"India was China's teacher in religion and imaginative literature, and the world's teacher in trignometry, quandratic equations, grammar, phonetics, Arabian Nights, animal fables, chess, as well as in philosophy, and that she inspired Boccaccio, Goethe, Herder, Schopenhauer, Emerson, and probably also old Aesop." (source: The Wisdom of China and India - By Lin Yutang In distant Xinjing in northwest China, the 9th century Khotanes Ramakatha has a Buddist orientation. This probably was due to influences from Dunhuang, an important central Asian Buddhist center during the 7th to 9th centuries. Dunhuang also had a later impact on the 13th century Tibetan Son-om Gar-a and 15th century Zhang-zhung- pa Chowanga-drak-pai-pal. Prof. Ji Xianlin, a Sanskrit scholar from Beijing, secretly translated the epic Ramayan into Chinese in 1976. The students of Ji translated Mahabharat into a set of six volumes and 5,000 copies of the first edition have sold out in 2007 and second edition is in print. The 95 year old Ji is now in hospital near the university. The 13th international Ramayan Conference was held in China in April 1996, under the auspices of Shenzhen University, in cooperation with the Vishwa Sahitya Sanskriti Sansthan. Scholars from 20 countries attended to continue the international propagation of the Ramayana's moral and artistic values. The story of the monkey Sun Wu Kong an original Chinese legend that dates back to 600 AD, became in the 16th century Chinese classic Journey to the West, more popularly known as Monkey King, often is compared to Ramayana. Monkey King has been made into popular TV serial and also into one of the best cartoons. While motifs were undoubtedly borrowed from the epic Ramayan, the basic plot does not deal with love, separation, and reunion. There are basic parallels with a monk’s efforts to obtain sacred Buddhist scripture, assisted by a powerful monkey who helps in battles against demons. Chinese have many things in common with Bharat (India). Chinese word for lion, shih, used long before the Chin dynasty, was derived from the Sanskrit word, simha. The Mahabharata refers to China several times, including a reference to presents brought by the Chinese at the Rajasuya Yajna of the Pandavas. Arthasastra and the Manusmriti also mention China. China like India has a calendar of 60 years cycle, divided into 12 year elements, most probably taken from the Tamils. Chinese, like the Arabs, were captivated by Indian medical skills and drugs. Chinese medicine was influenced by Ayurveda and similarities include the extensive use of natural herbs and acupuncture. The custom of ancestor worship was an adoption of Indian practice. There is presence of Indian motifs in various Buddhist caves in China. An Indian sage Bodhi Dharma (470 – 543 CE) from Kanchipuram in South India reached China via the Himalayas and Tibet around 520 AD. He is credited to have taught them Chan or Zen Buddhism and 16 forms of Martial arts. The Shaolin temple and the Shaolin cave where he meditated is the centre of attraction for so many Hollywood stunt movies and attract more foreign visitors than any other city in China. Both Arnold Toynbee and Sir L. Wooley speak of a ready made culture coming to China. That was the Vedic culture of India. Jawaharlal Nehru in the Discovery of India has commented: "Sanskrit scholarship must have been fairly widespread in China. It is interesting to find that some Chinese scholars tried to introduce Sanskrit phonetics into the Chinese language. A well-known example of this is that of the monk Shon Wen, who lived at the time of the Tang dynasty. He tried to develop an alphabetical system along these lines in Chinese." Indian and China have a common boundary of 3,000 KMs and a common history of 5,000 years. Until recently India and China had coexisted peacefully for over these 5,000 years and 3,000 KMs. This is the magic of Vedic culture that China imbibed from Bharat. Hu Shih (1891-1962), Chinese educator, scholar, philosopher and former Ambassador of China to USA from 1938 to 1942, said: ’India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without ever having to send a single soldier across her border’.
