Early Tibet-India and Sino-Indian Relations comtinues....

The Brahmi alphabet of India which consists of vowels and consonants, was the basis of the Tibetan script, and has nothing in common with the Chinese script, which is based on characters originally derived from pictorial writing (pictograms). There has been constant cross-frontier Indo-Tibet trade in traditional items from Tibet and manufactured goods and other necessities from India, right up to September 1962.

Pilgrim traffic has been both ways and constant between India and Tibet, traditionally known in India as ‘Bhot’ (the people of Tibet being called ‘Bhotiya’ or ‘Bhutia’), from the Tibetans’ own word for their country, ‘Bhod’. Thousands of Indian pilgrims every year visited the holy Mount Kailash (Tibetan ‘Kang Tissu’ or ‘Khang Rinpoche’) , and Lake Mansarovar (Tibetan ‘Mafamyu Tso’), sacred to Indian Hindus and Tibetan Buddhists alike, while equally large numbers of Tibetans visited Bodh Gaya, Sarnath, and Kushinagar, and the rest of the Buddhist pilgrim ‘circuit’, with some even visiting Sanchi in Madhya Pradesh.

Thus the people-to-people contacts between India and Tibet on the social and cultural plane had a volume and a quality completely unlike the practically non-existent direct contacts with ‘mainland’, or Han, cultural China.

To Indians, therefore, Tibet has always been seen as a friendly and peaceful neighbouring country. There has been only one instance of a Tibetan attack on the Indian plains. Since this instance has been cited by Mao Zedong, a student of history just as much as Pandit Nehru, it is worth recounting. The northern Indian Emperor Harshavardhana (606-647 CE) had been a great patron of Buddhism, and had
established his capital at Kanauj. It was during his reign that the famous Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsiang visited India and stayed at his court.

Harsha maintained diplomatic relations with China, sending a Brahman envoy to China in 641 CE who returned in 643 CE accompanied by a Chinese mission bearing the reply of the Chinese emperor. In 642 CE when Hiuen Tsiang returned to China and met the Chinese emperor, briefing him about Harshavardhana's patronage of Buddhism, the Chinese emperor decided to send another mission to India in 646 CE.

To be continued....