History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian Civilization: India and China: Twenty Centuries of Civilizational Interaction and Vibrations (Volume III, Part 6)

The volume of the Project of the History of Science, Philosophy and Culture in Indian civilization aim at discovering the main aspects of India’s heritage and present them in an interrelated way. These volumes, in spite of their unitary look, recognize the difference between the areas of material civilization and those of ideational culture. The Project is not being executed by a single group of thinkers who are methodologically uniform or ideologically identical in their commitments. In fact, contributions are made by different scholars with different ideological persuasions and methodological approaches. The Project is marked by what may be called ‘methodological pluralism’. In spite of its primarily historical character, this Project, both in its conceptualization and execution, has been shaped by scholars drawn from different disciplines. It is for the first time that an endeavour of such a unique and comprehensive character has been undertaken to study critically a major world civilization like India. India and China: Twenty Centuries of Civilizational Interaction and Vibrations tells the story of the longest available civilizational dialogue in world history. Geng Yinzeng’s comprehensive chronology of India-China interaction (Chapter 11) is divided into five phases. In gravitates on phase 2 (64-644 AD.) that centres on the movement of Buddhism into China, phase 3 (645-1161 AD.) featuring intensive building up of Buddhist socio-political and cultural infrastructure on Chinese soil with Indian monks and Chinese ruling elite pouring their wisdom and energy, and phase 4 (1219-1765 AD.) moving to diplomatic and trade activities between the imperial court of China and the coastal states of India. Chapter 12 gives life sketches of 226 eminent Indian monks traveling to China and 118 Chinese pilgrims traveling to India. Chapter 10 introduces Chinese source materials for reference and further research. The first 8 Chapter are Tan Chung’s discourse on Geng Yinzeng’s historiography highlighting the beneficial results of India-China civilizational interaction, what the author terms “Sino-Indic ratna” permeating China’s political, social and cultural development. Chapter 9 details the development of Chinese “dragon and phoenix culture”, as the consequences of cross-fertilization between Chinese legends of long and feng and Indian mythology of naga and garuda. Through this historical study the two auathors express their conviction that civilizations do not clash.