%0 Journal Article
%T Rabindranath Tagore as an Architect of Cultural Bridge between India and China
%A Tuczyńska, Joanna
%J Gdansk Journal of East Asian Studies
%V 2014
%R 10.4467/23538724GS.14.012.2215
%N Issue 5
%P 121-136

%@ 2084-2902
%D 2014
%U https://ejournals.eu/en/journal/gsaw/article/rabindranath-tagore-jako-architekt-kulturowego-pomostu-miedzy-indiami-i-chinami
%X Rabindranath Tagore, a poet and a messenger of spiritual idealism, became an architect of a cultural bridge between India and China. In his thought and idea, with the force of universal humanism, Tagore breaks the geopolitical boundaries of Asia to proclaim unity through cultural affinities between the two nations. The concept of Buddhist humanism as the synthesis of Sino-Indian relations permeates the ideological journey of the poet in 1924 and constitutes the core of his spiritual pilgrimage. Tagore arrives at China as an exponent of the timeless idealism of universal love consisting in the idea of ’ahimsa’ (non-violence) being the path to peaceful salvation for humanity from the greedy hands of eastern materialism. The idea of a bloodless Buddhist conquest, as opposed to the inhuman crusades, along with the concept of spiritual democracy in contrast to the oppressive caste system, becomes the humanistic message of Rabindranath Tagore who thus echoes the idealism of Lord Buddha. This idealism, being the voice of the oppressed and the light of the lost in their lonely struggle for the rebirth of human values, revives the notion of brotherhood between the nations, thus expanding the concept of global spiritual humanity without frontiers.