China through Hindu eyes

Indumadhav Mullick's (1869-1917) China Bhramana (Travels in China) [1911] and Benoy Kumar Sarkar's (1887-1949) Bartaman Yuge Chin Samrajya (The Chinese Empire in the Present Age) [1922] are two little known early-twentieth century Bengali travel accounts of China. Being probably one of the first Bengali tourists to record his travels in China, Mullick briefly visited Hong Kong, Macao, Canton and Amoy whereas Sarkar who came to China with a keen academic interest in China lived in China for nearly a year and travelled extensively through Manchuria, Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai and the southern region. Sarkar was arguably "one of India's first Sinologists". He wrote two other books on China, one in English: The Chinese Religion Through Hindu Eyes: A Study in the Tendencies of Asiatic Mentality (published with a foreword by Wu Ting-fangby the Commercial Press in Shanghai in 1916) and one in Bengali: Cheena Sabhyatar A, AA, KA, KHA (ABCD of Chinese Civilisation) in 1922.

Sarkar "also narrates the research activities of the Royal Asiatic Society in Shanghai, which he considered 'China's only association for intellectuals. In addition to meeting the president of the Society, Mr. Morrison, who was also the British Consul General and had lived in China for about twenty years, he developed a friendship with the secretary of the Society named Samuel Gu Ling, It was with Samuel that Sarkar visited various Buddhist sites in nearly Hanzhou. Sarkar was eventually elected as a life-member of the Society." (p. 478) He also points out that "a monthly journal that dealt with with English grammar, literature, spelling, etc. The readers of this journal, according to him, were young Chinese who were interested in learning English...Writing about a monthly journal called Science that was printed in Shanghai, Sarkar says that most of the articles were originally published in America. These articles were translated with funds donated by Chinese students studying in America." (p. 479)

From Narayan C. Sen's "China as Viewed by Two Early Bengali Travellers: The Travel Accounts of Indumadhav Mullick and Benoy Kumar Sarkar," China Report, Vol. 43, No. 4 (2007), pp. 465-484.

Some more references:

Madhavi Thampi, Indians in China, 1800-1949 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2005).

Anand Yang, "An Indian Subaltern's Passage to China in 1900," Education About Asia, Vol. 11, No. 3, Winter 2006, pp. 12-15.