Hinduism in China

Dr. UDAY DOKRAS

B.Sc., B.A. (Managerial Economics), LL.B., Nagpur University, India
Certificat' en Droit, Queens University,
Canada,
MBA CALSTATE, USA,
Ph.D. Stockholm University, Sweden,
Management and Efficacy Consultant, India

There are age old instances of cultural links between India and China. Tamil merchant guilds of
Manugramam and Ayyavole resided in the southern regions of China. There is evidence of
several Hindu temple and symbolic motifs that have been discovered in South east China. Hong
Kong and the neighboring regions witnessed an immigration of Hindu communities in small
numbers within the region

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The Five Hundred Lords of Ayyavole were a merchant guild from Aihole that provided trade
links between trading communities in Tamil Nadu, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. They have
been mentioned in inscriptions from the 9th century. Aihole was formerly a major city of
the Chalukyas of Badami and a place with many temples and brahmans, some of whom seem to
have become involved in the trading activities of the Five Hundred. [1] But most of the Ayyavolu
Lords were merchants, especially those engaged in long-distance trade. Their inscriptions
between the 9th and 14th centuries record their endowments made to temples and throw light on
their trading activities or commodities.

The Five Hundred guild, known as Ayyavole in Kannada, Ayyavolu in Telugu, Aryarupa in
Sanskrit, and Ainuruvar in Tamil, operated in Southern India and Southeast Asia. They became
more powerful under the Cholas. They were protectors of the Veera-Banaju-Dharma, that is, law
of the heroic or noble merchants. The Bull was their symbol which they displayed on their flag;
and they had a reputation for being daring and enterprising.

The Five Hundred were an itinerant group that became a community because of their
operations. In comparison to other guilds, they were considered the most flamboyant. Together
with another guild of merchants called Manigramam, the guild of Five Hundred were found in
ports and commercial centres. They endowed temples, fed brahmans, and contributed to the
maintenance of irrigation works. Their inscriptions dot the entire southern peninsula, tracing an
inter-regional and international network of merchants. Some of these merchants were called
"nanadeshi" (or "of many countries), while some were called "swadeshi" (or "of own country").
These traders were one of the conduits for transporting Indian culture to Southeast Asia.

Evidences show that the erection of temples and mathas depended upon royal patronage and
mercantile guilds like Ayyavolu, Nakaramu and Komatis who supported temple building
activity. Similarly temple building activity also depended upon guilds of architects or the
Acharyas of the Vishwakarma-Kula who also seem to have organised themselves into guilds
based on geographical divisions.It would seem that when the Ayyavole-500 guild became a big
overreaching guild of Southern India, most of the existing indigenous and local trade guilds
became associated with it. The Manigramam and nanadesi guilds joined the Ayyavole-500. Due
to the various Chola naval expeditions to Southeast Asia and the support provided by the Cholas
to the Ayyavole guild, the Ayyavole guild emerged as a maritime power and continued to

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flourish in the kingdom of SriVijaya (a dominant thalassocratic city-state based on the island of
Sumatra, Indonesia). This is well documented in an inscription of the Ayyavole guild of the year
1088 AD found in Barus of West Sumatra, Indonesia. South Indian merchants were also active in
Burma and the Thai peninsula.

There were numerous scholars and travelers who travelled to India, for the sole purpose of
being able to renew their educational standpoints. Many are unaware that Chinese culture has
been inter-twined with Hindu roots and this can be traced back to the earliest times. Even the
word “Mandarin” which was associated with their dialect years ago has originated from a
Sanskrit word “Mantri” which was carried from India to China.
Chinese traveler Fa-hsien was the first Chinese Monk to visit India (395-414) and is said to have
been the first significant Chinese traveler as per most authoritative historians.

Much of our knowledge of ancient and medieval Indian history comes from the accounts of
foreigners who as pilgrims, travellers and traders crossed the seas and difficult land routes
crossing high mountains to reach India. In their writings on their observations and experiences of
a country new and strange to them, they left valuable contributions to the historical
understanding of early Indian society. As outsiders, they found worthy of mention facets and
facts about the country that our native writers missed, or often simply took for granted and hence
ignored. They acted, often unwittingly, as agents of civilization contact and exchange, bringing
with them new ideas, skills and technologies, and returning, in turn, armed with new knowledge
as the harbingers of cultural and intellectual change.

Chinese pilgrims played a key role in the exchanges between ancient India and ancient
China. They introduced new texts and doctrines to the Chinese clergy, carried Buddhist
paraphernalia for the performance of rituals and ceremonies, and provided detailed accounts of
their spiritual journeys to India. Records of Indian society and its virtuous rulers, accounts of the
flourishing monastic institutions, and stories about the magical and miraculous prowess of the
Buddha and his disciples often accompanied the descriptions of the pilgrimage sites in their
travel records.

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Chinese traveler Fa-hsien's pilgrimage to India (395-414) is said to have been the first significant
Chinese monk as per most authoritative historians. He left along the Silk Road in search of great
Buddhist scriptures, stayed 6 years in India, and then returned by the sea route. Tens of Chinese
monks, possibly hundreds of them, visited India during that period and Fa-hsien was the first
Chinese monk to travel to India. At the age of sixty-five, he travelled, mostly on foot, from
Central China taking the southern route through Shenshen, Dunhuang, Khotan, and then over the
Himalayas, to Gandhara and Peshawar. Fa-hsien was about 77 years old when he reached back
home. In AD 414 he recorded his travels in ‘Record of Buddhist Countries’ today known as the
‘Travels of Fa-Hien’. It is an excellent geographic account of his journey along the Silk Route
and the first comprehensive eyewitness account of the history and customs of Central Asia and
India. His account includes the description of local Buddhist monasteries, the approximate
number of Buddhist monks in the region, the teachings and rituals practiced by them, and the
Buddhist legends associated with some of these sites.

Opium Wars

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It will be criminal not to remember the other most famous of the early Chinese pilgrims is
Xuanzang, (Hsuan-Tsang) (629-644). One of Xuanzang’s primary reasons to undertake the
arduous journey to India was to visit its sacred Buddhist sites. Dissatisfied with the translations
of Indian Buddhist texts available in China, he also wanted to procure original works and learn
the doctrines directly from Indian teachers. Thus resulted his large and precise translation work
defines a “new translation period,” in China in contrast with older Central Asian works. He also
left a detailed account of his travels in Central Asia and India.

PS: According to Chinese sources, the first Chinese to be ordained was Zhu Zixing, after he went
to Central Asia in 260 to seek out Buddhism. It is only from the 4th century CE that Chinese
Buddhist monks started to travel to India to discover Buddhism first-hand.

By 100 BC, trade routes to western and central Asia through eastern Afghanistan were well
established. These opened up communication routes to China which became known as the Silk
Route. Many Buddhist missionaries established monasteries on the caravan routes, of which
Takshashila was the most important. The proselytising activity of the missionaries was extended
further with the advent of the Kushanas. The Kushanas (as they were known in India) were the
Chinese tribe, Yeuh-chi, who had been exiled from China because of their raiding parties. The
constant tension between the Yeuh-chi and the Chinese emperor Shi Huang Ti resulted in the
building of the Great Wall of China, which was an attempt to end the raids. The Kushanas
embraced Buddhism and helped in extending Buddhist doctrine to China. By 4th C AD many
Indians had settled in central Asia and introduced Indian culture. In AD 379, Buddhism was
declared as the state religion of China

Between AD 400 -700, Chinese travellers such as Fa Hsien, Sung Yun, Hsuan Tsang and I
Tsing, visited India. They were interested in obtaining the original Buddhist scriptures in
Sanskrit and Pali. These travellers also introduced Chinese culture to India.COne of the
important Chinese visitors to India was the Buddhist pilgrim Hsuan Tsang in 7th C AD.

 Envoys: The envoy is an ambassador of a respective country. India is a land of beautiful culture
and tradition. This draws many foreigners from different countries to our land. A great number

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of envoys have visited India and appreciated the beauty of our country in different ways- poetry,
books, travelogue.

Megasthenes, ambassador of Seleucus Nikator was the first foreign traveller to India. India has
witnessed the visit of great foreign envoys like Al-Masudi, Fa-Hien, Hiuen-Tsang, Marco Polo
and Abdul Razak, etc.

Important Foreign Envoys to India

Foreign Period of  Description

Envoys Stay

Abdul Razak 1443  He was a Persian scholar.

A.D. –
 He was also an ambassador of Persia.
1444
A.D.  He visited India during the rule of Deva Raya II of Vijayanagar.

Alberuni/Abu 1024  He was a Persian scholar.

Rehan A.D. –
 He accompanied Mahmud of Ghazni and wrote a book titled ‘Tahqiq-
Mahamud 1030
A.D.)  He was the first Muslim scholar to study India.

 He is considered the father of Indology.

Al-Masudi 957 A.D.  Al-Masudi was An Arab traveller.

 In his book Muruj-ul-Zehab he has explained about his journey.

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Captain 1608  Captain William Hawkins led the first expedition of the English
East India Company to India in 1609.
William A.D. –
Hawkins 1611  He visited India during the reign of Jahangir.
A.D.
 He carried a personal letter from King James I of England.

 He did not succeed in getting Jahangir’s permission to start a factory.

Fa-Hien 405 A.D.  He was a Chinese Buddhist monk.

– 411
 He visited India during the reign of Vikramaditya (Chandragupta II).
A.D.
 He is known for his visit to Lumbini.

 His voyage is described in his travelogue

“Record of Buddhist Kingdoms”.

Francois 1656  He was a French physician and traveller.

Bernier A.D. –
 He visited India during 1658 and 1671.
1717
A.D.  He was the personal physician of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.

 ‘Travels in the Mughal Empire’ was written by Francois Bernier.

The book mainly talks about the rules of Dara Shikoh and
Aurangzeb.

Huien Tsang 630 A.D.  He was a Chinese traveller.

– 645
 He visited India during the supremacy of Harsha Vardhana.
A.D.
 Si-yu-ki or ‘The Records of the Western World’ was written by him.

Ibn Batuta 1333  He was a Moroccan traveller.

A.D. –
 He visited India during the rule of Mohammed Bin Tughlaq.
1347
A.D.  Rihla is a book written by Ibn Batuta.

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 Marco Polo 1292  He was a European traveller.
A.D. –
 He visited Southern India during the reign of Rudramma Devi
1294 of the Kakatiyas.
A.D.

Megasthenes 302 B.C.  He was the ambassador of Seleucus.

– 298
 He visited India during the supremacy of Chandragupta Maurya.
B.C.
 Chandragupta was known to the Greeks as Sandrocottus.

 He was also the author of the book ‘Indica’.

Nicolo Conti 1420  He was an Italian merchant.

A.D. –
 He visited India during the reign of Deva Raya I of Vijayanagar.
1421
A.D.

Thomas Roe 1615  Sir Thomas Roe was an English diplomat.

A.D. –
 He visited India during the reign of Jahangir in 1615.
1619
A.D.  He came to seek protection for an English factory at Surat.

 His “Journal of the Mission to the Mughal Empire”

is a treasured contribution to the history of India.

History and Origin

China when dated back to the ancient times shows a forgotten record of widespread ideas of
Hinduism that were present in several regions in the 6 th century. Even the royal family of China
had a Hindu lineage for two complete generations.

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The advent of Hinduism in China even had a more physical presence in their mainland.. In many
regions of China paintings and carvings and temples of Hinduism have been acknowledged. The
existence of deities like Ganesha in the cave temples and other arts depicting Hinduism have
been seen.

These can be some existing reasons as to why Hinduism continued to hold a place and establish
its roots in China.

Hinduism and literature

A very common sight of Hindu way of living in Chinese culture is the popularly seen influence
of the six- school belief. The six schools or six includes six umbrella contexts of teachings
originally linked with Hinduism. These have been adopted by China and can be witnessed in the
form of yoga, stupas and other relevant teachings.

Ancient Chinese scriptures also reflect Sanatan Dharma. This can be dated back right up to the
second century upto the twelfth century AD. There are records of translations of Sanskrit texts
into Chinese that were partially or wholly integrated into the lives of the people in the era.
Samhitas and Shastras have been translated here as well. Ironically, some misplaced Sanskrit
scriptures from India, dating back to these times, have been discovered as a translated
compilation in China in later years. These include scriptures like Jin Qi Shi Lun and Yijing’s
translations which were the translated version of the Sanskrit scriptures Sankhya-Karikan and
Harivamsa respectively. Along with these, there are traces of some hints of mythology including
Ramayana and Mahabharata that can be picked up from archaeological writings. The intense
study of gods and goddesses like Durga and Sarasvati has also been seen in these findings. The
concept of associating the gods with knowledge, music, arts in Hinduism was later seen as
Chinese Biàncáitian or the goddess with militant powers. Several such instances of cultural
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diffusion can be observed.

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A panel of inscriptions of the God Narasimha adorns the entrance to the main shrine of
the temple, believed to have been installed by Tamil traders who lived in Quanzhou in the
13th century. Photo: Ananth Krishnan

Quanzhou, a port city in Fujian province is possibly the only city in this country with existing
evidence that ancient trade links existed between coastal China and southern India.Hundreds of
sculptures and carvings were excavated in the city and surrounding areas in the middle of the last
century.
The staggered discovery threw up proof that Tamil sea traders had made Quanzhou an important
port-of-call, approximately a thousand years ago.In and around Quanzhou, a bustling industrial
city, there are shrines that historians believe may have been part of a network of more than a
dozen Hindu temples and shrines
For the residents of Chedian, a few thousand-year-old village of muddy by-lanes and old
stone courtyard houses, she is just another form of Guanyin, the female Bodhisattva who
is venerated in many parts of China.
But the goddess that the residents of this village pray to every morning, as they light
incense sticks and chant prayers, is quite unlike any deity one might find elsewhere in
China. Sitting cross-legged, the four-armed goddess smiles benignly, flanked by two
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attendants, with an apparently vanquished demon lying at her feet. Local scholars are still
unsure about her identity, but what they do know is that this shrine’s unique roots lie not
in China, but in far away south India. The deity, they say, was either brought to
Quanzhou — a thriving port city that was at the centre of the region’s maritime
commerce a few centuries ago — by Tamil traders who worked here some 800 years ago,
or perhaps more likely, crafted by local sculptors at their behest.

“This is possibly the only temple in China where we are still praying to a Hindu God,”
says Li San Long, a Chedian resident, with a smile.“Even though most of the villagers
still think she is Guanyin!” Mr. Li said the village temple collapsed some 500 years ago,
but villagers dug through the rubble, saved the deity and rebuilt the temple, believing that
the goddess brought them good fortune — a belief that some, at least, still adhere to.

The Chedian shrine is just one of what historians believe may have been a network of
more than a dozen Hindu temples or shrines, including two grand big temples, built in
Quanzhou and surrounding villages by a community of Tamil traders who lived here
during the Song (960-1279) and Yuan (1279-1368) dynasties.At the time, this port city
was among the busiest in the world and was a thriving centre of regional maritime
commerce.The history of Quanzhou’s temples and Tamil links was largely forgotten until
the 1930s, when dozens of stones showing perfectly rendered images of the god
Narasimha — the man-lion avatar of Vishnu — were unearthed by a Quanzhou
archaeologist called Wu Wenliang. Elephant statues and images narrating mythological
stories related to Vishnu and Shiva were also found, bearing a style and pattern that was
almost identical to what was evident in the temples of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh
from a similar period.

Wu’s discoveries received little attention at the time as his country was slowly emerging
from the turmoil of the Japanese occupation, the Second World War and the civil war. It
took more than a decade after the Communists came to power in 1949 for the stones and
statues to even be placed in a museum, known today as the Quanzhou Maritime Museum.

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“It is difficult to say how many temples there were, and how many were
destroyed or fell to ruin,” the museum’s vice curator Wang Liming told The
Hindu. “But we have found them spread across so many different sites that we
are very possibly talking about many temples that were built across Quanzhou.”
Today, most of the sculptures and statues are on display in the museum, which
also showcases a map that leaves little doubt about the remarkable spread of the
discoveries. The sites stretch across more than a dozen locations located all over
the city and in the surrounding county. The most recent discoveries were made in
the 1980s, and it is possible, says Ms. Wang, that there are old sites yet to be
discovered.
The Maritime Museum has now opened a special exhibit showcasing Quanzhou’s
south Indian links. Ms. Wang says there is a renewed interest — and financial
backing — from the local government to do more to showcase what she describes
as the city’s “1000-year-old history with south India,” which has been largely
forgotten, not only in China but also in India.
“There is still a lot we don't know about this period,” she says, “so if we can get
any help from Indian scholars, we would really welcome it as this is something
we need to study together. Most of the stones come from the 13th century Yuan
Dynasty, which developed close trade links with the kingdoms of southern India.
We believe that the designs were brought by the traders, but the work was
probably done by Chinese workers.”
Ms. Wang says the earliest record of an Indian residing in Quanzhou dates back
to the 6th century. An inscription found on the Yanfu temple from the Song
Dynasty describes how the monk Gunaratna, known in China as Liang Putong,
translated sutras from Sanskrit. Trade particularly flourished in the 13th century
Yuan Dynasty. In 1271, a visiting Italian merchant recorded that the Indian
traders “were recognised easily.”

“These rich Indian men and women mainly live on vegetables, milk and rice,” he
wrote, unlike the Chinese “who eat meat and fish.” The most striking legacy of
this period of history is still on public display in a hidden corner of the 7th

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century Kaiyuan Buddhist Temple, which is today Quanzhou’s biggest temple
and is located in the centre of the old town. A popular attraction for Chinese
Buddhists, the temple receives a few thousand visitors every day. In a corner
behind the temple, there are at least half a dozen pillars displaying an
extraordinary variety of inscriptions from Hindu mythology. A panel of
inscriptions depicting the god Narasimha also adorns the steps leading up to the
main shrine, which houses a Buddha statue. Huang Yishan, a temple caretaker
whose family has, for generations, owned the land on which the temple was built,
says the inscriptions are perhaps the most unique part of the temple, although he
laments that most of his compatriots are unaware of this chapter of history. On a
recent afternoon, as a stream of visitors walked up the steps to offer incense
sticks as they prayed to Buddha, none spared a glance at the panel of inscriptions.
Other indicators from Quanzhou’s rich but forgotten past lie scattered through
what is now a modern and bustling industrial city, albeit a town that today lies in
the shadow of the provincial capital Xiamen and the more prosperous port city of
Guangzhou to the far south.
A few kilometres from the Kaiyuan temple stands a striking several metre-high
Shiva lingam in the centre of the popular Bamboo Stone Park. To the city’s
residents, however, the lingam is merely known as a rather unusually shaped
“bamboo stone,” another symbol of history that still stays hidden in plain sight

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 ~700-800 yrs old idol of Chaturbhuj Vishnu from Quanzhou, Port city of China. Currently located
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in Quanzhou maritime museum, China. 2/n

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Map Above. Less famous than the Silk Road — its land-based parallel — the maritime web of
commerce and cultural exchange operated on seasonal monsoon winds. The network grew out of
ancient regional routes and, by 2,000 years ago, connected Western Europe with East Asia. (Credit:
Rick Johnson/Discover)

Ancient links between Tamil traders and a Chinese port city

The staggered discovery threw up proof that Tamil sea traders had made Quanzhou an important
port-of-call, approximately a thousand years ago.Hundreds of sculptures and carvings were
excavated in the city and surrounding areas in the middle of the last century.
The famous Kaiyuan temple – a major tourist destination – in Quanzhou also has carvings that
historians say were influenced by Hindu/Buddhist styles.
Many of these artifacts are now kept at the Quanzhou Maritime Museum – also called the
Museum of Overseas Communication History – which also houses relics including old ships,
which sunk near the coast and inscriptions of Christian and Islamic origin.
An introduction to the museum says that “…Hindu stone carvings exhibited in it include more
than 100 square stones, including stone sarcophagi, stone pillars, vertical statues, column
foundations, pedestals and other building infrastructure components.”
Among the exhibits are Vishnu and Lakshmi idols; the stone pillar of the Hindu temple is
currently standing on the back porch of the famous Buddhist temple Kaiyuan Temple, says the
introduction.

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“The Hindu Vishnu stone statues are preserved in the Quanzhou Sea Museum, depicting the god
of protection, Vishnu, one of the three Hindu gods. It is a prototype of Vishnu and is a common
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form in a Hindu temple,” it adds.
The research into the origins of the relics continues but there seems to be a consensus that the
Hindu art-influenced artifacts originated in the southern part of India.
“In the late thirteenth century, a Tamil-speaking community in southern China’s coastal city of
Quanzhou built a temple devoted to the Hindu god Siva. The temple is no longer intact, but over
300 carvings are still within the city, on display in the collection of the local museum, and rebuilt
into the walls of the city’s main Buddhist temple,” writes art historian and curator, Risha Lee.
“The known carvings are distinguishable by their South Indian style, with its closest parallels in
thirteenth-century temples constructed in the Kaveri Delta region in Tamil Nadu, and are
dispersed across five primary sites in Quanzhou and its surroundings,” Lee wrote in her
dissertation – later published as a book -- for Columbia University.
For an approximate date when the temple would have been built, Lee deciphered the inscriptions
written both in Chinese and Tamil on a stone block.
“What little we know of the community of Siva worshippers in Quanzhou comes directly from
the carvings themselves; apart from the material remains of a Siva temple, history has not
documented or referenced its creators,” she wrote, adding: “The strongest evidence for its
construction date is a bilingual inscription found in Quanzhou, written in both Chinese and Tamil
on a block of diabase stone, which records the consecration of a Siva temple in 1281.”
President Xi Jinping worked in Fujian for several years in various capacities, and finally, as the
governor for two years between 2000 and 2002 – he also visited the maritime museum in
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Quanzhou more than once.

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Hindu Relics collected from various Quanzhou Temples are kept in From Quanzhou Maritime
Museum.

REFERENCES
1. The forgotten history of Hinduism in China, Nikhil Chandwani in Desires of a modern
Indian | India, World , 2019
2. https://twitter.com/vajrayudha11/status/800166904388354048

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3.See my book Hindu Temples of Bharat,Cambodia and Indonesia on academia.edu
4 See my paper on Ancient Tamil Merchantsin academia.edu

Zuanzang ancient Chinese traveler to India Above next page

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Tamil merchant vessel An early 20th century painting (Credit: Mary Evans Picture Library)

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