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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.
Dr Gautam Chatterjee
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