The cultural relations between India and China can be traced back to very early times. There are numerous references to China in Sanskrit texts, but their chronology is vague. The Mahabharata refers to China several times. Also, the Arthasastra and the Manusmriti mention China. In early Indian literature, China is invariably shown to be connected with India by a land route across the country of the Kiratas in the mountainous regions of the north.

While in China, the Chinese, always proud of their civilization, looked upon the outside world with condescension. They called the tribes living to their north “Hun slaves”, and tribes living to the north-west “barbarians”, while the Japanese were referred to as “dwarf pirates”. But their attitude toward India was different. India was known to them by a number of names, not one of which was contemptuous. It was called Sen Du, the Kingdom of the Hindus, or Xi Yu, the Western Land; to Buddhists, it was Fu Guo, the land of the Buddha.

In a sense, both India and China have been destinations for their respective scholars, monks and travellers. This historical contacts include Indian scholar Kumarjeeva, who came to China to supervise the translation of several thousand Buddhist sutras and later died in China in 413 A.D., and Chinese monk Hsuan-Tsang, who spent seventeen years in India in the mid-seventh century.

Those symbolic figures indicated that there had been frequent personal exchanges between China and India. Even after the decline of Buddhismin both countries, Indian scholars and monks kept coming to China in an unbroken stream. India has been manifesting its internationalism till 1960s. Thanks to some historical reasons, Indians formed their large communities in Shanghai, Lhasa and Canton. For example, there were 2,341 Indians in Shanghai in 1935. They mainly worked there as policemen in the British concession. There was also a Shanghai India Business Association (SHIBA). Shanghai was the place where Indian communities loved to converge. There were hundreds of Indians in Shanghai until 1949. The forebears of J.R.D. Tata had a cotton export business in Shanghai from 1904. The company managed several local cotton mills. Apart from traders, Sikh policemen, known locally as Hong Tou A-San (a reference to their red turbans) were a common sight in the British concession area, which had a small gurdwara and a Parsi Agyari (Fire Temple) as well.