Chinese in India

[hans henrich hock]

As for Victor Mair's attempts, it may be worth noting that Mallory
and Mair refer to work by Brian Hemphill that suggests that the
earliest layer of the Tarim Mummies (ca. 2000 BC) cannot be related
to any western or northwestern population and appear to result from
an indigenous development.  (Mallory, J. P., and Victor H. Mair.
2000.  The Tarim mummies: Ancient China and the mystery of the
earliest peoples from the west.  London: Thames and Hudson.)  This
causes considerable difficulties for Mair's attempts to argue that
this early population was "western", "European", or "Indo-European",
and also make problematic a pre-3rd c. BC time of Chinese-Indian
contact.  (Hemphill and Mallory are now preparing a full-scale report
on this issue, to appear in the American Journal of Physical
Anthropology.)

Hans Henrich Hock


>One thing is sure -- the term Ciina cannot predate the
>Qin dynasty, during the late 3rd c. BCE. And clear evidence
>of Buddhist contact -- which cannot have been the earliest
>contact -- dates to the 1st - 2nd c. CE. Victor Mair for one
>would like to push contact much further back, however, in
>the context of more general Indo-European - Chinese contacts
>beginning in the 2nd or even 3rd millenium BCE. There's a lot
>of relevant lit. on all this, but I'm travelling and away
>from my references just now.
>Matthew Kapstein