India-Bharat-Tenjiku: One Reality, Many Perspectives

Probably accustomed to expect differences between reality and local public imageries I could not overlook the existence of at least three established and independent perceptions of the same South Asian/Desi civilization. One is that of the Desi people themselves, but there is also that of the Western society and that of East Asia. As it usually happens in such cases, generic names coagulated and represented publicly the identity of these imageries. I would like to present the evolution of these names and of the notions they invoke. I will insist more on East Asia, because the perspective of Tianzhu/Tenjiku is less known now on the global stage, needing more description, and also because of the contemporary local meeting and cohabitation between its imagery and the Western one of India. And finally, a presentation of the reasons that determined me to do this research.

First, the perspective of the Desi people. The ancient geography mixed the knowledge of those times with spirituality in creating the local perspective, by describing the Earth as divided into seven concentric islands, separated by intermediate oceans. The innermost is Jambudvip (जम्बुद्वीप), “the island of the Jambu (Rose Apple) tree”. It comprises the area known by the Desis of those times, while the other islands are rather spiritual. In the ancient texts there appear descriptions of Jambudvip’s mountain ranges, river systems and the proposed identifications with contemporary geographic names suggest that, besides South Asia, it encompasses also parts of Central Asia. In this area, the territory of the Desi culture is named Bhārat (भारत) or Bhāratvarsh (भारतवर्ष, “the realm of Bhārat”), after the legendary ruler Bhārat, mentioned in Mahābhārat as the unifier of this land. There are used also other names, among them it deserves to be mentioned Aryavart (आर्यावर्त, “the abode of the Aryans”) or Aryadesh (आर्यादेशी, “the country of the Aryans”), describing only the northern and central parts of the Subcontinent.

The perspective of the Middle Eastern cultural area, and afterwards also of Europe, starts to develop after their discovery of South Asia. The encounter happened in the North-West and that particular territory gave also the name for this view. The name of the river Sindhu (known in English as Indus), pronounced according to the rules of the Iranian languages, gave Hindush in Avestan (mentioned in an inscription from the times of Darius I). This evolved in Hind (ہن), but also Hindustan (ہندوستان) as “the territory of the Hindus”, first in Persian, afterwards also in Arabic. In the modern era, after India became independent in 1947, there appeared a certain differentiation between the geographic inclusions of these two variants, Hind referring rather to the modern state of India, while Hindustan to South Asia as a whole. Not in another important language from this area, Turkish, using only Hindistan for India, while Hint means “Indian, Indo-“. Hindi got a specialized meaning, naming the bird known in English as turkey. Because of a popular uncertainty about where it comes from (in fact it is from Central America), in each of these languages it appeared a fancy exotic origin, Turkish in English, Indian in Turkish. In other local languages there appeared close derivations from that Persian name, for example in Hebrew, Hodu (הודו).

Further, this word was borrowed in Europe, as India, first in Greek (Ἰνδία), then in Latin and other European languages. In both Middle Eastern and European cultural regions this name gathered and assumed in its semantic area the local perception of the Indian subcontinent, according as it developed a local tradition, not necessarily connected to the culture it was supposed to describe. Longer the distance, more unclear it became the region this word was referring to in real life. In his influential travel book from the end of the 13th century, Marco Polo, after coming back from his journey to East Asia, describes as Greater India the territory from Coromandel Coast to Baluchistan, as Minor India the territory from the delta of Krishna river to Champa (contemporary South Vietnam), while Middle India is Abyssinia (East Africa). On his way back to Europe he even sailed along these coasts he presented, but as the European concept of India was unknown there (the South Asians will “discover” India some centuries later) and, as it tends to happen in such cases, a real communication between different worldviews did not occur so easy, he just continued to apply the perspective acquired at home.

This European tradition of describing as Indian (1) various populations not known before the Age of Explorations continued for some other centuries. Although it became clear in a few years that they arrived in a new continent, it remained and it lasted the initial naming as Indians of the native people from the Americas. Many other indigenous populations were named Indians, but usually these denominations were not as enduring as in the Americas.

The geographic European perspective of the Indies evolved into the distinction between the West Indies (Caribbean region in Central America) and East Indies (South and South-East Asia). Further in South-East Asia, the mainland was named Indochina, as an area between India and China, while the maritime area was named Indonesia, the “Indian islands” (from nesos, meaning island in Greek). Indochina gained a more specific geopolitical meaning as the colony French Indochina, comprising the contemporary states of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, while the name of Indonesia was appropriated by the former colony Dutch East Indies, after proclaiming the independence in 1945 (until then Indonesia was mostly an academic term).

Nowadays they fell into oblivion (except some linguistic areas presented below) the “Indian” times of the Western perspective regarding South-East Asia and Oceania, although, even in the second half of the 18th century, explorers like James Cook or La Pérouse used very confidently the name “Indians” for the local people. Just to remind of few examples from their journals, like the description of Timor as shared between the Dutch, Native Indians and the Portuguese, the presentation of the native people from Polynesia as Indians, including the Indian villages in New Zealand, the Indian vocabulary and Indian cultural customs recorded in Tahiti (James Cook); the details of the plight of the local Indians from Manila area, in Philippines, under continuous threat from the attacks of the southern Moors (La Pérouse).

In Dutch, as the language of the former rulers of an important part of South-East Asia, there survive until today some Indian overlapping. Even by the first half of the 19th century, the native people of those colonies were named Indianen (“Indians”), for example, in the royal decrees of Dutch king William I (1815-1840). Later, the Dutch authorities will change their name to Inlander (“Natives”). The new name was adopted also by the local languages, by employing the translation of the word “native” (for example, Pribumi, in the language known as Indonesian after 1945). In 1836, Raad van Indië (Council of India), the central board of the Dutch colonial administration in South-East Asia, will change its name to Raad van Nederlands-Indië (Council of Dutch India), as a result of the increased visibility of British India from South Asia. The colony will be known in most of the other languages as the Dutch East Indies. Indië and the adjective Indisch (Indian) will remain popular words in Dutch. As the speakers of this language had a direct involvement in this area, the context made a disambiguation whether it was (usually) about Nederlands-Indië or (sometimes) about Brits-Indië (British India). The adjective continued to be used as an ethnic name for the people from Dutch East Indies with mixed European and Asian ancestry, known as Indische Nederlanders (Indian Dutchmen). Later, after Indonesia’s independence, they will be known also as Indo.

The word India will appear in Dutch, after this country’s independence, as a precise term for the new political entity. The move Nederlands-Indië -> Indonesië and Brits-Indië -> India will be replicated also in the local languages. In Indonesian: Hindia Belanda (Dutch India) -> Indonesia and Hindia Britania (British India) -> India. In Dutch, the words Indië and Indisch continue to be used for describing the area known in English as East Indies. For example, Indische Subcontinent (“Indian Subcontinent”), but also Indische Archipel (“Indian Archipelago” for the Malay/Indonesian Archipelago). In the usual speech, Indisch, besides “Indian”, may mean “Indonesian” (there is the neologism Indonesisch as the plain word). There are also the adjectives Indiaas (usually confined to describe modern India) and Indiaans (only for the Native Americans).

Unlike in the Americas, as the time elapsed, in South-East Asia and Oceania it mostly receded the initial naming of the local people as Indians. The reasons would be the proximity to those who were the initial inspiration for this word, also the fact that the natives remained the main cultural group in the area (it did not emerge another dominant cultural group that would have continued to see them as Indians, as it happened in the Americas). In Philippines, for example, the local people who were animists, later undertaking various degrees of Christianization, were named indios (“Indians”) by the Spanish rulers, although they were different from the people from the Subcontinent. This while the local Muslims were named moros (“Moors”), although, besides the religion, they had nothing in common with the Moors from North-West Africa (Maghreb) (2). Basically, both local indios and moros belong to the same cultural area. Nowadays, the Indian part of that Western worldview applied to Philippines is gone, but the Moorish part is quite alive. In the meantime, the latter got a life of its own (3), as there did not appear encounters and vicinities with “those” Moors and subsequent identity issues (the same as in the Americas “those” Indians were not a local reality to raise identity questions when compared to the local Indians). Also it matters that they remain a marginal group, their public image continue to be defined by the uneasy Muslim-Christian relations of the colonial times. This while for the Christian majority the term indio became meaningless, those who named them like this disappeared from the local political stage, thus they surfaced the various ethnic identities previously encompassed by that name.

The contemporary endeavor to give a clearer name for the native populations of the Americas (as Native Americans, American Indians, Amerindians and many others) does not enjoy yet this popular appeal. Quite the contrary, in some Latin American countries, it is used the word hindúes (Spanish)/ hindus (Portuguese) for the people from India/South Asia in order to make a distinction from the local indios. In Spanish, the traditional meaning of hindú is that of an adherent to the religion of Hinduism, but, in this case, it is used the word hinduista for the religious sense. In Portuguese there is no such difference, but it is also available the word indiano, employed only for people from India/South Asia, irrespective of their religion. Here it is worthy to say that some languages have already distinct words (stemming from the same root) for the two meanings. For example, in German, the people from the subcontinent are Inder (with Hindus for the adherents to Hinduism), while the Native Americans are Indianer. In Latin American Spanish and in Brazilian Portuguese there is some more vagueness because indio preserved the meaning of native people, appearing in expressions like indios latinoamericanos (“Native Latin Americans”), indios australianos (“Native Australians”), indios africanos (“Native Africans”), indios siberianos (“Native Siberians”) and others. It is encouraged the use of expressions like Native, Autochthonous, Aborigine, Indigenous peoples: pueblos nativos, autóctonos, aborígenes, indígenas (Spanish), povos nativos,autóctones, aborígines, indígenas (Portuguese).

Contemporary South Asia

As this European perspective benefited of the Western society’s prime position in the modern era, it compelled recognition worldwide, including in South Asia proper (when the local people finally learned too about the notion of India). Here, in the meantime, the related Middle Eastern perspective was already established as a result of the conquests originating from North-West. The originally Persian words Hind and Hindustan were employed in the local languages together with Bharat and, later, India. All these names acquired popular alternative uses, depending on the context, more or less reminding of their perspective. After it began the European prevalence, Hind and Hindustan, as non-European words, but still sharing obviously much with India (not just phonetically), were included also in the Western nomenclature. They enjoyed some advantages, they were assumed easier for identification in the World perceived with Western eyes. Thus there were enforced words like Hindustani/Hindi, for the continuum of dialects, respectively the modern standardized language with Sanskrit register from the north of the Subcontinent or there were coined words like Hinduism, for the local religious view, as described through the patterns of the Abrahamic religions. Freedom fighters like Champakaraman Pillai and Subhas Chandra Bose promoted the now famous salutation Jai Hind to inspire the people in their quest for independence. These evolutions were part of the on-going identity clarification, both from the point of view of the Desis seeking a place in the prevailing Western worldview and from the point of view of the Westerners codifying the notion of India. They went in parallel with the clarification, briefly described above, of the boundaries from real life of the cultural area of India.

After 1947, all of these names were inherited by the modern state known worldwide as India. The fact that this state does not comprise the entire territory known in history by these names created a post-Partition necessity for employing other denominations of this cultural area, mainly geographical ones, like South Asia or Indian subcontinent. The former implies only this specific restricted meaning (otherwise, theoretically, it should include also South-West Asia/Middle East and South-East Asia). South Asian is employed for the people whose common culture gives the coherence of this region. These names did not gain yet a popular usage. Worldwide, at a popular level, the concept of India, with all its cultural Western meanings, tends to be tantamount to the entire area of the Subcontinent (4). This case may be contrasted with that of Indonesia, presented above, when the name, because it was previously used only for academic purposes, could make successfully the switch to the main political entity that assumed it after decolonization.

This issue did not rise until now to a public debate because the specific problems of the relations between the successor states of the British Raj do not entangle too much in the Western imagery of India (this imagery is largely void of Desi features). Also, the fact that these problems are not well known outside the Subcontinent, they remain some “internal matters”, does not create an imperious necessity to clarify the identity for the World stage. Things tend to look different for those who emigrated from the Subcontinent. The essential cultural identity, taken for granted at home and leaving room for those more specific issues, comes to the forefront for those who live as local minorities elsewhere. Whether it overcomes or not those specific problems, it becomes also a daily reality when compared to the non-South Asian majority.

Hence it became a real necessity for these minorities to have clear names for identifying this underlying cultural identity, regardless of the particular South Asian country they come from. For those who emigrated before the Partition (mostly as indentured servants in the Caribbean, East Africa, Indian Ocean islands, South-East Asia and Oceania), it remained at hand the name Indian. For the contemporary migration (mostly in the rich Western countries and in the Gulf) the term “South Asian” gained a practical importance, although, at this moment, it did not attain a popular level. There appeared also popular denominations, like Desi or simply Asian. The latter is employed only in UK, as a popular acknowledgement (after the Second World War) of the South Asian people’s preponderance among the UK citizens who trace their ancestry to Asia. The people from other Asian cultural areas identify by their specific ethnicity. Obviously, it remained a local name, in many other regions with South Asian emigration it would be unrealistic; plus, if taken too seriously, it would require huge changes in the perception of Asia.

The use of the term Desi appeared too in Anglo-Saxon areas (UK and North America). It is a word found in many South Asian languages, derived from the Sanskrit desh (देश, "country, region"). This became des in popular speech (in some languages also in the formal register). Thus des(h)i means “from the homeland, local” as opposed to vides(h)i/pardesi, i.e. “foreign(er)”. Its use in South Asia varies according to the possible meanings encompassed by the opposition local/foreigner, be it South Asian/non-South Asian, a region of South Asia/rest of the World, sometimes traditional/modern. In diaspora it started to be employed for self-identification, as a term encompassing all the South Asians, first only within the community, as a colloquialism. It gained a public presence according as the advent of Internet and of other communication means enabled the worldwide expression of insular groups, spreading the use of this term in other areas and giving a popular expression to the emerging Desi identity as part of a multicultural world.

Among the other names employed at this moment by the South Asians, it deserves to be mentioned the term Brown, alluding to the skin color in a multiracial diasporic context (mostly in the areas where the skin color may be perceived as an identity feature). Its use remains sporadic and it does not surpass a certain informal level, since there are many other populations that may be considered Brown. Also it is not exhaustive, it does not encompass the physical features of all the South Asians, many may be considered rather White or Black.

East Asia

The East Asian perspective of the World shares with the previous ones the usual starting point of its view in the geographic area of its own culture. The other parts of the World are then included by relating them to this center. In this case, such perspective is visible also in the local geographic names. The country known in the Western worldview as China has the native name 中国 (Zhōngguó), meaning “The Country from the Middle (of the World)”. The Chinese name of Indochina, 中南半島 (Zhōngnánbàndǎo) means “the peninsula from the south of the Middle”, while Japan, from Rìběn, the Chinese pronunciation of 日本, means “The origin of Sun”, i.e. the East.

The cultural area of South Asia became known through the trade route of the Silk Road. Hence, in this case also, the first region of contact was that of the Sindhu River. It makes some sense, because otherwise, in the absence of a maritime connection, the forests of Yunnan-Assam or the Himalayan Range would have been difficult to cross. The oldest Chinese writing (preserved until today) about this area appears in 史記 (The Recordings of the Grand Historian), by Sima Qian (about 1st century BCE – 1st century CE), based on the reports of Zhang Qian’s explorations in Central Asia. It is employed the name 身毒, which may be pronounced as Juāndú, Shēndú or Yuándú. The phonetic evolution of the language makes now difficult to know the exact sounds, however it is obvious that the word is derived from Sindhu. Subsequently, there appear many other variants, at least thirty, for naming this region. In 山海經 (Classics of the Mountains and Seas), a mythological geography from about the same era, it appears under the name 天毒(Tiāndú). In the 5th century, in 後漢書 (Book of the Later Han), it appears as 天竺(Tiānzhú), a name that will become the most popular according as the Buddhism will spread in all East Asia.

It is not very clear the origin of 天竺 (Tiānzhú). Studying the name variants and the linguistic context of those times, it is probable that these characters were pronounced then as Xiandu, again pointing to an origin from Sindhu. It is also possible that the Buddhist monks favored the character 天 (tiān) because it means Heaven (to emphasize the specificity of South Asia as the origin of Buddhism). One of the other names, 西天(Xītiān), meaning “Western Heaven”, was more direct in making such a connection. The position this religion gained in the East Asian societies enforced the importance of the newly-created notion of Tianzhu, for a far-off neighbor, beyond deserts and mountains, but in the same time the source of religious enlightenment. Further, it will get more consistency and stability according as the popular level will assimilate it in its worldview. It will expand also geographically, beyond the initial Chinese core, in Korea, pronounced as Cheonchuk, in Japan, as Tenjiku, or in Vietnam, as Thiên Trúc. In Korean it is also written with Hangul script: 천축.

The word entered in the common usage, becoming part of new names and expressions. For example, a variant of shogi (Japanese chess) is named 天竺將棋 (Tenjiku shogi). One of the three main Buddhist architectural styles from Japan’s Kamakura period (1192-1333) is 天竺様 (Tenjiku yō), the Tenjiku style. 天竺鯛科 (Tiānzhú diāokē), meaning “Tianzhu breams”, is the Chinese name of the Apogonidae family of fishes. Or 天竺牡丹 (Tiānzhú mǔdān in Chinese, Tenjiku botan in Japanese), meaning “Tianzhu/Tenjiku peony”, for dahlia, 天竺葵 (Tiānzhú kuí in Chinese, Tenjiku aoi in Japanese), “Tianzhu/Tenjiku mallow”, for geranium.

Obviously, there are many Buddhist monasteries in East Asia that include Tianzhu/Cheonchuk/Tenjiku in their name. In Japan there was also a village named Tenjiku (now merged in the city Nishio from the Aichi prefecture). In 799, some Tenjiku people were shipwrecked there, bringing to Japan the first seeds of cotton. Later, the event started to be celebrated as the Cotton festival, centered on the local Tenjiku temple, the only temple in Japan dedicated to the cotton. In Japanese, tenjiku got also the meaning of thick cotton sheeting (nowadays used mostly for bags, curtains).

The second character, 竺(zhú in Chinese, jiku in Japanese), is employed as a short form for Tianzhu/Tenjiku, often included in compound words related to Buddhism. For example, 竺学 (Zhúxué in Chinese, Jikugaku in Japanese), meaning Tianzhu/Tenjiku studies, i.e. Buddhist studies or 竺書 (Zhúshū in Chinese, Jikusho in Japanese) as Tianzhu/Tenjiku scriptures, i.e. Buddhist scriptures. In China, 竺 (Zhú) appears also as the family name of people whose ancestors presumably had some relation with Tianzhu and/or with Buddhism.

The same as the Western notion of India, Tianzhu developed independently of the reality it was supposed to describe, becoming a meaningful part of the local cultural structure. In this sense, it is evocative the evolution of the popular perception of Xuanzang’s endeavors and travels. This Buddhist monk became famous for his seventeen year journey to Tianzhu (629-646). Motivated by the poor quality of the Buddhist texts available at that time in Tang dynasty’s China, he decided to go to the source. He spends many years traveling and studying in monasteries and universities from Tianzhu, coming back with hundreds of Buddhist texts that he will keep translating for the rest of his life.

Along the centuries, his exploits gained a legendary status in the popular imagery, culminating, about a millennium later (end of the 16th century), with the publication of the strongly fictionalized novel 西遊記 (Journey to the West), with Wu Cheng’en as the probable author. The book enjoyed wide success in all East Asia, becoming part of the local basic cultural luggage. In China proper, it became one of the Four Great Classical Novels, group that gathers the most influential classical Chinese fiction. There are very interesting and significant changes that occurred between the travel accounts (preserved in Xuanzang’s own book, 大唐西域記 - Great Tang Records of the Western Regions) and this novel. While most of the years abroad of the real travel were spent in Tianzhu (the trip from China: 629-630, back to China: 643-646), in Journey to the West, although reminded and discussed along the book, Tianzhu became just the goal. It is rather the “Western Heaven” where, once arrived, one may experience the enlightenment.

As the novel’s title suggests, the epic develops around the journey’s trials (also around the previous exploits of Sun Wukong, the disciple of Xuanzang). The journey itself and the sparsely populated territory between the two civilizations become important. This neutral area gives occasion for unfolding the appeal of this book, as an adventure story featuring a plethora of characters that mirror and satirize the Chinese society. On another level, the journey is an allegory of the path towards enlightenment, in the same time bringing to surface the popular integration of Taoism, of the Chinese mythology and folk religion into the local understanding of Buddhism. In this sense, the novel succeeds in expressing the way the local branch of Buddhism became Chinese (and, together with it, also the notion of Tianzhu), the manner it was assimilated in the local culture. Rather than a journey to somewhere else, it is the second part of the round trip determined by the novelty of the Buddhism. It is the coming back, the rediscovery of the Chinese self, giving voice to the way the people became again self-assured Chinese, now with Buddhism and Tianzhu as meaningful parts of the Chinese culture. That neutral area was used primarily as a possibility for self-study; hence, they became less important narrations about the people from Tianzhu.

In about the same time, in 1584, it was published another book, with much less impact, 新編西竺國天主實錄 (The new accounts about the Divinity from West Tianzhu), the first Christian catechism in Chinese. The Europeans who arrived for some decades in East Asia became too the objects of a local exotic identity shift similar to their own indiscriminate Indianization of much of the World. They were imagined as coming from some part of Tianzhu. The Jesuit priests supported this perception and assumed the Tianzhu identity, because of its prestigious and spiritual nature. They hoped to supersede the East Asian Buddhism, by presenting the Christianity as the new and the true religion from Tianzhu. Hence, Michele Ruggieri, the author of this attempt of a localized New Testament, signed as 天竺國僧 (a monk from Tianzhu), using the character 僧, designating a Buddhist monk. The endeavor produced few results, because of subsequent cultural misunderstandings, inconclusive public debates with the local religions, increased awareness of the Europeans’ expansionist intentions, plus conflicts between the Christian factions.

After some time, the initial Tianzhu/Tenjiku impersonation became unimportant. The Christianization project did not succeed, also the high Catholic clergy in Europe was not very enthusiast to hear of Jesuits dressing in Buddhist robes. The East Asian states became resistant to the European colonial ambitions; usually, their official reaction was to restrict the communication between their citizens and these foreigners. Nevertheless, the European presence increased year by year, the balance of power continued shifting towards their side. In the 19th century, the local political entities will be forced to become part of the Western shaped World stage (including the Western-imagined India and having no idea about Tianzhu/Tenjiku).

In 16th century Japan, as it became obvious that the newcomers belong to a previously unknown culture, they were named 南蛮 (Nanban), “Southern Barbarians”, due to a perceived unmannered behavior. It was not changed the pre-modern Japanese worldview consisting of the three civilized regions, 三国 (Sangoku, “The Three Countries”: Japan, China, Tenjiku) and the rest of the barbaric world. The term Tenjiku continued, in an ever-changing manner, to name miscellaneous people, like Jesuits, dark-skinned people from South Asia proper, South-East Asia or Africa. As long as direct contacts between Japan and Tenjiku were scarce, the Japanese too were not very sure about the limits in real life of this cultural area. For example, even by the end of the 19th century, the Hawaii archipelago was presented as a part of Tenjiku to the prospective Japanese emigrants.

The arrival of the Europeans facilitated also the travels abroad. Tenjiku Tokubei, sometimes dubbed by the Westerners as “Marco Polo of Japan”, became the most famous traveler of those times, after narrating in 天竺渡海物語 (The story of sea travels to Tenjiku) his journey to South-East and South Asia (hence his name). His trips occurred at the beginning of the 17th century, just before the closure of Japan’s borders and the ban of contacts with non-Japanese people. Subsequently, his image, besides that of a pioneer, evolved also into that of a strange Japanese person, sometimes a magician, living and experimenting in the neutral area between what is culturally Japanese and what is not, making him a popular character in stage plays.

In the same years of Japan’s seclusion, Hiraga Gennai, a multivalent personality of the 18th century, wrote under the pen-name 天竺浪人 (Tenjiku rōnin). In Japanese this means “a Tenjiku masterless samurai”. The expression, now part of the Japanese speech, is a pun, with Tenjiku as an inverted word for 逐電 (chikuden), meaning “absconding”. His main literary successor, the fiction writer Morishima Chūryō, employed the pen-name 天竺老人 (Tenjiku rōjin, “Old Tenjiku man”), to allude to Hiraga.

By the half of the 19th century it became impossible to keep countering the Western military strength and to preserve the status-quo. After some decades of uncertainties, there followed the inspired Meiji reforms, well rendered by the catchphrase 和魂洋才 (Wakon-yōsai, “Japanese spirit, Western techniques”). By making this difference, they enabled the integration of the Japanese society in the prevalent Western framework, without losing the identity, without becoming uncertain and confuse. The Nanban perspective of the Westerners was abandoned (5) and the Japanese state began to relate with the rest of the World through the Western geographical framework.

This included also the notion of India. In Japanese it is pronounced Indo, writtenインド,with katakana (the script employed for neologisms), the version endorsed by the Japanese Foreign Ministry. It is also written with kanji: 印度. Sometimes it appears the word インディアン (Indian), as an adjective, in expressions borrowed directly from other languages (usually English), or as a noun, designating various people known as Indians. Becoming obvious that India does not convey the same views, perceptions and traditions as Tenjiku (although it is well known that they describe segments from about the same area of the real life), it did not occur a substitution; they began a cohabitation that continues until today.

Indo introduced its own series of Japanese words and expressions. For example, インド・ヨーロッパ語族 (Indo-Yōroppa gozoku, “Indo-European languages”), インド・ルピー (Indo rupī, “Indian rupee”), インド洋 (Indoyō, Indian Ocean), インドライオン (Indoraion, “Indian lion”), インディアンペーパー/インディア紙 (Indianpēpā/Indiashi, “Indian paper”), インディアンジュエリー (Indianjuerī, “Indian jewelry”), インディアンサマー (Indiansamā, “Indian summer”), アメリカ・インディアン (Amerika Indian, “American Indian”), イースト・インディアン (Īsuto Indian, “East Indian”). Besides coming with borrowings, the word began producing new expressions inside the Japanese language. Apples were also among the novelties of early Meiji era’s opening to the rest of the world, time when the area of Hirosaki emerged as the main producer of this fruit in the country. In 1875, a new cultivar of apple obtained in Hirosaki was named インドリンゴ/印度林檎 (Indo ringo, “Indian apple”).

Indo appears also in borrowed compound words of the Western geographic perspective: インドネシア (Indoneshia, “Indonesia”), インドシナ (Indoshina, “Indochina”). As a side note, シナ/支那 (Shina), the Japanese correspondent of the English word China, appears only in such contexts. The Meiji reforms introduced its official use (together with Indo and other Western geographic names), replacing the East Asian 中国 (Chūgoku, “The country from the middle”). During the following Sino-Japanese wars, the exotic and potentially colonialist meaning of Shina was used to the point that it became an ethnic slur. At the end of the Second World War, China requested that Japan must cease using Shina and reinstate Chūgoku.

インド人/印度人 (Indojin, “Indian person”) may mean Indian (citizen of India), but also Hindu. The word for Hinduism is インド教/印度教 (Indokyō, “Indian teachings”). The English counterparts themselves have the same meanings as above, only that afterwards the initial h made the difference from the contemporary state (6). In order to avoid the misunderstandings, it appeared another neologism, ヒンドゥー (Hindū), spreading in the Japanese mass-media the use of the words ヒンドゥー教 (Hindūkyō, “Hindu teachings”) for Hinduism and ヒンズー教徒 (Hindūkyōto, “follower of Hindu teachings”) for the Hindus. The change did not occur yet for “Hindu philosophy” (less present in the news): インド哲学/印度哲学 (Indo tetsugaku, “Indian philosophy”), or short, 印哲 (Intetsu).

Comparing 印哲 (Intetsu) and 竺学 (Jikugaku, “Tenjiku studies”, i.e. “Buddhist studies”), the two words reflect well the carvings made by the Western and the East Asian worldviews. Both equated the country’s name with their own perception of the local religion, determining the subsequent differences in the substance of this religion. The histories of the two cultural areas determined also the different approaches to these religions. Intetsu, the Western perspective, is a philosophy, a wisdom, accessible to individuals through a personal endeavor (its second character, 哲, tetsu, means “wisdom”), while Jikugaku is intrinsic to the social texture, it comes with the acquiring of local social skills (its second character, 学, gaku, means “learning”).

The differences between the notions invoked by Tenjiku and Indo (as a whole, not just religious) become obvious in South Asian-related customer-oriented contexts, like the presentation of the Indian restaurants in Japan. For example, on the website of this Indian restaurant, the presentation goes 天竺夢料理 (Tenjiku yume ryōri, “Tenjiku dream food”) and then 印度屋 (Indoya, “Indian restaurant”). Each name comes with its own identity. Plus, this gives some idea about the place, the significance of these two notions in the contemporary Japanese society. Tenjiku brings the cultural value, while Indo comes with the identification in the real world. Of course, these roles are not inherent, it is just a contextual share of attributions. It rather brings to light the existence of the two component parts of any cultural notion, similar to the concepts of signified and signifier from the structuralism. Once, Tenjiku had applicable both the cultural value and the identification in the real world, the same as nowadays India has both of these layers in the Western world. In an alternative history, with an East Asian prevalence worldwide, one may imagine an inverted situation with a Tenjiku restaurant in UK having a presentation: “Indian dream food, Tenjiku restaurant”.

This does not mean that Tenjiku and Indo are somehow “maimed” and then combined into something new inside the Japanese cultural context. Each of them remains an independent notion with its own imagery and coherence (briefly sketched above), they convey different feelings, while the Japanese society knows the cultural values and the identifications in the real world of both of them. However, knowledge is just potentiality. When it comes to applications in real life, to basic things like the presentation of a restaurant, requiring both attending to the customers’ most reliable cultural tastes and an accurate identification in the real word, the solution is such a share of responsibilities. Also, this does not mean that now Tenjiku is a “frozen” notion or a matter of the past. It is alive as usually, see for example this recent Tenjiku series of sake (日本酒), where the name Tenjiku is employed for its cultural value, as an established cultural brand in the Japanese context.

Such cohabitation between 天竺/천축 (Tianzhu in Chinese, Tenjiku in Japanese, Cheonchuk in Korean) and 印度/インド/인도 (Yìndù, in Chinese; Indo, in Japanese; Indu, in Korean) happens, more or less, in all East Asia (7). The contexts of the former notion are not well known outside this cultural area, hence the word itself did not become yet familiar elsewhere. It appears in cases that do not require explanations about what it means and about its position in the real world, like localizations of East Asian video games or translations of East Asian fiction. There is some knowledge about it among the segment of non-East Asians who developed an interest in the entertainment produced in this area. For the fans of Japanese dorama, Tenjiku, together with words like itadakimasu, tanuki, faito, Kimutaku, is part of the inherently acquired vocabulary (without the need to know how they are written in Japanese). The most recent dorama featuring “Journey to the West”, in 2006, had even a secondary English title, “Road to Tenjiku”.

Part 2 of this article

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1) It is very probably that also the few instances when the Roma arriving in Europe (in the 15th-16th centuries) were described as coming from India or they said that they came from India (together with the presumed Egyptian origin), were rather the results of the locally available choices of describing the "otherness". India and the pre-Muslim Egypt represent the exoticism par excellence in Europe, perceived as less threatening cultural areas that make possible fantasies. The notion of India must have been acquired in Europe (it was not even known in South Asia at the time of emigration) and, the same as that of Egypt, employed for making meaningful in the local context the Roma and the visible differences, rather than supposing the knowledge of the origin.

2) The Moors happened to be the most familiar Muslims for the Western Europe of those times (and the name Moor itself was an exonym employed in Western Europe).

3) It really created a new local identity out of about ten distinct ethnic groups scattered in Southern Philippines, which, besides this Moro framework, did not experience another local historical communality.

4) Just to remind of a simple thing like the Indian restaurants run by Sylheti Bangladeshis in UK and USA. They have no other choice of naming as long as Indian remains worldwide the only strong South Asian brandname.

5) It appeared the official 外国人 (Gaikokujin, “person from other country”) or the popular 外人 (Gaijin, “person from outside”), naming the non-Japanese people.

6) In Chinese, Hinduism is 印度教 (Yìndùjiào, “Indian teachings”), Hindu is 印度教徒 (Yìndùjiàotú, “follower of Indian teachings”) and Indian (citizen of India) is 印度人 (Yìndùrén, “Indian person”). In Korean there is the h that makes the difference: 힌두교 (Hindugyo, “Hindu teachings”) is Hinduism and 인도 (Indu) is India.

7) Also in Vietnam, geographically part of Southeast Asia, but historically and culturally related to East Asia. In Vietnamese: Thiên Trúc for Tiānzhú and Ấn Độ for Yìndù.