More than 1500 years ago, a sailboat carrying merchants, goods and a monk in his seventies was caught in a rainstorm in the Indian Ocean, soon followed by a hurricane. The monk, who was then in his seventies, held tightly to the Sanskrit Buddhist scriptures he was carrying. He was Faxian, also known as Fa-Hein, the Chinese traveller and translator who studied and travelled for 14 years in many regions south of the Himalaya, covering much of what is now Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and west, north and central India. Faxian eventually made it home to serve his initial purpose: bringing a stronger foundation, monastic regulation, and context to Buddhism in China.
Faxian spent the remaining decade of his life translating Buddhist scriptures such as the Mahasangha-vinaya and Mahaparinirvana-sutra from Sanskrit into Chinese. He also wrote A Record of the Buddhist Kingdoms, his account in Chinese of travelling the treacherous land routes west and south of China to present-day Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nepal, India and Sri Lanka before returning via Southeast Asia by sea. This became the first travel record in China about Central Asia, Southasia and Southeast Asia. Faxian’s contribution to the study of Southasia through Buddhist learning and travel observation paved the way for future Chinese travellers like Xuanzang, the seventh-century monk whose records inspired the popular 16th-century novel Journey to the West, and Wang Xuance, a diplomat of the Tang Dynasty. Thus, the foundation of Southasian studies in China was set in a religious context, with India at the centre.
Following these early beginnings, the Southasian presence in China can be traced through cultural exchanges that have produced some historical landmarks. In the 13th century, the artisan Araniko, born in the Kathmandu Valley, constructed the White Dagoba which is situated inside the Miaoying temple in Beijing, which stands today as the last remaining Yuan-dynasty architectural structure in the Chinese capital. Also in Beijing, the Yonghegong Lama Temple, built under the Qing Dynasty, houses an 18-metre-high statue of the Maitreya Buddha carved out of a single piece of white sandalwood that the seventh Dalai Lama gifted to the emperor Qianlong. The Five Pagoda Temple, built in the city in the 15th century, draws inspiration from the Mahabodhi Temple in Bodh Gaya. Some Chinese scholars say that Hinduism reached its peak in China in the city of Quanzhou during the Yuan dynasty, and we can still find well-preserved idols of Vishnu and Laxmi in the city’s Kaiyuan Temple. This is a testament to early maritime trade exchanges between southern China and southern India.
However, China’s long history of studying Southasia, first through India and then other parts of the Subcontinent too, has not fostered deep inter-connections even though Chinese history and culture did not develop in complete isolation from Southasia, as is evident in the many significant cultural exchanges across the Himalaya. Chinese scholars have critically examined Southasian languages and literature for decades, and more recently have looked towards the region for its own economic development. Yet, too many scholars of Southasia in China rely on second-hand research, leading to a recycling of theories and arguments instead of new paths in the understanding of the region in all its complexity.