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NAG: INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF NON-VIOLENCE
The Highlanders of Asia, the Tibeto-Burman nations also (Tibet, Bhutan, Burma, Siam etc.) are very intimately connected with India through religion and culture; and naturally their documents would find important places in the Asian Encyclopedia. Thus if we only could arrange for the preparation and publication of such a work Mother India will again receive the homage of the entire Asian humanity.
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The publication of Encyclopedia Asiana will inaugurate a new chapter in the study of the history and culture of the continent of Asia and of the Asian nations. So far these subjects have been treated generaly by Western scholars as the history and culture of backward non-Christian nations; and Asian religion and philosophy necessarily have been very undeservedly treated as mere superstitions. Asian art with its glorious tradition and technique has not suffered less in the hand of Western scholars who considered Orinentalism as almost synonimous with the Grotesque and the Barbarous. Moreover in even modern Encyclopedic surveys, we find that the Western writers on Oriental subjects were either highly prejudiced or very unsatisfactory from the stand point of our authentic national cultures. Lots of facts no doubt, have been assembled in them but their interpretations are often unfair and incorrect.
So it is our bounden duty to provide for the general readers authentic and interesting narratives of the history and culture of the Asian nations. The best possible illustrations should be procured to enrich our Encyclopedia and Eastern Artists should be in charge of decorating and illustrating the volumes. Printed books appear in the East in the late period. Our richest treasures are our ancient manuscripts and portfolios of miniature paintings. These should be fully exploited in order to add to the beauty and reference value of our monographs. The Vedic and the Buddhistic literature have been partially edited and utilised. Jainism. Manecheism and many other religions of India and the East can still offer valuable manuscript materials which remain to this day unpublished and unnoticed. The monasteries and temple libraries, both in India as well as in China, Tibet and Central Asia and even the Lamasaries of Soviet Asia, may yield invaluable documents relating to the history, art and philosophy of Asia,. Co-operation of the National Governments and National Academies of the Asian countries would be indispensible and we are sure that their collaboration would be voluntarily offered.
Along with the manuscripts we should prepare inventories of the Art objects and archaeological specimens from each cultural zone of Asia so that the reader, while consulting the article on China, would
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