Historical Chindian Paradigm

The article is an exploration of an alternative geo-civilisational paradigm in an effort to escape the dissatisfaction with the prevalent geopolitical model. In the new ‘geo-civilisational paradigm’, the world should cherish the ideal of universal harmony as represented by ‘shijie datong’ (grand harmony in the world) aspired to by Chinese civilisation and ‘vasudhaiva kutumbakan’ (world as one family) aspired to by Indian civilisation. Such a paradigm can be established because we already have the example of it in the cultural interaction between Chinese and Indian civilisations in the past. Civilisational overlapping can create ‘metonymic thesis’ that serves to strengthen the vitality of civilisation and this only happens during the overlapping of mutually respectful and friendly civilisations. The uniqueness of the ‘historical Chindian paradigm’ is twofold, as the advent of Indian civilisation into China was by invitation and it also meant to accomplish serious business of an unprecedented inter-cultural joint venture, that is, the Sanskrit–Chinese translation enterprise. Second, the Sino-Indian cultural interaction gave a facelift to China which has uniquely survived for two millennia as the world’s sustainable civilisational state.