Mahatma Gandhi In China :Thought Explanation And Image Transition(1919-1948)

Abstract:China-India relationship in the first half of the 20th century is increasingly highlighting its academic value. The research of Mahatma Gandhi in China can help understand the China-India relations in this period. This dissertation adopts the research approach of history of social knowledge and history of cultural representation, with exploring not only newspapers and journals, but also various sources including biographies, memoirs, letters, diaries and some literature materials, such as fictions and poems which were formed from 1919 to 1948, to demonstrate Chinese interpretation of Mahatma Gandhi’s thought and the transition of Gandhi’s images in China and what kind of interactive relationship exists between these images and Chinese era backgrounds.Through revealing the explanation of Gandhi’s thought, as well as his images transition in Chinese text, we can find that Chinese society showed a variety of Gandhi’s thought and images. Gandhi’s significance to China is the result of the efforts from different strengths and reflects the motivation and purpose of the thought readers and image shapers, which has deep interaction with Chinese society. Chinese multiple images of Gandhi suggest us rethinking the complexity and limitation of the openness of "stock of knowledge "theory. Getting through the interior and exterior of "knowledge stock", may provide us a more complete image of the research of "foreign people in China".