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This book is the first annotated translation of the travelogues of Kang Youwei, one of the most famous intellectuals and modernisers of late 19th-century China. These travelogues offer insights into Kang's perceptions of India, which influenced modern intellectual discourse on India in China. These perceptions not only had a great impact on the thinking of other intellectuals but were also responsible for the larger construct that China developed about India during the republican and post-liberation period. The texts provide meaning to many dilemmas and predicaments that enshrouded the concept of civilisation and its linkages with the modern concepts of nationalism and modernity in Asian countries such as China and India. They are a valuable prism in gauging the early 20th-century intellectual and Chinese moderniser mind as it grappled with the challenges and uncertainties of those times.
An important contribution to the study of Sino-Indian interactions, the book will be an indispensable resource for students and researchers of nation, nationalism, civilisation, empire, modern history, translation studies, Chinese Studies, and Asian studies.
List of contents
1. 1. Introduction: Kang Youwei in Search of India and Dilemmas of Civilization and Nation 2. From Civilizational Bonhomie to National Anxieties: A Translation of Kang Youwei's Yindu Youji ( ) [Records of Travel to India] 3. India is Dead, Long Live India: A Translation of Kang's Yu Tongxue, Zhuzi, Liang Qichao Deng , Lun Yindu Wangguo You Yu Ge Sheng Zili Shu ( ) [Letter Discussing India's Extinction Caused by Independence of its Provinces with Liang Qichao, Colleagues, and Followers]
Index
About the author
Kamal Sheel is Professor (Retd.) of Chinese at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.
Ranjana Sheel is Professor of History at Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.
Summary
This book is the first annotated translation of the travelogues of Kang Youwei, one of the most famous intellectuals and modernizers of late 19th-century China.
