from Arakan, where the Mrohaung inscriptions attest the efflorescence of Indian culture, language and literature, to Yunnan, whose history we have traced above, Indian culture made a triumphant advance in ancient times.
(source:
Yün-nan; the link between India and the Yangtze – by Henry Rudolph Davies Cambridge University press 1909 an
India and The World - By Buddha Prakash p. 141-150).
China, like Southeast Asia too, was colonized to some extent by the ancient Hindus. The religion and culture of China are undoubtedly of Hindu origin. According to the Hindu theory of emigration, Kshatriyas from India went and established colonies in China. India was known as T'ien-chuto the Chinese.
Colonel James Tod (1782-1835) author of
Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: or the Central and Western Rajput States of India has written:
"The genealogies of China and Tartary declare themselves to be the descendents of "Awar," son of the Hindu King "Pururawa."
According to the traditions noted in the Schuking, the ancestors of the Chinese, conducted by Fohe, come to the plains of China 2,900 years before Christ, from the high mountains Land which lies to the west of that country. This shows that the settlers into China were originally inhabitants of Kashmir, Ladakh, Little Tibet and the Punjab, which were parts of Ancient India.
Kakuzo Okakura, speaking of the missionary activity of Indian Buddhists in China, says that at one time in the single province of Lo-yang there were more than 3,000 Indian monks and 10,000 Indian families to impress their national religion and art on Chinese soil.
(source:
The Ideals of the East With Special Reference to the Art of Japan - By Kakuzo Okakura p. 113).
Court Bjornstjerna (1779-1847) author of
The Theogony of the Hindoos with their systems of Philosophy and Cosmogony says: " what may be said with certainty is that the religion of China came from India."
Chinese authors, too, according to
Mountstuart Elphinstone (1779-1859) noted, Indian ambassadors to the court of China.
The
Mahabharata refers to China several times, including a reference to presents brought by the Chinese at the Rajasuya Yajna of the Pandavas; also, the
Arthasastra and the
Manusmriti mention China.
According to
Rene Grousset (1885-1952) French art historianin his book
Rise and Splendour of Chinese Empire ASIN 0520005252 p. 79:
"
the name China comes from "an ancient" Sanskrit name for the regions to the east, and not, as often supposed, from the name of the state of Ch'in," the first dynasty established by Shih Huang Ti in 221 B.C.
The
Sanskrit name Cina for China could have been derived from the small state of that name in Chan-si in the northwest of China, which flourished in the fourth century B.C. Scholars have pointed out that the Chinese word for lion, shih, used long before the Chin dynasty, was derived from the Sanskrit word, simha, and that the Greek word for China, Tzinista, used by some later writers, appears to be derivative of the Sanskrit Chinasthana. The Chinese literature of the third century is full of geographic and mythological elements derived from India.
" I see no reason to doubt," comments
Arthur Waley in his book,
The Way and its Power, "that the 'holy mountain-men' (
sheng-hsien) described by Lieh Tzu are Indian rishi; and when we read in
Chuang Tzu of certain Taoists who practiced movements very similar to the
asanas of Hindu yoga, it is at least a possibility that some knowledge of the yoga technique which these
rishi used had also drifted into China."
Both
Sir L. Wooley and British historian
Arnold Toynbee speak of an earlier ready-made culture coming to China. They were right. That was the Vedic Hindu culture from India with its Sanskrit language and sacred scripts. The contemporary astronomical expertise of the Chinese, as evidenced by their records of eclipses; the philosophy of the Chinese their statecraft, all point to a Vedic origin. That is why from the earliest times we find Chinese travelers visiting India very often to renew their educational and spiritual links.
Author
Kenneth Ch'en has said:
"Neo-Confucianism was stimulated in its development by a number of Buddhist ideas. Certain features of Taoism, such as its canon and pantheon, was taken over from Buddhism. Works and phrases in the Chinese language owe their origin to terms introduced by Buddhism. Chinese language owe their origin to terms introduced by Buddhism, while in astronomical, calendrical, and medical studies the Chinese benefited from information introduced by Indian Buddhist monks. Finally, and most important of all, the religious life of the Chinese was affected profoundly by the doctrines and practices, pantheon and ceremonies brought in by the Indian religion."
(source:
Buddhism in China - By Kenneth Ch'en ISBN 0691000158 p. 3).
How China was part of the Indian Vedic empire is explained by
Professor G. Phillips on page 585 in the 1965 edition of the
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. He remarks,
"The maritime intercourse of India and China dates from a much earlier period, from about 680 B.C. when the sea traders of the Indian Ocean whose chiefs were Hindus founded a colony called Lang-ga, after the Indian named Lanka of Ceylon, about the present gulf of Kias-Tehoa, where they arrived in vessels having prows shaped like the heads of birds or animals after the pattern specified in the
Yukti Kalpataru (an ancient Sanskrit technological text) and exemplified in the ships and boats of old Indian arts."
Chinese historian Dr. Li-Chi also discovered an astonishing resemblance between the Chinese clay pottery and the pottery discovered at Mohenja daro on the Indian continent.
Yuag Xianji, member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, speaking at the C. P. Ramaswamy Aiyar Foundation, Madras, March 27 1984 said,
" Recent discoveries of ruins of Hindu temples in Southeast China provided further evidence of Hinduism in China. Both Buddhism and Hinduism were patronized by the rulers. In the 6th century A.D. the royal family was Hindu for two generations. The following Tang dynasty (7th to the 9th century A.D.) also patronized both Hinduism and Buddhism because the latter was but a branch of Hinduism. Religious wars were unknown in ancient China. There was extensive maritime trade and religious exchanges between India and China at this period (Ad 1-600) and the massive expansion of Indian influence into southern China through Jih-nan and Chiao-chih, in what is now northern Vietnam.
Albert Etienne Terrien de Lacouperie, author of
Western Origins of Chinese Civilization states that the maritime intercourse of India with China dates from about 680 B.C. when the sea traders of the Indian ocean" whose "Chiefs were Hindus" founded a colony, called Lang-ga, after the Indian name Lanka, about the present gulf of Kiaotchoa....And throughout this period the monopoly of the sea borne trade of China was in their hands."
In the second century A.D., Indians from the Sindhu during the time of Rudradaman, the Khshatrapa Satrap of Kattiawad, took presents by sea to China.
(source:
Milinda Panha - Vide p. 127-327). Refer to
Marco Polo’s epic journey to China was a big con – Team Folks
lots more on ..
http://www.hinduwisdom.info/India_and_China.htm
please don't steal Nepal's creation...you guys are so hilarious.
It is completely incorrect though, since (1) the Buddha was from Nepal and (2) India did not exist back then.
