NEW DELHI - The Hindi edition of My Tryst with China by sinologist B. R. Deepak was released on Tuesday at the Jawaharlal Nehru University.

"The book is not only about my tryst with the rise of China, its popular culture and literary trends, but also with those people who contributed to the civilizational dialogue and understanding between India and China," says Deepak.

Hailing the publication of the book, JNU vice-chancellor Jagdesh Kumar says this autography is "interesting and unusual".

Some of Professor Deepak's Hindi translations of such Chinese classics as The Analects of Confucius and Mencius were also released at the event.

The English and Chinese editions of My Tryst with China have been published by the China Translation Publishing Press. They were launched at international book exhibitions in London and Beijing, respectively.

In the foreword of the book, Jiang Jingkui, a professor of Indian Studies at Peking University, says that My Tryst with China has originality and thoughtfulness.

"The author's tryst with China is not just limited to this (his love affair). He has also talked about the tryst with his teachers, friends and classmates, and recollected the contributions to Sino-Indian civilizational dialogue by towering personalities from antiquity to the present day," Jiang writes.

"He has looked into the past, present and future of Sino-Indian studies using rich resource material, and his narration can be described as passionate and touching."

Deepak, a professor at the Center of Chinese and South Eastern Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, was trained in Chinese history and India-China relations at Peking University and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

He was awarded the 2011 Special Book Prize of China for his Hindi translation of 88 selected classical Chinese poems from 1100 BC to 1400 AD.

Xinhua