Underscoring the unique and multifaceted interactions between ancient India and ancient China, ‘India and China: Interactions through Buddhism and Diplomacy’ collates the classic works of the preeminent Indian scholar of Chinese history and Buddhism Professor Prabodh Chandra Bagchi (1898–1956). The collected essays of this volume range from those that examine the ancient names for India in Chinese sources, to those that investigate Indian influences on Chinese thought, analyze the beginnings of Buddhism in China, and explore the letters exchanged between the Chinese monk Xuanzang (Hiuan-Tsang) and his Indian friends. Also included are a variety of Bagchi’s short articles, as well as English translations of a number of his Bengali essays.

Further insight into Bagchi’s work is provided by the renowned scholars Suniti Kumar Chatterji and Akira Yuyama, who discuss respectively Bagchi’s contribution to Chinese studies in India and to the wider understanding of India-China interactions. With its wide-ranging and thorough investigation of both Sino-Indian Buddhism and cultural relations between the two ancient civilizations, ‘India and China: Interactions through Buddhism and Diplomacy’ will be an invaluable text for anyone interested in cross-cultural exchanges between India and China, Buddhism, or Asian history.

Bangwei Wang is a professor at the Institute of Oriental Studies, Research Centre of Eastern Literature and the Centre for India Studies, Peking University.

Tansen Sen is an associate professor of Asian history and religions at Baruch College, City University of New York, and is currently also a visiting senior research fellow at the Nalanda-Sriwijaya Centre, Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, Singapore.

Compilers’ Note; Introduction (English and Chinese); Part One: 1. Ancient Chinese Names of India; 2. The Beginnings of Buddhism in China; 3. Indian Influence on Chinese Thought; 4. A Note on the Avadānasataka and its Chinese Translation; 5. Bodhisattva-sīla of Subhākarasimha; 6. A Fragment of the Kāsyapa Samhitā in Chinese; 7. The Chinese Mysticism; 8. Some Early Buddhist Missionaries of Persia in China; 9. Some Letters of Hiuan-Tsang and his Indian Friends; 10. New Lights on the Chinese Inscriptions of Bodhgayā; 11. A Buddhist Monk of Nālandā Amongst the Western Turks; 12. Political Relations between Bengal and China in the Pathan Period; 13. Chinese Coins from Tanjore; 14. Report on a New Hoard of Chinese Coins; 15. Ki-pin and Kashmir; 16. Sino-Indian Relations – The Period of the United Empires (618–1100 A.D.); Part Two: Short Articles; Sino-Indian Spheres of Influences; Kothan as the Cultural Outpost of India; Indian Sciences in the Far East; The Visva-Bharati Cheena Bhavana; Part Three: Translations from Bengali; Indian Civilization in China; Influence of Indian Music in the Far East; Indian Hindu Culture and Religion in China; Appendix; In Memoriam – Prabodh Chandra Bagchi (1898–1956) by Suniti Kumar Chatterji; Prabodh Chandra Bagchi: A Model in the Beginnings of Indo-Sinic Buddhist Philology by Akira Yuyama; Index

‘Prabodh Chandra Bagchi was an outstanding Indian scholar of Sino-Indian cultural relations, and his approach to the history of contact and exchange between these two great civilizations covered a broad range of fields and disciplines: philology, philosophy, history of religions, Buddhist studies, lexicography, diplomacy and trade, numismatics, and so forth. We are fortunate that Bangwei Wang and Tansen Sen have gathered together nearly two dozen of Bagchi’s best and most representative pieces, and should be particularly grateful that they have taken such care to reproduce Bagchi’s papers so accurately, down to the last demanding diacritical.’ — Professor Victor H. Mair, University of Pennsylvania