Kang Youwei Engages India

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. These travelogues offer insight into Kang’s perception of India which form the basis of the modern intellectual discourse on India in China. These perceptions not only had great impact on the thinking of other intellectuals, but were also responsible for the larger construct that China has about India during the republican and post-liberation period. The texts provide meaning to many dilemmas and predicaments that enshrouded the concept of civilization and its linkages with the modern concepts of nationalism and modernity in Asian countries like 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, civilization, empire, modern history, translation studies, Chinese Studies, and Asian studies.

Kamal Sheel, Professor (Retd.) of Chinese, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.Ranjana Sheel, Professor of History, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India.