ABSTRACT

Korean recorded history goes back to more than 1,000 years before the current era. Ki-tze, a refugee from China, is believed to have founded the first Korean Dynasty in 1112 BCE which lasted till 116 BCE and sealed the cultural influence of China over the Korean Peninsula. Chinese monks and scholars acted as a channel between Korea and India for the flow of Buddhist philosophy and Indian spiritual thought to Korea. Jawaharlal Nehru, a keen student of world history, observed closely the Korean struggle against Japanese imperialism. Scholar and professor, Pankaj Mohan observes that Mahatma Gandhi's ideas influenced Korean leaders in the post-liberation era who struggled to lay the foundation of a just and democratic society. Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore's works were first translated into Korean in 1916, three years after he received the Nobel Prize for literature. The engagement among philosophers, poets and intellectuals laid a lasting foundation for future warm ties between peoples of the Indian and Korean peninsulas.