ABSTRACT
The record of Chinese history is longer than that of other existing states and it involves an immense expanse of land, a multitude of races, and many separate language groups. The Chinese should have evolved their own system of international relations. Chinese Buddhists travelled widely throughout the entire Asian region, propagating the faith or discussing its meaning and implications with co-religionists from other areas. China and India not only were great powers during the period of the Chinese Han and T'ang Dynasties, when their relationship to each other was so radically transformed, at the time, was claiming exclusive greatness, both politically and culturally. When Buddhism lost its hold over India, at about the time Islam came into India, the Sino-Indian exchange of scholars decreased. The imagery of Buddhism, to give but one illustration, proved too rich for the essentially practically inclined Chinese. In actual fact the Chinese were never quite as isolated as they professed and wanted to be.
