That made him torn between the West and the East, the pain of which was distilled into a wisdom that was, as it turned out, not very well received by his many Chinese detractors back in 1924. Perhaps today, we are in a better position to understand this sage and most complex man.

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To begin with, the journey itself was not a happy one. He became increasingly worried about the fate of Asia.

Once an admirer of Japan, he was increasingly alarmed by its creeping militarism and imperialism that clearly aped those of the West.

While in Hong Kong, he was traumatised after watching a Sikh mercilessly beating a Chinese coolie. He was not just shocked by the violence, but by the realisation that it was a slave of the British masters hired to beat another slave in a British colony.

But watching other coolies working diligently, and realising the cheap and cruel colonial exploitation of Chinese labour, he came to realise something else that is probably more resonant to us now than back then.

He wrote: “The nations which now own the world’s resources fear the rise of China, and wish to postpone the day of that rise.”

Perhaps only now do we fully understand what he meant. But the more spiritual message he would go on to deliver at the time was ill-suited to a China torn by a civil war, warlordism, and Western and Japanese exploitation. His true meaning can only be appreciated – and urgently – when China has already risen and must now decide again its future in a very different world.

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Tagore in China

When Tagore arrived in China in April a century ago, he was met with widespread enthusiasm and criticism. He was invited by the Jiangxueshe (Beijing Lecture Association). The Jiangxueshe had a genius in choosing foreign distinguished lecturers, among whom were John Dewey, Bertrand Russell and Hans Driesch, the biologist. Their visits would become important events in modern China’s intellectual and political history, and are still being commented on and studied. They would, in turn, gain new insights for their works, about the fateful encounters between East and West. Russell in fact wrote a whole book about it, and he reminisced how much he enjoyed his trip in his autobiography, particularly what he considered to be a unique Chinese sense of humour.

Tagore’s lecture tour would not be different in terms of its impact and influence, but it was far more controversial. He was adored by fans but hounded by critics, some of whom tried to pressure the Jiangxueshe to cancel the invitation. At one event, he had to be saved from a young man who tried to assault him.

However, he was welcomed by an old friend, Liang Qichao, the great liberal reformer and Confucian literati, who accompanied him and faced the same attacks throughout the tour, which passed through Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan and Beijing. Tagore was cheered and booed in equal measure.

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Liang wrote movingly about his visit: “Our old brother [India], affectionate and missing for more than a thousand years, is now coming to call on his little brother [China]. We, the two brothers, have both gone through so many miseries that our hair has gone grey and when we gaze at each other after drying our tears we still seem to be sleeping and dreaming. The sight of our old brother suddenly brings to our minds all the bitterness we have gone through for all these years.”

There were banner-waving protests outside some of his lectures. His militant detractors and critics did not want to hear an Indian sage lecturing them about the importance of Confucianism and Buddhism in reviving their culture and society.

Communists such as party co-founder Chen Duxiu, Mao Dun the novelist, and Qu Quibai the poet turned on him. Ironically, Mao once translated some of Tagore’s work. The newly founded Chinese Communist Party used several of its publications to attack him.

But it wasn’t just the communists. Tagore’s message of the limitations of Western science and ideologies, and the importance for Asians of preserving their own ancient cultures to revitalise them as a counterweight to Western material and military dominance, didn’t sit well with the generation of the May Fourth Movement.

The liberals of Mr Science and Mr Democracy, the militant nationalists and other radicals wanted to destroy the stranglehold of what they claimed was the fossilised ideology of Confucianism to chart a new path for modern China, not to learn from it.

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Liang and Tagore might commiserate with each other, and read Confucius and the Vedas together. But the nation was being torn apart by foreign imperialists and local warlords. To save it, they needed the unifying force of nationalism, the materialism of Western science, technology and military hardware and new Western ideologies about how to organise society and run the state. The May Fourth generation was not wrong. To fight the West and Japan, Chinese needed to learn from them first.

Even Lu Xun, the great novelist, was unsympathetic, even though when he was older, he acknowledged Tagore’s anti-imperialism which he, Lu, didn’t appreciate at the time.

But Tagore was looking at the end game, the big picture. China would be unified and it would rise up. It wasn’t a question of if, but when. However, once it has become richer and more powerful and independent, where will it go from there?

Nationalism then becomes a temptation for further power and dominance. Materialism becomes indulgence and consumerism. Tagore understood better than most of the need of once-subjugated peoples to free themselves mentally and culturally from Western-inspired materialism and nationalism, which could cage people long after their nations have gained independence.

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Rediscovering the roots of ancient wisdoms in a cross-cultural syncretic manner can offer the necessary spiritual guidance to forge ahead. India and China were spiritual brothers, for him as it was for Liang.

In his Beijing lecture, Tagore contrasts the generals and diplomats of the West and the sheer strength and raw power they represent, with “the moral and spiritual power of men”.

“We of the East have never reverenced death-dealing generals, nor lie-dealing diplomats, but spiritual leaders,” he said. “Through them [men of spirit] we shall be saved, or not at all. Physical power is not the strongest in the end … You are the most long-lived race, because you have had centuries of wisdom nourished by your faith in goodness, not in mere strength.”

The men and women of May Fourth were understandably not ready for his message. But Chinese today should be ready.