In essence the narrative is a review of past and present events in India and China, with which I had been and continue to be associated, and my take on those events. Centrality of the narrative is India and China rather than an individual, albeit there are traces of my own professional development vis--vis Chinese and China studies in India. There is a definite China and India connection in the narratives right from my descent from Kullu to present.It may be a personal narrative, but since I have witnessed the changes and developments in India and China all these years and have remained connected to these developments, the narrative may represent the feelings of many others too. I hope this narrative will enable people on both sides of the Himalaya to understand each other better and strengthen bonds of friendship between India and China.
CONTENTSForewordPREFACE
CHAPTER ONEDescent and Childhood
CHAPTER TWODegree College Kullu and Jawaharlal Nehru University
CHAPTER THREEPeking University Days
CHAPTER FOURRomance on the Volleyball Court
CHAPTER FIVEThe Beginning of a Marathon Affair
CHAPTER SIXReturn to Beijing： Witnessing the Rise of China
CHAPTER SEVENEurope, Marriage and Family
CHAPTER EIGHTChinese Fervour in India
CHAPTER NINECross-Cultural Currents Between India and China
Select BibliographyPostscriptIndex
內容試閱：
序言： My Tryst with China： Our Footprints on the Sands of Time is anoutcome of my association with the China Publishing Group CPGsince 2014. During the 2015 Communication Forum on ChineseCulture in Beijing, which was dedicated to the Belt and Road InitiativeBRI, I delivered a keynote speech on BRI from an Indianperspective. Soon after returning from the Forum in late October, Ireceived an email from Mr. Liu Yongchun, Assistant Editor-in-Chiefof the China Translation and Publishing House CTPH in Beijing,who on behalf of Mr. Zhang Gaoli, Editor-in-Chief, requested me if itwas possible for me to write an ethnographic memoir about China.My fi rst reaction was, no, not now! Memoirs are generally writtenafter retirement when you have plenty of time and nothing much todo! When I read the mail further, I knew they meant business.I was told that the CTPH was planning to publish a series ofbooks on Belt and Road China sentiments, for they believe thatmany people from countries along these two economic belts haveprofound exchanges and sentiments with China, thus an attempt tointerpret vividly and realistically the stories and emotions of thesepeople towards China from a diff erent angle and dimension. It wasa pleasant surprise when they told me that they have selected 20of the most representatives China experts or individuals from thecountries along the Belt and Road for this project and I was oneof them. However, when I found out that I was supposed to submitthe manuscript by the end of May 2016, I was totally bewildered.Of course, it was an opportunity as well as a challenge.Nevertheless, since the subject matter would revolve around Indiaand China, which was so close to my heart, I found the idea tooenticing to let it go, albeit I had to cancel my various domestic andinternational engagements for the fi rst half of the year altogether.It also meant that my narratives would not only apprisethe readers about the socio-political, economic and culturalconditions of China, but would also provide them a fi rsthandaccount of India, and therefore, foster a certain understandingbetween people of both the countries. Th is, in other words, wouldalso push people-to-people exchanges to a certain extent. It was inNovember 2015 that we signed the fi nal contract.In essence the narrative is a review of the past and presentevents in India and China, with which I had been and continueto be associated with, and is also my opinion on those events.Centrality of the narrative is India and China rather than an individual,albeit there are traces of my own professional developmentvis-.-vis Chinese and China studies in India. Th ere is a defi niteChina and India connection in the narratives right from my descentfrom Kullu to the present. For example, Xuanzangs descriptionabout Kullu during his India visit in the 7th century; description ofChina in the Indian epics which I read aloud to my father during mymiddle school days; witnessing Indian linkages during my travelsalong Taklamakan in western China and Quanzhou in southeastChina; my association with most of the Chinese scholars on Indiaright from Ji Xianlin to Jiang Jingkui; and most of the visits at thehighest level between India and China, etc. are pointer to some ofthe traces along the channels of communion between these twocountries. Th ough there is a chapter on China studies in India, andone on cross-cultural currents between India and China, the twochapters may not present a holistic picture of either of the two. Th enarrative inevitably may have left out many important happeningsnot only between these two nations, but at a personal level too,may not refl ect one and all perspectives, and may even be egotisticalat times; I hope the readers will excuse me for my indulgence.Nonetheless, I believe the narrative will off er the reader necessarybackground for further enquiry of the facts.I have indulged in frankly discussing some of my gurus andcolleagues like Ji Xianlin, Lin Chengjie, Geng Yinzeng, Tan Chung,H.P. Ray and Yap Rahman with whom I have been privileged tostudy and work together for many years and for whom I have thegreatest regards. Much of my intellectual debt goes to these individualswho have left an indelible impression on me and have shapedmy thinking in many ways, it would be diffi cult indeed to pay backtheir intellectual generosity merely by mentioning them here.Some of the narratives may look a decade or two old andcertainly are diff erent from the social reality in India and China atpresent. However, there is a connecting link and it is worthwhile toknow the past in order to know the present. It may be a personalnarrative, but since I have witnessed the changes and developmentsin India and China all these years and have remained connectedto these developments, the narrative may represent the feelingsof many others too. I hope this narrative will enable people onboth sides of the Himalaya to understand each other better andstrengthen bonds of friendship between India and China.Finally, I would like to congratulate and thank the CTPH forconceptualizing the Belt and Road China sentiments project. Iremain indebted to their inspiration and provocation; had it notfor them, I would not have thought of writing my memoirs at thisstage of my career. I am equally indebted to my wife Yao Deepak,sons Hans Deepak and Jay Deepak for allowing me to workon Saturdays and at times on Sundays too. I did miss spendingquality time with them during the weekend all these months;however, I am looking forward to making for up to the loss!B. R. DeepakJawaharlal Nehru UniversityNew DelhiMay 16, 2016
This is the description of Kuluta present-day Kullu my hometown in Himachal Pradesh given by the great Chinese scholar monk, Xuanzang 600-664 in his monumental work The Journey to the west during Great Tang written upon his return from India to China in 643. A report of Land revenue Settlement of the Kangra district Punjab 1865-72 by J. B. Lyall and published in 1874 at Central Jail Press Lahore says that Xuanzangs Kuluta probably comprised in addition to the country now called Kullu, Bangahal, Seraj, Bisehar, and the mountainous parts of at least of Mandi and Suket. Lyall presumes that the country was inhabited by the Kanets, present-day inhibitors. Of course Xuanzangs account is the 7th century account of my ancestral home, though he talks about the people of Kullu in his accounts, but he does not provide details about their origin, albeit in the absence of any credible written records, it is extremely diffi cult to establish the origin of my ancestors. Historical references to Kullu are found in later Vedic literature such as ramayana and Mahabharata and Puranas . There existed several small republics, which fought amongst themselves for supremacy, and were gradually conquered by more powerful empires like Nanda, Maurya, Indo-Greek, Sakas, Kanishka, Gupta, Harshvardhana and even Pala Dynasty, and during modern history by the Marathas and Sikhs.
Chapter One DESCENT AND CHILDHOOD
I had special interest in Dunhuang, as I happened to know the then Director of Dunhuang Research Academy DHRA Professor Duan Wenjie. In fact while at IGNCA as a researcher, I had participated in the translation and compilation of a brief introduction of 492 Mogao Caves that ran into 150 pages for an edited book by Professor Tan Chung titled Dunhuang Art through the eyes of duan wenjie 1994. Professor Duan knew about this and was happy to receive me. He wrote a short introduction letter for us, and asked me to hand it in at the reception. An escort accompanied us with a huge bunch of keys, perhaps a few kilograms in weight, through the entrances of various caves. I was delighted to see splendid Buddhist icons, frescoes depicting Buddhist stories, illustration of Buddhist sutras, patrons of the caves, Taoist and Hindu deities and other mythological tales. It was an ultimate repository of Buddhist heritage, a warehouse of resource material as far as the spread of Buddhism in China was concerned. Alas! We had only a day in Dunhuang, therefore, couldnt aff ord to stay here longer. When I climbed the Mingsha Mountain from the Crescent Spring, I imagined the footprints of Faxian, Kumarajiva, Xuanzang and thousands of scholar monks from India and China that I thought we re still buried under those beautiful sand dunes. When I rode on those beautiful double hump Bactrian camels, I could imagine caravan after caravan of camels traversing the mighty Taklamakan and Gobi deserts year after year and century after century. It was absolutely amazing and enchanting to visit these places.
The next day we boarded a bus to Turpan, the Gaochang or Karakhoja of ancient times. Xuanzang visited Gaochang in 628, stayed there for a month and received grand hospitality from the local king. When Xuanzang departed from Gaochang, the king sent with him 25 escorts and presented 30 horses. The place is also famous for Jurassic era Flame Mountains formed due to the pressure from undersea lava. However, in Wu Chengens Journey to the west, a 15th century supernatural novel, the raging flames of these mountains put a stop to Xuanzangs journey to the West. It was only after the duels of Sun Wukon g, the monkey disciple of Xuanzang, who is also attributed as an Indian import from ramayana character Hanuman, with Bull Dragon King, which resulted in procuring a palm leaf fan that ultimately extinguished the fire and enabled Xuanzang to continue his journey.
The ruins of the city that was destroyed during the 14th century are still intact. The ruins of imperial palace, stupa, moat, mostly thedilapidated structures built in yellow-brown mud brick and earth. The most striking place was the round roofless hall where we were told by our tour guide that this was a lecture hall of the monastery, where Xuanzang lectured on Buddhism during his stay in Gaochang. In Turpan, our cab driver was a young Uyghur man in his early 20s. I was taken aback when he told me that he was reading a popular Indian novelist Gulshan Nanda, not in Hindi or English but in its Uyghur translation! India was better known to him as Hindustan.Chapter Six RETURN TO BEIJING： WITNESSING THE RISE OF CHINA
Although Chinese is one of the working languages of the United Nations, and Chinese speaking population the largest in the world, until recent times it hobbled like a giant with deformity. Ming Emperor Wanlis 1563-1620 goodwill letter to the Russian Tsar was laid aside for 50 long years. This not only showed the communication gap between the immediate neighbours but also the arrogance of big empires. Chinas economic miracle appears to have cured this deformity for good, the giant no more hobbles,rather is leaving its footprints all over the world. The language that was snubbed by the first world countries has been loved by theinternational community. The Chinese characters that once were despised as some undecipherable, incomprehensible pictographshave now been regarded as a thing o f beauty and art! The same have become favorite tattoo art all over the world. Many of my Indian friends, who had nothing to do with Chinese language, had Chinese characters tattooed on their bodies when I was in Scotland. As the 21st century has been dubbed as an Asian century, Chinese language too has been viewed as the language of the century.
Chapter Eight CHINESE FERVOUR IN INDIA
Not in my wildest dreams could I have imagined Xuanzang setting his feet in my hometown, Kullu. Never in my wildest dreams did I think of me making it to the land of Xuanzang. It was Chinese and studies in India-China relations that facilitated my understanding not only of Xuanzang but a whole galaxy of Indian and Chinese scholar monks who were responsible for the civilizational dialogue between India and China. It was again the Chinese language that took me to the land of Xuanzang, and it was a logical and conscious decision to trace the footprints of these scholar monks and tens and thousands of unsung brave men who perished or survived along the vast Taklamakan or the mighty seas. The heroic deeds of the fi ve Indian doctors, especially Kotnis during the tumultuous times in China, remain examples of supreme sacrifice and the true spirit of India-China friendship and internationalism.My Tryst with China： our Footprints on the Sands of Time is not just about my personal tryst, but more importantly, it traces all those footprints that vehemently advocated opening of the channels of communion and communications between India and China in the civilizational history of these two countries. Our in the title include all those scholar monks on both sides of the Himalayas during the height of the Buddhist glory and beyond; people like Ji Xianlin, Wu Xiaoling, Jin Kemu, Liu Anwu, Jin Dinghan, Huang Xinchuan, Lin Chengjie, Geng Yinzeng, Xue Keqiao, Wang Shuying, Yu Longyu, Jiang Jingkui, etc. scholars on the Chinese side, and Tagore, Kotnis, P. C. Bagchi, Tan Yunshan, Tan Chung, H. P. Ray, Yap Rahman, Tansen Sen, Madhvi Thampi and many more on the Indian side who not only have kept the lamp of civilizational dialogue alight but have also kindled the light of reason for such a dialogue in the times of war, barbarity and geopolitics in the hearts and minds of many people on both the sides.POSTSCRIPT
購物車/收銀台(
0
) | 在線留言板
| 付款方式
| 運費計算
| 聯絡我們
| 幫助中心 |
加入書簽
HOME
新書上架
