India and China: Interactions through Buddhism and Diplomacy

A Collection of Essays by Professor Prabodh Chandra Bagchi

Compiled by Bangwei Wang, Tansen Sen

Publication date:

01 October 2011

Publisher

Anthem Press

Dimensions:

229x153mm
6x9"

ISBN-13: 9789380601175

Underscoring the unique and multifaceted interactions between ancient India and ancient China, ‘India and China: Interactions through Buddhism and Diplomacy’ collates the classic works of the preeminent Indian scholar of Chinese history and Buddhism, Professor Prabodh Chandra Bagchi (1898–1956). The volume’s essays provide a wide-ranging and thorough investigation of both Sino-Indian Buddhism and cultural relations between the two ancient nations, and are accompanied by a variety of Bagchi’s short articles, English translations of a number of his Bengali essays, and contemporary articles analyzing his contribution to the wider field of Sino-Indian study.

Compilers’ Note; Introduction (English and Chinese); Part One: 1. Ancient Chinese Names of India; 2. The Beginnings of Buddhism in China; 3. Indian Influence on Chinese Thought; 4. A Note on the Avadānasataka and its Chinese Translation; 5. Bodhisattva-sīla of Subhākarasimha; 6. A Fragment of the Kāsyapa Samhitā in Chinese; 7. The Chinese Mysticism; 8. Some Early Buddhist Missionaries of Persia in China; 9. Some Letters of Hiuan-Tsang and his Indian Friends; 10. New Lights on the Chinese Inscriptions of Bodhgayā; 11. A Buddhist Monk of Nālandā Amongst the Western Turks; 12. Political Relations between Bengal and China in the Pathan Period; 13. Chinese Coins from Tanjore; 14. Report on a New Hoard of Chinese Coins; 15. Ki-pin and Kashmir; 16. Sino-Indian Relations – The Period of the United Empires (618–1100 A.D.); Part Two: Short Articles; Sino-Indian Spheres of Influences; Kothan as the Cultural Outpost of India; Indian Sciences in the Far East; The Visva-Bharati Cheena Bhavana; Part Three: Translations from Bengali; Indian Civilization in China; Influence of Indian Music in the Far East; Indian Hindu Culture and Religion in China; Appendix; In Memoriam – Prabodh Chandra Bagchi (1898–1956) by Suniti Kumar Chatterji; Prabodh Chandra Bagchi: A Model in the Beginnings of Indo-Sinic Buddhist Philology by Akira Yuyama; Index

‘Prabodh Chandra Bagchi was an outstanding Indian scholar of Sino-Indian cultural relations, and his approach to the history of contact and exchange between these two great civilizations covered a broad range of fields and disciplines: philology, philosophy, history of religions, Buddhist studies, lexicography, diplomacy and trade, numismatics, and so forth. We are fortunate that Bangwei Wang and Tansen Sen have gathered together nearly two dozen of Bagchi’s best and most representative pieces, and should be particularly grateful that they have taken such care to reproduce Bagchi’s papers so accurately, down to the last demanding diacritical.’ — Professor Victor H. Mair, University of Pennsylvania