Selected Correspondence of the Asiatic Society (1851-1899)

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In the Museum of the Asiatic Society there are some archival materials i.e. some valuable correspondence since the foundation on 15th January 1784 onwards. The letters are very interesting and important to the research scholars in India and abroad. The first phase of the Correspondence (1784- 1849) was published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society in the years 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005. Later on, in 2003 a book was also published as an anthology duly introduced by Professor Amalendu De. Now the second phase of the "Early Correspondence" for the years 1851-1899 is published. It will be helpful to the scholars. I thank my the then colleagues who helped me prepare the work, specially Mr. Bijon Mukherjee, Anupam Chowdhury, Ganesh Prasad, Kalicharan Shaw, Sk. Sahajahan, Tultul Dey, Bharat Shaw, Iqbal Hossain, Rina Malakar, Sirajul Haque, Swarup Manna and Golok Mahapatra.

I am grateful to the authorities of the Asiatic Society for undertaking the work for publication.

Last but not least I owe my debt to the staff members of the Publication Division who very carefully and sincerely take the work and advised many a solutions to the problems arisen at the time of publication.

I do beg apology for any inconsistency or aberration.

The Asiatic Society was founded in 1784. There is a rich collection of varied and important documents in the archives of the Asiatic Society since its inception. Documents would provide a glimpse to the inquisitive scholars and researchers in the context of the colonial past of this country.

The first phase of the early correspondence of the Asiatic Society during 1784-1849 was first published in different issues of the Journal of the Asiatic Society between 2002 and 2005. An anthology was also published in 2003 duly edited by Professor Amalendu De under the title "An Introduction to the Correspondence of the Asiatic Society". The Society now publishes the correspondence during 1851-1899 compiled by Smt. Manjula Chowdhury with a very valuable and elaborate Introduction by Professor Uttara Chakraborty.

I hope this publication to focus attention to the store-house of research material in the Society will certainly meet the long-felt need of the scholars in the field in particular and also of the common readers in general. I must congratulate both the compiler and Professor Chakraborty for this endeavour and wish the readers take it with all attention.

Ms Manjula Chowdhury compiled and prepared an index and list of some documents found in the Archives of the Asiatic Society. This indeed is a valuable undertaking considering the fact that there is a rich collection of varied and important documents stored in the Archives of the Asiatic Society. Collating some of them and preparing these means a constructive step taken towards researching into various matters.

The earliest correspondence going back to the days of the inception of the Asiatic Society up to the year 1849 were first published in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, then collected in an anthology edited by Professor Amalendu De and brought out by the Society itself.

The Asiatic Society was founded in 1784 at the instance of Sir William Jones with the enthusiastic support of Warren Hastings, the then Governor General of the East India Company. Indeed Warren Hastings in 1784 was already envisaging an arrangement for the rule of the East India Company in this country and searching for a suitable ideology. A credo was chosen which necessitated the knowing of this country through its people, culture and languages. The officers who came out to help him in structuring that administrative configuration were likeminded peers. They enthusiastically supported his scheme and worked together to form this institution called the Asiatic Society. The purpose of the Society was to take up studies of Asiatic culture and languages especially Persian and Sanskrit. David Kopf in his 1969 work called British Orientalism and the Bengal Renaissance had detailed out how the projects were undertaken by such men like Jonathan Duncan, H.T Colebrooke and William Jones who became the first president of the Asiatic Society. Kopf's book was written a decade before Edward Said's startling revelation about actual connotation of the expression Orientalism. Kopf sought to explain and narrate the dedicated and emotional involvement of the English officers turned scholars in working out schemes and projects of the Asiatic Society-which included reinventing ancient Hindu culture by restudying and reinterpreting Sanskrit literary and religious texts as also knowing Persian language and literature. Said's book coming out in 1978 is simply titled Orientalism in which he sought to give what he explained as the actual meaning of Orientalism. Orientalism according to him is associated inseparably with colonialism. It had been always the policy of the colonial rulers essentially to be familiar with the country over which they ruled. The interest shown towards the culture of the colonized was a feigned attitude. The real purpose was to know the colonized country and its people well through language and other cultural vehicles so that colonial rule could be effectively and permanently assured.

Whether the Asiatic Society was in reality a colonial programme as per Edward Said's interpretation is a matter of discourse and debate, perhaps not within the purview of this introduction. One does however gets a bit suspicious coming across such comments as made by William Jones himself in one of his letters (not in this collection) when he expressed his disappointment with the pundits and munshis interpreting Hindu and Islamic law and his suspicions of them that they were actually hoodwinking him. After all Jones had arrived in India as Judge of the Supreme Court and needed to know the legal arrangement effectively and of course to the effects of the East India Company.

Denigrating remarks about the character of a Bengali was made by William Carey, the Baptist Missionary associated with the Srirampur Baptist Mission Church who belonged to the second phase of British Orientalism (David Kopf) and who also acted in close collaboration with Fort William College and therefore with the Governmental policy of Lord Wellesley indicates towards almost a sneaking belief in Saidian concept of Orientalism and towards questioning the actual purpose of the Asiatic Society.

In the first three decades of the nineteenth century, the Asiatic Society rapidly developed both physically and materially. The new location of the Society was built. And as the empire expanded collections of various kinds were brought from different corners to accumulate in the Society's store house. As such then the Society acted as representative of gathered memorabilia of an expanding colonial configuration.

Book's Contents and Sample Pages