The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) is an Indian government agency that is responsible for archaeological research and the conservation and preservation of cultural historical monuments in the country. It was founded in 1861 by Alexander Cunningham who also became its first Director-General.ASI was founded in 1861 by Alexander Cunningham who also became its first Director-General. The first systematic research into the subcontinent's history was conducted by the Asiatic Society, which was founded by the British Indologist Sir William Jones on 15 January 1784. Based in Calcutta, the society promoted the study of ancient Persian texts and published an annual journal titled Asiatic Researches. Notable among its early members was Charles Wilkins who published the first English translation of the Bhagavad Gita in 1785 with the patronage of the then Governor-General of Bengal, Warren Hastings. However, the most important of the society's achievements was the decipherment of the Brahmi script by James Prinsep in 1837. This successful decipherment inaugurated the asset.
Such, in brief outline, are the practices by which the devout Hindu fills his days, weeks, and years, as he moves along this worldly path toward his ultimate goal of union with the Supreme Being, confronted with the guidance given in the scriptures and calling out, I remember that; that I attend on. Chapter 6 HINDU RELIGIOUS THOUGHT
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These religious ideas do not constitute a single and simple system of thought, for Hinduism as a religion was not founded by one prophet, nor by one incarnation of God," nor is it derived from the teachings of any one sage. Hinduism is based on the varied religious and moral experiences and insights of many ancient, medieval, and modern Indian sages and Seers, saints, devotees, and reformers, giving rise to a variety of religious ideas and practices which form the basis of different types of religious life.
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Although the basic spiritual experiences are different, they are complementary, giving rise to types of religion which are not really antagonistic to one another. They are different ways of approach to the same goal, meant for different classes of people occupying different levels of spiritual development or having different tastes, aptitudes, and temperaments. Thus Hindu religious thought is a complex but unified body of many different religious theories.
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1 In this chapter the word God with capital G does not refer to any minor deity but means the Personal Being (called Ivara, Paramesvara, Paramitmi, Purushottama, MaheSvara, Saguna Brahman, etc.) who is the one ultimate reality and is the creator, preserver, destroyer, and moral governor of the world. God in this sense is almost the same Being as God in Christian theology and, generally speaking, in western philosophy. There is only this difference: God in Christianity is not the destroyer of the world, and God in Hinduism is not the creator of individual selves and other eternal entities. But the relation of dependence in which the world and selves stand to God is the same hse SCC. 206
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