India and China are two major growing economies in the world and have a long history of relationships which change from time to time.The relationship between China and India started off in the first century via the silk road and the relationships have evolved since then.Through the centuries,many scholars and travellers have travelled between the two Asian giants and have recorded their findings through their works.Though a number of works have been done regarding the many exchanges that happened between the two Asian giants,not much research has been done on the exchanges between South India（Tamilakam）and China.This paper attempts to bring out the relationship that Tamilakam had with China over the centuries and its role in shaping the overall Indo-China exchanges from a religious cultural point of view by analysing literature from previous studies,site visits and interviews with people engaged in direct Sino-Indian interactions.The main findings of this work include identifying the reasons behind why Buddhism spread to China from India despite Hinduism being the more populous religion in India.This is attributed to the absence of religion by inheritance only policy in Buddhism and the efforts of Buddhist traveller monks who carried the religion overseas.This work also discovered that a Hindu God by the name Muruga who is believed to be the native God of Tamilians,blended into Chinese Buddhism as Wei Tuo Pu Sa to safeguard dharma or righteousness,post the death of the Buddha upon his request as per legends.Bodhidharma a Tamil Pallava prince is credited with the founding of Chan Buddhism and introducing elements from Tamil Nadu’s ancient martial art form（Varma Kalai）into Chinese Kungfu resulting in a new style of Kungfu called the Shaolinquan.The Hindu temples in Quanzhou built by Tamil merchants from the Chola dynasty and the presence of the statue of a Chinese traveller in the Brahadeeshwara Chola temple in Tamil Nadu are examples of Tamil Nadu’s role in ancient Sino-Indian relations.In the contemporary times several institutions like the De-Yuan Tao temple in Tamil Nadu,the Tamil channel of China Radio International,Tamil associations in Beijing,Hongkong of China and Guangdong and Chinese scholars studying Tamil in Universities like BFSU are paving the path to maintain Tamil-China religious cultural momentum.However,the most significant impact from China in India in terms of religious culture is the impact of Tibetan Buddhism which was imbibed as Buddhism from India,blended into local Chinese culture through Taoism and is reintroduced to India as Tibetan Buddhism with several monasteries being present in states which belonged to ancient day Tamilakam.Several policy related influences and governmental and non-governmental exchanges in Sino-Indian religious cultural interactions have been observed since the Panchsheel agreement in the early 1954 followed by more recent multi country associations through the SCO and BRICS.Bilateral agreements such as the Education Exchange Program（EEP）and Cultural Exchange Program（CEP）along with the presence of Indian studies centres in Chinese universities and Chinese studies centres and Confucius institutes in Indian universities have deep organic impact in facilitating mutual cultural understanding between the two countries.Overall,this paper explores the past and present religious cultural exchanges between India and China with special focus on the role of Tamil Nadu with a view to encourage further scholarly studies and bilateral exchanges between the countries,to contribute to fostering meaningful and friendly relationships cemented by lessons from the past and hope for the future.