The opening ceremony of the 2026 Nishan Forum on World Civilizations was held on September 28 in Qufu, Shandong Province. At the ceremony, B. R. Deepak, Professor at the Centre of Chinese and Southeast Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Vice President of the International Confucian Association, delivered a keynote speech titled "Dialogue of Civilizations: Chinese and Indian Traditions through the Ages."

B. R. Deepak holds that Chinese and Indian civilizations have never evolved in isolation. Ancient Sino-Indian exchanges flourished most notably through the dissemination of Buddhist teachings. Spanning 734 years, from the tenth year of the Yongping reign period of the Eastern Han Dynasty (67 CE) to the sixteenth year of the Zhenyuan reign period of the Tang Dynasty (800 CE), 185 eminent translators rendered 2,412 Buddhist scriptures in 7,352 fascicles; Xuanzang alone translated 76 works totaling 1,347 fascicles. This undertaking transcended religious dissemination, evolving into a centuries-long systematic project of cross-civilizational knowledge production. Nevertheless, the advent of modern colonialism disrupted the long-standing mechanisms of bilateral knowledge inheritance and cultural exchange. The academic initiative shifted to European scholars and their institutional systems for an extended period. History demonstrates that cross-cultural contact does not inherently trigger conflict; global civilizational achievements are collectively forged by diverse cultural traditions. He himself has translated the Analects, Mencius, and the Four Booksinto Hindi, as well as such works as Romance of the Western Chamber, Dream of the Red Chamber, and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Translation is far more than a bridge between civilizations: it is in itself a process of joint creation among civilizations. People-to-people exchanges are the pillar of all dialogue, and dialogue among civilizations is the only path to building a community with a shared future for mankind.