The Asiatic Society of Mumbai (formerly ''Asiatic Society of Bombay'') is a
learned society in the field of
Asian studies
Asian studies is the term used usually in North America and Australia for what in Europe is known as Oriental studies. The field is concerned with the Asian people, their cultures, languages, history and politics. Within the Asian sphere, Asian ...
based in
Mumbai,
India. It can trace its origin to the Literary Society of Bombay which first met in Mumbai on 26 November 1804, and was founded by
Sir James Mackintosh. It was formed with the intention of "promoting useful knowledge, particularly such as is now immediately connected with India". After the
Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland was established in
London in 1823, the Literary Society of Bombay became affiliated with it and was known as the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (BBRAS) since 1830. The ''Bombay Geographical Society'' merged with it in 1873, followed by the ''Anthropological Society of Bombay'' in 1896. In 1954, it was separated from the Royal Asiatic Society and renamed the Asiatic Society of Bombay.
In 2002, it acquired its present name.
It is funded by an annual grant from the Central Government of India.
Aims and objectives
The aims and objectives of the Society when it was formed in the year 1804 were "to promote useful knowledge particularly such as is now immediately connected with India". Thereafter, on several occasions, some more aims and objectives were added such as encouraging the research studies in the language, philosophy, arts and natural and social sciences in relation to India and Asia, publishing journals, maintaining a library and museum, establishing institutes and centres which fulfill aims and objects of the Society.
Holdings
The library of the Society has over a hundred thousand books out of which 15,000 are classified as rare and valuable. It also has priceless artifacts and over 3,000 ancient manuscripts in
Persian,
Sanskrit and
Prakrit, mostly on paper but some on palm leaf. The numismatic collection of 11,829 coins includes a gold coin of
Kumaragupta I, a rare gold
mohur of
Akbar
Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar (25 October 1542 – 27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great ( fa, ), and also as Akbar I (), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Hum ...
and coins issued by
Shivaji maharaj. Its map collection comprises 1300 maps.
The collection of the Society include:
# One of only two known original copies of
Dante's ''
Divine Comedy''.
# The manuscript of ''Vasupujyacharita'' (1242), a Sanskrit text on the life of the
Jain Tirthankara Vasupujya.
# ''The manuscript of
Shahnama of Firdausi'' (1853), written in
Persian.
# ''The Aranyakaparvan'' (16th century) manuscript contains illustrated text from the
Mahabharat and is written in Sanskrit.
# Five
Buddhist caskets excavated in the ancient port town of
Sopara near the suburb of
Nala Sopara.
The Divine Comedy
The manuscript of the ''
Divine Comedy'', a poem composed by
Dante Alighieri in the 14th century, was written in the second half of the 15th century. It is a beautiful codex on parchment and richly illustrated. It was given to the Society by
Mountstuart Elphinstone, governor of Bombay and President of the Society from 1819–1827 and bears his signature.
[Tharoor, Ishaan (2 January 2009)]
''"The Divine Comedy of Mumbai"''
TIME. Retrieved on 14 February 2011
It is said that, in the 1930s, the
Italian government under
Benito Mussolini
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini (; 29 July 188328 April 1945) was an Italian politician and journalist who founded and led the National Fascist Party. He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 194 ...
offered the society one million
pounds, calling the book a national treasure.
Mussolini believed that the offer could not be refused, but to his shock, the Society turned down his request stating that it was donated by an ex-member of the Society and hence it was their property.
Functions of the society
* Holding: Preserving, conserving, cataloguing and documenting holdings.
* Research: Generating supporting and disseminating research in its chosen fields.
* Public interface: Providing a forum for debate and discussions on topics of public interest.
The adopt-a-book scheme was recently introduced by the Society which allows patrons to fund the upkeep of rare books. The Society is financially in the red with a loss of Rs 1 crore (10 million). Due to the availability of information from the
internet, membership has dropped significantly in recent years.
Journal
Initially, the Literary Society of Bombay published its transactions under the title, ''Transactions of the Literary Society of Bombay''. In 1841, the Asiatic Society of Bombay commenced publishing its journal titled, ''Journal of the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society''. From 1955 to 2002, it published its journal under the name, ''Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bombay'' and from 2002, its journal has been published under the name, ''Journal of the Asiatic Society of Mumbai''.
Digitization of Collection
The Society has undertaken
digitization
DigitizationTech Target. (2011, April). Definition: digitization. ''WhatIs.com''. Retrieved December 15, 2021, from https://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/digitization is the process of converting information into a Digital data, digital (i ...
of all its collection including books, newspapers, manuscripts, government publications, journals and maps and has made them available on the Society's digital platform ‘Granth Sanjeevani'.
Awards
Campbell Memorial Gold Medal
The Campbell Memorial Gold Medal was established in 1907 and is awarded to recognize distinguished services on the subject of Oriental History, Folklore or Ethnology which further the investigation and encouragement of Oriental Arts, Sciences and Literature.
The first winner was archaeologist
Aurel Stein in 1908.
MM.Dr. P.V.Kane Gold Medal
Established in 1946, the medal is awarded for valuable research work in Vedic Studies or in Classical Sanskrit with special reference to Dharma Shastra and Poetics.
Silver Medal
The Silver Medal is awarded to a member of the Society who has written a book adjudged as the best in the given 3-year period.
Town Hall
The Asiatic Society of Mumbai Town Hall
The Asiatic Society of Mumbai Town Hall or Town Hall Mumbai is a neoclassical building located in the Fort locality of South Mumbai. It houses The Asiatic Society of Mumbai, State Central Library and a museum, the head office of the Directo ...
or just Town Hall (colloquially Called "Tondal" in the 19th century) that houses the Asiatic Society of Mumbai was not built in 1804, the year in which the Literary Society of Bombay was formed. Though Sir James Mackintosh mooted the proposal for a grand edifice, it was not completed until the year 1 after many fits and starts, when the Government of Bombay agreed to make up for the shortfall in funds in return for office-space.
Apart from the Asiatic Society of Mumbai, the building also houses State Central Library and a museum, Maharashtra Women's Association, and the Additional Stamp Controller Office.
The edifice is in the prime Fort area of
South Mumbai overlooking the
Horniman Circle Gardens and the Reserve Bank of India.
Administration
The Managing Committee looks after the administration of the Society. The Managing Committee consists of a President, Four Vice Presidents, an Hon. Secretary, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Society, and Fifteen members who are elected from among the Resident members. In addition to the elected members, the Central Government and State Government have one representative each.
In September 2019, Vispi Balaporia became the first woman president of The Asiatic Society of Mumbai in its 215-year-old history.
Early Presidents
;Literary Society of Bombay (1804)
*1804 Hon. Sir
James Mackintosh
*1811 Dr R. Stewart
*1815
William Taylor Money
Sir William Taylor Money (1769 – April 1834) was an English naval captain in the East India Company, superintendent of the Bombay Marine and MP in the British Parliament.
Early life
He was the eldest son of Captain William Money of Wood End H ...
*1818 Olyett Woodhouse
*1819 Hon.
Mountstuart Elphinstone (
Governor of Bombay
Until the 18th century, Bombay consisted of seven islands separated by shallow sea. These seven islands were part of a larger archipelago in the Arabian sea, off the western coast of India. The date of city's founding is unclear—historians tr ...
)
*1827 Sir
John Malcolm (Governor of Bombay)
;Bombay Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society (1829)
*1830
John Romer (Acting Governor of Bombay)
*1831 Lt-Col
Vans Kennedy
Vans Kennedy (1784–1846) was a Scottish major-general of the British Army, an East India Company official, and a Sanskrit and Persian scholar.
Life
He was born at Pinmore in the parish of Ayr, Scotland. His father was Robert Kennedy of Pinmore ...
*1835 Rev.
John Wilson John Wilson may refer to:
Academics
* John Wilson (mathematician) (1741–1793), English mathematician and judge
* John Wilson (historian) (1799–1870), author of ''Our Israelitish Origin'' (1840), a founding text of British Israelism
* John Wil ...
, FRS
*1843 Hon.
George William Anderson (Acting Governor of Bombay)
*1846 Hon.
Lestock Robert Reid
Lestock Robert Reid (12 August 1799 – 27 October 1878) was an English colonial administrator who was Governor of Bombay from 1846 to 1847 during the rule of the East India Company.
He served in the Bombay Civil Service from 1817 to 1850 and w ...
(Acting Governor of Bombay)
*1849 Hon.
John Pollard Willoughby
*1853 Rev. John Stevenson
*1855 Hon. William Edward Frere
*1864 Hon. Justice Henry Newton
*1869 Hon. Henry Pendock St George Tucker
*1875 Hon. James J. Gibbs
*1881 Hon. Sir
Raymond West
*1893 Hon. Justice
Kashinath Trimbak Telang
*1894 Hon.
Herbert Mills Birdwood
Herbert Mills Birdwood LLD (29 May 1837 – 21 February 1907) was an Anglo-Indian judge and administrator. He was the acting governor of Bombay from 16 February 1895 to 18 February 1895. He was also a naturalist and botanist who documented t ...
(Acting Governor of Bombay)
*1895 Hon. Justice
Sir John Jardine
''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as p ...
*1897 Dr. Peter Peterson
*1900 Hon. Justice Edward Townshend Candy
*1903 Hon. E.M.H. Fulton
See also
*
The Asiatic Society
Notes and References
External links
Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Asiatic Society of Mumbai, The
Education in Mumbai
Culture of Mumbai
Libraries in Mumbai
Asian studies
Deposit libraries
Government buildings completed in 1830
1830 establishments in India
Neoclassical architecture in India