India Recognizes Top Chinese Scholar

Ji Xianlin, the “guru of all Indologists in China,” according to the Times of India, was awarded one of India’s highest honors, the Padma Bhushan.

The decision to honour widely-respected Indologist Ji Xianlin, coming within 10 days of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China, is seen in Beijing as a strong and reliable hand of friendship.

“This is a big initiative on the part of Prime Minister Singh to develop the friendship between the two nations. It will make a lot of difference in the way a lot of Chinese view India,” Jiang Kui, vice director of the Centre for Indian Studies at Beijing University told TOI in chaste Hindi.

The 97-year-old was recognized for work such as translating Indian texts like the Ramayana into Chinese. A biography is available here.

[Image via China.org]