Sunday Reading: India, Sanskrit and China

[Dilip Barad]

All students,

The other day we referred to Indo-China relations in some discussion in class. It was observed that there is possibility of better world order and global peace if Asian giants like India, China, and Japan come together rather than playing as puppet at the hands of Euro-American powers.

The reasons:

1) Eastern Minds thinks similarly in cyclical way rather than the Western which has linear way of looking at things / universer / philosophies / histories / myths.

2) The spiritual base of Indo-Chinese consciousness has better similarities than Western spiritual consciousness

And

in this small interview, Indologist  SHASHIBALA talks about the great importance given to Sanskrit by Chinese scholars and universities. She tells SONAL SRIVASTAVA that invoking such cultural ties could help strengthen relations between India and China.

In a lecture you gave recently in Delhi on the Chinese city of Xi’an, you said it was a ‘great city of Sanskrit texts and masters.’ On the basis of your research in China, could you tell us how the Chinese perceive Indian culture and its values?

 

The Chinese have written their history in a very precise manner. They have explained in great detail, which monk was invited, by which emperor, and what he did in China. A modern Chinese Sanskrit scholar, the head of the department of Sanskrit and Pali studies from Peking University, said,‘I cannot give admission to anybody who doesn’t score well in Sanskrit. It is a language that needs a brilliant mind to study it.’ In India, students who don’t get admission in any other department of their choice, seek admission in Sanskrit courses, but they don’t normally internalise values mentioned in Sanskrit texts. Since they came to study Sanskrit as a matter of course, and not as first choice, they don’t study its artistic aspects or philosophy.

 

Sanskrit gives a foundation and a broad base to understand many things, particularly in subjects such as dance, drama and art. It makes the mind logical. The words in Sanskrit are scientifically coined and the language has fixed grammatical rules. We need to create parallel structures in our education system. If you want to study mathematics, there is a western way to study it and then there is Vedic Maths, so a student can study both and decide what works best for him. It’s a holistic way to study a subject. We have to frame new courses based on Indic thought structures.

 

Mahayana, the school of Buddhism that spread in China, is based on tantra. How do the Chinese interpret tantra and its rituals?

 

There are different kinds of people; there are devotees, who chant sutras or small verses from tantra scriptures and then there are temples and stupas that were created on the basis of tantric texts in China and they are mesmerising. Tantra is a system of philosophy, it means bringing things together. In China, mostly scholars study these kind of texts. I was in China, at a temple, where Hiuen Tsang’s skull bone is kept and people were donating money and writing their names on bricks. I also wanted to write my name, but they couldn’t write it so I wrote it in Devnagri script; people there were very happy that they had something written in Sanskrit.

 

Can Sanskrit become the foundation of stronger cultural bonding between India and China?

 

There are Chinese historical texts that need to be translated in English; they are important sources of our cultural connections. There should be more public awareness created through books, articles, and the media so that we know more about aspects of Indian culture that is preserved in China. There is a statue of Shakuntala in Xiang in China; a biography of Kalidasa was found on the Silk Route; fragments of Ashvagosh’s drama were discovered in China, and some of the oldest Sanskrit manuscripts were found in China.

 

China and India have been friends for 2,000 years and they can be friends now also. We should talk about similarities in Indian and Chinese civilisations. We can talk about differences also, but our ancient relationship should be highlighted. In China and India, civilisations were born on river banks; we are river people; our mindsets are very similar. We can understand each other in a much better way.

 

Would you go so far as to say that since Sanskrit is a language that had, at one time, wide reach beyond the Indic region, we can call it universal in nature?

 

Look at Sanskrit texts and the messages that they contain. Look at the Upanishads, and try to understand their philosophy. Universalism is the key to Indian philosophy. According to Sanskrit texts, the entire world is the unveiling of the Divine. The Ishavasya Upanishad says, don’t be greedy for anyone else’s wealth; everybody in this world has the same spark of divinity. Where is this divinity? It is inside your heart. Sanskrit texts say that everybody has the same chitta, consciousness.

 

People ask me, what is written in Sanskrit texts about human sexuality — on male and female power, transgenders — or about different ethnicities. I tell them that our texts don’t even talk about this. The Atman doesn’t have a gender. Anybody who is born in this world as a human being has all the qualities that are required to be a human being. The word manushya, human being, comes from the root mana, to think. Thinking is the capacity of a human being that distinguishes him from the rest of the animal world.

 

Four basic things are common between other animals and human beings. A shloka in Sanskrit says, ahaarnidrabhaya maithunamcha samnayametad pashu bhi manushya — food, sleep, fear and sex are common between man and animals; but human beings are endowed with the capacity to think. It is a different matter that we do not make positive use of that special human potential! There are six categories of human beings: the first one is devas, second is human being, below that is the rest of the animal world and below that is the demon world. Prof Shashibala heads the Indology department at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, New Delhi.

 

Culture Conflation

 

Situated in the Guanzhong plain in northwestern China, Xi’an is the capital of Shaanxi Province, China. One of China’s ancient cities, Xi’an is the starting point of the Silk Road and home to the Terracotta Army of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, and so is a popular tourist attraction. But what most people are unaware of is the fact that Xi’an has a much richer legacy by way of cultural connections with India, especially via Sanskrit, that was studied in great detail by Chinese scholars in the region. Along with its Taoist traditions and interfaith/cultural confluences, Xi’an has lived up to its name, that means,‘the enlightened one.’

 

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Source: https://www.speakingtree.in/article/india-sanskrit-china

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Dilip Barad (Ph.D.), Professor & Head, Department of English, Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University, Bhavnagar (364002), Gujarat, INDIA.

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