Fundamentals of Japanese Perception of India: An Emerging New Asiatic Alliance

Buddhism is considered to be the principal factor in the development of the India-Japan relationship. However, in our research, we have found that the Japanese perception of India has been more deeply influenced by the pre-Buddhist-Vedic civilisational value system since the Classical Period. A unique theoretical framework has been developed to explain this civilisational expansion and content of India-Japan relations, which eventually evolved into the “Tenjiku Conception” of India. “Tenjiku” was a cultural cognitive construct, comprising of those civilisational values that people imbibed in the early years of Japanese civilisation. The Japanese began to develop civilisational characteristics from the Yayoi Period and imbibed Indian Vedic values during their interactions with China. The kind of Buddhism adopted by the Japanese was enmeshed deeply within Vedic philosophical thought. Therefore, it may be more appropriate to describe it as “Brahmanical-Buddhism.” Furthermore, the Japanese found Indian spiritualism and attitudes towards nature very encouraging. The Vedic value system is attributed for the intimate relationship it nurtured among the Japanese people and their speedier expansion throughout Japan’s main islands. The core values of spiritualism and their analysis of nature provided decisive underpinnings of the “Tenjiku” Conception, which became the abiding basis of Japan’s perception of India.