The 2,000 years history of interaction between India and China has been an outcome of the immense contributions made by a number of prominent personalities. Among them, from the Chinese side, we know the names of Faxian, Xuanzang and Yijing. From the Indian side, the names of Kumārajīva, Buddhabhadra, Pāramārtha should be mentioned. Of these renowned monks, Kumārajīva was perhaps the most remarkable. Kumārajīva's father was an Indian and his mother was a princess from the ancient kingdom of Kucha. Since Kucha is now within the territory of China, we may say Kumārajīva was half-Chinese or a Chinese Indian. The various accounts of the life and work of these great historical figures have left deep impressions on our minds.

In modern times, the name that requires special mention in the development of Sino-Indian rapport is Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. His visit to China in 1924 was an important event in the interface between modern China and India. It rekindled the mutual exchanges between these two nations and propelled the development of a new genre of literary writing in China.

It is noteworthy, at this point, that all these personalities, who tried to bring the two countries closer, were extraordinary scholars with great knowledge and wisdom. Their intellectual acumen and academic achievements played a crucial role in shaping Chinese and Indian cultures and their subsequent intermingling.

While comparing the Avādanas with the Jātaka Stories Dr. Speyer says: “The avadāna type is nearly related to the Jātaka. Both concern edifying tales told with the purpose of inculcating moral precepts as taught by the Saddharma revealed by the Buddhas”. The stories of the Avadānaśataka have also the same character. Some of the stories may be labelled as Jātaka proper. A Jātaka, judged by the Pāli collection of Jātaka stories, contains a story of the past “within the outer frame-work, constituted by the introductory episode and the concluding identification”. A large number of stories of the Avadānaśataka contains a past story, within the frame-work of a present one with the identification. This identification is in some cases with the Buddha himself, and in other cases less important persons. Thus the presence of such different types of stories in the Avadānaśataka shows the importance of the collection in the development of the Jātaka stories.

The Chinese translation of the Avadānaśataka is very ancient. The title of the translation in Chinese is called Chuan tsi pai yuan king. The translation is attributed to Upasāka Che-kien of the Yue-che country. Che-kien was an Indo-Scythian Upasāka and is mentioned as such in all the Chinese Buddhist sources. It is said that he was at first at Lo-yang but on account of the political upheaval towards the end of the reign of Han Hien-ti (190–220 A.D.) was compelled to leave the north and to go to the south.

Prefatory Note

Early in 1997 I was invited to contribute a paper to a volume in celebration of an eminent Bengali-born savant Prabodh Chandra Bagchi (1898–19.IX.1956) on the occasion of the centenary year of his birth. To my regret, however, my extremely busy schedule at that time prevented me from writing anything. A year after that I was instead asked to send a few lines of appreciative word on his works. I hurriedly wrote a short tribute in praise of this grand savant. I always feel much indebted to such pioneers in the field of modern Indian and Buddhist studies.

In that short notice I placed special emphasis on the background discussing how Bagchi's work on Buddhist culture in India had developed even beyond the boundaries of his country, particularly to Central Asia and China. His wide range of interests lay in cultural aspects of Buddhism all over Asia. Without his teacher Sylvain Lévi, he might have not decided to pursue this line of research work. Bagchi was thus part of the lineage of French scholarship which began with Eugene Burnouf. After all, the goal is the study of humanities across the globe.

However, my paper may have gone astray. I have since heard no direct information from the organs in question as to whether or not it was published. No reply to my query in this connection has ever reached me from them, and to my knowledge this memorial volume never appeared.