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Wang Hui, Professor of the Tsinghua Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences, says one of his Indian friends told him that Xuanzang’s books are crucial for reshaping modern Indian identity.
Civilizations are always interacting with one another. Chinese President Xi Jinping did make a point that human civilizations have become richer and more colorful through exchanges and mutual learning, in his keynote speech at the opening of the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations.
No wonder India sent representatives to China’s first-ever Conference on the Dialogue of Asian Civilizations in Beijing, which is a new platform for exchanges and mutual understanding among different civilizations.
Like China, India has had a long history of civilization, from the ancient to modern times. The land is the birthplace of two major religions in the world – Hinduism and Buddhism. Buddhist influence is only one of many exchanges between the ancient cultures.
In modern times, China and India have seen robust exchanges in film, tourism, and technology.
“Many years ago, one of my old friends in China made a comment that in a long history, India has huge impacts on reshaping Chinese civilizations, mainly because of Buddhism. But on the other hand, he said we knew very little about what kinds of impacts from China over India,” said Wang, while sharing his thoughts about cultural connections, as well as how to better know our own culture.
Wang also referenced one of his Indian friends, adding that “he told me that Xuanzang visited India, and later how his books became very important documents for reshaping the modern India identity. So that is the long history that Indian civilizations as a unified civilization during the colonial time.”
Wang said lots of Chinese revolutionaries worked with Indian scholars and took Zhang Taiyan as an example. According to him, in the early years of the 20th century, a group of overseas Chinese revolutionaries worked closely with Indian exiled intellectuals in Japan, like Zhang Taiyan, they created Asian society for intimacy, which is a shared identity between Asian countries.
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https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d514e3149444f34457a6333566d54/index.html