Encyclopedia of India–China Cultural Contacts v2.c15.t2.1

v2.c15.t2.1

China Studies is a distinct multi-disciplinary field of scholarly inquiry and education that provides a broad humanistic understanding of China's past and present. China Studies is located in the broader field of Area Studies, and is also interdisciplinary in character, incorporating elements of the social sciences and humanities. The field encourages scholars from diverse disciplines to exchange ideas on scholarship as it relates to the Chinese experience and to experiences of China in the world. In India, although the concept of area studies is relatively recent, China Studies has been an area of interest even before India's independence. India's interest in China Studies is actually rooted in India-China cultural interactions in the ancient times. However, in the later part of the colonial period, the colonial powers imposed a perspective that suited their own interest; as a result, to a large extent the academic scholarship on China became dependent on Western sources. It was then that the great poet and thinker Rabindranath Tagore underscored the shared civilisational heritage of India and China.