SPEECH BY GEORGE YEO, SINGAPORE MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS, AT THE TAGORE CONFERENCE IN KOLKATA, INDIA, ON 20 DEC 2010

REALISING TAGORE'S DREAM FOR GOOD RELATIONS BETWEEN INDIA AND CHINA

The Chinese Temple in Sarnath

1     In the early 30's, a Chinese Buddhist monk from Beijing, Ven Dao Jie (道阶), while on a pilgrimage to India, resolved to rebuild a dilapidated Chinese temple in Sarnath that was established with the patronage of the Chinese Emperor in the 8th century during the Tang Dynasty.  Unfortunately, he died before he could do it.  Together with his disciple Ven De Yu (德玉) from Sichuan, a Singapore businessman Lee Choon Seng (李俊承) supported by Tan Yun Shan (谭云山) whom he knew well, decided to carry out this task.  Lee Choon Seng donated the land for the building of the Buddhist Lodge in Singapore and was the first Chairman of the Singapore Buddhist Federation.  He engaged an English engineer A H King to help in the restoration which was completed around 1939 and which is the temple we see today in Sarnath.  The temple is located next to the Deer Park where the Buddha gave his first sermon, and turned the Dharmacakra or Falun (法轮) for the first time.  Tan Yun Shan was very likely the man who got Rabindranath Tagore to write the preface for the opening of the renovated temple. 

2     Tagore wrote:

"The glorious history of the spiritual communication between China and India once raised its memorial on the sacred spot near Benares where Lord Buddha had proclaimed to his first five disciples his message of the emancipation of self in love.  The architectural record of the two peoples' mingling of souls perished in course of time and its memory has lain obscure since then for series of obvious centuries.  To-day when we feel deep in our heart the stir of a new awakening, let us rejoice in the fact that an attempt is being made to reconstruct the monastery in Sarnath originally established by the Chinese Emperor of Tang Dynasty 1300 years ago.  Numerous are the monuments built to perpetuate the memory of injuries inflicted by one murdering race upon another, but let us, once for all, for the sake of humanity, restore one memorial of a generous past to remind us of an ancient meeting of countries in Asia for the exchange of love, for the establishment of spiritual comradeship among nations separated by a vast distance in geography and race."

3 As we recall and celebrate the lifework of Tagore on his 150th birth anniversary, a recurring theme is his dream of pan-Asian solidarity, of friendship between India and China.  This is an epic story of contact between two civilizations about which a new chapter is being opened today.

India-China Relations

4     Separated by the high Himalayas, the great deserts of Central Asia

and the archipelagic waters of Southeast Asia, the history of contact between South and East Asia has been largely peaceful.  The 1962 border war was an aberration which has left a scar in India.

5     Among ordinary Indians and Chinese, while each may have prejudices about the other, there is nevertheless a deep respect of each other as an ancient people stemming from long historical contact through the overland and maritime silk routes.  The gift of South Asian Buddhism to East Asia, for example, has become a part of East Asian folklore.  By the first half of the Tang Dynasty, Buddhism became one of the main religions in China and spread to Korea and Japan.  Great libraries in the imperial capital, Chang'an, now Xi'an, were overseen by South Asian monks.  The influence of South Asia on East Asia was both direct and subtle.  Monks did not travel on their own.  Whether overland or by sea, they travelled along trade routes opened and sustained by others.  In a return favour, it was through the records of Chinese Buddhist monks that India during the British Raj re-discovered many aspects of its own Buddhist heritage. But it was not only Buddhism, every aspect of life was enriched by economic and cultural exchange including art, music and the sciences.  This was an exchange which began in the early mists of history and continues till today.

6 In this century, the nature of the exchange between India and China is of the greatest importance.  The re-emergence of these two huge civilizational polities on the global stage, still only at the beginning stages, is already altering the shape of global politics and economics.  It is only a matter of time before China and India again become the two biggest economies in the world because of the sheer size of their populations.  How India and China manage their relations in the coming years and decades will decide the big issue of war and peace in Asia.  Without making light of the challenges, if these two countries have the wisdom to cooperate and resolve disputes in a peaceful way, bilaterally and internationally, Asia will be completely transformed and with it the rest of the world.

7 Unlike Europe which has no single dominant pole, China is historically the pole in East Asia and India the pole in South Asia.  If China and India enjoy good relations, not only will East and South Asia benefit, the regions in between, Southeast Asia and Central Asia, will also benefit.  That’s two thirds of the world. Tagore's dream of pan-Asia was based not on political or economic dominance of one part of Asia or a single set of values forced on everyone but on friendship and cooperation which celebrates our common humanity and respects the natural diversity of human society.  Tagore's dream should be the dream of all Asians.  If we realize his dream, we will bequeath to future generations a much better world.  The signs are not unhopeful.

Tagore, Santiniketan, Nalanda, Bengal and Singapore

8 The celebration of Tagore's life is one such manifestation.  This conference is the fourth in a series which began in Harvard and continued in Singapore and Beijing.  Tagore's works in China are the most translated after Shakespeare.  A major effort is now underway to re-translate Tagore directly from Bengali to Chinese as previous translations were through English or Hindi translations.  In May this year, President Pratibha Patil unveiled a statue of Tagore in the centre of Shanghai while on a state visit to China.

9  Tagore visited China three times in the 1920's and made a profound impact on Chinese intellectuals.  One of them, Tan Yun Shan, whom Tagore met in Singapore, was invited by him to build the Cheena Bhavan in Santiniketan which we visited yesterday.  Representing Nehru who was ill at that time, Indira Gandhi opened the Bhavan in 1937 with the words:  “May the Chinese Hall be a symbol of living contact between China and India”.  Chiang Kai-shek visited it in 1942 and Zhou Enlai in 1957. Unfortunately, following the border war in 1962, bilateral relations took a sudden chill.  When Tan Yun Shan died in 1983, Indira Gandhi paid this tribute to him:  “Gurudeva and my father had affection and regards for him. He identified himself with Santiniketan and contributed immensely to a better understanding between the civilizations of India and China”.

10 The revival of Nalanda as a secular university is part of this larger movement to re-establish an inter-connected Asia which had been compartmentalised by Western powers into colonies and buffer states.  It is a project which has captured the mood of the times and was endorsed by the

Leaders of the East Asia Summit recently.  Established by a special Act of the Indian Parliament in August this year, Nalanda University is conceived as an international university which will engage a much wider region, indeed, of the entire global community.  As envisaged by the Japanese member of the Mentors Group, Dr Ikuo Hirayama, who passed away last year, Nalanda should dedicate itself to the cause of peace.  It is a cause all of us support.

11  That Bengalis play a disproportionate role in this effort should not

be surprising, by which I refer to Amartya Sen, Sugata Bose and Tansen Sen.  If you allow me, I would like to consider myself as an honorary Bengali too because Singapore was founded from Bengal as a daughter city of Kolkota.  Tan Yun Shan and his son, Tan Zhong (谭中), had close links with Singapore and Malaya.  It was in Singapore that Subhas Chandra Bose established the Indian National Army.  Reflecting on this, if we consider the region drained by the lower Ganges as larger Bengal, then the links between Bengal and the Buddha, between Bengal and Southeast Asia, between Bengal and China, follow naturally.  A celebration of Tagore's life cannot be dissociated from the soil which gave birth to him which is the reason why all of us are here today.

Living In Harmony With All Existence

12  Much has been made of the rivalry between China and India in recent months, some of which no doubt in the interest of third parties.  The border remains in dispute.  The media on both sides tend to sensationalise problems.  Indian and Chinese leaders, however, are mindful that good bilateral relations are necessary for each to develop.  Already China is India's biggest trading partner, as Qing China was for British India in the 19th century.  PM Manmohan Singh was right to say that each is too big to be contained by the other and the world is big enough for both to develop.  As a member of the Nalanda Mentors Group, I was cheered that when China's PM Wen Jiabao met PM Manmohan Singh in Hanoi during the East Asia Summit in October, he invited the Mentors Group to meet in China where the great monk, Xuan Zang, began his journey.  In his recent visit to India from 15 – 17 December 2010, PM Wen included in his official delegation the Chinese member of the Nalanda Members Group Prof Wang Bangwei.  China's strong support of the Nalanda revival and of Tagore's cause is a good sign.

13  We need a sense of history, of how much our forebears have benefited and learnt from one another.  Without this humility and a profound respect for the contribution of others to our own well-being, we will suffer hubris and make terrible mistakes.  It will be good if scholars from all over Asia and beyond come together to research, compile and present how much Indians, Chinese and others have learnt from one another in different fields over the centuries.  What Joseph Needham did for Science and Civilization in China, we should try to do for the history of contact between South and East Asia.  It will be good if the new Nalanda University is associated with such an undertaking. Tagore said: "The highest education is that which does not merely give us information but makes our life in harmony with all existence".  This is also the spirit of the Buddha and the spirit of Nalanda, and should be our common spirit.

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