https://www.asiaticsocietykolkata.

org/

The Asiatic Society

The Asiatic Society was founded on January 15, 1784 by Sir William Jones.
The proceedings of the Society were opened by Sir William Jones with "Discourse on the
Institution of a Society for enquiring into the History, civil and natural, the Antiquities, Arts,
Sciences, and Literature of Asia." A resolution was taken to establish the Society under the name
of the 'Asiatick Society’. William Jones added, “The bounds of its 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”. In the first meeting, the Governor-General, Warren
Hastings was elected Patron and Sir William Jones the President.

During the presidency of Sir William Jones, the Society did not have any building of its own.
The Grand Jury Room of the late Supreme Court was being used for the purpose of convening
meetings of the Society. In 1805 the Society was given a plot of land at the corner of Park Street
and Chowringhee, by the Government.

In 1808, two Committees were formed viz. the Physical Committee and the Library Committee.
The former was constituted for the promotion of Natural History, Medicine, Physics etc. and the
latter for that of Literature, Philosophy, History, Antiquities, etc.

The name of the Society underwent several changes during its journey over two hundred years.
At its inception it was named The Asiatick Society (1784-1825). This name changed to Asiatic
Society (1825-1832), The Asiatic Society of Bengal (1832-1935), The Royal Asiatic Society of
Bengal (1936-1951) and The Asiatic Society again since July 1951.
Journal of the Asiatic Society, the Society's Journal, started as Asiatick Researches (1788-1849),
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1832-1904), Proceedings of the Asiatic Society (1865-
1904), Journal and the Proceedings of the Asiatic Society (1905-1934), Journal of the Asiatic
Society of Bengal (1935-1952) and finally Journal of the Asiatic Society since 1953.The
Society’s extensive research works in the fields of zoology, botany, philology, ethnography,
mythology, anthropology, numismatology, ethnology, archaeology, history are published in these
journals. Additionally, the Society published between 1905 and 1933 a serial called Memoirs,
which included archaeological and geological surveys, census reports, and treatises on law and
revenue systems.

https://www.asiaticsocietykolkata.org/library/history
The library was founded as the Society had its own building in 1808. The collection started with
books, manuscripts, papers, drawings and other objects already received by the Society from its
inception.

The early collection of this library was enriched by the contributions made by the members of
the Society. The earliest donation received by the Society was Henri Richardson’s seven Persian
manuscripts on March 1784.
 COLLECTIONS SUBJECTS LANGUAGES
1. English, French, German,
Books 1,30,786 Greek, Latin, Portuguese,
Spanish and other
Journals 1,09,438
European Languages.
Anthropology, Archeology, Art
& Architecture, Ayurveda, 2. Pali, Prakit, Sanskrit & other
Gender studies, History, ancient Indian languages
History of Medicine, History of 3. Hindi, Gujrati, Bengali,
Science and Technology, Tamil, Telegu, Rajasthani,
Language & Literature, Assamese, Marathi & other
Environment, Philosophy, modern Indian Languages
Microfiche 48,455 Religion, Social Science,
4. Perso-Arabic and Urdu
Travel & Geography, Folk lore
Languages.
and Literature, Biography etc.
5. Chinese, Japanese, Burmese,
Mongolian, Tibetan, Turkese,
Mongolian, Hebrew, Indonesian
& other Asian languages.

Park Street old building:

New Building :
1st floor Various units of the library, stack and the reading room with reference service
nd
2 floor Museum and manuscript section along with scanning Division
rd
3 floor Reprography Section

Metcalfe hall:
Ground floor Bound periodicals
https://www.asiaticsocietykolkata.org/library/services

SERVICES
 All categories of members except the short term users (on special permission), research
scholars, staff members are given the facilities of lending Books.
 Temporary reading facilities are offered to non-members with proper identification.
 There are five reading rooms in the Asiatic Society. The main reading room is in the new
building, first floor for books and journals and second floor for manuscripts. For
reference books and for Persian, Urdu and Arabic books, users are advised to consult the
reading room of the reference section in the first floor and the ground floor of the old
building respectively. For consulting bound volumes of journals there is a separate
reading room in the Metcalfe Hall.
 All users are provided with Xerox/scan facilities of the relevant portion of the books and
journals etc. available in the Library.
 Internet facilities are available in the main reading room.
 Searching database of the library through OPAC is available.
 Digitization of rare text has been initiated.
 Good and efficient reference services are provided to the users. As the Society possesses
good collection of reference sources, the queries are answered carefully to meet the need
of the users.
 Bibliographies of different topics on the occasion of seminars and on demand of scholars
are prepared regularly.
 Current Awareness Service for notifying Arrival of New Books and New Issues of
Journals is provided to the users through monthly bulletin and notice board.

SERVICES AT A GLANCE
Issue return of books
Access to current issues and back volumes of journals.
Access to database
Access to manuscripts & rare books
Photocopying service
Bibliographic service
Current awareness service
Reference service (both short term & long term)

Metcalfe Hall - It is the treasure house of bound volumes of many old rare journals. Over one
lakh bound journals of various foreign languages and also Indian Journals are shelved in three-
tier stack. The oldest journal available is Philosophical Transactions published in 1669.
https://www.asiaticsocietykolkata.org/museum/history

THE MUSEUM OF THE ASIATIC SOCIETY has a large collection of Paintings,

As early as 1796, the Society announced its intention of establishing a Museum, and it was
actually set up at the beginning of 1814 under the superintendence of Dr. N. Wallich. That the
Museum developed rapidly is evident from the first catalogue, published in 1849 and other
descriptive catalogues of different sections. The Society proposed to the Government in 1839 for
the establishment of a public museum at Calcutta. And the Indian Museum of Calcutta was
established in 1866. The Society made over its valuable collections to the Indian Museum. The
Society however still maintains a museum of its own possession of Asokan Rock Edict (250
B.C.), Copper Plates, Coins, Sculptures, Manuscripts and Archival records.
https://www.asiaticsocietykolkata.org/museum/manuscripts
MANUSCRIPT COLLECTION OF THE SOCIETY is varied and rich, and covers most of the
Indian languages and scripts and even several Asian ones, e.g., Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati,
Gurumukhi, Kanarese, Urdu, Marathi, Modi, Nagari, Newari, Oriya, Rajasthani, Sarada,
Armenian, Sinhalese, Arabic, Persian, Pushto, Javanese, Turki, Burmese, Chinese, Siamese,
Tibetan etc. The materials used for the manuscripts are also varied: palm and palmyra leaves,
barks of different trees, papers of various grades.

First Indian President and Secretary