JAPAN INDIA LINKS : ANCIENT PERIOD TO MODERNITY
The connection between India and Japan is not a modern discovery born of trade or diplomacy. It is a civilisational current that began more than fifteen centuries ago and has never stopped flowing. Though separated by thousands of miles of ocean and high mountains, the two cultures have remained linked by Buddhism, by sacred scripts, by deities who changed their names but not their essence, and in recent times by art, literature and people. For Japan, India has always been Tenjiku, the heavenly land where the Buddha was born. For India, Japan has been a distant eastern brother who preserved what India herself had forgotten.
Ancient Travel Routes From India to Japan
There was no direct sea route from India to Japan in ancient times. The journey was long, dangerous and took years. It followed three main stages. First, Indian monks and scholars travelled from the ports of Bengal and Tamil Nadu to South East Asia and to Chang an, the capital of Tang China. This was the maritime Silk Route that connected Tamralipti in Bengal with Sri Vijaya in Indonesia and with the Chinese coast. Second, from China the knowledge travelled to the Korean kingdom of Baekje. Third, from Korea it crossed the sea to Japan.
Buddhism officially entered Japan in the year 552 when the King of Baekje sent a bronze Buddha image and sutras to the Japanese court. But Indian monks themselves also made the full journey. They travelled with Chinese translation teams, often learning Chinese on the way because that was the lingua franca of Asian Buddhism. The overland Silk Route through the deserts of Central Asia and the Hexi Corridor was another path. Indian ideas therefore reached Japan not in one mission but in waves of texts, images, rituals and persons over three centuries. It is remarkable that despite such distance, Sanskrit mantras and Indian monastic rules were transmitted with such accuracy.
The Great Indian Savants Who Shaped Japanese Buddhism
The most luminous symbol of direct Indian presence in Japan is Bodhisena. Bodhisena was a Brahmin scholar from South India, born in 704. He travelled through China and arrived in Japan in 736 at the invitation of Emperor Shomu. In Japan he is revered as Bodai Senna. In 752 he was given the highest honour in the Japanese Buddhist world. He consecrated and opened the eyes of the Great Buddha Vairocana at Todaiji Temple in Nara. This bronze statue remains the largest in Japan and its consecration is considered the official birth of Japanese Buddhism as a state religion. Bodhisena also founded the Kegon school and taught Sanskrit in Nara. He died in 760 and his tomb is still venerated at Ryoanji in Nara.
He was not alone. In the eighth century a group of Indian masters including Subhakarasimha, Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra travelled to. China to transmit esoteric Buddhism. They brought with them mandalas, mantras and the Siddham alphabet. Their disciples carried this knowledge to Japan. Thus the very foundation of Japanese esoteric Buddhism bears an unmistakable Indian imprint. These savants risked shipwreck and banditry to carry knowledge and they were received in Japan as living Buddhas.
Hinduism in Japan
Hinduism in Japan is today a minority religion followed by about 320,000 Indian, Sri Lankan and Nepali expatriates as of mid 2025, 0.26% of population, whose liturgical language is Sanskrit and Om is written in Katakana, but its history goes back to 752 CE when Emperor Shomu built Todai-ji Temple in Nara with Krishna playing flute, as Hinduism diffused via trade routes and 6th century Buddhism with transfer of Hindu-derived material from China and Southeast Asia, and today Hindu deities are fully integrated into Japanese religious culture as gods of good luck where many deities still worshipped in Japan have long been forgotten in India, with Saraswati as Benzaiten arguably most revered after Buddha forming part of Seven Gods of Fortune Shichifukujin of which four are Hindu - Benzaitensama as Saraswati goddess of learning music wisdom, Bishamon as Vaishravana Kubera guardian of wealth and warriors, Daikokuten as Mahakala Shiva god of kitchen rice prosperity, and Kichijoten as Lakshmi completing Nipponized Tridevi with Benzaiten and female Daikokuten, plus Ganesha as Kangiten or Shoten prayed for health success in over 250 temples with veiled elephant face bathed in oil, Yama as Enma lord of death judging karma, Garuda as Karura enormous fire-breathing human body eagle face vahana of Vishnu, Tennin as Apsaras heavenly dancers, and complete Tenbu list of Agni as Katen fire, Prithvi as Chiten earth, Varuna as Suiten water, Vayu as Futen wind, Surya as Nitten sun, Chandra as Gatten moon, Brahma as Bonten creator four faces, Indra as Taishakuten king of heaven east guardian, Virupaksha as Komokuten wide-eyed west guardian, Virudhaka as Zochoten growth south guardian, Dakini as Dakiniten, Rahu as Rago, Rakshasa as Rasetsuten, Ishana as Ishanaten northeast guardian Shiva aspect, Skanda as Idaten or Kumar Kartikeya protector of temples, all still revered especially in Shingon Buddhism with Bonji Siddham seed syllables and mantras like Om Saraswatyai Namah chanted daily, proving Japan preserved India's gods with devotion.
Some important Hindu temples in Japan are as follows:
- Shirdi Saibaba Temple, Tokyo
- ISKCON Temple,Tokyo
- ISKCON Osaka Center, Osaka
- Vedanta Society of Japan, Kanagawa
- BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Tokyo
- Shiva Shakti Mandir, Tokyo
Siddham Calligraphy - The Living Sanskrit of Japan
One of the most extraordinary survivals of this contact is Siddham calligraphy. In Japan it is called Shittan or Bonji. Siddham was the elegant script of North India from the sixth to the twelfth century. It was the script in which many Buddhist sutras were written. This script later evolved into Nagari and Devanagari in India and disappeared as a living hand around the eleventh century.
It was preserved in Japan. In 804 the young Japanese monk Kukai, later known as Kobo Daishi, travelled to Changan to study esoteric Buddhism. There he met the Kashmiri master Prajna and learned Sanskrit and Siddham. When Kukai returned he founded the Shingon school and brought the Siddham alphabet with him. Since then, for more than twelve hundred years, Shingon and Tendai monks have preserved Siddham with astonishing fidelity.
In Japan Siddham is not a museum piece. It is a living sacred art. Monks learn to write Bonji with a brush to create mantras and dharanis. The seed syllables known as bijakshara such as Om, Ah, Hum, Hrih and Kham are written in Siddham and are believed to embody the deity itself. You will find these letters carved on temple pillars, on tombstones, on mountain rocks, on wooden memorial tablets and on amulets that people carry for protection. A Japanese lay person may not read Sanskrit but recognises Bonji as holy. In this way Japan has acted as a time capsule, preserving an ancient Indian script that India herself no longer writes.
Kashmiri Savants in Japan
According to Dr Lokesh Chandra, the divine script Siddham was carried to Japan not by Chinese monks alone but by Kashmiri savants, as Kashmir then known as Sharada Desha was the world centre of Sanskrit, Tantra and Buddhist logic where Chinese pilgrims like Hiuen Tsang came to study, and the most important among them was the Kashmiri Brahmin Acharya Prajna (734-810) who went to Chang'an in 781 and in 804 taught Sanskrit and Siddham to the great Japanese monk Kobo Daishi Kukai who became his direct disciple and on returning founded the Shingon school and introduced Siddham as Shittan or Bonji, the sacred script that gives siddhi, and other masters of the Kashmiri tradition like Vajrabodhi and Amoghavajra also transmitted Mantrayana with its seed syllables Om, Hum and Hrih, and Dr Chandra notes that even the first Constitution of Japan in 604 AD was consecrated by a Sanskrit manuscript of Usnisa Vijaya Dharani in an early Siddham form, and while Siddham vanished in India in the 11th century it has been preserved alive for 1200 years in Japan at Koyasan where monks still write it with a brush on temple pillars, tombstones and amulets, so that Bonji seen in Japan today is the living handwriting of Kashmir preserved by Japan.
Japanese Medicine System and Ayurveda Link
The traditional Japanese medicine system known as Kampo has deep roots in Ayurveda brought through Buddhism, as Ayurveda called Ayurveda in Japanese texts travelled from India to China as part of Buddhist medical science and then reached Japan in the 8th century through Korean and Kashmiri monks, where the basic principle of three doshas - Vata, Pitta, Kapha became in Kampo as three essences of Ki, Ketsu and Sui, and the use of herbal decoctions, moxibustion which resembles Agnikarma, acupuncture linked to marma points, fasting and purification, seasonal diet and meditation for healing, and the ancient Japanese medical text Ishimpo written in 984 AD by Tamba Yasuyori quotes directly from Indian Ayurvedic texts like Charaka Samhita and Sushruta Samhita regarding diagnosis through pulse and tongue, use of turmeric, ginger, pepper and mercury preparations, and the Buddhist monk physician tradition of yakushi or medicine Buddha worshipped in Japan is none other than Bhaisajyaguru from India, showing that Kampo is essentially Ayurveda adapted to Japanese herbs and climate.
Japanese Way of Life - The Indian Imprint
The Japanese way of life still carries a deep Indian imprint seen in everyday habits where sitting on the floor in seiza style to eat and conduct tea ceremony mirrors the Indian baithak tradition of sitting on tatami which is like chatai, while the daily prayers at day begin and day end in Japanese homes and temples with lighting of incense, offering of flowers and food and ringing of bells is identical to Indian puja and sandhya vandana, and the use of incense or agarbatti called senko in Japan for purification and meditation came directly from Indian dhoopa ritual, and bowing with joined palms which Japanese call gassho is the same as namaste and pranam, while greetings like ohayou gozaimasu with deep bow reflect the Indian respect for elders, and other customs like taking off shoes before entering home, ritual bathing before prayer as in Japanese ofuro and Indian snana, vegetarian shojin ryori cuisine of Buddhist monks similar to sattvic bhojan, and tying sacred threads and beads of juzu mala like rudraksha mala all show how Indian Buddhist lifestyle brought by Indian savants became the Japanese way of life.
Japanese Artists Visit Shantiniketan and Kolkata :A Modern Renaissance
In the modern era this spiritual link was transformed into a cultural friendship. The centre of this was Rabindranath Tagore and his school at Shantiniketan. At the beginning of the twentieth century Tagore looked to Japan as a model of an Asian nation that had modernised without losing its soul. He visited Japan three times in 1916, 1924 and 1929 and was received with great reverence. His book Gitanjali had already been admired in Japan.
The admiration was mutual. The Japanese art historian Kakuzo Okakura, author of The Book of Tea, was a friend of Tagore. Okakura believed that Asia should have its own artistic unity distinct from the West. He sent his best disciples to Bengal. In 1916 the famous painters Yokoyama Taikan and Hishida Shunso visited the Tagore family house at Jorasanko in Kolkata. In 1916 to 1917 the artist Arai Kanpo lived in Kolkata and Shantiniketan. The Japanese wash painting technique known as nihonga, with its soft mineral colours, use of empty space and emphasis on spirit rather than photographic realism, had a profound impact on the Bengal School of Art.
Abanindranath Tagore, the founder of the Bengal School, abandoned Western oil paiinting after seeing Japanese scrolls and adopted the wash technique. Nandalal Bose, the great muralist who later decorated Shantiniketan, studied Japanese brush economy and incorporated it into his own style. The Ajanta frescoes, which Japanese artists came to copy, also became a shared heritage.
Shantiniketan in turn became a pilgrimage for Japanese intellectuals. The poet Yone Noguchi visited in 1916. The scholar and painter Setsu Asahara lived there. The archives of Rabindra Bhavana still preserve Japanese woodblock prints and scrolls gifted by these visitors. This exchange showed that the ancient religious link could be reborn as a modern artistic dialogue between two Asian civilisations.
Cinema Link - Kurosawa, Imai and Satyajit Ray
The cinema link between India and Japan is built on mutual respect between masters like Akira Kurosawa, Tadashi Imai and Satyajit Ray, where Kurosawa deeply admired Ray calling Pather Panchali as an overwhelming experience and was influenced by Indian humanism while Ray was moved by Kurosawa's Rashomon (1950) and its revolutionary use of multiple perspectives which inspired his own narrative depth, and similarly Tadashi Imai the pioneer of Japanese neo-realism known for films like Muddy Waters (1953) and Mahabharata-style humanist dramas shared Ray's concern for the poor and oppressed, and Ray openly acknowledged that he learned the power of natural light, location shooting and non-professional actors from Japanese neo-realism of Imai and Kurosawa, and this Indo-Japanese cinematic dialogue later influenced Indian parallel cinema of Shyam Benegal, Adoor Gopalakrishnan and Girish Kasaravalli who adopted Kurosawa's low-angle composition and Imai's social realism to portray village India, creating a shared aesthetic where silence speaks more than dialogue.
Haiku Adoption in India
Another fascinating chapter is the adoption of Japanese haiku in India. Haiku is a seventeen syllable form arranged in five seven five sounds. It originated in ninth century Japan and was perfected by Matsuo Basho in the seventeenth century. It depends on a season word called kigo and on the ability to suggest much more than is stated.
The first to introduce haiku to India was Tagore himself, who translated some Japanese haiku into Bengali and English. But true adoption began in the nineteen sixties and seventies. Indian poets writing in English such as R K Singh, Kala Ramesh and Satya Bhushan Verma began to write haiku seriously. In Hindi, poets like Satya Parkash Agarwal and Kamlesh Bhatt Kamal have published entire collections. Even modern Kashmiri poet Dina Nath Nadim wrote Haikus .
What attracted Indian poets was the kinship with Indian aesthetics. The concept of kigo resonates with the Indian tradition of Ritu poetry celebrated by Kalidasa in Ritusamhara and Meghaduta. The idea of dhvani, suggesting more than stating, is central to both haiku and Sanskrit poetics. The brevity of haiku suited the Indian epigrammatic tradition. Today India has a vibrant haiku movement. Groups like Triveni Haikai India and the World Haiku Association hold regular kukai meetings in the Japanese style. Many Indian schools now teach haiku writing and anthologies of Indian haiku are published every year. A Japanese form has thus taken root in Indian soil.
Modern Migration and Population
The human link has changed completely in the last century. According to Japanese government statistics, only thirty people from British India lived in Japan in 1901. Fifty nine Indians lived in Hyogo Prefecture in 1905. After the Great Kanto earthquake destroyed Yokohama in 1923, Indian traders migrated to Kobe. From then Kobe became the centre of Indian community growth. In 1939 on the eve of the Second World War there were six hundred and thirty two Indians in Hyogo.
Today the profile is of highly skilled professionals. As per the Immigration Services Agency of Japan, there were 53,974 Indian nationals in December 2024 and 58,999 in December 2025. This makes Indians the twelfth largest foreign community in a country with almost four million foreign residents. Most live in Tokyo, particularly in Nishikasai in Edogawa ward which is now affectionately called Mini India, and also in Yokohama and Kobe. The community is predominantly male and works in information technology, engineering and finance. There are Indian schools, a Murugan temple in Tokyo, Sikh gurdwaras and mosques.
In 2025 India and Japan signed an Action Plan for Human Resource Exchange aiming to bring 50,000 additional skilled Indian workers to Japan by 2030 to help address the labour shortage caused by an ageing population. Cultural life is also vibrant with Diwali and Holi celebrated publicly in Tokyo parks.
Indo-Japanese Collaboration in Present Day
Present day Indo-Japanese collaboration has become a strategic partnership of mind and material extending from Bullet Train to Buddha, where Japan is building India's first Shinkansen Bullet Train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad with Japanese Shinkansen technology, Japanese companies like Suzuki, Toyota, Honda, Sony and Hitachi have made India their largest overseas base, while India provides Japan with over 50,000 highly skilled IT professionals and engineers concentrated in Mini India Nishikasai in Tokyo, and culturally the Japan Foundation, ICCR and temples like Koyasan and Nara Todaiji preserve Sanskrit and Siddham calligraphy taught by Kashmiri savants, and in 2025 both nations signed an Action Plan for Human Resource Exchange to bring 50,000 more Indians to Japan by 2030 and collaborate in semiconductors, green hydrogen, space with ISRO-JAXA joint moon mission LUPEX, and defence and Buddhism diplomacy, continuing the ancient link of Prajna and Kukai in a modern form.
Conclusion : A Continuity That Lives
The story of Indians in Japan is not a story of two separate phases, ancient and modern, but of one unbroken continuity. In the eighth century an Indian monk consecrated the Great Buddha of Nara. In the ninth century an Indian script found a permanent home in Japanese temples. In the twentieth century Japanese painters came to Bengal to learn how to paint emptiness and Indian poets learned from Japan how to capture a whole season in three lines.
What makes this relationship unique in world history is that Japan did not merely borrow from India and move on. It preserved. While Siddham disappeared from the land of its birth, it remained alive on the brush of a Shingon monk. While many Hindu deities lost their public worship in their original context, they continued to receive offerings in Japan as Benzaiten and Daikokuten. In that sense Japan became a cultural archive of ancient India.
Today the wheel has turned full circle. The children of those who once travelled for years by ship and desert to carry a manuscript now travel in a few hours by air to write software in Tokyo. The little India of Nishikasai, with its spice shops and temples, is the newest layer on a foundation that is fifteen hundred years old. From sacred script to software code, the journey of Indians in Japan shows that true cultural exchange does not erase identity. It allows two civilisations to remain distinct and yet recognise themselves in each other.
( Avtar Mota)
