Untold lives: officers of the Bengal Army

I recommend readers of the SAALG blog look at Hedley Sutton's post of 19th March 2012 on the British Library's Untold Lives blog -  http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/untoldlives/
Entitled 'British Army officers - names, nationalities, fatalities and a phantom', it looks at the appendices to Lives of the officers of the Bengal Army, 1758 - 1834 by Major V.C.P. Hodson (OIR355.332) and makes very entertaining reading.

Fascinating and Fragile: A contemporary approach to making manuscripts accessible

Saturday 24 March, 10.30 – 16.15

Free (includes lunch)

The V&A- London

Discover the story of JAINpedia, an ambitious project led by the Institute of Jainology to digitise UK collections of rare and remarkable Jain manuscripts from India. Playing a prominent role in the history of Indian art and preserved for centuries in temple libraries, the manuscripts contain a treasure trove of ancient wisdom, illustrated with beautiful paintings.Learn how the manuscripts were selected, conserved, digitised and catalogued for this ground-breaking website. JAINpedia makes these manuscripts accessible for the first time to an international audience and provides a wealth of interpretative and contextual information.

Supported by the V&A Jain Art Fund

Book online or call 020 7942 2211

India's Best Kept Secret?: the Saraswati Mahal Library

Illustrated talk by Pradeep Chakravarthy

at the Nehru Centre, 8 South Audley Street, London W1K 1HF

on Tuesday 27th March at 7pm.



The core of this library in Thanjavur, South India, dates from the 16th century and much of the collection it houses is rare. Philosophy, music, dance, drama, literature and religion share the racks with manuscripts on water divining, food, medicine, veterinary science, astrology and astronomy. The lecture will go into the rarer texts, interspersed with slides and song!


The speaker, Pradeep Chakravarthy, is a native of Tamil Nadu who studied in Madras, Delhi and London (LSE) and currently works as an executive coach in a well known IT company. A writer on heritage for more than a decade, he has recently published Thanjavur - A Cultural History.

If you would like to attend this event, register with your name and e-mail address on the Nehru Centre web site at http://www.nehrucentre.org.uk/events/details/article/illustrated-talk-indias-best-kept-secret-the-sarasvati-mahal-library-pradeep-chakravarthy.html

SOAS Seminar- Topographical Photography, the Colonial Sublime, and the Authorities of Presence: Robert Gill in Nineteenth-Century India

Nathaniel Stein (Brown University)

29 February 2012 5:00 PM

School of Oriental and African Studies- (SOAS) Brunei Gallery Room: B111

South and Southeast Asian Art & Archaeology Research Seminar

This paper explores the ways in which photographic representation of architectural sites became a way to mediate and give meaning to the image-maker's position at an intersection of local and imperial knowledges and affinities. In particular, it examines the photography of Robert Gill (1804-1879), a London-born military officer who came to play an important role in the systematic visual inventory of Indian topography -- most notably at Ajanta, but also at other sites in the region of present-day Maharashtra. More broadly, the paper raises questions about the ways in which we think about colonial archives, photographic authority, and modes of identity-formation available to British colonial subjects.


Free, open to the public

Contemporary issues in Southeast Asia

Readers who do not subscribe to the Southeast Asia Jisc Mailing list may have missed the following event, which is likely to interest many of you.

Project Southeast Asia, University of Oxford, is hosting a symposium on  “Contemporary Issues in Southeast Asia”, in partnership with the Asian Studies Centre (St Antony’s College) and ASEASUK. The conference will take place at St. Anthony’s College, University of Oxford from Saturday 10 to Sunday 11 March 2012.

The symposium brings together some of the most distinguished scholars in the field of Southeast Asian studies, together with some of the best and brightest new academic talent, for the acquisition and dissemination of knowledge about countries in the Southeast Asian region. Topics covered during the symposium include local governance and decentralisation, marginalised communities, political economy, human development and the environment.

To download the symposium programme and to register for the event, please visit the Project Southeast Asia website at http://projectsoutheastasia.com/ . Tickets include lunch and refreshments.

“We’re Indian and African” : lecture and films on the Sidis of India

Still from the film 'Voices of the Sidis: Ancestral Links' produced by Beheroze Shroff (University of California, Irvine, USA).

 “We’re Indian and African”: Sidis of India

Dr Shihan de Silva (Senior Fellow, Institute of Commonwealth Studies, University of London and Member of the Scientific Committee of the UNESCO Slave Route Project)

Date: 9 March 2012 Time: 5:30 PM
Finishes: 9 March 2012 Time: 7:30 PM

Venue: Russell Square: College Buildings Room: Khalili Lecture Theatre

Type of Event: Lecture
Series: CSAS Seminar Programme

The diverse circumstances of African migration to India, their roles and achievements, their current status, issues of identity and belonging will be addressed.
The Lecture will be followed by the screening of two documentary films:

“We’re Indian and African”: Voices of the Sidis   (22 minutes)

Produced by Beheroze Shroff (University of California, Irvine, USA)
This film explores the lives of the Sidis in Gujarat. Sidi men and women speak about the challenges they face as caretakers of the shrine of their ancestral saint Bava Gor. The Sidis also discuss their sacred Goma-Dhammal dance performed for devotees and spectators. The film also gives a glimpse into the spiritual legacy of the Sidis through the Parsi devotees of Bava Gor in Bombay.

Voices of the Sidis: Ancestral Links (26 minutes)

Produced by Beheroze Shroff (University of California, Irvine, USA)
In this engaging portrait of an urban Sidi family in Bombay (Maharashtra), Babubhai traces his ancestry to Zanzibar. He also reminisces about his work as a stuntman in Bollywood films. Babubhai’s wife, Fatimaben, narrates her grandmother’s work in a Hindu royal court. Their daughter, Heena, speaks about issues of identity in contemporary India.

Discussion/Q & A Session  

Chair:  Dr David Taylor (SOAS & Institute of Commonwealth Studies
All Welcome

Organiser: Centres & Programmes Office
Contact email: centres@soas.ac.uk
Contact Tel: 020 7898 4892/3

CSI: India

This week I’ve been looking at the Chemical Examiner’s reports, which are among the remaining medical items in the National Library of Scotland's India Papers collection.

The NLS plans to put in a bid to the Wellcome Trust to have these digitised and added to the Medical History of British India website. The NLS holds reports dated 1874-1942 from the Punjab, Burma and North-West and Central Provinces and Oudh.

The Chemical Examiners gave independent scientific advice to the Criminal Justice Administration System. The first laboratory was established in Madras in 1849, with one formed in Kerala in 1890 under the orders of Government as part of the Health Department.

The Chemical Examiner’s laboratory investigated cases of human and animal poisoning, stain cases (blood, semen, faecal matter) plus purity of drugs (opium, hemp drugs, cocaine, chloroform) and water.

The reports include short notes on the more important medico-legal cases, including strychnine poisoning and a case of an apple tart laced with croton oil, a ‘drastic purgative.’ The cook had poisoned the tart, which was served up after a cantonment dinner party (Report of the Chemical Examiner to Government, North-West Frontier Province, 1930, shelfmark: IP/29/CB.3).

Hair was also used to detect crime, examined by microscope and ultra-violet light to identify its origin. The work of the American scientific crime detection lab in North-Western University was of interest in India as ‘hair-rings’ could show the age of a human. Hair was as important as a finger-print in tracing criminals, Dr. Hood claimed.
(Report of the Chemical Examiner to Government, North-West Frontier Province, 1932, shelfmark: IP/29/CB.3).

The Chemical Examiner’s Laboratory still exists at Kerala and its work is very similar to that of last century.

(Photo credit: poison bottle, http://images.wellcome.ac.uk/)

Temple, Template, Text: making temples in medieval India

Temple of Bhojpur, Raisen district, M.P., India. Photographed by Yann.

The Cambridge Asian Archaeology Group is a discussion group based in the Department of Archaeology and the McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research at the University of Cambridge.  It organises regular seminars and lectures in Cambridge, including several likely to interest readers of this blog.

 For this term's programme of events, see:
http://www.mcdonald.cam.ac.uk/events/asian/

The next talk on South Asia is on Monday 12th March 2012, 4.00 - 5.00 pm,  in the South Lecture Room, Division of Archaeology, Downing site, Cambridge.  Professor Adam Hardy of Cardiff University will speak on the topic:
Temple, Template, Text: making temples in medieval India.    He writes...

At Bhojpur in central India a gigantic temple attributed to the renowned Paramara king Bhoja was left unfinished in the mid-eleventh century. Quarries and incomplete architectural parts are scattered around the temple, and engraved on the rocks are numerous architectural drawings which have been documented for the first time. Ascribed to the same monarch is the Samaranganasutradhara, a Sanskrit treatise on architecture. For the first time its prescriptions are being translated into architectural drawings, a necessary first step for discussing the relationship between a canonical text and the practice of architecture. The talk will discuss how medieval Indian temples were designed, bringing together the drawings, the text, and the evidence provided by buildings themselves.

The Colonial Eye

You are invited to "The Colonial Eye: British Empire images of the Punjab, India 1912 – 1947". On Sunday 19th February 2012 at 2pm (Free, but booking is required)at Phoenix Cinema 52 High Road East Finchley London N2 9PJ 020 8444 6789 www.phoenixcinema.co.uk As part of the Phoenix ' From the Archives' series I have curated a series of short films produced during the British rule of India with a focus on the Punjab. The screening will bring together public information and travelogue films found in British public archives and rarely seen on the big screen. The public information films selected are examples of state propaganda used to form public opinion, a practise still prevalent today in regions such as Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, even in this era of digital media. The travelogues selected are personal observations of places and people. Screened together they form a visual essay of Punjab as written by its rulers and administrators. The screening will be followed by a panel discussion with four specialists on South Asian film, popular culture and history: Dr Virinder Kalra of the University of Manchester, Dr Yasmin Khan of Royal Holloway, University of London, Dr Anandi Ramamurthy of the University of Central Lancashire and Dr Richard Osbourne of Middlesex University.

Rajasthani Folk Heroes, Grants and Scholarships

Julla with laquered wood. Rajasthan, Northwest India. (Ref: IN306)

A new exhibition, likely to interest readers of the SAALG blog, entitled: Rajasthani Folk Heroes & Recent Acquisitions, has just opened in Norwich at The South Asian Decorative Arts & Crafts Collection (SADACC).  

SAALG members are warmly invited to view new acquisitions in the gallery, and the Rajasthani exhibition at:

The Old Skating Rink Gallery
34-36 Bethel Street
Norwich, NR2 1NR 

01603 663890
info@sadacc.co.uk
www.sadacc.co.uk

Samples of Rajasthani art and crafts and recent acquisitions in the collection include:  

Tribal Dolls From Banswara or Dunghaphur, Rajasthan. (Ref: IN247)

 Bullock-Cart Driver - Patna School c.1820

Admission is free and the opening times are 9.30am to 5.00pm Monday to Friday and 9.30am to 5.30pm on Saturdays. The gallery is closed on Bank Holidays and Sundays. 

Travel Grants and Scholarships
In addition, student readers of this blog will be interested in the travel and educational scholarships and grants SADACC funds each year for postgraduate study of the decorative arts, crafts and culture of South Asia.   Preference is usually given to students from the Eastern region of the UK.   For further details,  contact  info@sadacc.co.uk, supplying information on your interests and experience.

The SADACC Trust is a registered charity (RCN: 1137415) funded primarily by Country and Eastern Ltd.

War Horse, Army Donkey, Military Mule

I was pleased to be alerted to this blog entry which features a National Library of Scotland photograph.

The photograph, taken during World War I, shows a man with his arm around a mule . On the back he has written about his animal companion: "She is very stupid but I am very fond of her."

Michael Morpurgo's 2007 moving book War Horse is due out as a Steven Spielberg film this month. It tells the story of farm horse Joey's journey through the battlefields of the First World War.

Morpurgo was inspired to write the book after reading that millions of horses perished on the Western Front. Used in the thick of battle in cavalry charges and for pulling artillery, horses, mules and donkeys were seen as more reliable than
mechanised means.

Horses were very important in British India for the same reasons. The National Library's Medical History of British India website contains many digitised reports dedicated to the procurement of suitable breeding horses for serving the army. Horses imported from England often sickened and died en route. Those which survived were found to be unable to stand hard work in a tropical climate. In 1892 it was recorded that Indian-bred horses were hardier, with greater powers of endurance. Arab and Persian breeds had the same sought-after traits.

Horses, donkeys and mules who served in India, like their human counterparts perished from a variety of ailments and afflictions as this page shows.

Perhaps Michael Morpurgo would consider writing a book about one of these animals?

(Photograph is from the National Library of Scotland's Digital Gallery, First World War Official Photographs collection, image number 74549584)

Indian Veterinary medicine reports now online

I'm delighted to announce that 146 volumes of Veterinary medicine reports are now available on the National Library of Scotland's Medical History of British India website. Click here to browse and search 40,000 pages for free.

The Veterinary collection covers 1864-1959, focusing on veterinary diseases, colleges and laboratories and Civil Veterinary Departments. This free to access, important material provides extensive research on animal diseases such as surra and rinderpest. Detailed reports show how veterinary medicine was used by the British colonists to control disease, maintain livestock and alleviate famine and its effect on military and local communities.

Illustrated with many photographs, maps and charts, this material will be useful to those interested in veterinary science, military medicine, animal husbandry and agriculture.

A new viewing function enables up to 30 pdf pages to be selected and then 'stitched' together for easier reading.

The material, from the National Library's India Papers collection, was microfilmed and digitised using a grant from the Wellcome Trust.

(Picture is from the Indian Journal of Veterinary Science and Animal Husbandry, volume 10, 1940, part I. Image number: http://digital.nls.uk/75248387)

Public Health in India

New to the National Library of Scotland is Public Health in India, which analyses the current health scenario of the population of India. The book introduces the history of public health in India from the 1860's Sanitary Commissions through Acts and censuses to the twenty-first century scope of public health.

India's government has taken steps to improve and develop the health of its citizens, yet obstacles still exist, such as ignorance and lack of health services particularly in rural areas. This book examines the impact of socio-economical background, gender and lifestyle on the health of India's population today.

While the Medical History of British India website gives users the chance to examine these issues in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries under British rule, this book enables readers to assess the current public health situation in India.

Public Health in India is at NLS shelfmark OP1.211.40

(Picture of book's front cover from www.vedamsbooks.com)

SAALG 86th Conference - Buddhism: Texts and Tales. Friday 27th January 2012

We are delighted to announce that the next SAALG conference will take place at the Institute of Oriental Philosophy at Taplow Court on Friday 27th January 2012. The theme for the day will be Buddhism and our speakers will present papers looking at different types of Buddhist texts from different parts of Asia and recent cataloguing projects. During the day there will also be the opportunity to learn more about the Institute of Oriental Philosophy and its Library and a tour of Taplow Court, a mid-19th century mansion, which is home to the Institute.



The programme includes the following speakers and talks:

'Establishing the IOP-UK and its library' - Sarah Norman (Librarian - Institute of Oriental Philosophy, UK) 

'The Cambridge Sanskrit Manuscripts Project' - Craig Jamieson (Keeper of Sanskrit Manuscripts, University of Cambridge)

'The Last Ten Jatakās and the Ten Perfections' - Dr Sarah Shaw (Honorary Fellow, Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies)

'Hidden Gems: Traditional Tai/Sinhala Theravada Meditation manuscripts in Thai and British collections' - Dr Kate Crosby (SOAS)/Phibul Choompolpaisal/Dr Andrew Skilton (Bodleian)



Image of RAS MS Hodgson 1 Ashtasahasrika Prajnaparamita.
Buddhist Sanskrit manuscript, Nepal, 12th century AD.



The price of the conference will be £20 payable on the day and this will include lunch and refreshments. If you are interested in coming please contact Helen Porter for the full programme or to book a place (by Friday 20th January). The nearest train station is Taplow and free shuttle buses run to and from the Institute to coincide with train arrivals and departures. There is also plenty of space for car parking.


Helen Porter, SAALG Secretary, Assistant Librarian, Royal Asiatic Society.

Email: hp@royalasiaticsociety.org Tel: 020 7391 9424

A dedicated Medical History of British India blog

The National Library of Scotland is now hosting a blog solely dedicated to the Medical History of British India Online project.
The blog will cover topics such as digitisation issues, updates of the project's progress in microfilming, digitisation and OCR, medical history and modern health issues and India.
The Wordpress blog appears here on the Medical History of British India website and is listed here on the NLS blogs page.
The blog also features pages about the current specifications for the project which may be useful to those involved in digitisation projects.

Comments about the project and blog are most welcome!