Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c10.s2.t3.12

v2.c10.s2.t3.12

His “*Yanzikan Suibi*” consists of 63 essays, with more than 10 related to India. The 43rd essay says, “When I came to the central India, I went to a temple with two or three companions. In the forest there are many fruit trees, and for nearly a month, I picked 50-60 and ate every day. I was so happy doing this as to think I may not eat anything else in the future. However, this made me suffer first from constipation and then from dysentery.” In essay number 53, he praised the Indian epics *Ramayana* and *Mahabharata* as “grand and elegant”, and “a great treasure in the eyes of European literary figures, just like Illiad and Odyssey were to Greece. These two Indian epics have not been translated into Chinese, and only in the book “*Huayan Jingchao*” it states, “*Ramayana* and *Mahabharata* are names of books. They were translated into European language a long ago, and the best is the translation made by Ramesh Dutt, with an introduction provided by the British scholar Max Müller, but it is a partial rather than complete version.” And in essay number 54, he referred Kalidasa as “the poet-sage of India” and “Indian Shakespeare” in the eyes of British poets. Su Manshu became the first modern Chinese scholars to pay attention and comment on Kalidasa and his works. In essay number 59, he even noticed the difference between lotus in China and those in India. He remarked, “Lotus in China is only of red or white colour, while that in India may be golden, yellow, blue, purple and the like, and the pink-white one opens in the day and closes at night, with edible petals. It is fragrant and several times larger than that in China. It is what is called as ‘Pundarika” in sutras.” In respect of Sanskrit literature, Su Manshu had precise comments, which have broadened the horizon of successive Chinese scholars.