阿玛蒂亚·森：致中国（Passage to China）

02/12/2004｜阿玛蒂亚·森(Amartya Sen) / 翻译李华芳|New York Review
1.

中印知识分子之间的交流持续了2千多年，对两个国家的历史都影响重大，尽管时至今日他们快被忘却了。微弱的关联是从对宗教史尤其是佛教史感兴趣的作者开始的，公元一世纪佛教从印度传到中国。在中国佛教变成一股强大的力量，直到千年后在很大程度上被儒教和道教所替代。但在最初的一千年里，宗教不过是中印更多的交流故事中的一部分而已。加深对这些关系的理解非常有必要，因为这样不仅能够增进对世界1/3的人口的历史理解，而且中印之间的联系对今天的政治社会问题而言也非常重要。

自然宗教就成为中印之间交流的主要资源，佛教是两国人民和观念往来的重点。但佛教的影响要更宽泛，并不仅仅局限在宗教上。它深远的影响一直扩展到科学、数学、文学、语言学、建筑学、医学以及音乐领域。这些详细的记载来自于到印度取经的中国人，例如5世纪的法显和7世纪的玄奘以及义净，他们的兴趣并没有受到宗教理念和实践的限制。同样的，尤其是7、8世纪到中国去的印度学者，不仅包括宗教专家也包括像天文学家和数学家这样的专家。在8 世纪印度天文学家乔达摩·西达多成为中国天文学会议的主席。

中印早期知识分子间关系的丰富多样在相当长的时间里并不显著。通过宗教来把世界人口划分截然不同的文明（例如亨廷顿就把世界归成西方文明，伊斯兰文明和印度文明）的现代趋势增强了这种忽视。结果出现了这样一种广为流传的倾向，就是主要从一个人的宗教信仰来理解这个人，哪怕这样会忽略更多更重要的东西。这种鼠目寸光已经严重影响了我们对于全球观念史的理解。现在已经形成了对作为伊斯兰精英的穆斯林的历史偏见，而漠然无视穆斯林知识分子在8到13世纪于科学、数学和文学领域的百花齐放。单纯强调宗教的狭隘目光造成了今天部分不满的阿拉伯激进主义分子以伊斯兰原教旨主义为骄傲，而全然不顾阿拉伯历史的多样性和丰富性了。在印度也是如此，经常试图把宽广的印度文明简单描绘成“印度教文明” ——这是学者如亨廷顿和政治家非常喜欢的字眼。

然后，在西方和非西方的理念和学识的零星和分散的对照正在被逐渐理解。在解释非西方著作的时候，一些阐释者倾向于提高宗教的重要性，而实际上宗教并没有想象的那么重要，而著作的长期的影响却被忽视了。几乎不能假设说牛顿的科学著作首先必须被解读为基督教的著作（尽管牛顿实际上确实有基督教信仰）；同样我们大部分人也不会莫名其妙地把他对科学知识的贡献解释成他内心神秘主义兴趣射出的一道光（尽管神秘的思索对他来说可能很重要，甚至可能为他的科学著作带来灵感）。相对而言，对于非西方著作来说，宗教简化论已经成为一种话语霸权。学者们会事先假设广为人知的佛教学者的作品或者各式各样的密宗行为，只有摘掉在宗教信仰和习惯上的有色眼镜才能得到“适度理解”（properly understood）。

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上述情况确实发生了，但几乎可以确定中印贸易始于贸易而非佛教。一些持续了2000多年的印度人的消费习惯，尤其是富人的消费习惯，从根本上被来自中国的新玩意给颠覆了。伟大的梵语学者卡欧提略（Kautilya）关于政治和经济的论文最早写于公元前4 世纪，尽管几个世纪过去了，在“贵重物品”和“价值物”中专门为“来自中国的丝绸和丝绸服饰”留出了位置。在古印度史诗《摩呵婆罗多》也提到了被当成礼品的中国的织布或者是丝绸（cinamsuka），同样在古印度《摩奴法典》也有类似记载。

在最初一千年的早期，自中国而来的产品的本质被许多梵文作品所记载，比如在5世纪迦梨陀娑（Kalidasa，可能是经典梵文作品中最伟大的诗人和剧作家）的剧作《沙恭达罗》（Sakuntala）中就有记载。国王豆扇陀（Dusyanta）在打猎过程中看到美若天仙的净修女沙恭达罗，为她的美貌所倾倒，并以随风飘扬的由中国丝绸做成的旗帜作比喻向她热情如火地倾诉衷肠：“我不由自主的向前，/但又犹豫不决/犹如中国绸的旗帜/在风中战栗。”拔那（Bana）的剧作《哈萨卡里塔》（Harsacarita）成书于7世纪，里面描写了美人兰雅诗（Rajyasri）在婚礼上身穿华丽端庄的中国丝绸。在同一时期，梵语著作里还提到了大量其他运到印度的中国的商品，有樟脑(cinaka)、朱砂(cinapista)、高质量的皮革(cinasi)、还有美味的梨 (cinarajaputra)和桃(cinani)。

2千年前中国丰富了印度的物质世界，而印度也从公元1世纪起把佛教传到了中国，印度僧人达摩与迦叶摩腾曾谒见东汉明帝。而后一直到11世纪，更多的印度学者和僧人来到中国。数以百计的僧人和翻译家把成千上万的梵文档案翻译成中文，其中大量是佛教典籍。翻译以惊人的速度增长。到11世纪这股翻译风潮才走到了头，公元982年到1011年就翻译了超过200卷的梵文资料。

法显是第一位精确记载自己印度之行的中国学者，他是一个为了研究梵文典籍从中国西部来的佛学徒，而他对将这些梵文典籍传到中国非常感兴趣。经过漫长而艰辛的旅程，法显经和阗（是一个佛教圣地）自北部于401年到达印度。10年后，从恒河口（今天的加尔各答附近）自水路而返，途中拜访了斯里兰卡佛教徒以及爪哇的佛教徒。法显在印度广泛游历并且大量收集资料（这些资料后来都由他翻译成中文）。他的佛国记照亮了印度和斯里兰卡。法显在巴连弗邑（Pataliputra or Patna）的日子，学习梵语和除了宗教内容之外的文学典籍，但是就像稍后将会看到的那样，法显对当时印度的医疗保健制度非常感兴趣。

7世纪从中国到印度取经的玄奘是家喻户晓的一个人物。这个令人尊敬的学者收集了大量梵文典籍（回到中国后又将大部分译成中文），16年间足迹遍布全印度，期间他在离巴连弗邑不远的那烂陀（Nalanda）研究院深造。在那烂陀，玄奘除了学习佛学外，还有医学、哲学、逻辑学、数学、天文学和文法。他回到中国后得到了皇帝的盛赞。 义净在玄奘不久后来到印度，同样在那烂陀呆了一段时间，他把医学和公共卫生保健的研究与他自己的佛学研究综合起来了。

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义净翻译的佛教著作包括怛特罗教（Tantrism——也称密教，译注。）教创始人的作品，Tantrism强调冥想这使他们的教义十分深奥。7、8世纪密教在中国力量强大，而且由于一些密教学者对数学有着强烈的兴趣（可能在一开始，跟密教教徒对数字的强烈偏好有关），因而密教数学也影响了中国的数学。

李约瑟（Joseph Needham）提到“最重要的密教徒”是一行（672－717），“那个时代中国最伟大的天文学家和数学家。” 一行精通梵语并对印度的数学文献非常熟悉，他也是一个佛教僧侣，但如果认为他的数学著作是一种特殊的宗教那就大错特错了。作为一个数学家同时又是一个密教徒，一行解决了大量分析和计算难题，许多问题和密教并没有特别的关系。他解决了诸如“象棋中所有下法的总数”这样经典的问题。他还特别关心历法的计算问题，并且在君王的命令下创造了一种新历法。

8世纪在中国的印度天文学家几乎都困于历法的研究，并使用了早就在印度出现而且有所发展的三角法（这比最早希腊人来自于印度的三角法要高明多了）。大约也就是这个时候，印度的天文学和数学包括三角法经由Aryabhata、Varahamihira 和Brahmagupta和其他人译成阿拉伯文字，正在影响阿拉伯世界的数学和科学。

中国的记录显示，这一时期有几位印度的天文学家和数学家在中国首都的天文馆曾经担任要职。格拉多虽不是印度人，他确实天文馆的馆长，他也写出了一份伟大的中国天文学大纲，《开元展经》，是8世纪的科学经典。他挑选了一批合适的印度天文学著作翻成中文出版，其中就有《九芝历》，这本著作描绘了印度一种特殊的行星历法，是数学家Varahamihira基于早期经典的梵文记载于550年左右写成的。这是一本主旨是关于计算和估值的著作，比如，月食持续的时间是基于月球直径以及其他一些相关因素的。采用的技巧包括Aryabhata在5世纪末期确定的方法，后来在印度被包括Varahamihira和Brahmagupta在内的追随者发扬光大了。

8世纪中国天文学家杨敬峰Yang JingFeng描绘了中国官方天文学的混合背景：
那些想要确定5大行星位置的都采用了印度的历法手段……我们有三个历法专家，Chiayeh [Kasyapa], Chhüthan [Gautama], 和Chümolo [Kumara]，他们都在天文署任职。但现在应用最广的是大师Chhüthan的历法，和他的《伟大的艺术》。《伟大的艺术》一书中的理念被政府加以贯彻执行了。

印度的天文学家，象Gautama、Kasyapa或Kumara，如果没有与中国的佛学交流也就没有去中国的可能，尽管他们的著作的主要贡献并不在佛学上。

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有关中国所谓的与世隔绝的文化和文明的争论性的文献在其他地方遭到了怀疑。这种观点也被张冠李戴地用来解释近年来中国迈向民主的困境。尽管如此，这种简化论并不能解释为什么自1979年以来中国在国内外都迅速投入了市场经济的怀抱，同时领导人也坚持反对民主政治。事实上，真正的情况是中国并不像通常假设的那样在知识上是一个超然物外的孤岛。

这里讨论的中国和印度的关系尤其重要。正如我们看到的，印度是唯一一个外面世界的国度，中国古代的学者曾前往那里接受教育和训练；在最初千年的后半期里，我们记录了超过200位各个时期在印度的有名的中国学者。他们最初主要是学习梵文和佛学典籍，但他们对其他东西也同样兴趣盎然。印度对他们的一些影响非常明显，就像经常使用的来自梵文的概念“禅”或“禅宗”，禅宗由禅那（dhyana）或者冥想衍生而来，中国戏剧的主题也吸收了梵语故事（例如天女散花）。6就像美国学者John Kieschnick指出，大量通过来自印度佛教的理念影响了中国的寺庙和桥梁建筑。7

当然，中印之间的知识互动是双向的。李约瑟试图列出一张“自中国产生”特别传到了印度的数学概念的名单，而且他也讨论了从中国传到印度的理念比从印度传过去的更多：“印度更能接纳这两种文化。”8缺乏直接的证据表明有一个特殊的观念在中印两国间传递的方向，李约瑟假设哪里能够找到观念首次使用记录的，该观念就是从哪里来的。这种做法遭到了其他科学和数学史学者的强烈指责，Jean-Claude Martzloff9就是其中之一。可以清楚地看到，更早的词语使用记录更有可能是在印度消失的，而不是中国。10而真正重要的是，诸多的科学和数学的观念，就像宗教主题一样，都是双向流动的。

5.
不管对信息技术还是现代工业技术的发展而言，数学与科学的观念和技巧的传播仍然是现代商业世界的核心。但在扩大公共交往的范围和提高公共卫生保障之间的交流和学习却不是那么明显。但正如事实所显示的，在最初的千年甚至直到今天，这两者在中印知识分子的关系上也是居于中心地位的。

作为一种宗教，佛教至少有两个与众不同的特性，不可知论和对公共问题的宽容的讨论。根据一些早期的公共会议记录，主要目的是为了解决在宗教信仰上的争论，就像其他事务的争论一样，往往在精心组织的佛教“议会”进行，在那里不同观念的信徒吵吵嚷嚷着他们的不同之处。第一次此类大型的议会在王舍城（Rajagriha）召开，王舍城在释加摩尼时候不久建立，大约在2500年前。最大的一次是第三次，于3世纪在阿育王（Ashoka）的庇护下在首都巴特那（Patna）举行。阿育王还试着把它编成法典并作为早期公共讨论的规则来运行——一个罗伯特规则 Robert's Rules of Order的古代版。他要求诸如“关于演讲的约束，所以每一个人不能赞美自己的宗教或者毁谤别人的宗教在不适宜的场合，即便在适当的场合也要适度表达。” 甚至参加辩论的时候“在任何时候都要对其他的宗教表示尊敬。”

合理范围内的公共讨论是民主的核心（John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, 和Jürgen Habermas以及其他一些人所论述过的），在印度和中国（也包括日本、韩国和其他地方）的佛教对对话的强调在很大程度上催生了传统的公共讨论，而民主的起源至少可以部分追溯到这些公共讨论。中日韩佛教徒早期在印刷术上的努力也是意义重大的。11世界上第一本印刷书（或者说有明确日期记载的第一本印刷书），是一个印度梵语论著的中译本，称《金刚经》（Diamond Sutra），公元868年在中国印刷。由于《金刚经》差不多完全是一个宗教著作，所有这本9世纪的书显眼地写着“免费赠阅”，声称这是为公众教化而奉献的。

John Kieschnick指出“《金刚经》在中国佛教传统中占有重要地位的一个理由是它使人相信抄写和印刷佛教经文是有好处的”，并且他论证“这种信念的起源可以上溯到印度”。12这种观点并不是空穴来风；毫无疑问这与佛教领袖阿育王对与公众的广泛交流的强调是分不开的，阿育王在全印度树了许多巨大的石碑，石碑上铭刻着描绘良好公共行为的铭文（包括怎样引导辩论的规则）。

印刷术的发展毫无疑问对民主进程的起了巨大的促进作用，但即便短期内它也为公共交往提供了新的可能性，而且对中国的社会政治生活产生了巨大的影响。在其他方面，它也影响了新儒家教育，就像西奥多－巴里（Theodore de Bary）所指出的，“学习的重要性的提升使妇女的教育水平达到了一个新的台阶（在宋朝），以印刷术、读写能力和学校教育的迅速扩展为标记，新儒家在明代得到了发展。”13

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中印在公共卫生保健上的交流尽管鲜为人知但却意义重大。法显于公元401年到达印度之后，他对当时的卫生制度表示出相当大的兴趣。5世纪巴特那的那些卫生医疗的市政设施给他留下了深刻的印象：
这个国家所有的贫穷和困苦的人，包括那些生病的人，都可以来到那些房子里，在那里他们会得到无微不至的帮助，医生也会检查他们的病情。他们可以得到他们所必需的食品和药品，并且自由自在；而一旦当他们好了之后，就可以自己离开。14

不管这种对5世纪巴特那的诊所的描写是不是太过夸张（但看起来的确很有可能），但非常明显，法显想要从这个国家学习公共卫生预防的知识。

2 个半世纪之后，义净也被卫生保健吸引了，在他关于印度的论著中有三章是关于卫生保健的。他对印度卫生保健实践的印象比对印度的医学知识要来得深。当旨在减轻痛苦和不适的药物治疗给了印度人信心之后（例如：“酥油、油、蜂蜜和糖浆能够减轻感冒的症状”），义净总结到：“在针灸医术和搭脉治疗上，中国从来就没有超越过（印度）；而延长生命的药只在中国才有。”在另一个方面，他写到需要从印度的卫生保健中学习很多东西：“在印度优质的白布被用来过滤水，在中国就可以用上好的丝绸”，还有“在中国，吃的鱼和蔬菜都是没有煮过的，而印度人从不这样。”当义净返回中国，那个他魂牵梦萦的祖国（他甚至反问自己：印度的五个地区里，难道会有一个人不羡慕我中国吗？），即便如此，他还是指出中国在卫生保健方面要向印度学习。

7.
公共卫生是一个国家可以从另外一个国家学习的主题，毫无疑问今天印度需要向中国多多学习。实际上，几十年来中国人的平均寿命都超过了印度人。尽管这样，2个世纪以来平均寿命提高的历史告诉我们一个更有价值的故事。中国解放后不久，毛主席领导下的中国就开始提供广泛的卫生保健，但在那个时候一切都不如印度。到1979年，邓小平首次提出经济改革的时候，中国人的平均寿命已经比印度人长14年了。

从1979年改革开放以来，中国经济迅猛发展，增长速度远远超过了印度。尽管中国的经济增长速度非常快，但是印度的平均寿命的平均增长率自1979年以来却是中国的三倍。中国人现在的平均寿命是71岁，而印度人是64岁；平均寿命上的差距中国占优，1979年是14岁（中国改革伊始），而现在是相差一半，即7岁。

事实上，中国71岁的平均寿命已经低于印度的一些地区，特别是克拉拉邦（Kerala），它有3千万人口，比许多国家都要多；克拉拉邦最引人瞩目的成功是把印度式的多党民主制（包括公开辩论和公民广泛参与公共生活）和中国的在解放后采用的积极主动改善卫生保健模式结合得非常好。15这种结合的好处不仅显示在它提高人均寿命的成就上，而且还体现在其他方面。举例来说，在中国人口里女性与男性的比例只有0.94，印度的总平均数是0.93，但是克拉拉邦却高达1.06，甚至和北美与西欧的比例相同。这么高的比例反映出女性的生存优势，她们并没有遭受不公平待遇。16克拉拉邦的人口出生率持续下降也比中国快，尽管中国实行了严厉的计划生育政策。17

1979年中国刚改革开放时，克拉拉邦的平均寿命显著低于中国。尽管如此在1995年到2000年间（印度能够取得的平均寿命的数据最近的时段），克拉拉邦74岁的平均寿命早就显著超过了中国2000年统计的71岁的确切数据。18

此外，从1979年改革以来，中国的婴儿死亡率下降的非常缓慢，反之克拉拉邦则持续下降非常迅速。1979年克拉拉邦和中国的婴儿死亡率相差无几——都是千分之三十七。现在是千分之十，是中国的三分之一，中国是千分之三十（与上个时期相比变化不大）。

有关民主问题的两个因素，可以用来揭示中国在延长寿命方面进展的减缓，尽管中国在促进经济飞速发展上表现积极。第一，1979年改革大量取消了免费的公共医疗保险，大多数人需要自己掏腰包购买医疗保险（除非雇主愿意承担，但是这只是很少数的情况）。大举撤销价值巨大的公共服务政治上却没有遇到很大的阻力—— 而无庸置疑在多党民主的社会不会这么顺当。

第二，民主和政治自由不仅具有自身的价值，而且它们致使严格审查公众的社会政策破产，从而对公共政策（包括卫生保健）产生直接的贡献。19印度提供给相关的富人高质量的医疗设备，包括那些到印度来接受治疗的人，但是印度的基础医疗设施却非常差，就像我们从印度媒体对此的强烈批评中得知的一样。但猛烈的批评也带来了改正的机会。事实上，关于印度卫生设施缺乏的持续不断的报道，引致了改善这种情况的努力，这成为印度实力的一个资源，在中印平均寿命差距的急剧缩小上得到了反映。这种力量同样反映在克拉拉邦把民主参与和根本的社会承诺融合在一起取得的成就上。中国隐瞒SARS病情引起了可怕的后果，也体现了公共交流与卫生保健之间的关系。这种流行性非典在2002年十月份就发生了而一直被隐瞒到次年春天。 20

因而当印度应该向中国学习在经济增长和卫生保健方面的经验时，印度关于公共交流和民主的经验对中国也是有教育意义的。因此值得重申反抗和挑战权威的传统，正如从印度传到中国的佛教权威也遭到过特别强烈的批判，中国早期对佛教的指责正是如此。

傅奕是一个强有力的儒家继承人，7世纪他向唐王递交了下述对佛教的怨言。实际上，同近期攻击法 轮 功***极为相似：
佛教从中亚渗透到中国，形式怪异并且粗暴，同样的，当时可能危险较小。但自从汉代以来印度典籍被译成中文。他们公开反对君臣之礼和孝顺之道，导致了忠孝之道的衰弱。人们开始相互握手，但拒绝向大王和他们的长辈鞠躬了。21

傅奕提议不仅要下令禁止佛教徒讲道，而且提出了对付成千上万的激进运动分子的新方法。“我请求陛下让他们还俗结婚。” 傅奕建议唐王，然后“把他们的孩子编到大王的军队里。”当然我们知道，唐王拒绝用这种方法来消除佛教徒的忤逆。

中国取得了举世瞩目的成就，成为世界经济的一个领导者，而从中印度——像其他许多国家一样——从中获益匪浅，尤其是近几年。但印度民主参与的成就，包括克拉拉在内，根据自己的经验，给中国提出了建议，那就是在某些方面中国必须向印度学习。事实上，中国努力克服闭关锁国的历史——尤其在第一个千年的后半期—— 对今天的世界而言是持续有利并具有实践效益的。22

注释：

[1]这些名字我都使用现在更加标准的拼音，尽管在文献中还有一些其他的拼法。比如法显也作为Fa-Hsien和Fa-hien；玄奘也拼作Hiuan-tsang和Yuang Chwang；义净也拼作I-tsing和I-Ching，还有其他一些拼法。

[1]有两本介绍玄奘的书在今天仍然十分有意义：Richard Bernstein,《通天之路：寻找启蒙》 Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment (Knopf, 2001), and Sun Shuyun,《万里无云》 Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud (HarperCollins, 2003).

[1] Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 1956), p. 427.

[1]一个关于翻译数学思想的有趣的例子是关于三角法中的正弦的。Aryabhata 在他499年完成的梵文数学论著里使用jya-ardha （梵语，半弦的意思），简写为jya ，就是我们现在所谓的正弦sine。8世纪的阿拉伯数学中，把梵文jya根据音译为jiba，然后转变为jaib（跟jiba的形式一致），是一个很好的阿拉伯词语，意思是海湾或者山凹，克雷莫纳（Cremona）的格拉多（Gherardo）把这个词翻译为拉丁文中对应的海湾或者山凹，也就是sinus，这就是我们现在sine的起源。Howard Eves, 《数学简史》An Introduction to the History of Mathematics (Saunders, sixth edition, 1990), p. 237. Aryabhata的jya中文翻译成“明”，并且有“月渐亮明”的说法，按照字面意思就是月亮间隔的正弦。Jean-Claude Martzloff, 《中国数学史》A History of Chinese Mathematics (Springer, 1997), p. 100.

[1] Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 3, p. 202; 也参见pp. 12 and 37. 一个关于印度历法的概论见我的《纵览印度历法》 "India Through Its Calendars," The Little Magazine, No. 1 (Delhi, 2000).

6短语“普通话”（Mandarin）来自梵语mantri ，或者特殊顾问（印度总理现在仍然被称为pradhan mantri,或者首要顾问），经马来亚稍后传人中国。

7 John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture (Princeton University Press, 2003).

8 Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 3, pp. 146–148.

9 Martzloff, A History of Chinese Mathematics, p. 90.

10 除了另外一些原因，John Kieschnick指出“古印度许多作品都提到”了“短命的棕榈叶和桦树皮”，参The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, p. 166.

11 印度佛教徒也很早就开始在印刷术上进行尝试。事实上，访问印度的中国学者义净在7世纪就发现了佛像被印刷在丝绸和纸上，但这些大概是粗糙的刻板印刷。更早一点，相传玄奘在返回中国之前就印刷了印度学者Bhadra的像。这段早期历史参见Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 5, Part 1, pp. 148–149.

12 Kieschnik, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, p. 164.

13 Wm. Theodore de Bary, "Neo-Confucian Education," in Sources of Chinese Tradition, compiled by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (Columbia University Press, second edition, 1999), Vol. 1, p. 820.

14 来自James Legge的译文， The Travels of Fa-Hien or Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Patna: Eastern Book House, 1993), p. 79.

15 克拉拉邦尽管通过扩张的经济但在达GDP高速增长方面却并不是十分成功。它的 GDP 增长速度和印度的总平均数一样，并且比印度一些增长导向的邦要低。尽管从世界银行估计的趋势来看，克拉拉邦除了在教育和卫生保健上的成就之外，在提高经济增长方面还有许多要向中国学习。其他方面的比较以及背后的原因，参见我和Jean Dreze的《印度：发展和参与》, India: Development and Participation (Oxford University Press, 2002), Section 3.8, pp. 97–101.

16 我在"More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing," The New York Review, December 20, 1990; "Missing Women," British Medical Journal, Vol. 304 (March 7, 1992); and "Missing Women Revisited," British Medical Journal, Vol. 327 (December 6, 2003).里讨论了“消失的女性”现象背后的偶然因素。在这些文章里，我也讨论了克拉拉邦的经济，政治以及社会意义，包括涉及到激进但是民主的政治，教育的角色和女性的作用。

17 参看 "Population: Delusion and Reality," The New York Review, September 22, 1994, and "Fertility and Coercion," University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 63 (Summer 1996).

18中国国家统计局，《中国统计年鉴2003》，北京：中国统计出版社，2003，表 4-17, p. 118. 中国的大城市，尤其是北京和上海，情况要优于克拉拉邦，但是大部分省的平均寿命远远低于克拉拉邦。

19这种联系同样能够非常明显的被观察到，就是主要的饥荒都不是发生在民主国家， 即便在那些非常贫困的民主国家。关于这个可以参看我的"How Is India Doing?" The New York Review, December 16, 1982, 以及我和 Jean Drèze的, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989).在英人统治下的印度不断出现的大范围的饥荒已经到头了（1943年孟加拉大饥荒是在印度独立四年前发生的），随着印度建立多党民主制度饥荒突然就不见了。相比较而言，历史记录显示中国在1958－1961年曾发生大规模饥荒，据估计有近300万人死亡。

20中国今年来急剧上升的经济不平等可能会持续减缓中国人均寿命增长的速度。实际上，印度同样也出现经济不平等的现象，但没有像中国这么严重；但有意思的是不断加剧的经济不平等似乎成为反对党赢得5月在新德里举行的选举主要原因。在其他因素中，对反对党有利的是，执政党违背了穆斯林宗派主义者在古吉拉特邦（Gujarat）的利益。（这当然也得益于商议性民主系统的信誉，能够保证少数人的权益在多数人投票的情况下得到反映。）

21 译自 Prabodh C. Bagchi, India and China: A Thousand Years of Cultural Relations (Calcutta: Saraswat Library, revised edition, 1981), p. 134.

22 论述这些主题的一个长文收在一本论文集里， The Argumentative Indian, 2005将由 Penguin Books在 London出版. 我非常感谢Patricia Mirr-lees, J.K. Banthia, Homi Bhabha, Sugata Bose, Nathan Glazer, Geoffrey Lloyd, Roderick MacFarquhar, Emma Rothschild, Roel Sterckx, Sun Shuyun, and Rosie Vaughan的有益

Passage to China

02/12/2004｜阿玛蒂亚·森(Amartya Sen) |New York Review

1.

The intellectual links between China and India, stretching over two thousand years, have had far-reaching effects on the history of both countries, yet they are hardly remembered today. What little notice they get tends to come from writers interested in religious history, particularly the history of Buddhism, which began its spread from India to China in the first century. In China Buddhism became a powerful force until it was largely displaced by Confucianism and Taoism approximately a thousand years later. But religion is only one part of the much bigger story of Sino-Indian connections during the first millennium. A broader understanding of these relations is greatly needed, not only for us to appreciate more fully the history of a third of the world’s population, but also because the connections between the two countries are important for political and social issues today.

Certainly religion has been a major source of contact between China and India, and Buddhism was central to the movement of people and ideas between the two countries. But the wider influence of Buddhism was not confined to religion. Its secular impact stretched into science, mathematics, literature, linguistics, architecture, medicine, and music. We know from the elaborate accounts left by a number of Chinese visitors to India, such as Faxian in the fifth century and Xuanzang and Yi Jing in the seventh,¹ that their interest was by no means restricted to religious theory and practices. Similarly, the Indian scholars who went to China, especially in the seventh and eighth centuries, included not only religious experts but also other professionals such as astronomers and mathematicians. In the eighth century an Indian astronomer named Gautama Siddhartha became the president of the Board of Astronomy in China.

The richness and variety of early intellectual relations between China and India have long been obscured. This neglect is now reinforced by the contemporary tendency to classify the world’s population into distinct “civilizations” defined largely by religion (for example Samuel Huntington’s partitioning of the world into such categories as “Western civilization,” “Islamic civilization,” and “Hindu civilization”). There is, as a result, a widespread inclination to understand people mainly through their religious beliefs, even if this misses much that is important about them. The limitations of this perspective have already done significant harm to our understanding of other aspects of the global history of ideas. Many are now predisposed to see the history of Muslims as quintessentially Islamic history, ignoring the flowering of science, mathematics, and literature that was made possible by Muslim intellectuals, particularly between the eighth and the thirteenth centuries. One result of such a narrow emphasis on religion is that a disaffected Arab activist today is encouraged to take pride only in the purity of Islam, rather than in the diversity and richness of Arab history. In India too, there are frequent attempts to portray the broad civilization of India as “Hindu civilization”—to use the phrase favored both by theorists like Samuel Huntington and by Hindu political activists.

Second, there is an odd and distracting contrast between the ways in which Western and non-Western ideas and scholarship are currently understood. In interpreting non-Western works, many commentators tend to ascribe a much greater importance to religion than is merited, neglecting the works’ secular interests. Few assume that, say, Isaac Newton’s scientific work must be understood as primarily Christian (even though he did have Christian beliefs); nor do most of us take it for granted that his contributions to scientific knowledge must somehow be interpreted in the light of his deep interest in mysticism (important as mystical speculations were to him, perhaps even motivating some of his scientific work). In contrast, when it comes to non-Western cultures, religious reductionism tends to be a powerful influence. Scholars often presume that none of the broadly conceived intellectual work of Buddhist scholars, or of followers of Tantric practices, could be “properly understood” except in the special light of their religious beliefs and customs.

2.

As it happens, relations between China and India almost certainly began with trade, not with Buddhism. Some two thousand years ago the consumption habits of Indians, particularly of rich Indians, were radically influenced by innovations from China. A treatise on economics and politics by the great Sanskrit scholar Kautilya, first written in the fourth century BCE, though revised a few centuries later, gives a special place to “silk and silk-cloth from the land of China” among “precious articles” and “objects of value.” In the ancient epic Mahabharata there are references to Chinese fabric or silk (cinamsuka) being given as presents, and there are similar references in the ancient Laws of Manu.

The exotic nature of Chinese products was captured in many Sanskrit literary works in the early part of the first millennium, as in the fifth-century playSakuntala by Kalidasa (perhaps the greatest poet and dramatist in classical Sanskrit literature). When King Dusyanta sees, in the middle of a hunting expedition, the stunning hermit-girl Sakuntala and is overwhelmed by her beauty, he explains his passion by comparing himself to the way a banner made of Chinese silk flutters in the wind: “My body goes forward,/But my reluctant mind runs back/Like Chinese silk on a banner/Trembling against the wind.” In the playHarsacarita by Bana, written in the seventh century, the beautiful Rajyasri is portrayed at her wedding as gorgeously dressed in elegant Chinese silk. During the same period there are also plentiful references in the Sanskrit literature to other Chinese products that made their way into India, among them camphor (cinaka), vermilion (cinapista), and high-quality leather (cinasi), as well as delicious pears (cinarajaputra) and peaches (cinani).

While China was enriching the material world of India two thousand years ago, India was exporting Buddhism to China at least since the first century AD, when two Indian monks, Dharmaraksa and Kasyapa Matanga, arrived in China at the invitation of Emperor Mingdi of the Han dynasty. From then on until the eleventh century, more and more Indian scholars and monks came to China. Hundreds of scholars and translators produced Chinese versions of thousands of Sanskrit documents, most of them Buddhist works. Translations were going on with astonishing rapidity. Although the flow of translated work came to an end in the eleventh century, more than two hundred further Sanskrit volumes were translated between 982 and 1011 AD.

The first Chinese scholar to write an elaborate account of his visit to India was Faxian, a Buddhist scholar from western China who went in search of Sanskrit texts, intending to make them available in Chinese. After an arduous journey through the northern route to India via Khotan (which had a strong Buddhist presence), he reached India in 401 CE. Ten years later, Faxian returned by sea, sailing from the mouth of the Ganges (not far from present-day Calcutta), and going on to visit Buddhist Sri Lanka and to see Hindu Java. Faxian spent his time in India traveling widely and collecting documents (which he would later translate into Chinese). His Record of Buddhist Kingdoms is a highly illuminating account of India and Sri Lanka. Faxian’s years in Pataliputra (or Patna) were devoted to studying Sanskrit language and literature in addition to religious texts, but, as will be seen, he was also greatly interested in contemporary Indian arrangements for health care.

The most famous visitor to India from China was Xuanzang, who traveled there in the seventh century. A formidable scholar, he collected Sanskrit texts (translating many of them after his return to China), and traveled throughout India for sixteen years, including the years he spent in Nalanda, a famous institution of higher education not far from Patna. At Nalanda, in addition to Buddhism, Xuanzang studied medicine, philosophy, logic, mathematics, astronomy, and grammar. On his return to China he was greeted by the emperor with much pomp.² Yi Jing, who came to India shortly after Xuanzang’s visit, also studied in Nalanda, combining his work on Buddhism with studies of medicine and public health care.

3.

Yi Jing’s translation of Buddhist works included texts by practitioners of Tantrism, whose esoteric traditions placed a strong emphasis on meditation. Tantrism became a major force in China in the seventh and eighth centuries, and since many Tantric scholars had a strong interest in mathematics (perhaps connected, at least initially, with the Tantric fascination with numbers), Tantric mathematicians influenced Chinese mathematics as well.

Joseph Needham notes that “the most important Tantrist” was Yi Xing (672 to 717), “the greatest Chinese astronomer and mathematician of his time.”³ Yi Xing, who was fluent in Sanskrit and was familiar with the Indian literature on mathematics, was also a Buddhist monk, but it would be a mistake to assume that his mathematical work was somehow specifically religious. As a mathematician who happened to be also a Tantrist, Yi Xing dealt with a variety of analytical and computational problems, many of which had no particular connection with Tantrism at all. He tackled such classic problems as “calculating the total number of possible situations in chess.” He was particularly concerned with calendrical calculations, and even constructed, on the emperor’s orders, a new calendar for China.

Indian astronomers who were living in China in the eighth century were particularly occupied with calendrical studies, and made use of developments in trigonometry that had already emerged in India (and that went far beyond the original Greek roots of Indian trigonometry). This was also around the time when Indian astronomy and mathematics, including trig-onometry, were influencing the mathematics and the sciences of the Arab world, through the translation into Arabic of Aryabhata, Varahamihira, and Brahmagupta, among others.⁴

Chinese records show that several Indian astronomers and mathematicians held high positions in the Astronomical Bureau at the Chinese capital during this period. Not only did one of them, Gautama, became president of the Board of Astronomy in China, he also produced the great Chinese compendium of astronomy, Kaiyvan Zhanjing, an eighth-century scientific classic. He adapted a number of Indian astronomical works for publication in Chinese, among them the Jiuzhi li, which draws on a particular planetary calendar in India and is clearly based on a classical Sanskrit text, produced around 550 CE by the mathematician Varahamihira. This work is mainly an algorithmic guide to computation, estimating, for example, the duration of eclipses based on the diameter of the moon and other relevant parameters. The techniques involved drew on methods established by Aryabhata in the late fifth century, and then further developed by his followers in India, including Varahamihira and Brahmagupta.

Yang Jingfeng, an eighth-century Chinese astronomer, described the mixed background of official Chinese astronomy:

Those who wish to know the positions of the five planets adopt Indian calendrical methods…. So we have the three clans of Indian calendar experts, Chiayeh [Kasyapa], Chhüthan [Gautama], and Chümolo [Kumara], all of whom hold office at the Bureau of Astronomy. But now most use is made of the calendrical methods of Master Chhüthan, together with his “Great Art,” in the work which is carried out for the government.⁵

The Indian astronomers, such as Gautama or Kasyapa or Kumara, would not have gone to China except for the connections that were made possible by Buddhism, but their work can hardly be seen primarily as contributions to Buddhism.

4.

The literature of cultures and civilizations includes much discussion of China’s alleged insularity and its suspicion of ideas that have come from elsewhere. This view has also been invoked in recent years to try to explain Chinese resistance to democratic politics. Such simple interpretations, however, cannot explain why China so readily embraced the market economy at home and abroad following the economic reforms of 1979, while its leaders firmly resisted political democracy. But it is also true that China has not, in fact, been as intellectually insular as is frequently assumed.

Here China’s relations with India are of particular importance. As it happens, India is the only country in the outside world to which scholars from ancient China went for their education and training; we have records of more than two hundred distinguished Chinese scholars who spent extensive periods of time in India in the second half of the first millennium. The Chinese primarily sought a knowledge of Sanskrit and of Buddhist literature, but they were interested in much else as well. Some Indian influences are evident, as with the use of key terms and concepts from Sanskrit such as ch’an or zen derived from dhyana, or meditation, as well as the themes of Chinese operas that drew on Sanskrit stories (such as The Heavenly Girl Scattering Flowers).⁶ As the American scholar John Kieschnick has shown, the Chinese construction of temples and bridges was much influenced by ideas that came from India through Buddhism.⁷

The movement of knowledge between China and India went, of course, in both directions. Joseph Needham attempted to provide a list of mathematical ideas that “radiated from China,” particularly to India, and he has argued that many more ideas went from China to India than moved in the opposite direction: “India was the more receptive of the two cultures.”⁸ In the absence of direct evidence of the movement of a particular idea in either direction between India and China, Needham assumed that an idea moved from the country where the first record of its use had been found. This procedure has been strongly criticized by other historians of science and mathematics, such as Jean-Claude Martzloff.⁹ It seems clear that an earlier record of use would have been much more likely to have been lost in India than in China.¹⁰ What is really important is that plenty of ideas in mathematics and science, as well as in other nonreligious subjects, moved in both directions.

5.

The transfer of ideas and skills in mathematics and science remains central to the contemporary commercial world whether for the development of information technology or of modern industrial methods. What may perhaps be less clear is how nations learn from one another both in enlarging the scope of public communication and in improving public health care. As it happens, both were important in the intellectual relations between China and India in the first millennium and remain central even today.

As a religion, Buddhism began with at least two specific characteristics that were quite unusual, its agnosticism and its commitment to broad discussion of public issues. Some of the earliest open public meetings on record, aimed specifically at settling disputes over religious beliefs as well as other matters, took place in India in elaborately organized Buddhist “councils,” in which adherents of different points of view argued their differences. The first of these large councils was held in Rajagriha shortly after Gautama Buddha’s death 2,500 years ago. The largest of the councils, the third, was held in the capital city of Patna, under the patronage of Emperor Ashoka in the third century BCE. Ashoka also tried to codify and circulate what must have been among the earliest formulations of rules for public discussion—a kind of ancient version of Robert’s Rules of Order. He demanded, for example, “restraint in regard to speech, so that there should be no extolling of one’s own sect or disparaging of other sects on inappropriate occasions, and it should be moderate even in appropriate occasions.” Even when engaged in arguing, “other sects should be duly honored in every way on all occasions.”

Insofar as reasoned public discussion is central to democracy (as John Stuart Mill, John Rawls, and Jürgen Habermas, among many others, have argued), the origins of democracy can indeed be traced in part to the tradition of public discussion that received much encouragement from the emphasis on dialogue in Buddhism in both India and China (and also in Japan, Korea, and elsewhere). It is also significant that nearly every attempt at early printing in China, Korea, and Japan was undertaken by Buddhists.¹¹ The first printed book in the world (or rather, the first printed book that is actually dated) was the Chinese translation of an Indian Sanskrit treatise, the so-called Diamond Sutra, which was printed in China in 868 AD. While the Diamond Sutra is almost entirely a religious document, the boldly inscribed dedication of this ninth-century book, “for universal free distribution,” announces a commitment to public education.

John Kieschnick has noted that “one of the reasons for the important place of books in the Chinese Buddhist tradition is the belief that one can gain merit by copying or printing Buddhist scriptures,” and he has argued that “the origins of this belief can be traced to India.”¹² There is some ground for that view; there is also surely a connection here with the emphasis on communication with a broad public by such Buddhist leaders as Ashoka, who erected throughout India large stone tablets bearing inscriptions describing the qualities of good public behavior (including the rules on how to conduct an argument).

The development of printing, of course, had a powerful effect on the development of democracy, but even in the short run, it opened new possibilities for public communication and had enormous consequences for social and political life in China. Among other things, it also influenced neo-Confucian education, and as Theodore de Bary has noted, “women’s education achieved a new level of importance with the rise of…learning [during the Song dynasty] and its neo-Confucian extensions in the Ming, marked by the great spread of printing, literacy, and schooling.”¹³

6.

The connections between India and China in public health care are both significant and little-known. After Faxian arrived in India in 401 AD, he took considerable interest in contemporary health arrangements. He was particularly impressed by the civic facilities for medical care in fifth-century Patna:

All the poor and destitute in the country…and all who are diseased, go to these houses, and are provided with every kind of help, and doctors examine their diseases. They get the food and medicines which their cases require, and are made to feel at ease; and when they are better, they go away of themselves.¹⁴

Whether or not this description was too flattering of the clinics in fifth-century Patna (which seems very likely), what is striking is Faxian’s desire to learn from the provisions for public health in the country he visited for a decade.

Two and half centuries later, Yi Jing also became interested in health care, and he devoted to it three chapters of his book on India. He was more impressed with Indian health practice than with Indian medical knowledge. While giving India credit for some medical treatments, mainly aimed at lessening pain and discomfort (e.g., “ghee, oil, honey, or syrups give one relief from cold”), he concluded, “In the healing arts of acupuncture and cautery and the skill of feeling the pulse, China has never been surpassed [by India]; the medicine for prolonging life is only found in China.” On the other hand, he wrote, there was much to learn from India about health care: “The Indians use fine white cloth for straining water and in China fine silk should be used,” and “in China, people of the present time eat fish and vegetables mostly uncooked; no Indians do this.” While Yi Jing returned to China pleased with his country of origin (he even asked rhetorically: “Is there anyone, in the five parts of India, who does not admire China?”), he still made a point of evaluating what China could learn from India.

7.

Public health is a subject about which one country can learn from another, and it should be clear that India today has much to learn from China. Indeed, life expectancy has been longer in China than in India for many decades. However, the history of progress in extending life expectancy in the two countries tells a more interesting story. Shortly after the revolution, Maoist China made an early start in providing widespread health care, and there was nothing comparable in India at the time. By 1979, when Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms were first introduced, Chinese on average lived fourteen years longer than Indians.

Then, after the economic reforms of 1979, the Chinese economy surged ahead, growing much faster than India’s. Despite China’s much faster economic growth, however, the average rate of increase in life expectancy in India has, since 1979, been about three times as fast as that in China. China’s life expectancy is now about seventy-one years, while India’s is sixty-four years; the life-expectancy gap in favor of China, which was fourteen years in 1979 (at the time of the Chinese reforms), has now been halved to seven years.

Indeed, China’s life expectancy of seventy-one years is now lower than that in some parts of India, notably in the state of Kerala, which, with its 30 million people, is larger than many countries; Kerala has been particularly successful in combining Indian-style multiparty democracy (including public debates and widespread participation of citizens in public life) with improvements in health through state initiatives of the type that China undertook after the Revolution.¹⁵The advantage of that combination shows itself not only in achievements in high life expectancy but also in many other fields. For example, while the ratio of women to men in the total population in China is only 0.94 and the Indian overall average is 0.93, Kerala’s ratio is 1.06, exactly the same as in North America and Western Europe. This high ratio reflects the survival advantages of women when they are not subjected to unequal treatment.¹⁶ The fall in the fertility rate of Kerala has also been substantially faster than in China, despite China’s coercive birth-control policies.¹⁷

At the time of the Chinese reforms in 1979, life expectancy in Kerala was sightly lower than in China. However between 1995 and 2000 (the last period for which firm figures for life expectancy in India are available), Kerala’s life expectancy of seventy-four years was already significantly higher than China’s last firm figure of seventy-one years in 2000.¹⁸

Moreover, since the 1979 economic reforms, the infant mortality rate in China has declined extremely slowly, whereas it has continued to fall very rapidly in Kerala. At the time of the Chinese reforms in 1979 Kerala had roughly the same infant mortality rate as China—thirty-seven per thousand. Its present rate is ten per thousand, a third of China’s thirty per thousand (which has not changed much over the last decade).

Two factors, both of which bear on the issue of democracy, help to explain the slackening of Chinese progress in prolonging life, notwithstanding the positive effects of China’s extremely rapid economic growth. First, the reforms of 1979 largely eliminated free public health insurance, and most citizens had to buy private health insurance (except when it was provided by the employer, which happens only in a small number of cases). This withdrawal of a highly valued public service met with little political resistance—as it undoubtedly would have in any multiparty democracy.

Second, democracy and political freedom are not only valuable in themselves; they also make a direct contribution to public policy (including health care) by bringing failures of social policy under public scrutiny.¹⁹ India offers high-quality medical facilities to the relatively rich, including foreigners who come to India for treatment, but the basic health services in India are poor, as we know from the strong criticisms of them in the Indian press. But intense criticism also provides opportunities to make amends. In fact, the persistent reports on the deficiencies of Indian health services, and the resulting efforts to improve them, have been a source of India’s strength, reflected in the sharp reduction in the gap between China and India in life expectancy. This strength is reflected as well in what Kerala has achieved by combining democratic participation with radical social commitments. The link between public communication and health care can also be seen in the terrible effects of the secrecy surrounding the SARS epidemic in China, which started in November 2002 but was kept secret until the following spring.²⁰

So while India has much to learn from China about economic policy and also about health care, India’s experience with public communication and democracy could still be instructive for China. It is worth recalling that the tradition of irreverence and defiance of authority that came with Buddhism from India to China was singled out for particularly strong criticism by the Chinese in the early denunciations of Buddhism.

Fu-yi, a powerful Confucian leader, submitted in the seventh century the following complaint about Buddhists to the Tang emperor. It has, in fact, some similarity with the recent attacks on the Falun Gong:

Buddhism infiltrated into China from Central Asia, [in] a strange and barbarous form, and as such, it was then less dangerous. But since the Han period the Indian texts began to be translated into Chinese. Their publicity began to adversely affect the faith of the Princes and filial piety began to degenerate. The people began to shave their heads and refused to bow their heads to the Princes and their ancestors.²¹

Fu-yi proposed not only a ban on Buddhist preaching but a new way of dealing with the “tens of thousands” of activists rampaging in China. “I request you to get them married,” Fu-yi advised the Tang emperor, and “then bring up [their] children to fill the ranks of your army.” The emperor, we learn, refused to use this approach to eliminating Buddhist defiance.

With stunning success, China has become a leader of the world economy, and from this India—like many other countries—has been learning a great deal, particularly in recent years. But the achievements of democratic participation in India, including Kerala, suggest that China, for its part, may also have something to learn from India. Indeed, the history of China’s attempts to overcome its insularity—especially during the second half of the first millennium—has continuing interest and practical usefulness for the world today.²²

1. 1
   In spelling Chinese names in English, I am using the "pinyin" system, which is now standard, even though the literature cited also uses many other spellings. Faxian has also been referred to as Fa-Hsien and Fa-hien; Xuanzang as Hiuan-tsang and Yuang Chwang; and Yi Jing as I-tsing and I-Ching, among other variations.↩
2. 2
   Two insightful recent books draw on Xuanzang's travels and their continuing significance today: Richard Bernstein, Ultimate Journey: Retracing the Path of an Ancient Buddhist Monk Who Crossed Asia in Search of Enlightenment (Knopf, 2001), and Sun Shuyun, Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud (HarperCollins, 2003).↩
3. 3
   Joseph Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 2 (Cambridge University Press, 1956), p. 427.↩
4. 4
   An interesting example of the transmission of mathematical ideas and terms can be seen in the origin of the trigonometric term "sine." In his Sanskrit mathematical treatise completed in 499 AD, Aryabhata used jya-ardha (Sanskrit for "chord half"), shortened later into jya, for what we now call "sine." Arab mathematicians in the eighth century transliterated the Sanskrit word jya into the proximate sound of jibaand then later changed it to jaib (with the same consonants as jiba), which is a good Arabic word, meaning a bay or a cove, and it was this word that was later translated by Gherardo of Cremona (circa 1150) into its equivalent Latin word for a bay or a cove, viz., sinus, from which the modern term "sine" is derived. See Howard Eves,An Introduction to the History of Mathematics (Saunders, sixth edition, 1990), p. 237. Aryabhata's jya was translated into Chinese as ming and was used in such tables asyue jianliang ming, literally "sine of lunar intervals." See Jean-Claude Martzloff, A History of Chinese Mathematics (Springer, 1997), p. 100.↩
5. 5
   See Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 3, p. 202; see also pp. 12 and 37. A general account of Indian calendrical systems is presented in my "India Through Its Calendars," The Little Magazine, No. 1 (Delhi, 2000).↩
6. 6
   The term "Mandarin," from the Sanskrit word mantri, or special adviser (the Indian prime minister is still called pradhan mantri, or principal adviser), came much later, via Malaya.↩
7. 7
   John Kieschnick, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture (Princeton University Press, 2003).↩
8. 8
   Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 3, pp. 146–148.↩
9. 9
   Martzloff, A History of Chinese Mathematics, p. 90.↩
10. 10
    Apart from other reasons, John Kieschnick points to "the ephemerality of palm leaves and birch bark" on which "most writings in ancient India were inscribed"; seeThe Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, p. 166.↩
11. 11
    It appears that there were early attempts at printing by Indian Buddhists as well. Indeed, Yi Jing, the Chinese scholar who visited India in the seventh century, apparently encountered prints of Buddhist images on silk and paper in India, but these were probably rather primitive image blocks. A little earlier, Xuanzang is said to have printed pictures of an Indian scholar (Bhadra) as he returned to China from India. On this early history, see Needham, Science and Civilization in China, Vol. 5, Part 1, pp. 148–149.↩
12. 12
    Kieschnik, The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture, p. 164.↩
13. 13
    Wm. Theodore de Bary, "Neo-Confucian Education," in Sources of Chinese Tradition, compiled by Wm. Theodore de Bary and Irene Bloom (Columbia University Press, second edition, 1999), Vol. 1, p. 820.↩
14. 14
    From the translation of James Legge, The Travels of Fa-Hien or Record of Buddhist Kingdoms (Patna: Eastern Book House, 1993), p. 79.↩
15. 15
    Kerala has, however, been less successful in achieving a high growth rate of gross domestic product through an expansive economy. Its GDP growth is similar to the overall average of India and lower than that of a number of more growth-oriented states in India. Even though the World Bank's estimates have tended to show that Kerala, in addition to its achievements in education and health care, has had one of the fastest rates of reduction of income poverty in India, it still has a lot to learn from China about ways to increase economic growth. On these comparisons and the causal factors underlying them, see my joint book with Jean Dreze,India: Development and Participation (Oxford University Press, 2002), Section 3.8, pp. 97–101.↩
16. 16
    I have discussed the casual factors underlying the phenomenon of "missing women" in "More Than 100 Million Women Are Missing," The New York Review, December 20, 1990; "Missing Women," British Medical Journal, Vol. 304 (March 7, 1992); and "Missing Women Revisited," British Medical Journal, Vol. 327 (December 6, 2003). They also discuss the economic, political, and social lessons from Kerala's experience, including the reach of radical but democratic politics and the role of education and the agency of women.↩
17. 17
    On this see my "Population: Delusion and Reality," The New York Review, September 22, 1994, and "Fertility and Coercion," University of Chicago Law Review, Vol. 63 (Summer 1996).↩
18. 18
    See National Bureau of Statistics of China, China Statistical Yearbook 2003 (Beijing: China Statistics Press, 2003), Table 4-17, p. 118. The Chinese big cities, in particular Shanghai and Beijing, outmatch the state of Kerala, but most Chinese provinces have life expectancy figures far lower than Kerala's.↩
19. 19
    This connection is similar to the more prominent observation that major famines do not occur in democracies, even when they are very poor. On this, see my "How Is India Doing?" The New York Review, December 16, 1982, and jointly with Jean Drèze, Hunger and Public Action (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). Large famines, which continued to occur in British India right up to the end (the Bengal famine of 1943 was just four years before India's independence), disappeared abruptly with the establishment of a multiparty democracy in India. In contrast, China had the largest famine in recorded history during 1958–1961, when nearly 30 million people, it is estimated, died.↩
20. 20
    It is possible that the sharp increase of economic inequality in recent years in China may have also contributed to the slowing down of the progress in life expectancy. There has, in fact, been some increase in economic inequality in India as well, though nothing as large as in China; but it is interesting that the increase in Indian inequality seems to have had a major part in the defeat of the ruling government in New Delhi in the elections held in May. Among the other factors contributing to the defeat was the violation of the rights of the Muslim minority in the sectarian riots in Gujarat. (It is of course to the credit of a deliberative democratic system that majority voting can respond to the plight of minorities.)↩
21. 21
    Translation from Prabodh C. Bagchi, India and China: A Thousand Years of Cultural Relations (Calcutta: Saraswat Library, revised edition, 1981), p. 134.↩
22. 22
    A longer essay on these themes will be included in a collection of essays, The Argumentative Indian, to be published by Penguin Books in London in early 2005. For helpful suggestions, I am most grateful to Patricia Mirr-lees, J.K. Banthia, Homi Bhabha, Sugata Bose, Nathan Glazer, Geoffrey Lloyd, Roderick MacFarquhar, Emma Rothschild, Roel Sterckx, Sun Shuyun, and Rosie Vaughan.↩