India and China had close relations in ancient times thanks to Buddhism. But they drifted apart after Buddhism declined in India. Geopolitical changes in the years that followed, accentuated the disconnect. The relationship only got worse after independent India and Communist China saw themselves as rivals in the Asian region.
But there were some intellectuals on both sides of the divide who passionately wanted to revive the ancient, cordial links. The most prominent of them was the Bengali poet and the first Asian Nobel Laureate, Rabindranath Tagore.
Avijit Banerjee, in his paper in the volume “India-China Dialogues Beyond Borders” (Springer-Banaras Hindu University), 
says that it was not until the 1920s that an interest in reviving Sino-Indian ties developed in both countries. Tagore had become an international celebrity after he was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1913. His celebrity status, resulted in an invitation from the Lecturer Association of Peiping (now Beijing) to visit China.
Tagore went to China in 1924, he met many Chinese litterateurs, who were familiar with his work in translation. From April 12 to May 30, 1924, Tagore delivered lecturers on Indian culture and civilization in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Jinan, Beijing, Taiyuan and Hankou. People from the political, ideological, literary and artistic circles here were captivated by Tagore’s ideas. A large number of news items and comments were published in newspapers and periodicals, writes Avijit Banerjee.
Years later, in one of her papers on India-China relations, Nirupama Rao, who was India’s Ambassador in China, quotes Tagore as telling Chinese intellectuals: “My friends, I have come to ask you to re-open the channel of communion which I hope is still there; for though overgrown with weeds of oblivion, its lines can still be traced. I shall consider myself fortunate if, through this visit, China comes nearer to India and India to China—for no political or commercial purpose, but for disinterested human love and for nothing else”.
Avijit Banerjee quotes Tagore as saying: “I hope that some dreamer will spring from among you and preach a message of love and therewith, overcoming all differences, bridge the chasm of passions which has been widening for ages.”
In Tagore’s view, there was no fundamental contradiction between the Indian and Chinese civilizations, Rao points out. Both valued harmonious development encapsulated in the Sanskritic concept of ‘Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam’ (the world is one family) and the Chinese concept of ‘Shijie Datong’ (world in grand harmony).
Tagore was an internationalist. The Visva-Bharati University at Santiniketan which he founded in 1921, was truly
Rabindranath Tagore in China.
international in its philosophy, goals and curriculum. He told the Chinese that Visva-Bharati represented the idea of cooperation, of the spiritual unity of man. He appealed to his audience to take part in building it in the spirit of the bond of love that once prevailed between Indians and Chinese.
In 1926, Tagore set the ball rolling by starting Chinese studies in Visva-Bharati with the help of the Chinese scholars Sylvian Levi, a Frenchman and Linwo Jiang. Beijing University introduced Indian history, philosophy and language in its curriculum. Many Chinese scholars and students started visiting India to pursue research here. These included Tan Yun-Shan, Xu Zhimo, Xu Dishan, Xu Beihong, Tao Xingzhi and Zhang Daqia.
Encouraged by the response, Tagore visited China again in 1928. When Tan Yun-Shan came to Santiniketan in 1928, he set up a research programme, which, in 1937, became Cheena Bhavana, India’s first centre of Chinese Studies. The research concern of Cheena Bhavana was the promotion of universal peace and harmony and not conflict.
Tan Yun-Shan, who was the first director of Cheena Bhavana, stayed on toll 1970 and led studies on Buddhism’s pivotal role in the history of cultural connectivity in the world. Krishna Kinkar Sinha, a scholar of Chinese studies, who joined Cheena Bhavana in 1942, translated into Hindi, Chinese works such as ‘Gandhi and China’ by Tan Yun Shan, ‘San-Min-Chu-I’ by Sun Yat Sen, and ‘China’s Destiny’ by Marshal Chiang Kai-shek.
The famous Chinese artist Xu Beihong came to Santiniketan in 1939 as a Visiting Professor of Chinese Art. A notable event was the visit of Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek in 1941. They made a contribution of Rs.50,000. Premier Zhou Enlai was conferred the honorary degree of ‘Desikottama’ by Visva-Bharati at a special convocation on January 30, 1957. Zhou gifted books on modern Chinese literature and history, reprints of over 10,000 classics and a donation for the Tagore memorial.
Dharma Master Fa-Fang, joined as a Research Fellow in Indian Buddhism in 1942, she studied Pali, Sanskrit and English. In 1945, he went to Ceylon to study further and returned to Santiniketan in 1946 at the invitation of Tan Yun-Shan and became a Lecturer in Chinese Buddhism. Some of the books that Fa-Fang authored were ‘Buddhist Outlook on Life’, ‘The Order of a Buddhist’ and ‘Culture of India’.
Decline and Revival
The war between India and China in 1962, resulted in the decline of Cheena Bhavana. The number of students and scholars joining Cheena Bhavana dropped. But there was a revival after Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited China in 1988. Scholars like Geng Yinzeng, Du Weiming, Zhou Fucheng, Lin Chengjie, Charles Willemen, Dong Youchen and Bai Kaiyuan visited Cheena Bhavana.
Wang Lipin and Wu Ou of the Ancient Archives Study Centre of Beijing University came to Cheena Bhavana in January 2009 to help catalogue ancient books preserved in the library of Cheena Bhavana. The library has more than 40,000 books now.
In July 2011, Visva-Bharati University, and Yunnan University signed a MoU to exchange 500 students. In November 2014, President Xi Jinping conferred upon Cheena Bhavana the ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Co-Existence Award’ for its contribution in upholding the five principles of peaceful coexistence, strengthening people to people friendship and promoting world peace and development.
In November 2016, the Cheena Bhavana Library signed an MoU with the Shanghai Library. Visva-Bharati University signed an agreement with Yunnan Minzu University, Kunming, in December 2016. In 2017, Cheena Bhavana signed an MoU with Peking University that facilitated five to seven students to pursue a one-semester course in China every year. In addition, Teacher’s Training Courses were organised with the help of eminent faculty from Beijing University.
But the Chinese attack in Galwan on the India-China border in 2020 disrupted Cheena-Bhavana’s collaboration with Chinese Universities.
However, there is a change for the better in April 2024. Indicating a thaw in Sino-Indian relations, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Newsweek: “It is my belief that we need to urgently address the prolonged situation on our borders so that the abnormality in our bilateral interactions can be put behind us. Stable and peaceful relations between India and China are important for not just our two countries but the entire region and world.”
On its part, China started to celebrate the centenary of Tagore’s visit to China. On April 13, Shenzhen University organised a symposium on the visit on the theme: “China and India: Learning from the wisdom of our civilization to resolve our differences and become partners in creating a new world order.”
The participants in the symposium were Sudheendra Kulkarni, Prof. Yu Long Yu, Director of the Centre for Indian Studies at Shenzhen University and Indologist, Dr. Zhu Xuan.
In May, China will organise a similar conference in Beijing with the collaboration of Cheena Bhavana of Santiniketan. On the conference Ma Jia, the Chargé d’Affaires of the Chinese embassy, said: “Tagore’s visits to China constituted a milestone that still plays an important role in promoting exchanges and mutual learning between the two major civilizations of China and India. China and India should inherit and carry forward Tagore’s great spirit, deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges between China and India, and add more positive factors to China-India relations.”
