A Constructive Survey of Upanishadic Philosophy c2.12

c2.12

7. *The Academy of Philosophy and Religion and its Aims.*—The present work is the first publication of the Academy of Philosophy and Religion, an institution which has been recently founded in India with the purpose of bringing together all those who are interested in a philosophical investigation of the problem of God. This aim of the Academy is to be achieved primarily by Publications, embodying continued and sustained research in all the Philosophies and Religions of the world. There will also be a number of Lectures from time to time on behalf of the Academy at great educational centres in India, which might also help the propagation of the cause of the Academy. The present centres of the Academy will be P o o n a, B o m b a y, and N a g p u r, and so on, while the work of the Academy will be extended to other centres also in course of time. The Academy is intended to be an All-India Body, the Personnel of whose Council is drawn from representatives of all the Universities of India. For all those who are interested in the work of the Academy of Philosophy and Religion, there will be an Ashram at Nimbal, a Railway Station on the M. S. M. Railway in the District of Bijapur, which might be used as an intellectual and spiritual resort. If Bacon's maxim may be requisitioned for our present purposes, we may say that the Academy must take all philosophical and religious knowledge for its province, irrespective of differences of creed, caste, nation, or race. The universal vision which must inspire the work of the Academy may be made apparent from the following quotation from the preamble of its Prospectus: " The problem of finding the universal in the midst of particulars, the unchanging in the midst of change, has attracted the attention of every man of vision, whether he be Philosopher or Prince. Plato and Śaṅkarācārya among Philosophers, Aśoka and Akbar among Princes are illustrations of the way in which this universal vision has been sought. Plato is known for nothing so much as for his synoptic vision of the universal among the particulars. Śaṅkarācārya spent a lifetime in seeking to know that by knowing which everything else comes to be known. Aśoka, in one of his Rock-Edicts, forbade the decrying of other people's faiths,—for in that way he said one was doing disservice to one's own faith,—