Time Past And Time Present- Two Hundred And Twenty-Five Years of The Asiatic Society

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"The bound of investigations will be the geographical limits of Asia, and within these limits its enquiries will be extended to whatever is performed by man or produced by nature".

The statement contained in the Memorandum of Articles of the Asiatic Society prepared by Sir William Jones in the meeting held at the Grand Jury Hall of the Supreme Court, Calcutta, 15 January 1784.

Thus began the long journey of the Asiatic Society, Kolkata. Past and the present seem contemporaneous at the moment of its reaching two hundred and twenty-five years. A brief history of the journey with appropriate illustrations has been presented in this volume. The title of the volume, inspired by Thomas Stearns Eliot, Implies the understanding that "Time past and Time present Are both perhaps present in time future", to which we look forward with great expectation as the journey continues.

About six years back when The Asiatic Society was celebrating its Bicentennial Silver Jubilee, the initial edition of this book was published. It was not within our comprehension that the edition would be exhausted within a very short span of only five years or so. We had been planning to re-issue its publication updating a few basic data and some other aspects of the objectives and activities of this institution, which had not been fully covered at that time, but need to be incorporated in a book like this. Moreover some further points in this regard also should be elaborated. The Foreword of this edition has primarily been prepared with that particular motivation. Otherwise a total overview of the Asiatic Society would remain somewhat incomplete.