India has long held a significant place in the Chinese worldview, particularly through the lens of Buddhism, a sentiment echoed by Professor Kamal Sheel at the 16th Giri Deshingkar Memorial Lecture in New Delhi. Speaking on the topic “India in the Chinese Quest for Nationalism and Modernity: Perspectives from Chinese Travel Writings,” Sheel delved into the historical and cultural connections between India and China, drawing from two notable modern Chinese travelogues on India.
Sheel’s presentation focused on the travel narratives of Huang Maocai and Kang Youwei, two prominent Chinese intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Their writings, recently translated by Sheel and Professor Ranjana Sheel, offer a unique perspective on how India was perceived by Chinese travelers during a time of significant transformation in both nations.
Travelogues, according to Sheel, are often shaped by the cultural and political contexts of the writer’s home country. These narratives serve as a means to map out not only physical territories but also the cultural and political landscapes of nations. In the case of Huang and Kang, their travels to India were motivated by a desire to understand and learn from India’s cultural and colonial experiences, particularly as China grappled with its own challenges of modernity and nationalism.
China and India, historically seen as two great civilizational states, experienced a shift toward nation-state identities at the turn of the 19th century. This shift was documented in the travelogues of Chinese Buddhist monks like Faxian, Xuan Zang, and Yijing, whose journeys to India fostered dynamic intellectual exchanges between the two cultures. Sheel highlighted that these early narratives laid the foundation for later Chinese thinkers to study India’s development and draw lessons from its experiences.
Huang Maocai, the first Chinese modernizer and intellectual traveler to India, was a cartographer and a proponent of modern sciences and nationalism. In the late 19th century, he was dispatched by the Qing state to assess the geopolitical situation along the China-Tibet-India land route, at a time when British imperial interests were encroaching on China’s southwestern frontier. Huang’s task was to map the region and safeguard China’s territorial integrity, a mission that took him across Tibet, Myanmar, and eventually to Kolkata.
Kang Youwei, another influential figure, authored the travelogue “Yindu Youji (Record of Travel to India)” in 1901-1902. Kang, a maverick intellectual, sought to formulate a distinctly Chinese idea of nationalism and modernity, one that did not merely mimic Western models. His observations on India’s history, society, and religion were driven by a desire to find alternatives to Western-inspired modernity, which he believed was incompatible with China’s cultural values.
For both Huang and Kang, Buddhism in India was a central theme. India, as the birthplace of Buddhism, held a special place in Chinese cultural consciousness. Buddhism, along with Confucianism and Taoism, was integral to China’s knowledge and cultural systems. However, during their travels, both Huang and Kang encountered a different India—an India where Buddhism was in decline. This reality saddened them, as they had long associated India with the flourishing of the very religion that had helped shape Chinese civilization.
Despite their disappointment in witnessing the withering of Buddhism in India, Huang and Kang’s travelogues underscored the enduring significance of India in the Chinese quest for cultural and national identity. Their writings offer valuable insights into how early 20th-century Chinese modernizers navigated the complexities of their time, with India serving as both a mirror and a contrast to their own nation’s path toward modernity.
As Sheel concluded, the historical ties between India and China, cemented by Buddhism, continue to be a vital part of the cultural and intellectual exchanges between the two nations. These travel narratives provide a prism through which we can better understand the mutual influences that have shaped the modern identities of both India and China.
