Other then the race for being the next superpower, India and China are engaged in another competition also, that is for the ownership of world’s oldest religion, Buddhism. The race has been important to both the countries because of the fact that whichever country will emerge as the winner will also be known as the mother of civilization.

To prove its point of view, India even built a Buddhist temple in Luoyang in China in 2006 which is believed to have passed the message that Buddhism traveled from India to China over 2,000 years ago and made its first landing in Luoyang. As far as the record goes, the Baima temple complex, which is believed to be the first Buddhist temple in China, was built after an emporer of Eastern Han dynasty welcomed the two very first Buddhist monks to set their feet on the soil of China. The two monks were She Moteng and Zhu Falan.

After the initiative taken by the Nalanda University, foreign minister Pranab Mukherjee set up a Nalanda Mentor Group in Singapore, which will be headed by Amartya Sen, the nobel laureate and George Yeo, Singapore’s foreign minister. Nalanda’s expansion is no coincidence as it is the place that China’s greatest Buddhist traveler Hiuen Tsang visited. He under the supervision of a Bengali teacher named Shilabhadra studied Buddhism here.

The actual race begun when Dalai Lama took refuge in India and China’s dreams of including Tibet were crushed. The argument regarding being the mother of civilization is also leading China to make claims over Arunachal Pradesh. China is very busy establishing its claims for being the Founder of Buddhism. India being the actual religious trendsetter and also the cradle of civilization is fighting back hard.

Source: Timesofindia

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