Sources of Information

Political relations between India and China practically come to a close with the end of the Buddhist period. There is no reference in the Chinese records to any exchange of ambassadors after the T'ang period. There is neither any mention of Indian missionaries going to China after the middle of the 11th century. There was however an attempt to resume political relations between the two countries in the Ming period but it succeeded only temporarily. The Chinese official records of this period reveal a complete ignorance of the former relations between the two countries. The records sometimes show that the Chinese writers had even forgotten the geography of India and considered parts of it as countries outside India.

There are a number of records on the exchange of embassies between Bengal and China during the first half of the 15th century. These records have a special interest in so far as they throw light from an unexpected quarter on the political, social and economic condition of Bengal in the 15th century. Two of these records had been formerly translated by Rockhill in T'oung Pao, 1915, pp. 436–444. There are however a few more which are more complete and precise than the former in certain respects. They have now been, translated with the help of my friend and colleague in the Visva-Bharati, Mr. Hsiaoling Wu. I have thought it fit to publish these records here along with those previously translated by Rockhill which also have been partly revised.

The Western Turks separated from their brethren of the North in 582 A.D. But before their final separation they already had formed a distinct group with their “ten tribes”. Their chief She-tie-mi (Istami) with the help of his elder brother Tou men had already extended their power to different parts of Central Asia. They had two great powers to combat – the Joan-joan and the Hephthalite. The power of the Joan-joan hordes established since 400 A.D. had developed their power to such an extent that in the middle of the 6th century (652 A.D.) they were holding their sway over almost the whole of the northern part of Central Asia. T'ou-men with the help of some Tunguse chiefs succeeded in destroying altogether the power of the Joan-joan and their vast territory fell into the hands of the Turks in 555 A.D. The next onslaught of the Turks was directed against the Hephthalites. The Hephthalites had already established their sway over the people in the valley of the Oxus in the middle of the 5th century A.D. They had attained the apogic of their power in the period 502–556 A.D. when they carried their victorious armies not only to Persia but also to Kapisa, Karasahr, Kucha, Kashgar, Bai, Khoten, etc. Their territory comprised also Tash-Kourgane, Wakhan, Zebak, the valley of Chitral and Gandhara and their capital was situated at Bamian. When Song-Yun visited Gandhara (in 520 A.D.) the country had already been conquered by the Hephthalites.

Science was international in ancient times as now but while in modern times the transmission of knowledge from one part of the world to the other is quick, in ancient times it was a slow process. Nevertheless the progress of knowledge depended then as now on the co-operation of diverse nations. It is well known that scientific notions in astronomy and medicine were developed by the ancient Egyptians and the Chaldeans but with the fall of Babylon in 539 B.C. it was the Greeks and not the Persians who took up the tradition. The Greeks henceforth went on perfecting the knowledge and building up what is known as the Greek science.

In India the Vedic Aryans had developed a scientific knowledge in identical branches (astronomy, mathematics and medicine) between 2000 and 600 B.C., the period during which the Babylonian science was also developed. The Vedic literature mentions the star-gazers (nakṣatradarśa), calculators (gaṇaka) etc. Already in the period of the Ṛgveda, the year was a solar year of 360 days and a quinquennial cycle with an intercalary month had been elaborated. Twenty-seven or twenty-eight lunar zodiacs (nakṣatras) and the phases of the moon also were known. The planets came to be discovered slightly later in the Āraṇyaka period about the 8th century B.C.

Forgetfulness would have been a bliss, if the subconscious had not retained the memories of the past to unloose them at the crucial moments. Past would have been a dead past, if the earth had not preserved in its bosom the ancient foot-marks to help its recovery. The desire of the modern scholar to dig out these marks has been as insatiable as that of the treasure-hunter of the olden days and there has often been an unprecedented competition among different nationalities in this search. This competition among scholars and archaeologists of various European countries led to the discovery of an enormous mass of materials from the deserts of Eastern Turkestan and within a short period of less than 25 years brought into focus lights from different quarters on the past history of this arid land.

The ancient Chinese records as well as the archaeological discoveries made in different places in Eastern Turkestan have unmistakably shown that the small kingdoms and principalities in this region had adopted Indian culture and preserved it as their own for about one thousand years. Buddhism was the accepted religion of the local people and script, literature, art and all other elements of culture had been mostly borrowed from India.

China came in contact with the Iranian world for the first time towards the end of the 2nd century before Christ when Chang Kien, the famous Chinese explorer came back to China (126 B.C.) after a long absence of twelve years. Chang Kien was sent to negotiate with the western powers, especially with the Scythians, established at that time in the valley of the Oxus, in view of forming an alliance against the Huns who were a formidable menace to empire. Though the political mission of Chang Kien did not immediately succeed he brought definite information about the kingdoms which were flourishing at that time in the western region – especially Ta-yuan (Ferganah), K'ang Kiu (Sogdiana), Ngan-si (Parthia), etc.

Subsequently when the first official embassy of China was sent to Parthia under the reign of Emperor Wu-ti (140–86 B.C.), the King of the country ordered twenty thousand cavalry to meet them on the eastern frontier and entertained them well. All the Chinese annals trace their relation with Parthia from this date. Parthia came to be known to the Chinese as Ngan-si through the name of the dynasty ruling over Parthia in that period namely the Arsacidan. Ngan-si (An-si) in ancient Chinese pronunciation would give as Ar-śak (Arsak). The description of the country, as given by the Chinese historians of that period answer very well to the empire of the Arsacides.

The first contact of China with India goes back to the second century B.C. when certain scientific and cosmological notions infiltrated into China probably through the nomadic agencies of Eastern Turkestan. One of the most renowned Taoists of this period, Prince Lieu-ngan (Huai Nan-tseu), introduced for the first time a cosmology according to which the universe is divided into nine regions spread around a central mountain upon which are arranged the heavenly-worlds. This cosmology is of Indian origin and specially developed in the Buddhist literature.

China received Buddhism from the same nomadic sources, towards the end of the first century B.C. and within a century it was officially recognized as a religion worthy of toleration. Buddhist scholars began coming to China from the end of the first century after Christ and their activities were more and more intensified. But throughout the Han period (65–220), although a number of scholars had come to China, worked among the Chinese and translated a fairly large number of texts into Chinese, Buddhism had a hard struggle with the indigenous systems. Confucianism with its traditional prestige in the court and its hold on the nobility looked down on Buddhism as a barbarian religion. The Chinese, like the Greeks, looked upon all foreigners as barbarians and Indians were no exception to the rule. In the Han period attempts were made to transform Confucianism into a religion but its religious character was much less developed than Buddhism.