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This book is a study of various aspects of Buddhism in its evolution and decimation in India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, China, Japan and SE Asia, besides the general threat to cultural sovereignty and values in their erosion by globalism and sweeping technocratism. Constant development and qualitative changes in iconography leading to the rise of royal attributes in the bejewelled Buddha images. Comparative archaeology of the Buddhist cosmopolis to explain regional variations, internalisation and innovation in Buddhist art, mandalas of Vairocana and Trika Saivism of Kashmir, are followed by a new interpretation of the genesis, expansion and trans-Indian contacts of the three major Buddhist universities of Nalanda, Vikramasila and Vidasagiri (modern Sanchi). Beginning with Bamiyan to Sanskrit on the Silk Route, Khotanese panels, naya-mandala in Khotanese verses identified with the help of the living practice in Japan, and Sasanian objects in the Shoso-in are related as the dynamics of the historic role of Buddhism to bring nations together. The cultural space of Tibetan commencing with the translation of Sanskrit sutras, the correct name of Atisa, the Kashmiri icons at the Hemis monastery, the beginning of scientific Tibetology by Korosi, and the studies of George Roerich as a catalyst to Tibetan researches in India are detailed herein. Quadrilingual corpus of more than 10,000 Sanskrit mantras from the Chinese Tripitaka, the Cheena Bhavan at Santiniketan for the study of Chinese Buddhism in India, Sinocentrism and Chairman Mao, are discussed. A Japanese xylograph of the Sanskrit text of the Sukhavati-vyuha with interlinear Chinese meanings has been reproduced at the end of the book. Chapters on Cambodia, Champa in the global vision of Classical India, and the Marine Silk Route or K'un-lun and the light-house of King Mulavarman open new perspectives on this important region. General problems of culture in an overwhelming world order of economic globalism and dogmatic anti-liberalism are discussed in a positive presentation of life and transcendence, values and action, and cultural disintegration by technocratic imperialism.
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