Tansen Sen

Bio: Tansen Sen is an academic researcher from New York University Shanghai. The author has contributed to research in topics: China & Buddhism. The author has an hindex of 8, co-authored 20 publications receiving 325 citations. Previous affiliations of Tansen Sen include City University of New York.

Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600-1400

Abstract: Relations between China and India underwent a dramatic transformation from Buddhist-dominated to commerce-centered exchanges in the seventh to fifteenth centuries. The unfolding of this transformation, its causes, and wider ramifications are examined in this masterful analysis of the changing patterns of interaction between the two most important cultural spheres in Asia. Tansen Sen offers a new perspective on Sino-Indian relations during the Tang dynasty (618-907), arguing that the period is notable not only for religious and diplomatic exchanges but also for the process through which China emerged as a center of Buddhist learning, practice, and pilgrimage. He proposes that changes in religious interactions were paralleled by changes in commercial exchanges. For most of the first millennium, trading activities between India and China were closely connected with and sustained through the transmission of Buddhist doctrines. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, secular bulk and luxury goods replaced Buddhist ritual items. Moreover, policies to encourage foreign trade instituted by the Chinese government and the Indian kingdoms transformed the China-India trading circuit into a key segment of cross-continental commerce.

The formation of chinese maritime networks to southern asia, 1200-1450

Abstract: The period between the thirteenth and mid-fifteenth centuries marked a distinct and impor tant phase in the history of India-China relations. This new phase was triggered by the for mation of Chinese maritime networks to southern Asia. While the Song period witnessed the formation of private trade and shipping networks, the aggressive foreign policy of the Yuan court led to the establishment of a government maritime network. The maritime networking to southern Asia culminated in the increased numbers of Ming emissaries, including the fleets of the admiral Zheng He, who visited Indian ports in the fifteenth century and intervened in the diplomatic affairs of several strategic Indian commercial zones. La p?riode qui s'?tend du treizi?me jusqu'au milieu du quinzi?me si?cles pr?sente une phase distincte et importante des relations indo-chinoises. Cette nouvelle phase r?sulta de la cr?ation des r?seaux maritimes chinois vers l'Asie du Sud. La p?riode Song est marqu?e par la for mation d'un commerce privatis? et des r?seaux maritimes; or, l'agressive politique ext?rieure de la dynastie Yuan eut comme cons?quence la cr?ation d'un r?seau maritime officiel. Les voies maritimes qui s'ouvraient vers le sud d'Asie ont fait augmenter le nombre d'?missaires, dont la flotte de Zheng He; celui-ci visita les c?tes indiennes au XVe si?cle et intervint dans les affaires diplomatiques de plusieurs strat?giques zones commerciales des Indes.

The impact of Zheng He's expeditions on Indian Ocean interactions

Abstract: This article examines the consequences of the Ming maritime expeditions led by Admiral Zheng He (1371–1433) in the early fifteenth century on Indian Ocean diplomacy, trade, and cross-cultural interactions. The presence of the powerful Ming navy not only introduced an unprecedented militaristic aspect to the Indian Ocean region, but also led to the emergence of state-directed commercial activity in the maritime world that extended from Ming China to the Swahili coast of Africa. Additionally, these expeditions stimulated the movement of people and animals across the oceanic space and might eventually have facilitated the rapid entry of European commercial enterprises into the Indian Ocean region during the second half of the fifteenth century.

Maritime Southeast Asia Between South Asia and China to the Sixteenth Century

Abstract: The maritime regions of Southeast Asia played an important but varying role in connecting South Asia and China prior to the sixteenth century. With regard to commercial exchanges, traders, ships, and polities in Southeast Asia facilitated and sometimes controlled the flow of goods. Additionally, merchant associations from South Asia and China established their bases in Southeast Asia to participate in trading activities in the Bay of Bengal and South China Sea regions. At least three distinct networks emerged as a result of these maritime interactions: 1) networks of exchanges among the polities skirting the Bay of Bengal; 2) networks that connected the areas around the South China Sea; and 3) networks of direct exchanges between South Asia and China. Buddhist ideas also circulated through these networks, but seem to have made limited inroads in the maritime regions of Southeast Asia prior to the fifth century AD. By this time, Buddhism had already spread widely in China, with significant number of Buddhist missionaries arriving in the region through the maritime routes. Rather than playing a staging role in the transmission of Buddhism to China, the doctrine may have penetrated maritime Southeast Asia due to the vibrant Buddhist interactions and a significant increase in commercial activity along the networks linking South Asia and China during the fourth and fifth centuries. The use of Buddhism to legitimise new regimes in China and the diplomatic exchanges between Southeast Asian polities and these courts may have also facilitated the spread of Buddhism in the region.

Praying for Power: Buddhism and the Formation of Gentry Society in Late- Ming China.

Abstract: In 17th and 18th century China, Buddhists and Confucians alike flooded local Buddhist monasteries with donations As gentry numbers grew faster than the imperial bureaucracy, traditional Confucian careers were closed to many; but visible philanthropy could publicize elite status outside the state realm. Actively sought by fund-raising abbots, such patronage affected institutional Buddhism. After exploring the relation of Buddhism to Ming Neo-Confucianism, the growth of tourism to Buddhist sites, and the mechanisms and motives for charitable donations, Timothy Brook studies three widely separated and economically dissimilar counties. He draws on rich data in monastic gazetteers to examine the patterns and social consequences of patronage.

Buddhism, Diplomacy, and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600-1400

Abstract: Relations between China and India underwent a dramatic transformation from Buddhist-dominated to commerce-centered exchanges in the seventh to fifteenth centuries. The unfolding of this transformation, its causes, and wider ramifications are examined in this masterful analysis of the changing patterns of interaction between the two most important cultural spheres in Asia. Tansen Sen offers a new perspective on Sino-Indian relations during the Tang dynasty (618-907), arguing that the period is notable not only for religious and diplomatic exchanges but also for the process through which China emerged as a center of Buddhist learning, practice, and pilgrimage. He proposes that changes in religious interactions were paralleled by changes in commercial exchanges. For most of the first millennium, trading activities between India and China were closely connected with and sustained through the transmission of Buddhist doctrines. In the eleventh and twelfth centuries, however, secular bulk and luxury goods replaced Buddhist ritual items. Moreover, policies to encourage foreign trade instituted by the Chinese government and the Indian kingdoms transformed the China-India trading circuit into a key segment of cross-continental commerce.

The Crisis of Global Modernity: Asian Traditions and a Sustainable Future

Abstract: Introduction 1. Sustainability and the crisis of transcendence 2. Circulatory and competitive histories 3. The historical logics of global modernity 4. Dialogical and radical transcendence 5. Dialogical transcendence and secular nationalism in the Sinosphere 6. The traffic between secularism and transcendence 7. Regions of circulation and networks of sustainability in Asia 8. Conclusion and epilogue: of reason and hope Index.