Tagore and China
- Tan Chung - Professor of Chinese, University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi.
- Amiya Dev - formerly at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, West Bengal
- Wang Bangwei - Peking University, Beijing, China
- Wei Liming - Peking University, Beijing, China
The book charts Tagore's 'grand visit' in 1924 undertaken in response to China's 'Tagore fever' and the series of talks he gave there, their antecedents as well as impact. Also discussed is the foundation of Cheena-Bhavana at Visva-Bharati-and thereby of Chinese studies in India-and Tan Yun-shan's lifelong dedication to it and the Sino-Indian love it held.
This well-researched book unearths new material from Chinese sources to confirm the devotion of Tagore's interpreter, poet Xu Zhimo, to him and Tagore's affection for Xu Zhimo. Tagore's two personal visits to Xu Zhimo, preceded by the latter's visit to Santiniketan, have also been detailed.
Supplemented by several rare photographs, Tagore and China is a fitting tribute to Tagore's 150th birth anniversary and is going to be of abiding value to Sino-Indian understanding.
| Foreword to the Chinese Edition | Nirupama Rao |
| Foreword |
| Preface | Wang Bangwei |
| Introduction I | Tan Chung |
| Introduction II | Amiya Dev |
| Tagore and China | Amartya Sen |
| Historical Significance of Tagore's 1924 China Visit | Wei Liming |
| In Search of a Forgotten Dialogue: Chinese and Indian Artists Since 1924 | Amitava Bhattacharya |
| Sino-Indian Studies at Visva-Bharati University: Story of Cheena-Bhavana, 1921-1937 | Uma Das Gupta |
| Looking East: China in Tagore's Cosmology of Thoughts | Swapan Majumdar |
| Tagore and China: A Brief Personal Note | Kalyan Kumar Sarkar |
| Telepathy between Rubidadda and Susima: A Geo-civilizational Perspective | Tan Chung |
| Sino-Indian Fraternity between Tagore and Tan Yun-shan | Huang I-shu |
| Tagore's Vision of the East | Amiya Dev |
| Towards an In-depth Understanding of Tagore, China and Asia | Tan Chung |
| Power of Tagore's Words | Amiya Dev |
| The Musical Journey of Rabindranath Tagore | Reba Som |
| A Clean Slate? | Rimli Bhattacharya |
| Tagore Our Contemporary | Mohit K Ray |
| Tagore's Influence on the Chinese Writer Bing Xin | Zeng Qiong |
| Influence of Classical Chinese Poetry on Tagore's Works: A Tentative Discourse | Tan Chung |
| Tagore and Classical Chinese Poetry | Amiya Dev |
| The Songster's a Mango-bird | Ipshita Chanda |
| Tagore and Bengal's Social Modernity: Bringing Women to the Cultural Mainstream | Sabaree Mitra |
| Civil Society, 'Civility' and Tagore | Rajasri Basu |
| Community, Nation and Sustainability: The Contemporary Relevance of Tagore | Prasenjit Duara |
| Index |
[The book] is an extraordinary, perhaps unique collection (perceptive and scholarly) that provides penetrating original insights into Tagore’s significant contributions towards “social obligations”…Erudite, lively, wide-ranging, this assemblage brings together a mosaic of forward-looking ideas as well as perspectives on china’s past “civilisational sagacity” and its intellectual circles’ sensitivity against “western cultural poison”, and offers precise and informative, if not critical, knowledge of Tagore’s cosmology of ideas…An extremely rich book, it is an essential reading for all who are interested in the history of Sino-Indian cultural concord or in the secular ideas of Tagore in regard to a deeper understanding of Indian and Chinese civilisations, and the educated public in general.
There are arcane discoveries of great value to academics, such as an inquiry into the origins of specific documents and inscriptions, leading to a reassessment of some of the chronology and understanding of Tagore’s time in China. There is also exceptional granular detail in some instances.
The well-researched and illuminating articles in this collection make Tagore and China an authoritative work on the very special relationship Rabindranath Tagore shared with China. It is a collection of illuminating articles by scholars from India and China on the very special relationship Tagore shared with China. Tagore and China is, indeed, a tribute to that vision.
Tagore was a visionary, always forward-looking. He sought to promote the cause of India-China understanding, envisioning the ascent of India and China to a higher platform of civilizational leadership and fraternal partnership.
Tagore was the first thinker of modern India to be invited by the thinking elite of China, along with the likes of John Dewey and Bertrand Russell, as the Chinese grappled with the question of China`s place in a modern world.
This collection of articles by eminent academics and scholars...is a timely and significant addition to the existing literature on Tagore and will promote our understanding of Tagore, as we celebrate the universalism of his ideas and thoughts.