India leads China up the Buddha path http://www.dailypioneer.com/columnist1.asp?main_variable=Columnist&file_name=ashok%2Fashok97.txt&writer=ashok
On Wednesday evening, when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh joined his Singapore counterpart in hosting the leaders of the 10-country ASEAN grouping and of its partners at an exhibition titled "On the Nalanda Trail: Buddhism in India, China and Southeast Asia", he was conveying a deep diplomatic message. The Indian Prime Minister was the only visiting head of Government to address the audience at the Asian Civilisations Museum on the concluding day of his 24-hour visit to the ASEAN summit. This gesture was not just an acknowledgement by Singapore of India's help in putting together the exhibition -- as Singh pointed out, "116 of the most precious art objects from four prestigious museums in India have been specially sent to Singapore" -- it also signalled the intensification of a subtle struggle between India and China. It is a battle for the soul of Asia and, almost literally, for the bones of the Buddha. This contest has been the unstated story of the summitry in Singapore. It is hinged on, essentially, two compelling questions. One: which is the true Buddhist homeland? Two: who qualifies for insider status in East Asia? Beijing, diplomatic sources said, has been making strenuous efforts to establish its "IPR on Buddhism". It has implied that Buddhism may have been born in India but only became a major world religion after it spread to China. The Communist Government is organising a major global conference on Buddhism in 2008. Indeed, even in renewing Chinese claims on Tawang, in Arunachal Pradesh, the authorities in Beijing are seeking proprietary rights on an ancient Buddhist monastery revered by Tibetan Buddhists. The Nalanda exhibition has been India's big Buddhist statement. Marrying cultural cartography with political messaging, its various panels and sections make some fairly significant points. For instance, the layout of the exhibition makes clear that Buddhism travelled from India to China, Sri Lanka, Central Asia (down the Silk Road), and East Asia. Second, there is a section on Chinese monks -such as Faxian and Xuanzang -- who came to India to learn about Buddha and carried his legacy back to their country. Two exhibits from the National Museum in Delhi are particularly telling, Indian officials pointed out. Prime Minister and the ASEAN leaders saw Piprahwa relics, found by archaeologist WC Peppe exactly 100 years ago at an excavation site in eastern Uttar Pradesh. The caskets are the only surviving repositories of the bones and ashes of the Buddha, a reminder of his physical presence in India. That apart, the Nalanda Copperplate -- found in 1916, with inscriptions in "early Sanskrit (Devanagri) and proto-Bengali" -- details the endowment by a Sumatran king of the revenue and produce from five villages for the upkeep of Nalanda University. Other than suggesting a religio-cultural tribute, the Copperplate also describes the relationship between the Pala kings of eastern India and dynasties in Java and Sumatra. This anticipated India-ASEAN summits by at least 1,000 years. While China cannot match India's Buddhist antiquities, it did play another card, diplomatic sources said, in the run-up to the East Asia Summit (EAS): Race. The EAS, which took place on Wednesday, is essentially a meeting of the "ASEAN +6". In the days before the summit, China sought to inject a caste system, and categorise the collective as "ASEAN +3 +3". "Beijing tried to convey," a Ministry of External Affairs official said, "that China, South Korea and Japan being nations of Mongoloid people were closer to East Asia, while India, Australia and New Zealand were not." The target was India, which China wants to keep out of the ASEAN inner track. The move was resisted by India, with support from Japan and Singapore. Australia, which is heavily dependent on commodities exports to China, stayed neutral. Some backing for China came, sources said, from Malaysia, which is inching closer to the Chinese position in the Great Game that is unfolding in Asia-Pacific.
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