Chinese and Indian Perceptions of Each Other between the First and Seventh Centuries

Bibliographic Data

ID4752871
AuthorsRichard B Mather (corresponding author)
Year1992
Volume112
Issue1
Pages1
Publication date1992-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the American Oriental Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0003-0279 • E-ISSN: 2169-2289
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/604580
OpenAlexW2325837513
LanguageEN
Citations received6

The earliest recorded perceptions of the Indian subcontinent in China are based on reports of traders, diplomats and generals. Though nothing substantive was reported about India's intellectual or cultural achievements, the accounts generally described a pleasant tropical land with exotic birds and animals, that produced colorful artifacts, and whose people were gentle and peace-loving. After the introduction of Buddhism into China during the first century A.D., and especially after the development of an indigenous Taoist church toward the end of the second, tensions arising from the rival claims of these two religions introduced some negative perceptions, not only concerning the incompatibility of Buddhism with China's own values, but also concerning the inferiority of Indian culture and the savagery of her people. These initially negative perceptions were at least partially modified by first-hand contact with Indian missionaries and by reports of Chinese pilgrims, as well as by the cogent arguments of lay Buddhist apologists, whose treatises on the subject between the third and sixth centuries have been preserved. Indian perceptions of China during the same period, as recorded by Chinese pilgrims, are marked for the most part by a naive ignorance, which their Chinese informants were only too happy to dispel

Ancient history · Geography · Perception · Chinese history and philosophy · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Psychology

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