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India-China: Intersecting Universalities

 | 
Anne Cheng
, 
Sanchit Kumar

Is Zhongguo the Middle Kingdom or Madhyadeśa?1

Anne Cheng

Note de l’éditeur

This text (note 15) was amended on March 16, 2023.

Texte intégral

  • 1 This is a more elaborate version of a working paper published in Anjana Sharma, ed., Records, Recov (...)
  • 2 On which see Béatrice L’Haridon’s article in the present volume.

1The quest for the original texts supposedly related to Buddhist teachings is assumed to be the chief motivation for Chinese monks to take the long and perilous pilgrimage to the land of origin of their faith in the early centuries of the first millennium. Among the many disputed issues to be found in these monks’ written testimonies is one that points towards what might be called shared or competing geographies (whether imagined or real) between China and India. In early Chinese Buddhist sources like the Mouzi li huo lun2 or Faxian’s Fo guo ji, India emerges as the very centre of civilization and attraction, with the result that China’s traditional centrality is shifted to the periphery, creating the so-called “borderland complex” and giving rise to a disquieting uncertainty about what was meant by Zhongguo in numerous occurrences: should it be taken to designate the “Middle Kingdom” of Chinese self-representations, or Madhyadeśa, the “Central Country” in the north of present day India, namely the sacred land that had witnessed the existence of the Buddha?

  • 3 Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, Foe-koue-ki ou relation des royaumes bouddhiques, voyage dans la Tartarie (...)
  • 4 Jean-Pierre Drège, translator, Faxian, Mémoire sur les pays bouddhiques, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, (...)

2My starting point will be a sentence which sounds rather intriguing to me, as it has done so far for a good number of scholars, from Faxian 法顯’s Foguo ji 佛國記 (Notes on the country of the Buddha), which was first translated about two centuries ago into a European language, namely French, by Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat (1788-1832).3 This self-taught Sinologist was elected some two hundred years ago on the very first Chair dedicated to Chinese studies ever created in Europe –that was in 1814 at the Collège de France (then called the Collège Royal) in Paris. As it happens, the Foguo ji has recently been translated afresh into French by Jean-Pierre Drège, as the first volume dedicated to Buddhist studies within a bilingual Chinese-French collection I have contributed to create at Belles Lettres in Paris.4

  • 5 For a discussion of the appropriate use of the term “pilgrimage” in the Chinese context, see Timoth (...)

3The Foguo ji is the narrative assigned to the Chinese Buddhist monk Faxian (ca. 340-ca. 420) who, with a few other monks, embarked on what would turn out to be a fifteen-year pilgrimage (or rather quest5) to India between 399 and 414, with a view to bringing back to China some manuscript versions of Vinaya texts (that is, texts on the Buddhist monks’ discipline) in the Hinayana tradition. This is the opening sentence (§ 1):

法顯昔在長安, 慨律藏殘缺. 於是遂以弘始一年歲在己亥, 與慧景ˎ 道整ˎ 慧應ˎ 慧嵬等, 同契至天竺尋求戒律.

  • 6 Chang’an 長安, which had been the capital of the Former Han dynasty, was the capital of the Later Qin (...)
  • 7 The Buddhist Canon was traditionally composed of three « baskets » (Tripitaka, Chinese san zang 三藏) (...)
  • 8 Tianzhu 天竺was then a common designation in Chinese for the Indian subcontinent.
  • 9 The Chinese term jie is for śīla which concerns the rules of moral conduct to be practiced by lay (...)
  • 10 The translations from the original Chinese into English are mine, unless otherwise stated.

Faxian was living of old in Chang’an.6 Deploring the lacunae and imperfections of the collection of texts on Discipline (Vinaya, Chinese ),7 in the 1st year of the Hongshi era, which was the cyclical year yihai (i.e. 399 AD), he, together with Huijing, Daozheng, Huiying, Huiwei and others, took the joint engagement to go to India (Tianzhu)8 and seek for the precepts9 and the discipline.10

4The sentence which caught my attention in Faxian’s narrative runs as follows in the original Chinese (§ 8):

  • 11 T2085, 858a19-20. All references in this form refer to the Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經 edition (...)

度河便到烏萇國. 其烏萇國是正北天竺也. 盡作中天竺語, 中天竺所謂中國. 俗人衣服ˎ 飲食, 亦與中國同. 佛法甚盛.11

  • 12 Wuchang 烏萇is Udyâna, which, according to James Legge, is just north of modern day Punjab, “the coun (...)

After crossing the river, [Faxian and his companions] came to the country of Wuchang (Udyāna).12 Udyāna is really in North India (bei Tianzhu 北天竺). The people all use the language of Central India. Central India (zhong Tianzhu中天竺) is what is called the “Central country” (Zhongguo 中國). The food and clothes of the common lay people are the same as in the Central country (Zhongguo 中國). The Law of the Buddha there is most flourishing.

5The term Central India (Chinese zhong Tianzhu) was premised upon the spatial construction that divided India into five regions, the northern, southern, eastern, western, and middle; the middle being where the Buddha was born. The whole question revolves around the meaning of the Chinese expression Zhongguo 中國 which literally means “middle or central country”, but which in a Chinese context would automatically be taken to mean “the Middle Kingdom”, that is China. The question is therefore whether the Chinese designation Zhongguo here refers to China, or whether it simply means a “central country”, in which case it would have to be understood as a literal translation of the Sanskrit Madhya-deśa (Pâli Majjhima-desa).

  • 13 Janine Nicol, “Outsiders: Medieval Chinese Buddhists and the ‘Borderland Complex’. An Exploration o (...)

6In her discussion of this question, Janine Nicol13 definitely opts for the latter reading and for the following translation: “Udyāna is truly in North India. All the [people of this place] use the language of Central India. Central India is that which is called the Central State (Zhongguo = Madhyadeśa). The dress and food and drink of the ordinary people [in Udyāna in North India] are the same as those in the Central State (Zhongguo = Madhyadeśa).

  • 14 James Legge, A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his T (...)

7According to Janine Nicol, “this section has been misinterpreted by some (Sen, Deeg and Felt) to suggest that the people of the Madhyadeśa had the same habits as those of China (Zhongguo). This can probably be traced back to James Legge’s ambiguous translation”, which is: “Central India being what we should call the Middle Kingdom. The food and clothes of the common people are the same as in that Central Kingdom.”14

  • 15 David Jonathan Felt, “De-Centering the Middle Kingdom: the Argument for Indian Centrality within Ch (...)

8For instance, David Jonathan Felt writes: “From Faxian’s account of India, China first became aware that the Indian subcontinent had a land called Madhyadeśa, meaning ‘middle kingdom’ (zhongguo), the very same name China had used for itself.” In a note, he adds: “Faxian stated in this passage that the dress and food of Madhyadeśa were like that of China (Faxian 法顯, Gaoseng Faxian zhuan 高僧法顯傳 [Biography of the Eminent Monk Faxian], T. 2085.858a18-20). Li Daoyuan in the Shuijing zhu took this statement and claimed that it was because of this that central India was called the Middle Kingdom (Shuijing zhu xiaozheng 水經注校證, by Li Daoyuan 麗道元, ed. Chen Qiaoyi 陳橋驛 (Beijing: Zhonghua shuju, 2007), 1.4).”15

  • 16 Haiyan Hu-von Hinüber, “Faxian´s (法顯 342-423) Perception of India - Some New Interpretations of His (...)

9Janine Nicol goes on to explain: “Other translators have hedged their bets by using a literal translation without explanation (for example, Beal). Only Abel-Rémusat, and recently Haiyan Hu-von Hinüber16 treat the second instance of Zhongguo in this passage as referring to Madhyadeśa. Given the context (the author has just mentioned the language of Udyāna and the habits of the people of Madhyadeśa are discussed in a later passage and sound nothing like those of China), I follow Rémusat and Hu-von Hinüber.”

  • 17 Abel-Rémusat, Op. cit. (see above note 1), p. 45 and note 3 on p. 60.
  • 18 Jean-Pierre Drège, Op. cit. (see above note 2).

10It may be useful to be reminded of Abel-Rémusat’s French translation, the first, as we have seen, in a European language: “Quand on a passé le fleuve, on est dans le royaume d’Ou tchang [Wuchang]. Ce royaume d’Ou tchang forme précisément la partie septentrionale de l’Inde. On y fait absolument usage de la langue de l’Inde centrale. L’Inde centrale est ce qu’on nomme royaume du Milieu. Les habillements du peuple et sa manière de se nourrir sont aussi semblables à ceux du royaume du Milieu.” In a footnote, Abel-Rémusat makes the following comment: “Le royaume du Milieu, dans le texte, Tchoung kouë [Zhongguo]. Comme c’est précisément l’expression dont on se sert pour désigner communément la Chine, il faut prendre garde, dans les relations bouddhiques, à ne pas confondre les passages qui se rapportent à la Chine avec ceux qui sont relatifs aux contrées de Matoura [Mathurā], de Magadha, et autres royaumes situés dans l’Inde centrale. Cette confusion ne peut avoir lieu dans le livre de Chy Fâ Hian [Shi Faxian], qui, en parlant de son pays natal, le désigne toujours par les noms de dynasties Han, Thsin [Qin], etc. Sur le mot de royaume du Milieu, voyez le chap. XVI.”17 In a similar fashion, Jean-Pierre Drège translates Zhongguo as “le Royaume du Milieu”, but without making any explicit comment: “L’Inde centrale est ce que l’on appelle le Royaume du milieu. Les vêtements des laïcs et la nourriture [et la boisson] sont les mêmes que dans le Royaume du milieu”.18

  • 19 There is a great deal of scholarship on the importance of centrality in Chinese thought. For a usef (...)
  • 20 T.W. Rhys Davids, “Note on the Middle Country of Ancient India”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Socie (...)
  • 21 Rhys Davids, Op. cit., p. 92.

11The gist of the matter is therefore a highly controversial and contested notion of centrality. Whereas by the 4th century AD, Zhongguo would unequivocally designate the Chinese idea of its own centrality, be it geographical, political or cosmological,19 it appears that in Faxian’s narrative the expression would be used to translate the Sanskrit term for central Northern India (Madhyadeśa), the sphere of operation of the Buddha. Ancient Indian sources seem to offer varying definitions of Madhyadeśa. In a “Note on the Middle Country of Ancient India” dated 1904,20 T. W. Rhys Davids starts by observing that any place in the world tends to consider itself as the centre of the world. Thus, “the Chinese are often reported habitually to speak of China as ‘the Middle Country’. It is difficult to say whether this last is a designation merely geographical, or whether it also connotes that the people outside are outsiders, barbarians. And I do not know if any Chinese scholar has adequately discussed the history and full bearing of the term. But it is interesting to notice that certain writers in India made use of a similar expression.” Rhys Davids then traces “the oldest use of the phrase in the brahmin books in Manu (2. 21), which says: That (country) which (lies) between the Himâlaya and Vindhya mountains, to the east of the Destruction and to the west of Prâyâga, is called the Middle Country (Madhyadeśa)’.21

  • 22 Historical Geography of Ancient India, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1932.
  • 23 Bimala Churn Law, “Geographical Data from Sanskrit Buddhist Literature”, Annals of the Bhandarkar O (...)

12Three decades later, Bimala Churn Law, the author of a Historical Geography of Ancient India,22 examines the notion of Madhyadeśa in Sanskrit Buddhist sources: “As in the Pali texts, so in the Sanskrit Buddhist texts as well, Madhyadeśa is the country that is elaborately noticed. Its towns and cities, parks and gardens, lakes and rivers have been mentioned time and again. Its villages have not also been neglected. It seems, therefore, that the Middle country was exclusively the world in which the early Buddhists confined themselves. It was in an eastern district of the Madhyadeśa that Gotama became the Buddha, and the drama of his whole life was staged on the plains of the Middle country. He travelled independently or with his disciples from city to city, and village to village moving as it were within a circumscribed area. The demand near home was so great and insistent that he had no occasion during his lifetime to stir outside the limits of the Middle country. And as early Buddhism is mainly concerned with his life and the propagation of his teaching, Buddhist literature that speaks of the times, therefore, abounds with geographical information mainly of the Madhyadeśa within the limits of which the first converts to the religion confined themselves. The border countries and kingdoms were undoubtedly known and were often visited by Buddhist monks, but those of the distant south or north or north-west seem to have been known only by names handed down to them by traditions.”23

13It would seem therefore that, in Indian Buddhist sources, Madhyadeśa would be tantamount to the country where the Buddha was born, lived and attained parinirvāṇa. This “Central country” is often described in highly favourable terms. According to Bimala Churn Law, this is how some prominent places in Madhyadeśa (which are still identifiable in present day Bihar) are characterised:

  • 24 Law, Op. cit. p. 11-12. On Râjagrha, present day Rajgir, see Robert Harding, “The Buddhist landscap (...)

“In the Divyâvadâna (p. 545), Râjagrha is described as a rich, prosperous and populous city at the time of Bimbisâra and Ajâtasatru. […] It is interesting to note that Râjagrha was an important centre of inland trade where merchants flocked from different quarters (Div. p. 307) to buy and sell their merchandise. At Râjagrha there used to be held a festival known as Giriagrasamâja when thousands of people assembled in hundreds of gardens. Songs were sung, musical instruments were played and theatrical performances were held with great pomp (Mahâvastu, Vol. Ill, p. 57).”24

  • 25 Law, Op. cit. p. 13.

“Vaisâli was a great city of the Madhyadeśa and is identical with modern Besarh in the Muzaffarpur district of Bihar. The city which resembled the city of the gods was at the time of the Buddha, happy, proud, prosperous and rich with abundant food, charming and delightful, crowded with many and various people, adorned with buildings of various descriptions, storied mansions, buildings and palaces with towers, noble gateways, triumphal arches, covered courtyards, and charming with beds of flowers, in her numerous gardens and groves.”25

  • 26 Law, Op. cit. p. 27.

“The rich village of Nâlandâ is stated in the Mahâvastu (Vol. III. p. 56) to have been situated at a distance of half a yojana from Râjagrha. Nâlandâ is identified with modern Baragaon, seven miles to the north-west of Rajgir in the district of Patna.”26

14These distinctively laudatory descriptions are corroborated by Faxian’s testimony, unless it is to be assumed that he was under the total influence of the rhetoric inherited from the Indian traditions. In the Foguo ji, the “Central country” (Zhongguo, i.e. Madhyadeśa) is repeatedly described as an ideal kingdom (§ 16):

  • 27 T51 No 2085 859 b2-14.

從是以南, 名為中國. 中國寒暑調和, 無霜雪. 人民殷樂, 無戶籍官法, 唯耕王地者乃輸地利. 欲去便去, 欲住便住. 王治不用刑罔, 有罪者但罰其錢, 隨事輕重, 雖復謀為惡逆, 不過截右手而已. 王之侍衛ˎ 左右皆有供祿. 舉國人民悉不殺生, 不飲酒, 不食蔥蒜, 唯除旃荼羅. 旃荼羅名為惡人, 與人別居, 若入城市則擊木以自異, 人則識而避之, 不相唐突. 國中不養豬ˎ , 不賣生口, 市無屠ˎ 酤及估酒者, 貨易則用貝齒, 唯旃荼羅, ˎ 獵師賣肉耳.27

South from this, it is called the Central country (Zhongguo, Madhyadeśa). In the Central country, the cold and heat are in harmony, there being neither frost nor snow. The people are numerous and happy. There is neither household registration nor the laws of officials. Only those who plough the lands of the King need hand over part of their profits [in tax]. If one wishes to go, one can go; if one wishes to stay, one can stay. The King governs without having to resort to decapitation. Criminals are only punished with a fine, which will be light or heavy depending on the offence. Even in the case of repeatedly planning wicked rebellion, the offender will only have his right hand cut off, no more. The King’s attendants and guards of his entourage all have a salary. Throughout the whole country the people do not kill any living being, nor do they drink alcohol, nor eat onions or garlic. The sole exception is the caṇḍāla. Caṇḍāla is the name for bad people, they live apart from others. Whenever they enter a city or a market-place, they strike a piece of wood to mark their difference, people then know and avoid them so as not to come into contact with them. In that country they do not raise pigs nor poultry, and animals are not sold while alive. In the markets there are no butchers or alcohol dealers. In buying and selling they use cowrie shells. Only the caṇḍāla fish, hunt and sell meat.

  • 28 Tian Xiaofei, Visionary Journeys: travel writings from early medieval and nineteenth-century China (...)

15In her discussion of this passage, Janine Nicol quotes from a book by Tian Xiaofei:28Xiaofei Tian has analysed this ‘idealised account’ of central India. Noting that all trace of hardship and danger disappear once Faxian had reached central India (Zhongguo), Tian argues that the journey to central India should be seen as a journey through hell ending in the earthly paradise described above. She argues that, ‘in many ways, Faxian’s portrayal of central India… serves as a reversed mirror image of the Chinese regimes at the time. Corporal punishment was an important part of punitive law;… Household registers were another important issue, because registered households were the taxpayers on whom the state relied for income and corvée labour. Many people tried to evade being registered by secretly moving to another place… the state fought constantly against such practices, and the freedom of going or staying at will, enjoyed by the people of central India was quite unimaginable’.”

16In a jocular way, we could even remark that this contrasting between India and China sounds strangely relevant to our contemporary situation! One should observe, however, that Faxian, in what looks like an uncritical approach to a modern mind, does not even raise an eyebrow on the discrimination of the low caste of the caṇḍāla. Quite to the contrary, he describes Pāṭaliputra (present day Patna) as a thoroughly ideal kingdom, the depiction of which would even go beyond anything imaginable in the mind of the wisest Confucian sage (§ 86):

凡諸中國, 唯此國城邑為大. 民人富盛, 競行仁義. 年年常以建卯月八日行像. 作四輪車, 縛竹作五層, 有承櫨ˎ 椻戟, 高二疋餘許, 其狀如塔. 以白氎纏上, 然後彩畫, 作諸天形像. 以金, , 琉璃莊校其上, 懸繒幡蓋. 四邊作龕, 皆有坐佛, 菩薩立侍. 可有二十車, 車車莊嚴各異. 當此日, 境內道俗皆集, 作倡伎樂, 華香供養. 婆羅門子來請佛, 佛次第入城, 入城內再宿. 通夜然燈, 伎樂供養. 國國皆爾. 其國長者ˎ 居士各於城中立福德醫藥舍, 凡國中貧窮ˎ 孤獨ˎ 殘跛ˎ 一切病人, 皆詣此舍, 種種供給. 毉師看病隨宜, 飲食及湯藥皆令得安, 差者自去.

The cities and towns of this kingdom are the greatest of all in the Central country (Zhongguo, Madhyadeśa). The inhabitants are rich and prosperous, and vie with one another in the practice of benevolence and righteousness [Note that the terms used in Chinese, ren yi仁義, are two of the cardinal Confucian virtues]. Every year on the eighth day of the second month they celebrate a procession of images. They make a four-wheeled car, and on it erect a structure of four storeys by means of bamboos tied together. This is supported by a king-post, with poles and lances slanting from it, and is rather more than twenty cubits high, having the shape of a tope. White and silk-like cloth of hair is wrapped all round it, which is then painted in various colours. They make figures of devas, with gold, silver, and lapis lazuli grandly blended and having silken streamers and canopies hung out over them. On the four sides are niches, with a Buddha seated in each, and a Bodhisattva standing in attendance on him. There may be twenty cars, all grand and imposing, but each one different from the others. On the day mentioned, the monks and laity within the borders all come together; they have singers and skillful musicians; they pay their devotion with flowers and incense. The Brahmans come and invite the Buddhas to enter the city. These do so in order, and remain two nights in it. All through the night they keep lamps burning, have skillful music, and present offerings. This is the practice in all the other kingdoms as well. The Heads of the Vaisya families in them establish in the cities houses for dispensing charity and medicines. All the poor and destitute in the country, orphans, widowers, and childless men, maimed people and cripples, and all who are diseased, go to those houses, and are provided with every kind of help, and doctors examine their diseases. They get the food and medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves.

17As was noted by Abel-Rémusat, Faxian seems to take it for granted that the Chinese designation Zhongguo can only refer to Madhyadeśa, which is confirmed by the fact that he and his fellow-monks consistently refer to themselves as coming from the “borderlands” (biandi 邊地, literally “lands on the margins”), implicitly designating Madhyadeśa as the only possible “Central country or kingdom” (Zhongguo). And as Abel-Rémusat specified in his footnote, the Chinese monks never use Zhongguo to refer to their homeland, but persistently identify themselves as coming from the land of such and such a Chinese dynasty, e.g. “the land of Qin” (Qindi 秦地), “the land of Han” (Handi 漢地), or “the land of Jin” (Jindi 晋地, Jin being the Chinese reigning dynasty at the time of Faxian). See for instance §37:

從此東行三日, 復渡新頭河, 兩岸皆平地. 過河有國, 名毘荼. 佛法興盛, 兼大小乘學. 見秦道人往, 乃大憐愍, 作是言 : “如何邊地人 , 能知出家為道, 遠求佛法 ?” 悉供給所須, 待之如法.

From there [Faxian] walked eastwards for three days, and across the River Sind (Indus). The ground is flat on either side. After crossing the river, there was a country called Pitu. The Law of the Buddha was very flourishing, and both the Mahayana and the Hinayana were studied [by the monks]. When they saw the monks from Qin walking by, they were moved with great pity and compassion, and uttered these words: “How is it that these men from a borderland (biandi) could have learned to become monks (literally: to leave their families) and to practice the Way, and travel such a long distance to seek for the Law of the Buddha?” They supplied them with what they needed, and treated them in accordance with the rules of the Law.

  • 29 Nicol, Op. cit. p. 32.

18In this passage, Faxian and his companions are identified, or identify themselves, as coming from Qin which refers to both the short-lived dynasty which founded the first centralised Chinese empire in 221 BC, and to the Later Qin dynasty under which Faxian was born. It is worth noting that Qin is probably the origin of the Sanskrit transliteration Cīna which in turn was transliterated as China in a number of European languages. Janine Nicol here comments:29 “The text records that on more than one occasion Faxian meets with monks who express astonishment: “How can men of a borderland have been able to understand about leaving the household to pursue the Buddhist way and come such a great distance in search of the law?” 如何邊地人能知出家為道遠求佛法. It is possible to read into their reaction not only surprise that Buddhism had spread to China, and that Chinese Buddhists had made this incredibly arduous journey, but also that Chinese people, coming from a borderland and being mleccha (on which see below), should have been able to practice Buddhism in the first place. When Faxian and Daozheng arrived at Jetavana, where the Buddha had lived for so long, they keenly felt their borderland status, which was undoubtedly exacerbated by the reaction of the local monks” (§59):

  • 30 T. 2085.860c1-8.

法顯ˎ 道整初到祇洹精舍, 念昔世尊住此二十五年, 自傷生在邊地, 共諸同志遊歷諸國, 而或有還者, 或有無常者, 今日乃見佛空處, 愴然心悲. 彼眾僧出, 問顯等言 : “汝從何國來 ?” 答云 : “從漢地來.” 彼眾僧歎曰 : “奇哉 ! 邊地之人乃能求法至此 !” 自相謂言 : “我等諸師和上相承以來, 未見漢道人來到此也.”30

When Faxian and Daozheng first arrived at the Jetavana Vihāra (monastery), they reminisced how in the past the World-honoured one (shizun 世尊, i.e. the Buddha) had resided there for twenty-five years. They reproached themselves for being born in a borderland (biandi). Along with their like-minded companions, they had travelled through so many countries; some had returned home, and some were no more; and here they were, contemplating the Buddha’s place left vacant, and feeling inexpressibly sad at heart. At that moment a crowd of monks came out and asked Faxian and the others, ‘What country have you come from?’ They replied, ‘From the land of Han (Handi).’ The monks exclaimed with a sigh, ‘How strange that men of a borderland should come as far as here to seek the law.’ They said to one another: ‘In the whole succession of our teachers and fellow-monks, we have never seen any monks from Han coming here’.

  • 31 Barrett, Op. cit, pp. 99-100. Erik Zürcher strikes an interesting parallel in “Buddhist Influence o (...)
  • 32 Nicol, Op. cit. p. 33.

19The text here specifies that Faxian and Daozheng “reproached themselves for being born in a borderland”. As T.H. Barrett explains: “For, flying in the face of a predominant Chinese cultural chauvinism, these men insisted on accepting Indian rather than Chinese claims to the title of ‘Central Kingdom’. This was no easy transfer of allegiance: as one of Hsüan-tsang [Xuanzang]’s contemporaries makes clear in discussing the controversial question (to the true Buddhist) of the peripheral position of Chinese civilization, it entailed an acceptance of an implicit spiritual inferiority for all Chinese since personal karmic forces were held to determine not only one’s own station in life but also the whole environment in which one found oneself. To have witnessed the Buddha’s own preaching in India was a sure sign of past spiritual effort; to live in China a millennium later… was itself an indictment for past failings.”31 Janine Nicol adds this comment:32 “It is not just geography that presented a problem, but time itself. Faxian’s account repeatedly remarked on the temporal links between the places he visited and the Buddha, recording several times that the various rites being performed or customs followed had been passed down since the time of the Buddha. It is as if Faxian felt that in India, and in particular in Madhyadeśa, one could overcome the temporal issue by these links with the time of the Buddha. Not so for those born outside India. Faxian’s lament when he reached Vulture Peak (Gṛdhrakūṭa) near the ancient city of Rājagṛha (present day Rajgir in Bihar) where the Buddha often gave teachings, is one of the few parts of the record that gives the impression of a personal account.”

20T.H. Barrett reminds us of the reason why the hill known as Vulture Peak was thus called: “‘Ānanda was sitting in meditation when the deva Māra Piśuna, having assumed the form of a large vulture, took his place in the front of the cavern where he was, and frightened the disciple. Then the Buddha, by his mysterious, supernatural power, made a cleft in the rock, introduced his hand, and stroked Ānanda’s shoulder, so that his fear immediately passed away. The footprints of the bird and the cleft for the Buddha’s hand are still there, and hence comes the name.’ We read of Faxian preparing for the ascent by purchasing incense, flowers, oil and lamps, and arranging for guides to assist him. After having toiled up to this place, made his offerings and lit his lamps, he found little else besides these marks: ‘The hall where the Buddha preached his dharma has been destroyed, and only the foundations of the brick walls remain. On this hill the peak is beautifully green, and rises grandly up; it is the highest of all the five hills…’ He was overcome with sadness; holding back his tears he said ‘Here the Buddha delivered the Śūraṃgama-sūtra. I, Fa-hsien [Faxian], was born at a time when I could not meet the Buddha; and now I can only see the footprints which he has left, and the place where he lived, and nothing more’.”

21The “Central country” is so idealised and the despair of being born elsewhere is such that Faxian’s fellow pilgrim Daozheng decides not to return to “the land of Han” (Handi), that wretched “borderland” (biandi), and to remain in India (§113-114):

故法顯住此三年, 學梵書, 梵語, 寫律.

  • 33 T. 2085.864b28-c4.

道整既到中國, 見沙門法則, 眾僧威儀, 觸事可觀, 乃追歎秦土邊地, 眾僧戒律殘缺. 誓言 : “自今已去至得佛, 願不生邊地.” 故遂停不歸. 法顯本心欲令戒律流通漢地, 於是獨還.33

[Having found a number of texts on the Discipline in Pāṭaliputra (present day Patna)], Faxian stayed there for three years, learning the Indian writing and language (presumably Brahmi and Sanskrit) and copying the Vinaya.

When Daozheng arrived in the Central country (Zhongguo, i.e. Madhyadeśa) and saw for himself the rules of the Law of the śramaṇa and the dignified demeanour of the monks which he could observe in all circumstances, he deploringly recalled the borderland of Qin, with the lacunary and faulty precepts and discipline (Sanskrit śīla and vinaya, Chinese jielü戒律) practiced by the monks there. He thereupon took the oath: “From this time forth until I reach the state of Buddha, I vow not to be reborn in a borderland.” He consequently remained (in India) and never returned (to China). As to Faxian, whose original intention it was to make the precepts and the Discipline widely available in the land of Han, he went back there alone.

22We witness here a radical parting of the ways between the two monks from “the land of Han”. Daozheng was convinced that central Northern India, the very place where the Buddha had lived, was the only place where one could stand a chance of achieving Buddhahood, or at least of accumulating merit in that respect through successive rebirths. On the other hand, Faxian did not deviate from his initial purpose, the one for which he had set out on that long and perilous journey, namely bring back the authentic texts and rituals of the Vinaya from the land of Buddha to the “borderland” that was China, and thereby provide a chance for awakening and enlightenment to the Chinese who were not lucky enough to be born in the right place.

23As was remarked above, the narratives of Faxian and other Chinese pilgrims are usually quite matter-of-fact and down-to-earth, on extremely rare occasions does one encounter gushes of emotion that convey their personal feelings. Nevertheless, however strong and all-enduring Faxian’s sense of his mission might have been, he is at least in one instance shown to shed tears out of homesickness. This occurs when he reached Ceylon which he wanted to visit in order to pay homage to the jade statue of Buddha and to the relic of Buddha’s tooth. From there, he was to make his way back to China by sea (§ 120):

法顯去漢地積年, 所與交接悉異域人, 山川草木, 舉目無舊, 又同行分披, 或流或亡, 顧影唯己, 心常懷悲. 忽於此玉像邊見商人以晉地一白絹扇供養, 不覺悽然, 淚下滿目.

Several years had now elapsed since Faxian left the land of Han; the men with whom he had been in contact had all been of regions strange to him; his eyes had not rested on an old and familiar hill or river, plant or tree; his fellow-travellers, moreover, had been separated from him, some by death, and others drifting off in different directions; turning back he could only see his own shadow, and a constant sadness was in his heart. Suddenly [one day], by the side of this jade statue of Buddha, he saw a merchant presenting as an offering a fan of white silk from the land of Jin ; and tears of sorrow involuntarily filled his eyes and ran down his face.

  • 34 Antonino Forte, “Hui-chih (fl. 676-703 A.D.), A Brahmin Born in China,” Estratto da Annali dell’Ins (...)
  • 35 Nicol, Op. cit. pp. 28-29.

24In Faxian’s narrative as well as in many other texts associated with Chinese Buddhist monks, the repeated references to central India as being the land of the Buddha, and as being consequently the only possible Central Country, pushing China very far on the margins, have led to the celebrated diagnosis by Antonino Forte of a “borderland complex”34 of which Faxian was by no means the first representative, but by all means a particularly acute case. As recalled by Janine Nicol:35 “During the latter part of the fourth century increasing numbers of Buddhist texts found their way to China, and Chinese Buddhists began to suspect there was much they did not understand about their religion. Men like Shi Dao’an 釋道安 (312-385), struggling to make sense of this partial picture complicated by the simultaneous arrival of texts from rival Buddhist schools, began to feel that China was not the best place to be for a Buddhist and it is in his writings that the first traces of the Borderland Complex are to be found. In the Preface to the Sūtra of the Skandha-dhātu-āyatana (Yinchiru jing xu陰持入經序), Dao’an laments that he was born at the wrong time and in the wrong place: 世不值佛又處邊國. (T2145, 45 a11)The age has not encountered a Buddha and I dwell in a border country.’ And again in the Preface to the Sūtra on the Twelve Gates (Shi’ermen jing xu, 十二門經序), Dao’an decries the legacy of his former existences: 安宿不敏、生值佛後又處異國. (T2145, 46 a8-9)My karmic residue has left me slow-witted, born after a time I could encounter a Buddha and dwelling in a different country.’ To Dao’an, it is India (Tianzhu 天竺) that is central and China, merely a borderland. In his Preface to the Sūtra of the Stages of the Path (Daodi jing xu道地經序), in the context of a discussion on the challenges of translating the teachings into Chinese, he provides us with a vivid glimpse into his feelings about being so far from India: 然天竺聖邦道岨遼遠。幽見硯儒少來周化。先哲既逝來聖未至。 進退狼跋咨嗟涕洟。(T 2145, 69 c15-17) The road to Tianzhu (India), state of sages, is uneven and long, from our remote situation we are aware of the great erudition there, but few come to complete our conversion. The Wise One of old has departed, and the future sage has not yet arrived. [All we can do] is pace back and forth like wild beasts, sighing and weeping.’

25Dao’an is not alone in in lamenting his geographical position. Shi Huiyuan 釋慧遠 (334-416), his pupil, also talks of India as superior. 釋僧叡 (c. 352-436), also a leading disciple of the great Indo-Scythian translator and exegete Kumārajīva (Jiumoluoshi 鳩摩羅什355/60-413), whose arrival in Chang’an in 402 marked a turning point in the history of Chinese Buddhism. Sengrui talks of his ‘border situation’ (bianqing 邊情), which was offset by the wisdom his foreign master brought to China.”

26In sum, Faxian’s case of the “borderland complex”, once placed in its context, appears to represent one particular stage in a long-evolving process which was still to reach a climax with the subsequent “batch” of famous Chinese monks who took the road to India over two hundred years later, and also visited “the Central country” and stayed at Nālanda: Xuanzang 玄奘 (602-664) et Yijing 義淨 (635-713). After a prolonged stay at Nālanda, Xuanzang announced his intention to return to China. The Indian monks there attempted to persuade him to remain, like Daozheng, in India:

法師即作還意,莊嚴經像。諸德聞之,咸來勸住,曰:「印度者,佛生之處。大聖雖遷遺蹤具在巡遊禮讚足豫平生何為至斯而更捨也又支那國者蔑戾車地輕人賤法諸佛所以不生志狹垢深聖賢由茲弗往氣寒土嶮亦焉足念哉

  • 36 T. 2053.246a12-18.

法師報曰:「法王立教,義尚流通,豈有自得霑心而遺未悟。且彼國衣冠濟濟,法度可遵,君聖臣忠,父慈子孝,貴仁貴義,尚齒尚賢。加以識洞幽微,智與神契。體天作則,七耀無以隱其文;設器分時,六律不能韜其管。故能驅役飛走,感致鬼神,消息陰陽,利安萬物。自遺法東被,咸重大乘,定水澄明,戒香芬馥。發心造行願與十地齊功斂掌熏修以至三身為極。向蒙大聖降靈親麾法化耳承妙說目擊金容並轡長途未可知也豈得稱佛不往遂可輕哉36

  • 37 The Chinese transliteration of mleccha as mielieche is not only phonetic, it also carries some mean (...)
  • 38 Da Tang da ci’en si sanzang fashi zhuan 大唐大慈恩寺三藏法師傳 (A Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Gre (...)

India (Yindu) is the land of Buddha’s birth, and though he has left the world, there are still many traces of him. What greater happiness could there be than to visit them in turn, to adore him and chant his praises? Why then do you wish to leave, having come so far? Moreover, China (Zhina guo支那國) is a country of mleccha (mielieche 蔑戾車)37 who despise the religious and the Faith. That is why Buddha was not born there. The mind of the people is narrow, and their coarseness (gou , literally “impurity, filth”) profound, hence neither saints nor sages go there. The climate is cold and the country rugged –you must think again!38

  • 39 Mentioned in Faxian’s Foguo ji § 16 (see above). As was specified in that passage, the caṇḍālas wer (...)
  • 40 According to Romila Thapar, Op. cit. p. 430: “Among the foreigners with whom there was a fair amoun (...)

27One should first observe that here, China is again deliberately referred to, not as Zhongguo “the middle country”, but as Zhina guo “the country of Zhina”, a phonetic transliteration of the Sanskrit Cīna which itself, as noted above, is a transliteration of Qin and which was to be used again in Japan in the late 19th-early 20th centuries to designate China, stripping it of its centrality. Secondly, as noted by Janine Nicol, the word mleccha, here used by the Indian monks to talk about China, “frequently translated as ‘barbarian’, has many connotations and is certainly no synonym for foreigner. In Brahmanical thought mleccha was a term encompassing all the ‘uncultured’ including indigenous non-Aryan tribes and foreigners; those outside of the ritual, religious, social and linguistic community of the Aryans. They were regarded as beneath even the category of caṇḍālas39 (indigenous outcastes, who are part of the karmic system whereas mlecchas are not). For Buddhists, ‘mleccha as a term of exclusion also carried within it the possibility of assimilation…’ (Romila Thapar, “The Image of the Barbarian in Early India”, p. 431). This was not readily appreciated by the Chinese who felt they were at a severe spiritual disadvantage having been born in China.”40

28Whatever be the case, the use of that particular term applied to China brought about a polite but firm reaction from Xuanzang who had to oppose a rejoinder to the disdainful words used by his Indian fellow-monks, in defense of China’s age-old civilization which could not possibly be dismissed as a mere “country of mlecchas”, even by a staunch Buddhist believer:

  • 41 Translation from Joseph Needham (see note 38 above).

The Master of the Law (i.e. Xuanzang) replied, “Buddha established his doctrine so that it might be diffused to all lands. Who would wish to enjoy it alone, and to forget those who are not yet enlightened? Besides, in my country the magistrates are clothed with dignity, and the laws are everywhere respected. The emperor is virtuous and the subjects loyal, parents are loving and sons obedient, humanity and justice are highly esteemed, and old men and sages are held in honour. Moreover, how deep and mysterious is their knowledge; their wisdom equals that of spirits. They have taken the Heavens as their model, and they know how to calculate the movements of the Seven Luminaries; they have invented all kinds of instruments, fixed the seasons of the year, and discovered the hidden properties of the six tones and of music. This is why they have been able to tame or to drive away all wild animals, to subdue the demons and spirits to their will, and to calm the contrary influences of the Yin and the Yang, thus procuring peace and happiness for all beings… How then can you say that Buddha did not go to my country because of its insignificance?”41

  • 42 Forte, Op. cit. p. 127.
  • 43 Felt, Op. cit, p. 11.

29As Antonino Forte remarks, “whether it be true or imaginary, this episode is a perfect expression of the feeling of uneasiness and the state of dilemma which could only be solved by showing that China, too, was a sacred land of Buddhism, that is, by overcoming the ‘borderland complex.’”.42 A task which China would undertake in the centuries following Xuanzang’s quest and which would be tantamount to a massive overhaul of Buddhism from its original land to new “borderlands”. David Jonathan Felt aptly concludes: “An effort to recreate China into a sacred Buddhist realm in its own right was not the only consequence of the argument for an Indic-centered model of the world. The long-existing discourse on China’s place in the world had been forever altered. A new voice had been added to the conversation, to which all other voices now had to accommodate. Even outside of Buddhist circles, some Chinese began to understand the world not as a Chinese/center and barbarian/periphery construct, but as a polarity of civilization between a Chinese East and an Indian West.”43

  • 44 Vikram Seth, From Heaven lake, 1st ed. London, Chatto & Windus, 1983, reed. New York, Vintage Depar (...)

30In 1882, Friedrich Maximilian Müller, the renowned Sanskritist of German origin, gave a famous series of lectures at the University of Cambridge entitled What can India teach us?, and proceeded to show in detail in what way India was at the source of numerous aspects of European languages, cultures, religious beliefs, etc. In that respect, Max Müller’s question was raised from a European point of view. Being born and bred in France, but of Chinese ancestry, I would personally raise the question both from a European and a Chinese perspective. What I have just expounded was meant to remind us that India had something to teach to China in the early first millennium of the Christian era, but it is my profound and intimate conviction that it still has something to teach to China in our early third millennium. I would here borrow the words of Vikram Seth, an Indian writer who once travelled mostly by road from Nanjing to Delhi, but unlike Faxian and the other Chinese pilgrims, he was on his way back to India: “If India and China were amicable towards each other, almost half the world would be at peace. […] The best that can be hoped for on a national level is a respectful patience on either side […]. But on a personal level, to learn about another great culture is to enrich one’s life, to understand one’s own country better, to feel more at home in the world, and indirectly to add to that reservoir of individual goodwill that may, generations from now, temper the cynical use of national power.”44 What words could better convey the spirit of the present volume and collective effort?

Notes

1 This is a more elaborate version of a working paper published in Anjana Sharma, ed., Records, Recoveries, Remnants and Inter-Asian Interconnections. Decoding Cultural Heritage, ISEAS, Yusof Ishak Institute, Singapore, 2018, pp. 141-159.

2 On which see Béatrice L’Haridon’s article in the present volume.

3 Jean-Pierre Abel-Rémusat, Foe-koue-ki ou relation des royaumes bouddhiques, voyage dans la Tartarie, dans l’Afghanistan et dans l’Inde, exécuté à la fin du IVe siècle par Chy Fa Hian, Paris, Imprimerie royale, 1836.

4 Jean-Pierre Drège, translator, Faxian, Mémoire sur les pays bouddhiques, Paris, Les Belles Lettres, 2013.

5 For a discussion of the appropriate use of the term “pilgrimage” in the Chinese context, see Timothy H. Barrett “Exploratory Observations on Some Weeping Pilgrims,” in The Buddhist Studies Forum, vol. I: Seminar Papers 1987-1988, ed. Tadeusz Skorupski (London: London School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1990), p. 101.

6 Chang’an 長安, which had been the capital of the Former Han dynasty, was the capital of the Later Qin whose king was then Yao Xing (r. 394-416) who had converted to Buddhism.

7 The Buddhist Canon was traditionally composed of three « baskets » (Tripitaka, Chinese san zang 三藏): the Sūtra, the Vinaya and the Abhidharma.

8 Tianzhu 天竺was then a common designation in Chinese for the Indian subcontinent.

9 The Chinese term jie is for śīla which concerns the rules of moral conduct to be practiced by lay Buddhists as well as monks.

10 The translations from the original Chinese into English are mine, unless otherwise stated.

11 T2085, 858a19-20. All references in this form refer to the Taishō Shinshū Daizōkyō 大正新脩大藏經 edition of Buddhist texts.

12 Wuchang 烏萇is Udyâna, which, according to James Legge, is just north of modern day Punjab, “the country along the Subhavastu, now called the Swat, noted for its forests, flowers, and fruits.”

13 Janine Nicol, “Outsiders: Medieval Chinese Buddhists and the ‘Borderland Complex’. An Exploration of the Eight Difficulties”, The SOAS Journal of Postgraduate Research, Vol. 6 (2014), pp. 27-48.

14 James Legge, A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms: Being an Account by the Chinese Monk Fa-Hien of his Travels in India and Ceylon (A.D. 399–414) in Search of the Buddhist Books of Discipline (1886, reprint, New York: Dover Publications, 1965).

15 David Jonathan Felt, “De-Centering the Middle Kingdom: the Argument for Indian Centrality within Chinese Discourses from the 3rd to the 7th Century”, Beyond Borders: Selected Proceedings of the 2010 Ancient Borderlands International Graduate Student Conference (2010), p. 2. [March 16, 2023 amendment : Since this early piece of work, however, Prof. Felt has come to take a different stance on the issue, as it appears in chapter 5 of his more recent book Structures of the Earth: Metageographies of Early Medieval China published by Harvard University Press in 2021.]

16 Haiyan Hu-von Hinüber, “Faxian´s (法顯 342-423) Perception of India - Some New Interpretations of His Foguoji 佛國記,” Annual Report of The International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University for the Academic Year 2010 XI (2011), pp. 223-247.

17 Abel-Rémusat, Op. cit. (see above note 1), p. 45 and note 3 on p. 60.

18 Jean-Pierre Drège, Op. cit. (see above note 2).

19 There is a great deal of scholarship on the importance of centrality in Chinese thought. For a useful synthesis, see Mark Edward Lewis, The Construction of Space in Early China (New York: State University of New York Press, 2006).

20 T.W. Rhys Davids, “Note on the Middle Country of Ancient India”, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland (Jan., 1904), pp. 83-93.

21 Rhys Davids, Op. cit., p. 92.

22 Historical Geography of Ancient India, Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd., 1932.

23 Bimala Churn Law, “Geographical Data from Sanskrit Buddhist Literature”, Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, Vol. 15, No. 1/2 (1933-34), pp. 1-38 (quotation from p. 7). I am grateful to Dr. Samuel Wright for providing me with this reference.

24 Law, Op. cit. p. 11-12. On Râjagrha, present day Rajgir, see Robert Harding, “The Buddhist landscapes of Rajgir, northern India”, Archaeology International, 2004/5 (8), 48-51: “The modern town of Rajgir in the state of Bihar is now just a provincial centre, but ancient Rajagrha was once one of the largest cities in the Ganges Valley and the capital of the kingdom of Magadha. It is mentioned frequently in ancient texts –Hindu, Buddhist and Jain– and the founders of both Buddhism and Jainism (Buddha and Mahavira) spent much of their careers here. In the last quarter of the fourth century BC, Magadha became the Mauryan empire, which at its height extended over nearly all of modern South Asia; but by then the capital had moved north to Pataliputra (modern Patna). It was to be archaeology that recreated Buddhism at Rajgir. Its most significant modern interpreter was Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893), the founder of the Archaeological Survey of India. The core of his archaeological career was the identification of the places mentioned by the two Chinese monks [Faxian and Xuazang]. Their works had become available to the British in the 1840s and 1850s through French translations, and they were quickly seen as India's version of the work of the Greek author Pausanias. Cunningham visited Rajgir for the first time in 1861-62 and again in 1872. But he had prefigured it as specifically Buddhist from at least 1843, when he first announced his programme for utilizing the Chinese records to locate Buddhism's most significant sites, including Rajagrha.”

25 Law, Op. cit. p. 13.

26 Law, Op. cit. p. 27.

27 T51 No 2085 859 b2-14.

28 Tian Xiaofei, Visionary Journeys: travel writings from early medieval and nineteenth-century China (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Asia Center: Distributed by Harvard University Press, 2011), p. 102.

29 Nicol, Op. cit. p. 32.

30 T. 2085.860c1-8.

31 Barrett, Op. cit, pp. 99-100. Erik Zürcher strikes an interesting parallel in “Buddhist Influence on Early Taoism: A Survey of Scriptural Influence”, T’oung Pao 66 (1980), 84–147 (quotation from pp. 107-108): “…one of the standard objections against Buddhism was that it was foreign or barbarian, and the use of outlandish words must have constantly reminded the public of its foreign origin. There can be no doubt that Taoism shared the general negative view of barbarians. Birth in China is a reward of virtue, just as birth in a barbarian frontier region 邊境 is a severe karmic punishment. This concept, very frequently exposed in Ling-pao scriptures, is an extremely interesting case of transposition. It is a well-established Buddhist idea that rebirth in an outlying territory (atyanta-janapada) is one of the eight “difficult situations” (八難, astâv aksanâh) in which one has no opportunity to meet a Buddha and to hear him preach, just as rebirth in the “central region” (中國 Madhyadesa, originally the old heart-land of Buddhism) is a favourable condition because there the Buddhas appear. In the Taoist version中國has, understandably, become China, and the outer darkness of the atyanta-janapada has been filled with the concrete barbarian enemies at China's borders: ,,,,,,,. After a thousand kalpas in Hell one may have a chance to be reborn among the I of the border region, “who have a human body but no human feelings” 雖有人形而無人情 (a topos which occurs many times). Barbarians are, as always, characterized by the absence of the right norms of conduct, and even the barbarian himself who applies to become a member of the Taoist community in China is supposed ruefully to confess that on account of his former sins he was born in the frontier wilds 邊荒 as one who knows neither ritual nor etiquette.”

32 Nicol, Op. cit. p. 33.

33 T. 2085.864b28-c4.

34 Antonino Forte, “Hui-chih (fl. 676-703 A.D.), A Brahmin Born in China,” Estratto da Annali dell’Instituto Universitario Orientale 45 (1985).

35 Nicol, Op. cit. pp. 28-29.

36 T. 2053.246a12-18.

37 The Chinese transliteration of mleccha as mielieche is not only phonetic, it also carries some meaning since mie means “to despise, to scorn”, and lie means “perverse, vile”.

38 Da Tang da ci’en si sanzang fashi zhuan 大唐大慈恩寺三藏法師傳 (A Biography of the Tripitaka Master of the Great Ci’en Monastery of the Great Tang Dynasty); translation from Joseph Needham, Science and Civilisation, volume 1: Introductory Orientations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 209-210.

An alternate translation is provided by Li Rongxi, A Biography of the Tripiţaka Master of the Great Ci’en Monastery of the Great Tang Dynasty (Berkeley, Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research, 1995), pp. 138-139.

39 Mentioned in Faxian’s Foguo ji § 16 (see above). As was specified in that passage, the caṇḍālas were regarded as so impure and polluting that they had to live outside the village and to signal their presence so that the village people could avoid getting in direct physical contact with them. See Romila Thapar, “The Image of the Barbarian in Early India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 13 (4) (1971), p. 413.

40 According to Romila Thapar, Op. cit. p. 430: “Among the foreigners with whom there was a fair amount of contact, especially through trade, were the Chinese, the Arabs and the Turks, all of whom were of course considered mlecchas. Contact with the Chinese goes back to the third century B.C. through trade in silk. Although silk was greatly appreciated in India, the Chinese were firmly relegated to the ranks of the barbarians and their land declared unfit for srâddha rites. They are often associated with the Kâmboja and the Yavana (presumably because of the central Asian connection) and with the Kirâta and eastern India - the two regions from which trade with China was conducted in the early period. But the interest in China waned with the arrival of the Turks on the northwestern borders of India and the Arabs in the west.”

For a detailed study on the concept of mleccha, see Aloka Parasher, Mlecchas in Early India: A Study in Attitudes towards Outsiders up to A.D. 600 (Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers Pvt. Ltd., 1991).

See also the important and detailed study by Wilhelm Halbfass, India and Europe, An Essay in Philosophical Understanding (translated from the German original Indien und Europa), Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1981, see especially Chapter 11 “Traditional Indian Xenology” (pp. 180-181):

“Instead of referring to a vertical, hierarchical order, we may also try to visualize this scheme of social and xenological thinking as a sequence of concentric circles, which surround the center of ritual purity and perfection. Seen from this center, the most distant members of the social structure, the candâlas, constitute the transition to the mlecchas. These in turn form the transition to the realm of the animals. […] The perspective is, of course, that of the Brahmins who were the authors of the majority of texts on which our presentation is based. They see themselves at the center of this system of concentric circles, in which foreigners appear as an extension or continuation of the internal structure of Hindu society. […] In general, one should avoid contact with the mlecchas. According to a warning first found in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, one should not travel to ‘the ends of the world’, the foreign lands beyond the horizon of the Aryans, in order not to incur evil, sin and death. One should not learn the language of the mlecchas. One should not converse with them, nor visit their countries. Furthermore, it is not desirable to make the Sanskrit language accessible to the foreign barbarians. […] In accordance with their different assessment of the caste system, the approach of the Jainas and Buddhists to foreigners is, of course, significantly different from that of the Hindus and specifically the Brahmins. In the Buddhist view, ethical and characterological criteria superseded the hereditary element. […] There is a universalistic and missionary attitude already in early Hinayana Buddhism, and it becomes much more conspicuous in Mahayana Buddhism. The ideal Buddhist teacher should be able to adjust his teachings to the modes of understanding of his disciples. He should be willing and able to learn their languages and to instruct them in accordance with their own ways of thinking. The Buddha himself did not teach in Sanskrit, but in a vernacular language spoken by the people of Eastern India.”

More generally, Halbfass comes to the conclusion that Brahmanical India never took a real interest in “the other” (p. 182):

“There are no Hindu accounts of foreign nations and distant lands. The Indian cultural ‘colonization’ of East and Southeast Asia and the spread of Buddhism are not at all reflected in Sanskrit literature. […] There is little resonance of the Buddhist activities outside of India in Indian Buddhist literature. The advances of the missionaries, the great translation projects, the enthusiasm with which the Buddhist dharma was welcomed by so many Asian traditions - all this is hardly ever mentioned in India itself, and it has had few repercussions upon the debates between Hinduism and Buddhism , which were carried on in the Indian motherland. […] In a sense, the effect of Buddhist universalism upon Hindu xenology has itself been a negative one. In response to this universalism, Hindu ‘orthodoxy’ has become more rigid and exclusivistic; and there has been a theoretical consolidation of that introverted traditionalism which for centuries has secluded Hindu thought in itself and reduced the foreign world to an insignificant and marginal phenomenon.”

Such an observation was taken up by Amartya Sen in his famous essay The argumentative Indian: Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity, London, Allen Lane, 2005, pp. 171-172 in the chapter devoted to “China and India”:

“Buddhist connections also helped to moderate Indian self-centredness and sense of civilizational exclusiveness. Suspicion of foreigners has been a continuing factor in parts of Indian thinking. Even as late as the eleventh century, Alberuni, the remarkable Iranian visitor, in his book Ta’rikh al-hind (‘The History of India’), complained about the Indian attitude towards foreigners:

On the whole, there is very little disputing about theological topics among themselves… On the contrary all their fanaticism is directed against those who do not belong to them –against all foreigners. They call them mleccha, i.e., impure, and forbid having any connection with them, be it by intermarriage or any other kind of relationship, or by sitting, eating, and drinking with them.

That attitude did receive a challenge from Buddhist universalism and from the fact that Indians became, for many centuries, closely linked to other people through the common bond of a shared religion. As it happens, despite the spread of Buddhism beyond the borders of India, locally confined Indian Buddhists did not always recognize what a world religion Buddhism was becoming.”

For more on Indian and Chinese concepts of barbarians, see Richard B. Mather, “Chinese and Indian Perceptions of Each Other between the First and Seventh Centuries,” Journal of the American Oriental Society 112.1 (Jan.-Mar., 1992): 1-8.

41 Translation from Joseph Needham (see note 38 above).

42 Forte, Op. cit. p. 127.

43 Felt, Op. cit, p. 11.

44 Vikram Seth, From Heaven lake, 1st ed. London, Chatto & Windus, 1983, reed. New York, Vintage Departures, 1987, pp. 177-178.

Auteur

Anne Cheng holds the Chair of Chinese Intellectual History at the Collège de France in Paris. Born to Chinese parents, she was educated in France, studying classics and European philosophy before focusing on Chinese studies. For over forty years she has been involved in teaching and research on the intellectual history of China. She has translated the Analects of Confucius into French, and has written a study of Han Confucianism, as well as a history of Chinese thought which has been translated into numerous European and Asian languages. She has also edited several joint publications and is the chief editor of a bilingual series of works written in classical Chinese at Belles Lettres.

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