ABSTRACT
The epicenter of Asian Mandala was in the Himalayas, encompassing both the Indian and Chinese geographical space in its encirclement. The distortion began after Western science of cartography started representing reality on a flat surface that demolished the conceptual circle of unity and infinite relations in cosmic sense under the Mandala thought. Cartography takes the linear line and it still guides the current foreign affairs of states and their policy prescriptions. However, in the Asian context, tools of cartography that pierced through borderlands and frontiers tended to split nationalities, societies and ethnicities. The people having lived in the interlaced flow of culture, social and economic interdependency, the cartographic borders become often illogical. Therefore, the application of “linearity of divide” in cultural homogeneity sparked off conflicts in the Asian landscape. The paper argues that the Asian paradigm of political order for Trans-Himalayas ought to be implemented to thwart radicalization of the Himalayas in changing geopolitical landscape. India and China should give up seeking a geometrical linear boundary and instead opt for creating soft cultural frontier along the trans-Himalayan region. A gradual transformation of the long militarized boundary into a humanized frontier zone will serve the interests of India, China and the Himalayan people.
