John Garrard Burton-Page (19 December 1921 – 2005) was a British orientalist, Lecturer in the

Art Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involves creative or imaginative talent expressive of technical proficiency, beauty, emotional power, or conceptual ideas. There is no generally agreed definition of wha ...

and

Architecture of India Indian architecture is rooted in its History of India, history, Culture of India, culture and Indian religions, religion. Among a number of architectural styles and traditions, the best-known include the many varieties of Hindu temple archite ...

at the

School of Oriental and African Studies SOAS University of London (; the School of Oriental and African Studies) is a public research university in London, England, and a member institution of the federal University of London. Founded in 1916, SOAS is located in the Bloomsbury a ...

(SOAS). He was an editor, and prolific contributor, to the Second Edition of the '' Encyclopaedia of Islam'' between 1960 and 1995. Burton-Page's contributions to the ''Encyclopaedia of Islam'' fell into three main categories: Muslim sites and monuments;

Muslim dynasties This article includes a list of successive Islamic states and Muslim dynasties beginning with the time of the Islamic prophet Muhammad (570–632 CE) and the early Muslim conquests that spread Islam outside of the Arabian Peninsula, and conti ...

; and Islamic building typologies.Review of ''Indian Islamic Architecture'', ''Journal of Islamic Studies'', 20: 3 (2009), pp.461–2 These contributions were reprinted in a posthumous collection edited by his former student George Michell.

Life

John Burton-Page was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex. Though he enrolled as a horn player at the

Royal College of Music The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire established by royal charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, UK. It offers training from the undergraduate to the doctoral level in all aspects of Western Music including performanc ...

, his study was interrupted by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. He served in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John Wells explai ...

, ending the war as a captain in the 1st King George V's Own Gurkha Rifles. Having become fluent in

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

and Nepali, on return to England he entered as a mature student at

Wadham College, Oxford Wadham College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is located in the centre of Oxford, at the intersection of Broad Street and Parks Road. Wadham College was founded in 1610 by Dorothy W ...

to study

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

. After graduating in 1950 he went to the

as a Temporary Lecturer in Nepali. He stayed at SOAS for over three decades, later as a Lecturer and Reader in Hindi, becoming increasingly interested in Indo-Islamic history and architecture. His final post was as Reader in the Art & Archaeology of South Asia, and he continued to write and teach for some years after his formal retirement.

Works

* 'The Name "Nepal"', ''

Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies Bulletin or The Bulletin may refer to: Periodicals (newspapers, magazines, journals) * Bulletin (online newspaper), a Swedish online newspaper * ''The Bulletin'' (Australian periodical), an Australian magazine (1880–2008) ** Bulletin Debate, ...

'' 16:3 (1954), p. 592-7. * 'Two studies in Gungkura, 1. Tone; 2. Rhotacism and retroflexion', ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 17 (1954), p. 111-9. * 'An analysis of the syllable in Boro', ''Indian Linguistics'' 16 (1956), pp. 334–44 * 'The syntax of participal forms in Hindi', ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 19 (1957), pp. 94–104. * 'The charm of Indo-Islamic architecture, an introduction to the modern phase', ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 19 (1957), pp. 393–4. * 'Compound and conjunct verbs in Hindi', ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 19 (1957), pp. 469–78. * '"Aziz" and the sack of Swarka, a seventeenth century Hindi version', ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 21 (1957), pp. 145–57. * 'Notes on two problems in Indo-Aryan', ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 21 (1957), pp. 174–8. * 'The gender of loan-words in Hindi', ''Indian Linguistics'' 20 (1959), pp. 165–79 * 'A study of fortification in the Indian subcontinent from the thirteenth to the eighteenth century A.D.', ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 23 (1960), pp. 516–22. * (ed.) ''Introduction to Nepali: a first-year language course'' by Thomas Welcourne Clark, School of Oriental and African Studies, 1977. * 'An inscription from Ambur fort in the Victoria and Albert Museum', ''Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies'' 49 (1986), pp. 174–8. * (ed. George Michell) ''Indian Islamic architecture : forms and typologies, sites and monuments'', 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Burton-Page, John 1921 births 2005 deaths Military personnel from Southend-on-Sea Indian Army personnel of World War II British Indian Army officers British art historians British architectural historians British orientalists Historians of India Indian architectural history Historians of Islamic art Alumni of Wadham College, Oxford British people in colonial India British people in British Burma People from Westcliff-on-Sea