WHEN Mr Narendra Modi met Mr Xi Jinping for the first time at the BRICS Summit in Brazil in July last year, India’s Prime Minister told China’s President something highly significant, “India and China are two bodies with one soul.” What is no less significant is that Xi recounted this when he visited India in September 2014. “These words reveal the connection between us,” President Xi said. This means that the Chinese president and the Indian prime minister are on the same page, concurring with what is written on the book of history — namely, that a deep spiritual bond connects our two great Asian civilizations.

There is a memorable photograph from Mr Xi’s visit to India, when both he and Mr Modi sat together at Sabarmati Ashram in Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat, and spent a few moments spinning Mahatma Gandhi’s charkha. This has a profound meaning. For Gandhi, the spinning wheel was a powerful messenger of peace and harmony, both in human and cosmic realms, and this message echoes the teaching of Confucius and other great Chinese gurus.

Gandhi’s vision for future India-China relations was articulated in a letter he wrote in 1942. “As a friend of China, I long for the day when a free India and a free China will cooperate together in friendship and brotherhood for their own good and for the good of the world.”

As Mr Modi pays his first prime ministerial visit to China this week, both he and Xi should use Gandhi’s words for their guidance because these have a ringing relevance for today, tomorrow and forever.

We are both neighbors. And it is the obligation of neighbors to live in friendship and cooperation for mutual benefit. But India and China are not just neighbors. Together we account for a population of 2.6 billion people — nearly one-third of the global population. Therefore, how we relate with each other has a major impact on the affairs of Asia and the world.

Although our historical trajectories have been different, we both have now arrived on the global stage as leading nations of the world. China’s rise, in economic terms, has certainly been more spectacular. This, and its growing weight in global affairs, is a development of historic importance, which simply cannot be ignored. Within the span of a single generation, China has lifted a vast majority of its population from poverty and backwardness. It has also achieved breathtaking progress in many fields of human endeavor. For these achievements, China deserves the respect and admiration of the international community, including India.

Similarly, Chinese leaders and people should know that their southern neighbor is making impressive strides in many fields. These, combined with the enormous wealth of India’s spiritual, cultural and artistic heritage, is giving birth to a strong, prosperous and self-confident nation that will occupy its rightful place in the emerging new world order alongside, and on an equal footing with, China.

Zhongguo and Yindu: much more than nomenclatural affinity

It is necessary for the young generations in both India and China to recognize that the civilizational contacts between India and China were extraordinarily friendly.

Indeed, scholars tell us that in the very names of “India” and “China” is contained an amazing proof of how each country introduced the other to the world outside. Wang Bangwei, a highly respected Indologist at Peking University, writes that the Sanskrit word Cina or Cheena is the root of “China.” “Therefore, it would not be wrong to assert that in the process of the world knowing and understanding China, our neighbor India played an important role,” he says.

Similarly, Yindu, the name by which the Chinese know our country even today is a derivative of the Sanskrit word for the river Sindhu, from which is derived Hindu. In other words, our Chinese brothers had recognized us long before the British gave the name “India.” This is not a mere play of words. Names contain biographies of nations. This nomenclature intimacy, says Professor Wang Bangwei, “is the example of ‘hearts beating in unison’.”

There is a Chinese thought — Tianxia Yijia (one family under Heaven). In Sanskrit, we Indians have a similar wise thought — Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, which means “The whole world is one family.”

About India’s spiritual gift to China, no less a person than Lu Xun, the greatest Chinese writer in modern times, has observed: “Since ancient times India has communicated with us, made great presentation to us, whether it is philosophical thought, or religious belief, or morality, or art and literature. Even brother and relatives would not be so generous.”

Buddhism built the first major bridge across the mighty Himalayas to connect the peoples of India and China. Looking back at our shared past, we cannot but be wonderstruck by the enormous power of Buddha’s teachings to overcome this forbidding physical barrier. Our hearts must bow in reverence and gratitude before all those saffron-robed monks who traveled on foot from India to spread the message of universal love and brotherhood. Along with Buddhism, Hinduism also traveled to China, as is evident from the frescoes of Hindu deities in many places in that country.

In the footsteps of Kumarajiva, Xuan Zang, Tagore and Ji Xianlin

Although China embraced Buddhism, there are many examples of how Indians also began to learn Buddhism from China. The best-known name here is that of Hsüan-tsang or Xuan Zang (AD 599-664), the Buddhist monk and translator whose travels in India became legendary. His knowledge of Buddhism was so profound that, Indian scholars respectfully called him Mahadeva, which means a divine teacher. Xuan Zang brought copies of Buddhist scriptures to Xi’an, which he then translated. Incidentally, Prime Minister Modi began his China visit from this ancient Chinese city, the capital of Shaanxi, the home province of President Xi.

Xi’an is also the place where another great Buddhist scholar Kumarajiva (whose father was a great Kashmiri scholar) resided. Nearly 150 years before Xuan Zang, Kumarajiva translated from Sanskrit into Chinese the Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra and Amitabh Sutra, which are venerated by Buddhists in China even today.

Many centuries later, India’s legendary poet Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore (Gurudev means a master teacher), traveled to China to reinforce the message of India-China kinship. Tagore’s call for a “Spiritual Asia” inspired many Chinese scholars to study in India. When he established Cheena Bhavan (House of China) at his university in Shantiniketan (House of Peace) near Kolkata in 1937, he gave the following message: “(There is) an ancient pledge implicit in our past … The pledge to maintain the intercourse of culture and friendship between our people and the people of China, an intercourse whose foundations were laid 1,800 years back by our ancestors with infinite patience and sacrifice. I have come to ask you to re-open the channel of communication. Let what seems a barrier become a path. And let us unite, not in spite of our differences, but through them. For differences can never be wiped away, and life would be so much poorer without them. Let all human races keep their own identities, and yet come together, not in a uniformity that is dead, but in a unity that is living.”

One of the outstanding Chinese scholars who served as a cultural envoy between China and India was Professor Tan Yunshan, a renowned Buddhologist, who became the first director of Cheena Bhavan.

Another towering Chinese scholar who attached enormous importance to India-China fraternity was Professor Ji Xianlin (1911-2000). Sanskrit and Pali scholar, translator and historian, Ji’s life is an enormously inspiring study in deep scholarship rooted in deeper courage of conviction. The crowning glory of his life was his secret translation of the great Indian epic “Ramayana” during the “cultural revolution” (1966-76). My organization, the Observer Research Foundation, Mumbai, is setting up a center for India-China studies in honor of Professor Ji.

Immense symbolic and substantive value

In view of all these civilizational exchanges between India and China in both ancient and modern times, one can see the great wisdom in the words of China’s former Premier Wen Jiabao: “Friendliness accounts for 99.99 percent of the 2,200-year-old Sino-Indian exchanges and misunderstanding merely 0.01 percent. It’s high time we buried that 0.01 percent and re-established the 99.99 percent.”

What I observed during my recent 12-day tour of China (April 22-May 3) is that Chinese scholars and common people have a lot of expectation from Mr Modi’s visit to China, and his talks with President Xi and Prime Minister Li Keqiang. Both Mr Modi and Mr Xi are seen as strong leaders who are capable of taking farsighted decisions to broaden and deepen cooperation in diverse fields.

The fact that Mr Modi is beginning his China visit from Xi’an has immense symbolic and substantive value. Firstly, he will be received here by none other than the Chinese president himself, thus returning Mr Modi gesture of inviting Mr Xi to visit his home state Gujarat. Secondly, this ancient city of China (most famous for the terracotta warriors) was once known as Chang’an (Eternal Peace). Hence, when Mr Modi and Mr Xi shake their hands for the first time in China, it will be a handshake for peace between India and China.

Thirdly, Xi’an marks the eastern end of the ancient Silk Road, which connected China, India, South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia to Europe. The Chinese president has placed before the world a bold new vision of building the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road. This belt and road strategy has the potential to change the paradigm of cooperation and security in Asia and the world. In the modern history of the world, this is the grandest vision presented by any nation so far for the infrastructural and economic development covering as many as 67 countries in Asia, Europe and Africa. Surely, there is a big opportunity for India and China to cooperate in many projects in a mutually beneficial manner.

Friendship between India and China is not an option. It is a mutual necessity. It is also an indispensable factor for peace and stability in Asia and the world. The Modi-Xi handshake has the potential to create a new world order.

Milestones in India-China diplomatic relations

April 1950

K. M. Panikker is appointed as the first Indian ambassador to China.

April 1954

Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai sign the “Panchsheel Agreement” in Beijing.

October 1954

Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru visits China. A Sino-Indian trade agreement is signed by Nehru and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai in Beijing. Sino-Indian Friendship Associations are established in both countries.

September 1959

In Parliament, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru tables the first white paper on India-

China relations. It contains notes, memoranda and letters exchanged between India and China between April 1954 and August 1959.

April 1976

After a 15-year diplomatic hiatus, India and China restore diplomatic ties to the ambassador level. K. R. Narayanan is appointed India’s ambassador to China, while Chen Chaoyuan becomes the Chinese ambassador to India.

February 1979

Indian Foreign Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee visits China, holds important talks with China’s new helmsman Deng Xiaoping.

December 1988

Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visits China. Agreement to set up a joint working group on economic relations, trade, science and technology is signed.

November 1996

Chinese President Jiang Zemin visits India, signs agreement on confidence building measures.

February 2000

India and China sign a bilateral trade agreement in Beijing to facilitate China’s early entrance into the WTO. A memorandum of understanding for setting up a joint working group in the steel industry is written.

January 2002

China announces the direct Shanghai-Beijing-New Delhi passenger flight. Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji visits India. MoU signed in New Delhi covering cooperation in science and technology, outer space, tourism, sanitary measures, hydrological information. Premier Zhu calls for cooperation in information technology, economic cooperation and trade between India and China.

2004

For the first time, Sino-Indian bilateral trade reaches the US$10 billion mark.

January 2008

Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh visits China, meets Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao for bilateral discussions on trade, commerce, and other issues.

May 2010

President of India Pratibha Singh Patil visits China.

March 2012

Chinese President Hu Jintao meets Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh in Delhi on the side lines of the BRICS summit. Both sides decide to celebrate 2012 as the “The Year of Friendship and Cooperation” and resolve to strengthen bilateral cultural exchanges.

May 2013

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang visits India. Areas on which agreements were arrived at include strengthening mutual cooperation in trade and safety and hygiene standards of farm and meat exports, enhancing cooperation in the field of sewage treatment and urban issues of mutual interest. MoU in the field of water-efficient technology signed.

October 2013

Prime Minister of India Dr Manmohan Singh visits China.

June 2014

India’s Vice President Hamid Ansari visits China.

July 2014

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of BRICS summit in Brazil.

September 2014

Chinese President Xi Jinping visits India. Important areas of cooperation agreed upon during this visit include, specific projects for cooperation in the railways sector, balanced and sustainable development of economic and trade relations.

November 2014

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G-20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia.

February 2015

Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar visit China. The minister launches the “Visit India” year aimed at attracting more Chinese tourists to the country.

May 2015

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in China for bilateral talks.