In 2003 Ji moved into No 301 hospital because of health problems, but continued reading and writing there.

In an online article, Fragments of the Tocharian at www.salon.com, Andrew Leonard said that only a handful of people in the world could read Tocharian.

"Although, to be honest, I had no idea that the Tocharian language even existed 24 hours ago, after becoming curious about it when reading up on Ji, I now see the mysterious Tocharians as prototypical agents of globalization," said Leonard in the article.

"With a civilization clustered around the oasis entrepots that marked the Silk Road connecting West to East, the Tocharians are thought to have played a major role in spreading Buddhism from India to China. That alone is an earthshaking event. Much earlier, theorized one archaeologist, the Tocharians might have introduced the wheeled chariot into China. The Mandarin words for lion and honey are thought by some linguists to be loan words from Tocharian (The word 'Mandarin', incidentally, is Sanskrit in origin.)," said the article.

Ji Xianlin said, "The river of Chinese civilization has kept alternating between rising and falling, but it has never dried up, because there was always fresh water flowing into it. It has over history been joined by fresh water many times, the two largest inflows coming from India and the West, both of which owed their success to translation. It is translation that has preserved the perpetual youth of Chinese civilization. Translation is hugely useful!"

Ji won affection from the general public also for his unassuming personality and humility.

Twenty years ago, a freshman, busily going through enrollment procedures on his first day at Peking University, ran into an old man on campus. In a frantic rush, he asked his senior to look after his luggage.

When he remembered his luggage hours later he rushed back and found the old man sitting by his bags in the searing sun and reading a book. The young fellow thanked him and left, only to find the same old man sitting on the rostrum at a welcome ceremony the next day.

He realized the minder of his bags was the vice-president of Peking University.

"For a new student to Beijing, the luggage was his most precious belonging. I must treat his trust seriously," Ji recalled the story to his friend, journalist Tang Shizeng.

In his 2007 book Memories from the Hospital Bed (Bingta Zaji), he sought the removal of three titles with which he had long been honored: Master of Traditional Chinese Culture, Academic Maestro and National Treasure.

In an interview with CCTV, he said it was because the titles were not "truthful" and he was not that great. Mou Jie, editor of some of Ji's books, remembers Ji as a very modest man.

"He was never arrogant, although people call him a master," she recalled.

"He was always low key, and always believed more efforts were needed to improve the process of study."

Peking University, where Ji worked for 63 years, announced Ji's passing in a statement calling him a "senior professor" instead of "master", remaining true to his wishes.

Nirupama Rao, Indian ambassador to China, recalled one of Ji's famous quotations, "Sino-Indian neighborliness was created in heaven and constructed on Earth."

"These immortal words of the revered Professor Padma Bhushan Ji Xianlin echo through the corridors of the interaction between our two countries — India and China — today," she said. "We deeply mourn the passing of this great humanist scholar and personality. His contribution to India-China friendship will never be forgotten."

Professor Kurt von Figura, president of the University of Gottingen, said: "With the death of Ji Xianlin, China loses an outstanding scholar and my university loses a longstanding friend. We grieve alongside the Chinese people. We extend our sympathy to his family, friends and all the Chinese people. Ji Xianlin's memory will bequeath us the incentive to further develop and cherish our cooperation with China."