Tagore and China presents a comprehensive account of the until now unexplored events leading to Rabindranath Tagore's visit to China in 1924 and explores the significance it had on the China–India relations, or what has come to be known as Chindian relations. This well-researched book also brings out new material from the Chinese sources on his friendship with Xu Zhimo and the details of Tagore's two short personal visits to Zhimo and Zhimo's visit to Santiniketan. The book delves into the developments, cultural cum civilizational, that happened in the aftermath of Tagore's visit to China.
The author of this book, Tan Chung, is a typical “Chindian” in both metaphoric and real sense. Born in Malaysia in 1929, his nine decades long life can be divided according to the Indian ashrama life stages into the brahmacharya (celibate student) phase from 1930 to 1954 living in China, the grihastha (householder) phase from 1955 to 1999 living in India, and the sannyasa (wandering recluse) phase from 1999 to date living in the United States. His body chemicals were built by Chinese air, water, and food, and his brain cells were climatized by the environment of Chinese culture. He was a witness of the birth of a new China as well as the “ancien regime” overthrown by it. His celebrated father, Tan Yun-shan, was welcomed by Gurudeva Rabindranath Tagore at Santiniketan in India as an emissary of Chinese civilization. Tan Chung’s arrival at Santiniketan in 1955 began the gradual process of stepping into the shoes of his father. He started his career as a Chinese instructor at the National Defence Academy at Khadakvasla in 1958 and some of his pupils of the 15th, 16th and 17th courses retired in the general’s rank in the Indian defence forces. He continued his chalk-consuming career until he retired from Jawaharlal Nehru University in 1994 with a seven-year stint as the Head of Chinese Studies in Delhi University in between. Many of his students have affectionately regarded him as a father figure. In 2010, he received the Indian civil award Padma Bhushan from Indian President Pratibha Patil and also the award of outstanding contribution to China–India friendship from Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao in New Delhi. In 2013, he was conferred the honorary degree of Deshikottama by Visva-Bharati University. He was also the recipient of the award for “outstanding contribution to China studies” at the 6th World Forum of China Studies in Shanghai in 2015. That Forum generated the inspiration and energy for the production of this Odyssey
Amiya Dev was Professor of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, Calcutta, and has written widely in Bengali and English including biographies of two major Bengali poets after Tagore, and edited and co-edited a number of volumes, including Comparative Literature: Theory and Practice with Sisir Kumar Das, The Renewal of Song: Renovation in Lyric Conception and Practice with Earl Roy Miner, and Epic and Other Higher Narratives: Essays in Intercultural Studies with Steven Shankman for International Comparative Literature Association of which he is a former Vice-President. He retired as Vice-Chancellor of Vidyasagar University.
Wang Bangwei, a disciple of Ji Xianlin the doyen of India studies in China, is China’s foremost scholar now in India and Buddhist studies. Professor, Institute of Oriental Studies, Research Centre of Eastern Literature, and Centre for India Studies, Peking University, he is also Director of all three and Dean of the Academy of Eastern Studies. He has published a number of books and articles, mostly in China, some in Germany, France, India, Sweden, Japan and Estonia, on the history of Chinese Buddhist pilgrimage and accounts of Xuanzang and Yijing, besides Sino-Indian cultural relations. He is also a member the Nalanda Mentor Group for the project to re-establish a new Nalanda in India.
Wei Liming is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Afro-Asian Languages in the Academy of Foreign Languages, Peking University, and a Fellow of the University’s Centre for Eastern Literature Studies which is a special research base for humanities funded by the Ministry of Education. She is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Eastern Literature Studies, and Deputy Secretary of the Association of Eastern Literatures within the Chinese Association of Foreign Literatures. She has published more than 30 research papers. She won award of educational technique innovation in Beijing city, award for character education, and first-grade achievement in teaching from Peking University.
