Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v1.c7.s9.t4.4

v1.c7.s9.t4.4

Kang Youwei lived in India from 1901 to 1903. Although based in the hill station Darjeeling in the northeastern part of India, he travelled to different parts of the country. He visited India again in 1909. We find more than 200 references to India in his writings, some derived from his direct observations of India and the Indian people, while others were based on earlier Chinese writing. One of his most important essays on India was entitled “Essay for fellow scholar Liang Qichao and others discussing the destruction of India due to its fragmentation”, written in 1902. As can be seen from the title of this essay, Kang was mainly interested in analysing India’s situation as a country under foreign subjugation, as well as the causes for it, so that his own country would not suffer the same fate. Like many of his contemporaries among Chinese intellectuals, he categorised India as a wang guo 亡國 or ‘ruined country’. He also wanted to use the example of India to buttress the arguments in support of his own political views at that time.