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  PULSES OF INDIA

Dr. Gautam Chatterjee  

 
 
 



 

 

 
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PROMISES FOR NEXT MILLENNIUM

by Dr. Gautam Chatterjee

ASIATIC SOCIETY OF INDIA

Asiatic Society is an heritage Institution of India is the fountain head of Indian renaissance for the newly found research vision and mission of eighteenth century. In an exclusive interview Prof. Anil Sarkar, General Secretary of Asiatic Society talks to Dr Gautam Chatterjee about the holdings of the Institute and highlights the promises of the next millennium.

G.C. Why Asiatic Society is an Heritage Institution?

Prof. Sarkar: The Asiatic Society was founded in 1784 by Sir William Jones. You would be wondering if you know about the first spelling. It was ASIATIC Society. This was the forum where from other heritage institution were born like Indian Museum ,Survey of India etc. From here renaissance or the new awakening started rolling. Today it is a socio-cultural and scientific repository which is open to the world to explore.

G.C.: Taking cue from the world ‘Open’ I may like to ask how open you have been in last fifty years.!

Prof Sarkar: Earlier it was a vision to the world as if viewing from the hole now we may like to open up the treasure of Asiatic Society to the world.

G.C.; Please enlighten us about the treasure of Asiatic Society which it seems common man does not have an iota of understanding barring few scholars!

Prof Sarkar: Well! Asiatic society is a treasure house. We have several million heritage items say we have around one lakh rare books and the oldest one is 15th century printed book. Moreover,there are several thousands books on Indology.

G.C. What about Manuscripts?

Prof Sarkar: Yes, I am telling you! First of all we have around 45000 original Mss. And those are of different scripts like Brahmi, Sarda, Devnagiri etc. The earliest one is a 7th century A.D. Mss titled Kubjikamata Tantra which is of later Gupta Script and its treatise on Tantra contemplations. There are illustrated Mss of Padshanama and hordes of xylographs written in Brumise script and other scripts. Those are written in golden colours on black background some are punctuated with illustrations and drawings as well.

Moreover, we have a 250 B.C. Ashokan Edict known as Vairat inscriptions. This is a bilingual inscription.

The script in Brahmi and languages are Pali and Sanskrit.

The edict talks about the Dharma of Buddha.

G.C.: I am really amazed! Do people know all these? Why don’t you establish a museum?

Prof Sarkar: We have a small exhibition but lack of space and fund poses problem for creating a museum. First we want to open up a small Museum of rare photographs which will be followed by an album in print!

G.C.: Do you have rare paintings in your institute?

Prof. Sarkar: Yes, we have 48 rare paintings mostly of 19th century rare paintings. But lack of space those are kept in small room you can have a look! (I had seen those store house of paintings which was really in bad shape and needs breathing space for those rare creations which are worth some million dollar G.C.)

G.C.: Why don’t you get the corporate help to open a Museum---for the world?

Prof Sarkar; Yes, we hope that corporate world like ITC, Tata might comeforward to help us. It is interesting to note that Asiatic society was the mother of Indian Museum and today its neglected totally partly due to internal politics and secondly lack of governmental patronage. If you want to save this heritage corporate should step in!

G.C.: Why is that Asiatic Society remained unsung in the Golden Jubilee year of India’s independence.?

Prof. Sarkar: The calendar of Event for the Golden Jubilee ‘Yugpad’ omitted ‘Asiatic Society’ and it was not celebrated. And the budget for 1996-97 was 3.5 cores and it was slashed to 1.8 crore in the 97-98 and that too could not be spent by the Asiatic Society itself.

G.C. Lets go away from controversy can you enlighten us about Asiatic Society’s publication endeavor. As perhaps Asiatic Society is the oldest Publisher of India.

Prof. Sarkar Yes! In 1784 the first scientific periodical in India ‘Asiatic Research’ was published which continued unto 1839. We have twenty volume and indices. Again in 1832 Asiatic Society Journal came out which totals today 2200. In 1848 Bibliotica Indica was published which talks about the Book and Mss. On India. Memories of Asiatic Society brought out 12 volumes and 93 books. Another 32 Monographs were published by Asiatic Society, some 40 books on catalogue and bibliographic descriptions were published. There are thousands of Microfilms available and soon many would come in CDs.

G.C. I think world of Researcher should come down to Calcutta to explore ‘our civilisation’, Because its a real treasure house for any researcher. However, Sir how you are thinking to expand the information dissemination process.

Prof. Sarkar: Soon we will be reaching out to the people at multi-levels including INTERNET. And Mss and information should be available to the world for a nominal price. Moreover, we will also create a broad index of our age old publications which can be accessed through Internet.

G.C.: Thank you for talking to us and allowing access and show us the treasure of the world. I think the world should strive to upkeep the treasure of India as Asiatic Society is part of the ‘Memory of the World’ project of United Nations.


Asiatic Society is an heritage Institution of India is the fountain head of Indian renaissance for the newly found research vision and mission of eighteenth century. In an exclusive interview Prof. Anil Sarkar, General Secretary of Asiatic Society talks to Dr Gautam Chatterjee about the holdings of the Institute and highlights the promises of the next millennium.

 

 
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