ABOUT

The Asian Classics Input Project is a not-for-profit 501(c)3 organization dedicated to the preservation of ancient Asian wisdom. ACIP conducts preservation projects in libraries, monasteries, and institutes throughout Asia. We are committed to creating a searchable digital database that provides scholars, academic institutions, and practitioners access to a virtual library of authentic sacred and classical texts.

Founded in 1988 with a grant from the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Asian Classics Input Project is dedicated to locating, cataloging, digitally preserving, and freely distributing rare and precious collections of ancient wisdom. These surviving texts hold the philosophical, cultural, and religious heritage of Asian traditions dating back more than 2500 years.

ACIP digitally preserves these invaluable manuscripts because we believe that authentic ancient wisdom should be available to anyone. Scholars, translators, and practitioners in particular will be interested in accessing this invaluable content, free of charge in the ACIP digital library.

Our work is accomplished in several stages. First, we search the globe for surviving manuscript collections. We then catalogue their contents at various centers located mostly in Asia, where the books are carefully preserved as digital images and/or searchable e-text. These centers are staffed primarily by people who have come from the very regions where these great books were written and produced hundreds, if not thousands, of years ago. ACIP helps not only to preserve these rich cultural traditions, but provides training in new skills to the input operators, many of them women, to help them support themselves and their families.

Since its inception, ACIP has amassed a treasure trove of digitized wisdom literature, with more than two million pages digitally preserved and tens of thousands of pages of searchable e-books and catalogs distributed to the public free of charge.