CONTENTS

Welcome

Vyvyen Brendon Children of the Raj 4

Christopher Penn Rebuilding the Catalogue of Albert Thomas Watson Penn, 13

the Leading Commercial Photographer in Ootacamund,
1875-1900

Avril Powell An Unusual Shipboard Encounter: Mary Carpenter Quizzes 20

Sir Saiyid Ahmad Khan on Education for Indian Women

Richard Scott Morel Historical Sources for Afghanistan in the British Library 26

Xiao Wei Bond Literary and Pictorial Sources for pre-20th Century Afghanistan 38
in the British Library

S. N. Pandita Aurel Stein’s Kashmir Legacy: An Introduction to the Website 45

Frances Wood Aurel Stein and Kashmir 51

Ursula Sims- Central Asian Manuscript Forgeries: New Correspondence 55

Williams between Aurel Stein and Rudolf Hoernle

Ramesh K. Dhungel Opening the Chest of Nepal’s History: The Survey of B. H. 65

Hodgson’s Manuscripts in the British Library and the Royal Asiatic
Society, London

1
Lionel Carter Publication of the Punjab Governor’s Reports 74

News 76

2 SAALG Newsletter
 The 74th Conference of SAALG,
hosted by the Kashmir Bhawan Centre.

Delegates at the 75th Conference at the

Ancient India and Iran Trust, Cambridge.

3
 CHILDREN OF THE RAJ
VYVYEN BRENDON
AUTHOR OF CHILDREN OF THE RAJ
[Based on a paper delivered at the 75th Conference of SAALG, the Ancient India and Iran Trust,
Cambridge, 30 June 2006]

I was drawn to the children of the Raj in a most

unscholarly fashion. In 2002 I was staying at the David Baker in Kumerakom, c.1923

Taj Garden Retreat in Kerala, a lakeside hotel

which used to be a coconut planter’s bungalow. After my return from Kerala more academic factors

Hanging on the wall of the verandah was a came to the fore. I found that there was plenty of

photograph of a little boy in a toy pedal car adorned untapped primary evidence and that there was no

with a Union Jack and attended by an Indian published work on the topic. Of course, as always

servant. In the bedrooms were copies of a history seems to happen, two books appeared as I was

of the Baker family whose house it had been. There writing; but luckily their approach was very different

I discovered that the boy, David Baker, met his from my own. Last Children of the Raj by Laurence

death as a Second World War pilot and that he had Fleming is a rich mine of Indian memories

a brother and sister. I longed to find out about presented verbatim without historical comment.

these children’s lives in India. When I came home, Conversely, Elizabeth Buettner’s Empire Families

my quest was satisfied not in an archive centre but contains plenty of historical analysis but no real-life

through the British Association for Cemeteries in children. As one reviewer commented, “the

South Asia (BACSA), whose meetings are attended anguished poetry of an unhappy 11-year-old’s letter

by hundreds of old Raj hands. It was there that I evaporates entirely when subjected to Buettner’s

met Beatrice Broad, David’s sister, and Paula pious post-modern gaze”. 1 What I tried to do was

Baker, his sister-in-law, who gave me permission to to use the children’s words and feelings to

use this evocative photograph as the cover for the illuminate an aspect of imperial history. I also

book I was to publish three years later. realised, in the course of my research, that this
story contributes to the history of childhood and has
a perennial relevance. Raj parents worrying about
what to do with their children were not very different
from wartime parents considering overseas
evacuation, or African and Asian parents seeking to
benefit their children by sending them to school in
Britain, or even busy modern mothers and fathers
juggling with parallel careers.

1 K. Hickman in The Sunday Times, 11 July 2004.

4 SAALG Newsletter
 The book focuses on the thousands of British other”. 2 A similar tale could be told about the two
children who were born or spent some of their early half-Indian daughters of Francis William Pember-
years in British India, Ceylon (a separate Crown ton. I discovered their existence in a private archive
Colony) and Burma (part of the Raj between 1886 but found no mention of them in the family tree. So
and 1935). It encompasses the whole period of this group of Raj children are somewhat elusive
British rule from the late 18th century to the and many remain hidden from history.
granting of Independence to India, Pakistan, Once the famous “fishing fleet” of English
Ceylon and Burma in 1947/48. Most British families women came racing out to net lone Britons, there
then left India but my book concludes with a study were more British families in India – or there would
of those who stayed on in these countries for have been if most of the children had not been
twenty or so years after Independence. What packed off to Britain (“Home” as the adults insisted
surprised me is how little the treatment of children on calling it) when they were very young. A famous
changed over the two centuries. example of this separation is the novelist William
In the early days the lack of young British Makepeace Thackeray. After the early death of his
women meant that most nabobs’ offspring came father in 1817, his beloved mother quickly married
from mixed marriages or relationships. Known as an old flame and put five-year-old William on a
Eurasians, such children were usually brought up sailing boat at Calcutta for the six-month journey
with their parents in India. As their numbers around the Cape of Good Hope to England. Here
increased life became increasingly difficult for he was looked after by relations and went to “a
Eurasians. In India top civil service and military dreadful school with cold, chilblains, bad dinners
jobs, as well as clubs, were closed to them and in and caning awful”, where his only consolation was
Britain they could only prosper if they were very to “dream of Mama”. When his mother came back
pale in colour and preferably rich. My researches in 1819 he was so overcome that he could not
revealed how hard it was for them to pursue a speak.
career in Britain or India. A typical story is that of
the illegitimate sons of Lord Wellesley’s Private
Secretary, Neil Edmonstone. They were given the
name Elmore and sent to Scotland in 1802 to be
brought up by a friend’s sister. Papers lodged in
Cambridge University Library show what a struggle
their fond guardian had to get them established in
any career. Their father would not let them come to
India and in Scotland their faces were too dark for
them to be considered gentlemen. Edmonstone’s
friend despaired of their chances: “the two lads who
were brought up by my sister … are entitled to your
name and the countenance of your family but they 2 Cambridge University Library, MS. Add. 7616, J. Baillie
are deprived of the one and enjoy but little of the to N. Edmonstone, 15 January 1817.

5
 libraries like that of the India Office. In itself a letter
like the illustrated example from the huge Barlow
archive would be of limited use although it does
suggest an isolated child very anxious to please
her parents. 4 But Sir George Barlow and his wife
kept many other letters from their fifteen children
and also from Sir George’s brothers who looked
after them in England. They span the long period of
Barlow’s grand official career in Calcutta and
Madras (1778-1813) and together they give a vivid
picture of family life and separation. In fact the
story, which involves perilous sea journeys, school
riots, sexual adventures and divorces, frequently
had me sitting on the edge of my library chair.

William Makepeace Thackeray

with his parents in India, 1814

Thackeray never forgot this parting and later wrote,

“boy or man I have never been able to bear the
sight of people parting from their children”. 3 In my
view, it is not anachronistic to judge that this
boyhood experience had a permanent effect on
Thackeray’s psyche, even though he lived so long
before the days of Freud.
Like those of Rudyard Kipling or Saki,
Thackeray’s story can be recreated from printed
sources. For more obscure juvenile subjects there
is also no dearth of evidence. Largely because of Letter from Barlow Papers

the separations there are plenty of letters and Another rich collection is that of the Benthall family
diaries, treasured by families and now preserved in from the Centre for South Asian Studies in
Cambridge. I knew that earlier historians such as

3 G. Ray (ed), Letters and Private Papers of W. M.

Thackeray (1994), vol. 1. pp. 3, 5 and W. M. Thackeray, 4 India Office Library, MSS Eur F176/16, Eliza Barlow to
Roundabout Papers (1925 edn), p. 20. her parents, 9 May 1801.

6 SAALG Newsletter
Pat Barr had used it but they had not focused on holidays, coping with illness, deciding on their
such scenes as the departure of the three oldest future careers, going through crises of faith and
children (aged between two and six) for England in longing all the time for their parents to whom they
1847 when Mrs Clementina Benthall wrote in her sent “as much love that the ships will hold”. I defy
diary: “Edith held up her dear merry face to be anyone not to be moved by Joyce’s words to her
kissed, little thinking that it was the signal of mother in 1917: “Just now as I looked out of the
parting. I cannot describe the sorrow of the poor window I saw a huge, big, perfectly round sun
boys, Ernest’s speechless look of anguish and sinking behind the trees. I have told him to give you
Clement’s sobs and embraces and expressions of my love when he sees you in a few minutes. I hope
love.” 5 It was another eight years before the family he will do so.” 6 All the girls prayed that they would
was reunited. not get the call to be missionaries in their turn for
There are also letters in private hands which fear that they would have to inflict the same fate on
people have been kind enough to lend me. One their own children. Their brother Eric did enter the
collection of such documents arrived in a dusty Indian mission field – but he retired early once his
suitcase hauled down from the attic of a woman I sons reached school-age.
met at a friend’s wedding. They concern the Wilkins Not all letters are as expressive as these. Often
family who were Baptist missionaries in India in the they were censored by schoolteachers or
early 20th century. Some of them had been constrained by the child’s own sense of duty. And,
attacked by white ants, fire, damp or paperclips, but as Kipling said about the record of his own Anglo-
they were all legibly written and signed off with Indian childhood, “children tell little more than
noughts and crosses to represent hugs and kisses. animals, for what comes to them they accept as
The parents kept the letters the children wrote after externally established”. 7 Sometimes, as in the case
they had been sent to school and to various dif- of the Beveridge family, a written memoir adds to
ferent relations in England. The parents’ letters did the picture conveyed by letters. In 1884 Letty,
not survive because the children had no permanent William and Tutu, the children of a judge in Bengal,
home in which to store them. were left at a school in Southport. They wrote brave
The Wilkins correspondence tells the often letters to their parents; five-year-old Tutu, for
heartbreaking story of Dorothy, Joyce and Phyllis at instance, told them that she had played at horses in
Walthamstow Hall trying to keep cheerful during the field but did not cry when she fell because “a
years of separation from their parents, which were horse does not cry”. William told them about having
extended by the dangers at sea caused by the First a cake with candles on his sixth birthday but it was
World War. We see them struggling with exams, only in his family memoir India Called Them that he
hoping for someone to come to Open Days, sorting revealed his “bitter grief” that he had to share
out which relations they were to go to for the

6 Wilkins Papers (now deposited in Regent’s Park

5 Centre for South Asian Studies, Benthall Papers, C. College, Oxford), Joyce to her mother, April 1917.
Benthall, “Account of Separation from the Children”, 7 Quoted in A. Wilson, The Strange Ride of Rudyard
1848. Kipling (1977), p. 32.

7
another little boy’s party because his own mother that they had spent some of their childhood in India
was in India. The book also tells of the relief and wanted to share their memories with me, even
William felt when the children took the opportunity if they were painful. Many had never previously
of their mother’s return for medical treatment to talked about their childhood. With this wealth of
“argue their way back to India”. When she realised primary sources I have tried to throw light on the
how unhappy the children were Mrs Beveridge took question of whether children of the Raj were victims
them back with her. She communicated her of empire.
decision to her husband by the new electric
telegraph: “Operation well done. Children
accompany me.” 8 Such memoirs should not be
rejected as “one-sided interpretations”. 9 When
combined with knowledge gleaned from other
sources they can be invaluable in recreating that
time “when the grass was taller”. 10
Finally, I found that oral memoirs gave me a
vivid picture both of childhoods in India and of
separation from parents. I interviewed over fifty
people, all of whom I heard about by word of
mouth. In case that should sound like an Vyvyen Brendon interviewing Beatrice Board

unrepresentative sample, let me add that they

came from a wide range of backgrounds. As well The Two Monsoons theory of Indian history would

as the planter’s daughter from Kerala, they have us believe that most of them met an early

included the sons and daughters of missionaries, grave. 11 Health was indeed a problem and many

bankers, railway employees, teachers, army children died of cholera, tropical malaria, dysentery

officers and other ranks, civil servants, engineers, a and typhoid. But is it true that children in India were

river pilot, a ship surveyor and a journalist on the at greater risk than children in Britain? The only

Times of India. Some were of mixed race (though I statistics available are those produced by a

didn’t always know that beforehand) and some government inquiry of 1859 into the Sanitary

were from the rather despised domiciled families Condition of the British Army in India, for which

who had settled in India. Others came from pukka Florence Nightingale produced a whole roomful of

backgrounds. What they all had in common was paperwork. Its surprising conclusion was that “the
mortality of English children in India is lower than
the general mortality of children at home”. 12 As
8 India Office Library, MSS Eur C176, Beveridge Letters, time went on health improved. By the beginning of
and Lord Beveridge, India Called Them (1947).
9 E. Buettner, Empire Families, Britons and late Imperial
India (2004), p. 269. 11 e.g. T. Wilkinson, Two Monsoons (1976).
10 R. Coe, When the Grass Was Taller: Autobiography 12 Sanitary Report of the British Army in India (1863),
and the Experience of Childhood (1986). vol.1, p. 29.

8 SAALG Newsletter
the 20th century there was quinine to treat malaria British people were systematically attacked –
and mosquito nets to prevent it. There were also normally children, in particular, were very safe;
injections against smallpox, cholera, plague, during the “Quit India” disturbances of the 1940s
diphtheria and tetanus. Parents became the British got away almost unscathed.
increasingly careful, too, about boiling water and Furthermore, most parts of India were unaffected
milk. Thus British children in India in the days of the by the Mutiny and even in the areas of conflict
Raj were much healthier than are poor Indian many English children were actually helped by
children today. Some children’s health actually Indians – servants, for instance, would paint their
improved in India; I have come across several who faces brown and help them to escape. It also needs
were cured of tuberculosis there and a woman who to be remembered that more Indians were killed in
attributes her survival as a premature baby in the the reprisals than were Britons in the Mutiny itself.
days before incubation units to the heat of her Another theory was that children suffered
native India. because they could not be properly educated in
There is also a view that women and children India. In fact there were good schools, such as the
were often martyred in the cause of empire. The various self-styled “Etons of the East” established
incident most often cited is the 1857 Indian Mutiny. in the Himalayan foothills as early as the 1860s. In
In assaults by rebellious Indian troops and long addition many were founded and run by the
sieges at Delhi, Lucknow and Cawnpore several Catholic Church. Some English children attended
hundred children were killed by bullets or died of such schools because their parents didn’t want or
sunstroke, cholera and dysentery. And at couldn’t afford to send them back to Britain or
Cawnpore women and children were deliberately because war conditions made the journey too
killed and their bodies thrown down a well. It is a dangerous. M. M. Kaye, for instance, was sent to
gruesome story and it was never forgotten. But this Auckland House in Simla during the First World
was the only time in the history of the Raj that War. But her mother quickly took her away once
she realised that many of the pupils were
Eurasians who “spoke with a lilting sing-song
accent that was very like a Welsh one and was
known as chi-chi”. 13 So Mollie and her sister had
no more education until the war was over and they
could be brought to England. In many other cases
mixed-race pupils were not thought fit company for
the offspring of pukka sahibs.

Child’s grave in Trivandrum

13 M. M. Kaye, Sun in the Morning (1992 edn), pp. 194-5.

9
 the Raj and beyond, despite the new child-centred
theories of Sigmund Freud, John Bowlby and Dr
Spock. Children themselves rarely had any choice
in the matter. Indeed, I have come to the
conclusion that no one actually listened to children
until the 1960s. If, like the Elephant’s Child, “he
asked questions about everything he saw, or
heard, or felt, or smelt, or touched, all his uncles
and aunts spanked him”.

St Mary’s School, Mount Abu, 1937 The only difference in the later years was that
air transport sometimes made the journeys easier
A contrasting experience is that of one of my and contact more frequent. Nevertheless, I do not
interviewees, Agnes Heron, who attended St accept Trevor Royle’s conclusion that after
Mary’s Anglican School in Poona as a day-girl. Independence “thanks to air travel children could
Agnes was the only child of a Madras businessman go out to India for the holidays”. 14 Even in the
who chose to keep her in India so that he could 1950s and ‘60s air tickets were expensive and
supervise her musical education. She passed all employers like ICI and HSBC were most reluctant
her music exams and her Senior Cambridge to take on the cost of family reunions. Three-year
Certificate in India. Agnes did not suffer from separations were still common after the war. And,
tropical illnesses, she was not bitten by snakes, for as long as the Raj lasted, there were no tele-
she had a happy childhood with her parents and phone links with India, so that children had no
she got a very good education, which has enabled speedy way of telling parents of their troubles or
her to support herself throughout life. And she triumphs. Even after 1947 calls cost £1 a minute
certainly doesn’t speak with that chi-chi accent so which was a lot of money in those days. It is a far
dreaded by parents of the Raj. Through letters sent cry from today’s constant text-messaging.
to me since the publication of Children of the Raj I Thus I argue that the real price children paid for
have discovered more men and women who were the British Empire was an emotional one.
well educated in India. Separated children lost, to a greater or lesser
Thus I have had to conclude that the choices of degree, the normal rough and tumble of family life
most British parents living in India were based on and the care of their parents. Joyce Wilkins had
class and race exclusiveness. They would rather several nervous breakdowns as an adult and some
send their children thousands of miles away and interviewees have told me of the psychological
see them only every few years than allow them to problems they have suffered in later life as a result
mix with the wrong type of children. They were of childhood separation and unsuitable care
determined that they should be brought up as arrangements. This was a serious matter and
middle-class English children – whatever the cannot be dismissed as “so much ado about family
emotional cost. This pattern continued all through
14 T. Royle, The Last Days of the Raj (1989), p. 229.

10 SAALG Newsletter
sacrifice”. 15 It is true that children often coped with most would not have been harmed by a longer
their experiences valiantly and developed the stay. Another sergeant’s son, Brian Outhwaite,
resilience and stiff upper lip on which British people described as “Paradise” a year spent roaming
pride themselves. Many deny to this day that they around Barrackpore when there was no army
suffered at all and gamely say that their parents school available – and his patchy Indian education
paid a greater price than they did – but I wonder did not prevent his becoming a Cambridge History
about that. don. Children returned from India with some
magical memories which transcend the “Raj
nostalgia syndrome” decried by some modern
historians. 17 For children were more open to India
than its hide-bound adult rulers. Through their
contact with Indian servants and playmates,
through speaking some of the local language and
simply by being children they observed and
absorbed what was going on around them. In such
ways, Paul Scott concludes, India has “helped to
nourish the flesh and warm the blood” of British
people.

Brian Outhwaite on army cantonment

at Dagshai, 1939
Spike Milligan (son of an NCO) considered that
children like himself, whose parents could not
afford an English education, “may well have fared
better than the more privileged children”. 16 I agree
that children usually gained more than they lost if
they lived in India at an impressionable age and
17 A. Burton, “India, Inc? Nostalgia, memory and the
empire of things” in S. Ward (ed.), British Culture and the
15 Buettner, Empire Families, p. 145. End of Empire (2001), p. 226.
16 P. Scudamore, Spike Milligan (1985), p. 23 Hilary Johnson in the

11
 “Jungle Tales”
from unpublished memoirs by Hilda Reid

12 SAALG Newsletter
 REBUILDING THE CATALOGUE OF ALBERT THOMAS WATSON PENN, THE
LEADING COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHER IN OOTACAMUND, 1875-1900
CHRISTOPHER PENN
[Based on a talk given at the 74th Conference of SAALG,
the Kashmir Bhawan Centre, Luton, 9 December 2005]

This will be an article about A. T. W. Penn, who a pioneer Nilgiris artist by the death of Mr A. T. W.
was born in Street in Somerset in 1849 and died in Penn at Coonoor”, in which the writer, who signed
Coonoor in the Nilgiris in South India in 1924, but himself “Old Timer”, referred to a seminal book,
let me start the story a generation later. The Castes and Tribes of Southern India by Edgar
A. T. W. Penn’s second son, my grandfather Thurston C.I.E, published in 1909, for which Penn
Harold Penn, was a soldier. He ran away from had supplied some of the photographs used as
home and joined the 21st Hussars (to be renamed illustrations.
21st Lancers) in Secunderabad when he was just A few days later, walking down Piccadilly, I
sixteen. He was given the rank of “Boy”, before noticed the antiquarian bookshop Sotherans on my
becoming a trumpeter and then a Private. He was a left in Sackville Street and went in to enquire in as
courageous man and as a L/Cpl in the 21st offhand a manner as I could muster, “You don’t by
Lancers won the Distinguished Conduct Medal in any chance have a copy of Thurston’s Castes and
the Battle of Omdurman in 1898, going under Tribes of Southern India do you?” “Do you know”,
enemy fire to rescue a fellow soldier who was replied the attendant Stuart Leggatt, “I think I have”,
wounded. and he reached up and took down a volume in its
He was a good soldier but a brute of a husband original cloth binding from the shelf.
and in 1918 he was divorced by my grandmother I leafed through the Preface and was brought
after ten horrendous years which left such a mark up short by the penultimate sentence, which read,
on my father and his brother that they never talked “for some of the photographs of Badagas,
about the Penn family at all. It was as if it had been Kurumbas and Todas I am indebted to Mr. A. T. W.
erased from their memory, which may indeed have Penn of Ootacamund”. To see my great-
been the case. grandfather’s name in print, a man about whom I
More than a decade after my father and his had known absolutely nothing just a few weeks
brother had both died I found a crumpled letter earlier, was an extraordinarily exciting experience.
stuck behind the top drawer of his writing bureau From this point and an afternoon a few months
from a cousin Patricia of whom I had never heard. I later when Sophie Gordon, the curator of the Alkazi
tracked her down and from her learned about A. T. collection, showed me their collection of his
W. Penn for the first time. She showed me an photographs, I date my commitment to learning as
obituary headed, “IN MEMORIAM. The passing of much as I possibly could about Penn’s life and his

13
work. Very early on I took as my aim to rebuild a
catalogue of his work. After that brief introduction, let me outline the
article. First, the hill station of Ootacamund, where
Penn lived and worked for the greater part of his
life, will be set in its historical context; second,
Penn’s family background will be described; third
will be a description of the work of a commercial
photographer in South India at that time; and last
will be a few reflections on the process of my
research over the last four years and the way in
which each part has been in a sense a stepping-
stone which led on to another.

Kurumbas

Entrance to Toda hut

14 SAALG Newsletter
Often, of course, it has been in discussion with the Hobart was Governor of Madras (1872-75) and
curators of the collections such as Rachel Rowe at driven forward by his successor the Duke of
Cambridge, Sophie Gordon at the Alkazi collection Buckingham, who built Government House in Ooty
and John Falconer at the OIOC in the British and dearly loved the hill station.
Library that the next step has become clear. It is Ooty is about 350 miles west of Madras and
not just because I am writing this that I should wish 100 miles south-west of Bangalore. It lies in the
to acknowledge my great debt to the curators of the Nilgiri mountain range 7500 ft. above sea level and
photographic collections; they are an invaluable the excellent climate led to its original foundation as
support for people such as myself who come to a military sanatorium in the 1850s.
work in the archives with little knowledge of the
subject or of what is available. THE FAMILY BACKGROUND OF A. T. W. PENN
From the 16th to the 19th centuries Penn's family
THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT AND THE HILL STATION OF lived in Northampton, where they worked in the
OOTACAMUND boot and shoe industry. In the 1820s, Penn’s father
The historical context is well known. Trade was moved as a young man down to London and
what drove British expansion in India in the 17th opened a boot and shoe shop on the corner of
and 18th centuries. The East India Company was Brooke Street and Holborn Bars, next to where the
formed in 1601 during the reign of Queen Elizabeth Prudential building now stands. In 1848 he moved
I and the great Mughal emperor Akbar. again, to work for Clark’s Shoes in Street in
During the 18th century military power enabled Somerset, where Penn was born the following year.
Britain to put an end to France’s imperial ambitions Although Penn’s father, like many generations
and to replace the Mughal Empire as the ruling before him, was a cobbler, he later started a
power in India. Following the Indian Mutiny of successful business in the graphic arts as a ticket
1857/58 the subcontinent was brought under direct writer, a producer of price tickets and sales
rule from London through the three Presidencies: promotional material.
Calcutta in the north and east, Bombay in the west
and Madras in the south. The Governors of the
Presidencies were appointed by the British
Government and reported directly to London.
Madras, where the East India Company had
been based, was the historic centre of British
power in India. With effect from the mid-1870s the
Governor and Council moved up to the hill station
of Ootacamund, commonly known then and now as
Ooty, for the six months of the summer. The
exodus from the plains in April to return to Madras
in September was formally sanctioned when Lord

15
 A wayside scene, Kullar

Penn left home before he was twelve, became

proficient in photography and found his way to THE WORK OF A COMMERCIAL PHOTOGRAPHER
South India and up to Ooty, where he started work Portraiture was the bread and butter of Penn’s
as a photographer in 1865, the year in which he work as a commercial photographer.
turned sixteen. While the independence and spirit Some were private photographs of individuals
that led him there was remarkable, the choice of on carte-de-visite (4½ x 2½ inches, 11.4 x 6.4
profession was not so surprising. There was cm.), others were of family groups, normally
artistic talent in the family – apart from his father’s cabinet size (6¼ x 4¼ inches, 15.9 x 10.8 cm).
business as a ticket writer, one of his nephews Others were produced to be sold to the public.
was the artist Will C. Penn M.C., R.O.I., a fellow of Portraits of the indigenous people, “native
the Royal Institute of Portrait Painters – and characters”, were of this type and will be
photography was the most exciting and popular art discussed in more detail later, as were
form of the mid-Victorian era. photographs of “The great and the good”, many of
Before leaving for India he sent his family a which, such as Penn’s portrait of the Commander-
carte-de-visite photograph of himself, writing a in-Chief General Sir Frederick Roberts V. C., later
note on the back such as that he sent to his elder Field Marshall Lord Roberts of Kandahar, were
sister, “to Clara with very kind love and affection very popular.
(from her) brother Albert”.

16 SAALG Newsletter
 Group portraits such as those of the Ooty hunt The third part of the photographer’s work in
or of entertainments or the fancy dress balls were India in those days was closely related to the first.
also useful business; but seasonal. The “Season” It was to record the life of the indigenous people of
in Ooty was from April to September. In Madras it India at that time. There were three tribes in the
was the reverse: October to March. Nilgiris, which were aboriginal and very few in
Scenic views were the second source of number: the Toda, the Kurumba and the Kota. The
business. Penn was fortunate in seeing other fourth and most numerous tribe were the Badaga,
accomplished photographers of the day working in who had come up from Mysore in the north-west
Ooty, such as the doyen of them all Samuel some three hundred years earlier. While the Toda
Bourne, who visited Ooty in 1868/69, and W. W. were pastoral people, who tended their enormous
Hooper, who made his famous Tiger Hunt series herds of buffalo and traded milk and milk products
in the Nilgiris in the early 1870s. for grain and other food and artefacts from the
Like Bourne, much of Penn’s work is in search other tribes, the Kurumba were the hunters, the
of the “picturesque”. Though not working to such Kota the artisans and the Badaga the
rigid formulas as Bourne espoused, Penn agriculturalists. Penn recorded the life of all of
generally uses a darker foreground, often with them, both in his studio and more frequently out in
glistening foliage, opening out to a sunlit middle their villages, where in his photographs they
distance and the mountains or the distant plains appear natural and relaxed. His photographs of
beyond. The eye is led through the composition, the indigenous people of the Nilgiris are now held
giving a sense of movement even to a static in all of the major collections in the United
scene. Kingdom, in the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, in
Moving water and passing clouds, which were the archives of the Basel Mission and in the Getty
so much a part of the Nilgiri landscape, presented Institute in Los Angeles.
a special challenge to the photographer in those Following the development of photogravure
days. In photographs such as Kulhutty Falls 18 and printing at the end of the 19th century a new
Law’s Falls, near Coonoor, 19 Penn’s photographs market opened up for the photographer. Penn’s
capture both the flood of the water and the rugged contribution to Edgar Thurston’s work has already
terrain and boulders which hold it back. Kulhutty been mentioned. At about the same time, he
Falls is not unlike a watercolour by the Daniells supplied all the illustrations for Sir Frederick
seventy years earlier, reminding us that for these Price’s Ootacamund. A history, published in 1908,
early photographers, it was the watercolourists and the illustrations used by a dynamic young
who were their model. Scenic views such as these missionary and gifted author named Amy Wilson
were sold as mementoes both to visitors and to Carmichael for her book Overweighs of Joy,
residents of the Nilgiris. published in 1907. “The photos of the mountains”,
writes Amy, “are the work of an expert in capturing
the spirit of the wild ... imagine yourself on the
18 BL: OIOC Photo 1115.1(17). mountain ... fill the forests with life, the clouds with
19
BL: OIOC Photo 1115.1(16). movement. Flood all the wide spaces with light

17
and with colour. Then let the wind blow over the the idea then, but it was only after Sophie Gordon
uplands, and stir the grasses and the little had pointed me to the OIOC in the British Library
mountain flowers at your feet.” and John Falconer, in turn, had sent me on to the
Two years later Amy persuaded Albert, then in Royal Commonwealth Society’s collection in
his mid-fifties, to travel with his equipment the Cambridge University Library that I set as my aim
three or four hundred miles from Ooty down to her the recreation of Penn’s catalogue. Clearly there
mission in Dohnavour in the southern tip of the had been one at some time. A number of the
subcontinent. She wanted him to take photographs were numbered on the negative or
photographs of the children and the countryside on the album page. So I started to make a record
surrounding the mission for a new book called of each Penn that I had seen, noting the type of
Lotus Buds which was published at the end of print, e.g. albumen, the dimensions and a brief
1909. A review of the book in the Westminster description of the subject matter and particular
Gazette early in 1910 reads: “The feature of the points of identification.
book is 50 photogravure illustrations from By the beginning of this year I had a list of
photographs specially taken of the children. Many about 400 Penn photographs, of which one third
of these – indeed all of them – are very charming. were duplicated in the different collections, leaving
Some of them are mere babies, others of larger about 300 original images. They came from both
growth, but in each case the photographer, Mr public and private collections including: the Alkazi
Penn of Ootacamund, has succeeded in collection (40 in London, 10 in New York), the
presenting pictures which will elicit high OIOC (90 photographs in 5 albums), the Royal
admiration. The laughing faces, curly hair, and fine Commonwealth Society collection in Cambridge
physical development of the little Indians make (60 photographs in one principal album and five
photographs exceedingly attractive. Indeed, we others), the National Army Museum (83
have never seen a more ‘taking’ series of children photographs in one album in the Roberts archive),
of the Orient.” the NMPFT in Bradford (20), the Basel Mission
In 1911, forty-six years after starting work as a (12) and the Musée du Quai Branly in Paris (8).
photographer in the Nilgiris, Penn retired and Discussions with one curator would lead me
returned to England. He called his house in on to the next and so on. I have already
Eversholt, Beds., “The Mund”, which means home acknowledged my debt in this regard. At the same
or village in the Toda language. But the call of the time I was trying to rebuild a family tree of the
Nilgiris was too strong and after the First World descendants of Albert Penn and his wife, in the
War was over he and his wife returned to live in hope that among the descendants more of his
Coonoor, close by Ooty, where he died in 1924. work would be discovered and that I should get to
know him better.
THE PROCESS OF RESEARCH – STEPPING STONES Research into the family started with Patricia,
I wrote earlier that it was after the visit to the whose letter I had found behind the bureau in
Alkazi collection that I had decided to rebuild the 2000 and we had met for the first time in 2001.
catalogue of Penn. That was not strictly true. I had She had three more surviving cousins and from

18 SAALG Newsletter
them I was able to start to gather names and Thackers and the Asylum Press Almanac, the
addresses of the following generation. At the Indian Army List– and going on to the
beginning the information was fairly vague, even Ecclesiastical Records, the newspapers on
the number and names of Albert’s children were microfilm, a large collection of photographs
not known, but my wife and I decided to visit Ooty maintained in first class conditions, etc. and a very
and from the church records there were able to knowledgeable staff, one could hardly ask for
put the record straight. With the help of e-mail we more.
were finally able to get the names and addresses And what next? Over the past four years I
of a hundred and twenty-six living descendants of have read a large number of books around the
Albert Penn whom we invited to a reunion at home subject of my research. Some are works of history
in September 2003. Fifty-eight accepted, of whom like The Cambridge History of India or The Oxford
we were meeting thirty-two for the first time. History of the British Empire, some are novels like
We were blessed with wonderful weather – A suitable boy by Vikram Seth or White Mughals
truly an Indian summer in every sense – and by William Dalrymple; but the one with which I
following on from it, even though I had to wait for have felt most in accord and which perhaps points
eighteen months, another album came to light with me forward in the right direction is Richard
more than 50 of Penn’s photographs. Holmes’ Footsteps: adventures of a romantic
This find enabled me to bring the work on biographer.
Penn’s catalogue almost to a conclusion, covering Early in his book Holmes writes, “Biography
more than 200 photographs numbered on the meant a book about someone’s life. Only, for me,
negative, and many more, such as most of the it was to become a kind of pursuit, a tracking of
indigenous people, which are unnumbered. the physical trail of someone’s path through the
I cannot end without expressing my thanks to past, a following in footsteps. You would never
the staff of the OIOC in the British Library, which is quite catch them; no, you would never quite catch
such a wonderful resource if one is on a hunt like them. But maybe, if you were lucky, you might
mine has been. Starting with the directories on the write about the pursuit of that fleeting figure in
open shelves – such a way as to bring it alive in the present.”

19
 AN UNUSUAL SHIPBOARD ENCOUNTER: MARY CARPENTER QUIZZES
SIR SAIYID AHMAD KHAN ON EDUCATION FOR INDIAN WOMEN
DR AVRIL POWELL
SENIOR LECTURER IN THE HISTORY OF SOUTH ASIA, SOAS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON

In 1869 two educationists met and conversed

together, for the only time in their lives, on matters
Indian. The setting of the conversation was
unusual. The SS Baroda as it steamed from
Bombay to the Red Sea carried among its
passengers Mary Carpenter, the educationist and
penal reformer, en route home following her
second tour of India. 20 Also on board was an
Indian civil servant, Saiyid Ahmad Khan, his two
sons and their student friend, travelling to England
for further studies. Both Mary and Saiyid Ahmad
were already pioneers in the furtherance of
particular kinds of education in India, and the later Mary Carpenter, educationist
reputations of both would be built to a great extent and penal reformer (1807-1877)
on their achievements in this field. Mary founded [BL: 10099.y.3/9]
the National Indian Association in Bristol a few They apparently talked on many matters, but
months later, a major object of which was support surviving records detail only Mary’s own particular
for the education of Indian women. Saiyid Ahmad, project, female education. During this and an
who had already founded a boys’ school in earlier tour she had lectured exhaustively on the
northern India, returned from England a year later subject in Bengal and western India, encouraging
to mastermind the opening in 1875 of the her audiences to take initiatives for the
Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh, establishment of girls’ schools. 22 She insisted that
today’s Aligarh Muslim University. 21 individuals who showed interest, both British and
Indian, the latter predominantly associated with
the Brahmo Samaj movement among Hindus,
20 On Mary Carpenter’s connections with India see, J. E.
should record their views on this and her other
Carpenter, The Life and Work of Mary Carpenter
“reforming” projects in a large volume which
(London, 1879); N. C. Sargant, Mary Carpenter in India
(Bristol, 1987); Frank Prochaska, “Carpenter, Mary”,
ODNB (2004), article 4733.
21 David Lelyveld, Aligarh’s First Generation: Muslim 22 For a record of her first visit see, Mary Carpenter, Six
Solidarity in British India (Princeton, 1978). Months in India, 2 vols (London, 1868).

20 SAALG Newsletter
always travelled with her. 23 The majority of Carpenter’s other papers in the Bristol Record
entries, unsurprisingly, expressed views that Office, is of interest. The views Saiyid Ahmad
mirrored her own, and encouraged her, expressed in it have long been available, both in a
eulogistically, in her further endeavours. At the printed edition of the original Urdu entry, and in an
end of her conversation with Saiyid Ahmad, she English translation, made by Saiyid Ahmad’s close
asked him to write his own comments on the friend, Colonel Graham, in his biography, The Life
future of schooling for girls. The entry that he and Work of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan. 24 However,
graciously agreed to provide is particularly the original version in Mary Carpenter’s volume is
revealing because of his later reputation that he important beyond the exciting fact that it is
was in fact opposed to public education for the probably the only example of a document written
females of his own in his own hand in Urdu which survives in any
archive or library in Britain. 25 An Indian Muslim
student, Khudadad Beg, who was travelling with
the Saiyid’s party, was asked to add an English
translation below Saiyid Ahmad’s entry. His
translation, either intentionally, or because of
some weaknesses in his own command of
English, tended to exaggerate the effusiveness of
Saiyid Ahmad’s references to Mary’s work, adding
some rhetorical flourishes of his own, thus making
the meaning even more obscure than it actually
was. Although Colonel Graham’s biography, which
includes this passage, is still one of the first works
to which students of the Saiyid turn, no attention
has been paid in recent studies to the content and
meaning of this somewhat enigmatic short
Sir Saiyid Ahmad Khan, founder of the Muhammadan
Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh (1817-1898) statement on female education.
[BL: 14110.f.10]
Indian Muslim community, or at the least, had
considerable reservations about it. What was he to
do? Offend Miss Carpenter by recording his views
24 Saiyid Ahmad Khan (ed. Muhammad Isma‘il Panipati)
for posterity in her journal, or pretend to a position
Musafirān-i London (Lahore, 1961), pp. 61-3; G. F. I.
on the subject which falsified his real views?
Graham, The Life and Work of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan,
It is because such interpretations hang on it
2nd ed. (London, 1909), pp. 78-9.
that this volume, deposited with some of Mary 25 There are, for example, English translations of some
letters by Saiyid Ahmad Khan, with his own signature
23 Mary Carpenter, “Records of India 1866”, 2 vols, appended, in Edinburgh University Library’s ‘Special
Mary Carpenter papers, Bristol Record Office. Collections’.

21
 What then did Saiyid Ahmad write, and what was always static, and it was the earth that
does it add to our understanding of his position? 26 moved, but in executing Joshua’s request He took
He commenced conventionally enough, with account of prevalent ideas on the subject in that
praise for Mary Carpenter’s benevolent concern period of time and society. 28 The moral he drew
for the condition of Indian women, of which he had from this was that those who want to do good
clearly heard much already, and expressed his works but who ignore current public opinion and
anxiety therefore to meet her. Interesting, in the “the spirit of the age” risk acting against nature
context of much talk on this subject in both mid- itself and are likely to fail. Is he hinting here, in an
19th century Britain and India, was his indirect way, that in spite of his initial praise for her
representation of God as having created woman good intentions and character, Mary’s objective of
as “a second hand” and a “helper” for man. opening public schools for girls will fall into this
Colonel Graham’s translation rendered this as, category because of a misjudgment of the
“woman, whom God hath made as an helpmate to conditions then prevailing in India?
man in good works”. 27 So far so good, but the next The final paragraph returned, however, to
section was much more enigmatic, hinting that praise of Mary for her wish to improve the
however excellent the intentions, the best-laid conditions of Indian women and his hopes for her
plans do not always come to fruition. He seemed future success. Was he following the expected
to be warning that there is a danger in trying to conventional niceties while at the same time
work against the grain of the customs and intruding his own reservations about any
traditions dominant in a particular society at a modification of the status of Indian Muslim
particular time. No good will result from this, for by women? Comparison with some of his later
so doing it is as if one is acting against “nature”. pronouncements would suggest this is correct.
The relevance of trying to “oppose nature” is When called as a witness to the Education
then taken up by an example spelled out in the Commission of 1882 he made a statement, much
next paragraph which is particularly interesting in quoted subsequently, to the effect that it was
the wider context of his growing, and inappropriate to encourage women’s education
controversial, reputation as a “nechari”, or outside the zanana, if at all, until men’s education
advocate of naturalistic resolutions of seeming had made considerable more advances than it
conflicts between scriptural revelation and rational
thinking. For he referred here to the Old
28 See Joshua 10, vs. 12-13. Saiyid Ahmad’s usage of this
Testament miracle in which Joshua had ordered,
biblical reference is particularly interesting as he had earlier
“Sun, stand thou still” until the children of Israel written in denial of the Copernican system. It should be
had completed the destruction of the Amorites, considered in the light not only of his “conversion” to the

explaining that God of course knew that the sun “Copernican world view”, but also his recent studies of
Christianity, resulting in the publication of his Tabyin al-
kalam, The Mohamedan Commentary on the Holy Bible, 2
26 Loc. cit. in: “Records of India”; Saiyid Ahmad Khan, parts (Ghazipur, 1862; 1865). See Christian Troll, Sayyid
Musafirān-i London; Graham, Life and Work. Ahmad Khan: A Reinterpretation of Muslim Theology (New
27 Graham, Life and Work, p. 79. Delhi, 1978).

22 SAALG Newsletter
had to date. 29 However, his earlier position in the daughters in the ways she proposed. He had
1860s was much less clear-cut, even vacillating clearly made a strong impact on her in this
and inconsistent. The early numbers of his Urdu meeting however. Four years later she reported
journal, the Aligarh Institute Gazette, published very favourably in the Journal of the National
before his meeting with Mary, between 1866 and Indian Association the recent activities at Aligarh
1869, included several reports favourable to girls’ of “a venerable Mahommedan, who, with his two
public education in India, which although authored sons and his nephew, was on his way to England”
by others, he could have jettisoned if he had so when she encountered him in 1869. 31 That Mary,
wished. 30 Some of his own early statements, in actually ten years his senior but very sprightly,
favourable recognition, for example, of girls’ edu- invoked him as “venerable” probably reflects the
cation in Egypt and Turkey, or in admiration of the full beard and considerable gravitas of even the
level of education enjoyed by middle class girls in earliest portraits (he was fifty-two at the time of the
England, might be understood in the context of voyage!). The more she learned of him afterwards,
this shipboard statement as appropriate to rather the more her admiration grew for his “high
different “stages of society” or to “prevailing character and his influence among his
conditions” different from those in India, even countrymen”. 32 However, she neither directed her
when some of the girls in question were also own subsequent efforts towards Muslim women,
Muslim. Conditions in Cairo or London might be nor did she include either the North Western
ripe, but not in Delhi? It is suggested therefore that Provinces or the Punjab, Saiyid Ahmad’s
this intriguing shipboard statement of Saiyid homeland and the centre of much Muslim cultural
Ahmad’s contributes usefully to current interests in influence, in the itineraries of her subsequent visits
trying to resolve some of the conundrums to India. There is of course no evidence that she
concerning the evolution of his social agendas and had managed to read between the lines of Saiyid
the ambiguities of his character. Ahmad’s entry in her own journal to realise the
On the latter, what evidence do we have of thrust of his ambiguously couched reservations,
how Mary Carpenter took to her shipmate, and he, but, anyway, by the time of her death in 1877, no
reciprocally, to her? It seems she had not heard of further moves had been made by either participant
him previously, a reflection perhaps of her lack of in the conversation towards a programme for
interest in Indian Muslims generally, whom she specifically Muslim women. It was left to her
considered, as most British observers currently successors in the National Indian Association, and
did, more reluctant than Hindus to educate their some other Indian Muslim visitors to England,
notably the prominent lawyer, Saiyid Amir ‘Ali, to
take up the issue in a serious way in the 1880s.
29 Report of the Indian Education (Hunter) Commission:
Report for the North-Western Provinces and Oudh with
Testimony (Calcutta, 1884), p. 300. 31 Journal of the National Indian Association, No. 26
30 e.g., article, “Mahomedan female education”, Aligarh (Feb. 1873), p. 268.
Institute Gazette, vol. II. No. 40 , 4 Oct. 1867, English 32 Ibid. She also admired him for his “loyal” stance
and Urdu, pp. 626-7. during the rebellions of 1857!

23
 However, like Mary, Saiyid Ahmad did consider station, visited by SAALG members in 2004, is
the meeting significant enough to insert its drawing attention to the wider context of Britain’s
account in the travelogue he later compiled imperial past. Mary Carpenter’s volume of Indian
covering his journey to Britain, and his year’s stay opinions on the relationship between mid-Victorian
there. Of the shipboard conversation he Britain and India, including many references to
remembered, “I had long and interesting movements for “social improvement”, signals the
conversations with her upon female and general Bristol Record Office as a possible source for
education, as well as upon other important other useful nuggets of information concerning
matters”, but their ignorance of each other’s India. Housed in a magnificent, historic “bond
language had been “rather a drawback” in getting warehouse”, it has recently been awarded
into any detail. 33 He was well informed about her “Designated Status”, together with Bristol Central
family background and influence in Bristol, and her Library’s Local Studies section in reflection of the
programmes for poor children there, and knew excellence of their combined archive, history and
that her interest in Indian women had been literary collections.
aroused in Bristol by Raja Ram Mohan Roy’s visits I acknowledge the help of the staff of the
to her father’s house in that city. Clearly an Bristol Record Office in researching this topic.
admirer in general, whatever his reservations
about her particular agendas, he does not seem to
have taken any steps to maintain contact either
then or later, and the episode then passed without
further mention in his later works.
A mere footnote to history as it may be, this
brief encounter had some serious, if rather
tantalizing dimensions. The existence of the
volume recording their meeting, together with the
views of many other Indians who came into
contact with Mary Carpenter, draws attention too
to the importance of the city of Bristol for the
history of India during the colonial period. Raja
Ram Mohan’s interactions with the Unitarians of
Bristol, and his death there are well known, and in
recent years the British Empire and
Commonwealth Museum in the city’s old railway

33 There were some references to Mary Carpenter’s

activities in India in various issues of the Aligarh
Institute Gazette even before Saiyid Ahmad met her in
person.

24 SAALG Newsletter
Saiyid Ahmad Khan’s entry in Mary Carpenter’s
journal

25
 HISTORICAL SOURCES FOR AFGHANISTAN IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY
RICHARD SCOTT MOREL
ARCHIVIST, ASIA, PACIFIC & AFRICA COLLECTIONS, THE BRITISH LIBRARY
[Based on a paper delivered at the 74th Conference of SAALG, the Kashmir Bhawan Centre, Luton, 9
December 2005]

Since the British Library purchased the papers of Control and the India Office. They span a period
Lord Lytton, who was Viceroy of India during the from 1600 to 1947 and reflect the evolution of an
Second Anglo-Afghan War, the Asian & African early modern trading company into a fully-fledged
Studies Section has been very active in a number government office. As the East India Company
of outreach projects designed to highlight some of evolved over this period of time, so too did its
our holdings relating to Afghanistan. At the start of interests and relationship with Afghanistan. This is
2005 we held a small exhibition in the Ritblat reflected in the records which can be categorised
Gallery at the British Library and also developed an into three distinct periods.
online guide to India Office Records’ materials
relating to Afghanistan. 34 To date we have 1600-1745
completed an eight-panelled travelling exhibition Established in 1600 by a Royal Charter, the East
which aims to promote such materials at various India Company pre-dated the establishment of the
institutions in the UK. 35 Such work has shown that Kingdom of Afghanistan by nearly a century and a
there is a rich diversity of sources relating to half. Nevertheless references to the region and
Afghanistan not only in our section, but within the ethnic groups which were to make up Afghanistan
British Library as a whole. This paper is in part a are referred to in the records from an early date. By
summary of some of the documents we looked at 1623 the East India Company had established
when preparing for these projects, but it is also a trading posts known as “factories” in Persia and
brief outline of some of the key features in the India, two countries which shared a frontier with the
relationship between Britain and Afghanistan, region which was to become Afghanistan. Due to
based primarily on the India Office Records. intense competition with the Dutch and Portuguese,
The India Office Records comprise the papers the Company’s servants in Persia and Surat were
of the English East India Company, the Board of constantly sending information back to their
superiors in London. The type of topics which
caught their attention were those which they felt
34 This guide can be accessed at
could have a detrimental impact on existing trading
http://www.bl.uk/collections/asiapacificafrica.html .
35 This travelling exhibition can be borrowed by patterns, or which might present new opportunities
contacting Ms Penny Brook at the British Library at for trade. Often these pieces of intelligence were
[email protected] vague and fragmentary and, as the Company had

26 SAALG Newsletter
no direct trade or connections to the regions
making up Afghanistan, the references on
Afghanistan for this period are of this type.
Diagram 1 opposite represents the main groups
of records which contain such references. Of these,
the two most important series of records are IOR G
Factory Records, c. 1595-1858, and IOR E/3
Correspondence with the East, 1602-1753. Both of
these collections were compiled artificially and
consist of letters, diaries and consultations received
from the Company’s servants in Asia. The Factory
Records are arranged by geographical location and
then chronologically, whilst the records in the
Original Correspondence series are arranged in a
chronological sequence

Surat Factory Records

27
 Diagram 1: East India Company Records referring to Afghanistan, 1600-1745

East India Company

IOR E/3 Original IOR E/1 Home

Correspondence IOR G Factory Correspondence

Persia and Persian Gulf Miscellaneous Letters

Records Surat Records Received

The image on the left is taken from a general letter

addressed to the Court in London from the
Company’s factory at Surat on the west coast of
India. Written in 1621, it is a fine example of how
scanty such references to the region and peoples
of Afghanistan are. This one merely states that the
“Emperor” is going to Kabul.
Another early reference to the Afghans can be
found in IOR E/1 Home Correspondence, the
earliest surviving records of which begin in 1699.
Although the bulk of the letters are from various
agents and individuals in Britain and Europe, there
are also letters from Egypt and Persia. By the 18th
century, the Consul, appointed by the Levant
Company at Aleppo, forwarded packets from India
overland to the Company in London.
Home Correspondence Records

28 SAALG Newsletter
 Over time a considerable amount of corres- with the North West of India. Over time, the
pondence built up and these letters provide details security of this frontier was to become increasingly
of significant events happening in the region important and this is reflected by the increased
throughout the 18th century. This letter from the detail in the records reporting on the region and
Consul, dated, 30 May 1722, reports the invasion peoples that made up Afghanistan. As Diagram 2
of Isfahan by Mahmud the Afghan. overleaf shows, this changing relationship
correlates with an increase in the administrative
1745-1858 records of the Company’s activities during this
The creation of the independent nation of the period. References to Afghanistan can now be
Afghans at Kandahar, following the election of found in the Factory Records and Proceedings of
Ahmad Shah Durrani in 1745, was closely Bombay and Bengal in addition to Surat. The
followed by the Company’s acquisition of territory reason for this is that by this period Bombay had
in India following the Battle of Plassey. These superseded Surat as the primary seat of the
political changes were to lead to a fundamental Company’s trade on the west coast of India, whilst
change in how the two new territorial powers were from the mid-18th century onwards the Presidency
to view each other. The acquisition and of Bengal was to become the seat of the
subsequent expansion of British territory in India Company’s authority in India.
gradually led to the existence of a common frontier
Diagram 2: Records of the East India Company containing references to Afghanistan,
1745-1858

East India Company

IOR G IOR P IOR L/ Departmental

Factory Proceedings Papers

Persia Surat, Bombay, Bombay and Political and

Bengal Bengal Secret series

29
Another body of records which contain important British and Afghan authorities as the Company
references to Afghanistan for this period are the sought to find a political solution for the security of
IOR/L Departmental Records. These departmental its frontiers. Such contacts were established by
papers contain the earlier records of the East India the East India Company using its sites in Persia
Company which were inherited by the various and India to try and secure their Indian territories.
departments of the India Office to facilitate their The image on the left is taken from a report in the
business activities. Persia Factory Records which provides a clear
illustration of the fears of the Company in relation
to Afghanistan. In it, Zeman Shah is described as
a ruler hungry to expand into neighbouring
territory in India.
Records on Afghanistan can also be found in
the IOR H Home Miscellaneous Series. This
collection, like many other groups of the India
Office Records, is a complex amalgamation of
papers collected from a variety of provenances
that were bound together in the late 19th century
by the Record and Registry Department of the
India Office. Due to the complexities of its
compilation it is impossible to assess the full range
of subjects covered by the Home Miscellaneous
Series, but its importance as a collection
containing materials on Afghanistan is best
Persia Factory Records
demonstrated by the following example.
The image at the top of the opposite page is
The surviving Company papers of this period
taken from the title page of Mountstuart
show an organisation which felt it was surrounded
Elphinstone’s report on his “Mission to Caubul”
by hostile enemies, and Afghanistan at various
which was submitted to the Political Department.
times in this period came to be seen as a threat
This was the most famous of a number of
and not an ally. Ahmad Shah’s brief occupation of
missions that were dispatched to Afghanistan in
Delhi and the ambitions of Zeman Shah over
the 18th and 19th centuries. They did much to
certain areas of India ensured that, by the late
improve Britain’s knowledge of Afghanistan both
18th century and turn of the 19th century, the
as a region and a political entity. This manuscript
Company was increasingly alarmed by the threat
report was used to form the basis of his famous
of Afghanistan being a hostile neighbour.
book on Afghanistan published at the turn of the
This, along with fears of Napoleon’s ambitions to
19th century.
invade India, led to increased contact between the

30 SAALG Newsletter
 of a threat. However Russia’s military activities in
Central Asia quickly became a perceived danger
to British India. To counter Russian activities a
number of British officials were appointed to
political posts in Herat and Kabul in the first half of
the 19th century. The image at the top of the next
column, taken from the Board’s Collections,
outlines the Board’s interpretation of Russian
designs against Afghanistan and India.

Home Miscellaneous Records

In addition to the records of the East India

Company, the Board of Control Records are of
considerable value for research on Afghanistan.
When the East India Company became a territorial
power in India, the British Government was
increasingly concerned about the conduct of the
Company and its servants in India. This worry was
intensified following a number of financial crises
and scandals in the 1770s and 1780s and, in Board of Control Records
response to such concerns, the Board of Control
was established by the India Act of 1784. This was The image on the following page is a letter from
a Governmental body which was established the envoy at Kabul to the Secret Committee. Such
primarily to regulate the affairs and policies of the correspondence was often the subject of debate in
East India Company in India. Like the Company the Company’s Secret Committee in London and
records these were also inherited by the India these records now survive in IOR L/PS Political
Office following its establishment in 1858, and by and Secret Records. Despite the number of
the early 19th century they demonstrate a change diplomatic attempts to secure the Company’s
in the political concerns of the period. North Western frontier in India, they were not
Following the defeat of Napoleon, French inf- always successful. Such diplomatic failures were a
luence in the region was increasingly seen as less major cause of the First Anglo-Afghan war and like

31
its predecessors, when the India Office failed to relations between Afghanistan and Britain, in
ensure the continuance of sound diplomatic addition to various officials from the Foreign
relations with the rulers of Afghanistan war broke Office. Diagram 3 illustrates some of the major
out on two more occasions. collections in the India Office Records which
contain references to Afghanistan during this
1858-1947 period, and it reflects the political and military
Following the Indian Mutiny of 1857/1858, the character of Anglo-Afghan relations for this period
East India Company and Board of Control were
replaced by the India Office which conducted

.
Political and Secret Department Records

Diagram 3 Records of the India Office containing references to Afghanistan, 1858-1947

India Office Records

32 SAALG Newsletter
IOR L/ Departmental IOR R/Afghanistan: Kabul IOR V/ Official
Papers Legislation Records Publications
 Political and Secret series as a source for
Afghanistan was referred to in the last section but
another series worth consulting is the
Parliamentary Papers, as from the mid-19th
century onwards Afghanistan was a subject
regularly debated in Parliament. The image above,
taken from the Parliamentary papers, represents
the changing frontier of Afghanistan in the 19th
century.
Finally the Kabul Legation Records, 1923-
1948, are another rich source of information on
educational policies, political visits and the opium
trade in Afghanistan. This image discusses
another major event which was to lead to a
change in Anglo-Afghan relations. This report
details the impact of Indian Independence on
Anglo-Afghan relations. Although the India Office
Parliamentary Papers
Records end during this period, Anglo-Afghan
relations are an important part of English foreign
The majority of the papers relating to Afghanistan
policy to date and more recent records can be
can be found in the various Departmental papers
consulted at the National Archives at Kew.
of the India Office Records. The importance of the

33
 Other items of interest in the India Office
Records include the libraries of the Military and
Political and Secret Departments which contain
early 19th century printed books, Who’s Who,
gazetteers and maps relating to Afghanistan.
There is also a rich collection of maps in the India
Office Records, which were the subject of a
previous SAALG talk by Dr Andrew Cook.

Lord Lytton [BL: Photo 2/1 (12)]

Kabul Legation Records

Lytton Collection

34 SAALG Newsletter
 African Studies, Manuscripts, Newspapers, and
In addition to the India Office Records, the Asian & Sound collections of the British Library. Online
African Studies Section also houses a significant databases to the majority of these collections can
collection of manuscripts, prints, drawings and be found in the catalogues on the home page of
photographs. As my colleague, Xiao Wei Bond is the British Library’s website http://www.bl.uk .
going to refer to these sources in the following The Manuscripts Department of the British
article, I will merely highlight two images which we Library contains the papers of many individuals
used in our exhibitions. who were prominent in Turkey and the East during
Photo 2/1 (12) is an image of Lord Lytton taken this period. The image below is taken from the
from the rich visual collection of prints, drawings papers of Sir Austin Henry Layard, who was the
and photographs relating to Afghanistan, which Ambassador at Constantinople in 1878. This was
are housed in the Prints and Drawings Section of one of the items used in the exhibition held at St
the Asian & African Studies reading room. Shortly Pancras in 2005. It is a lithograph copy of an
after his appointment as Viceroy of India, a interview of the Turkish Mission with the Amir of
breakdown in diplomatic relations and fear of Kabul in 1877 and is a wonderful example of the
Russian ambitions in the region, coupled with a discussions with Afghan officials during this
more aggressive foreign policy under the British period.
Prime Minister Disraeli, led to the Second Anglo- The wars conducted in Iraq and Afghanistan
Afghan War. are subject to intense media scrutiny today. The
In addition to these, there are a number of same can be said for the Second Anglo-Afghan
papers in the Private Papers collections, which War in the contemporary press. Thus another rich
contain very rich and detailed accounts on Anglo- source of materials to consult is the collection of
Afghan relations for this period. The Lytton newspapers and periodicals. These contain
collection makes up part of the Private Papers and caricatures and images which provide evidence of
the image above on this page is taken from a public opinion in Britain on the Second Anglo-
handwritten copy of a telegraph sent during the Afghan War.
Second Anglo-Afghan War. It is an excellent
example of the minutiae of detail concerning
Anglo-Afghan relations within the collections.

RELATED HOLDINGS IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY

The British Library, in addition to acquiring
material by legal deposit, still collects and buys
printed books, serials, official publications and
audio materials relating to Afghanistan. They
make up important collections in the Asian &

35
 Layard Papers
The image to the right is a photograph taken from
Punch, the foremost satirical magazine of its day.
It depicts the Afghan ruler, Sher ‘Ali, between the
British Lion and the Russian Bear. In England,
politicians and the general public were watching
the unfolding events in the East with interest.
Regular articles appeared relating to events of the
“Great Game”. This print is perhaps the most
famous and memorable, illustrating the difficult
circumstances which Sher ‘Ali Khan faced in his
dealings with the two major European powers in
Central Asia.
Finally, the image below showing Ghurkha
soldiers in camp during the Second Anglo-Afghan
War is taken from the London Illustrated News.
The pictures and articles in this publication were a
lot more conservative and nationalistic than in
Punch, but they provide a very powerful image of
how the editors of this publication felt as the war
was progressing.

36 SAALG Newsletter
 Punch

London Illustrated News

37
 LITERARY AND PICTORIAL SOURCES FOR
PRE-20TH CENTURY AFGHANISTAN IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY
XIAO WEI BOND - ARCHIVIST, APAC, THE BRITISH LIBRARY
[Based on a paper delivered at the 74th Conference of SAALG, the Kashmir Bhawan Centre, Luton, 9 December
2005]

Throughout two centuries, the British Library has foreign relations of Afghanistan, as well as gazetteers
acquired a wide range of material about Afghanistan, and route maps for military use can be found in the
which comprises not only the archives in the India Military Department library 36 and in the Political &
Office Records, but also manuscripts and printed Secret Department library. 37
books in vernacular languages, publications in Another genre of literature representing the
Western languages, illustrated material including Western view of Afghanistan is in the 19th century
prints, drawings, and photographs, music recordings, writings of travellers. The British fascination for the
rare stamps and modern publications on both social country developed in the early 19th century when the
sciences and natural sciences. This brief introduction strategic importance of Afghanistan was recognised
intends to describe some of the major historical by the European powers. The British officials who
collections in the Library by means of some came into contact with that part of the world while on
examples: duty were often accomplished linguists, who had
mastered Persian, Sanskrit or other Indo-Iranian
1. Western language publications languages before they set off for Central and South
2. Vernacular language material Asia. Some were well-known scholars; Sir Henry
3. Image sources: Rawlinson, Political Agent at Kandahar in the 1840s,
- Persian miniatures had a well-established reputation for his authoritative
- Western drawings knowledge of Persian antiquity. Sir John Malcolm,
- Photographs who headed three missions to Persia at the beginning
of the 19th century, was also a Persian scholar
1. WESTERN LANGUAGE PUBLICATIONS turned diplomat and military leader. Apart from
The India Office Records are undoubtedly the first collecting local literature and other artefacts, official
port of call for students of history in search of primary or non-official travellers from the West also wrote
sources on Afghanistan. The archival material is down their own experiences and impressions of
however supplemented by a wealth of published Afghanistan in their journals and reports to be sent
sources in the Western Language Section. back to Europe, which were later published in the
Interestingly it was one of the characteristics of the forms of travelogues or memoirs, either as sources of
period that some of the records of the India Office
were published after their confidentiality had expired. 36
See IOR/L/MIL/17/14.
Many publications on the history, geography and 37
See IOR/L/PS/20.

38 SAALG Newsletter
information to be fed to government intelligence head of a British Mission and later as Second Political
services, or for the consumption of the general public, Officer for the Government of India in Kabul between
who had an insatiable appetite for exoticism. 1836 and 1838. He was assassinated two years later
The examples given here are the works of two just before the First Afghan War. The travelogue was
British explorers who ventured into Afghanistan in the published posthumously in 1842.
early 19th century:
Mountstuart Elphinstone headed the first official
mission to the Afghan Court from 1808 to 1810 for
the purpose of negotiating a treaty with Shah Shuja to
counteract the menace from Napoleon. The mission
was considered a failure as the treaty with Shah
Shuja was rendered invalid soon after it was signed.
A positive outcome of the mission was a monumental
work in which Elphinstone made a classic study of
the peoples of Afghanistan, in addition to gathering a
mass of information on the geography, climate and
Cabool: being a personal narrative of a journey to and
history of the country. residence in that city, in the years 1836-8 by Sir Alexander
Burnes (London, 1843) [BL: IOL V 22917]

The sources on Afghanistan in Western language

publications are almost inexhaustible, not to mention
other secondary sources in periodicals, such as the
Journal of Central Asian Society, which may contain
information of more immediacy than that in
monographs.

2. VERNACULAR LANGUAGE MATERIAL

An account of the kingdom of Caubul and its dependencies The population of Afghanistan is composed of over
in Persia, Tartary, and India; comprising a view of the fifty ethnic communities, among which those of
Afghaun Nation, and a history of the Dooraunee Manarchy,
Iranian origin form the largest group and those of
by Mountstuart Elphinstone (London, 1815) [BL: W765]
Turkic origin make up the second-largest group.
Alexander Burnes was an ambitious officer in the Before it was proclaimed an independent kingdom by
British Army, as well as being a gifted linguist who the first ruler, Ahmad Shah Durrani, in the early part
had acquired several native tongues, which enabled of the 18th century, the territory now known as
him to travel through Central Asia in local disguise. Afghanistan belonged to the Persian world, from
His first trip to Central Asia was made between 1831 which the British Library has acquired a large number
and 1833 as a private traveller. His travelogue was of representative works in the domains of art,
written after his second journey to the country as the literature and religion. The Persian language

39
collections came into the possession of the British The example given here is Tārīkh-i Vaṣṣāf – a
Library mainly via three routes: material collected by history of the Mongol Ilkhans of Iran by the 14th
the India Office Library before 1982; material century historian ‘Abd Allah ibn Fazl Allah Sharaf
collected by the British Museum Department of Shirazi. This finely illuminated copy was
Oriental Printed Books prior to 1973; subsequent produced at Kabul, commissioned by the then
acquisitions of the British Library era. The India Office ruler of Afghanistan, Dost Muhammad Khan, at
collections of Persian manuscripts, including some the beginning of his second reign in 1845.
Pashto illuminated manuscripts, were originally There are some rarities in the printed books
brought together by the East India Company’s library, collection, for example, one of the earliest Afghan
established in 1801, which acquired much material newspapers, Sirāj al-akhbār, was published in
directly from its servants in the East as well as 1906 and later suspended due to political
through private collectors. On the British Museum pressure. The publication resumed in 1911 and
Library side, Persian manuscripts could be found in was taken up by the reformer and politician
the foundation collections of the British Museum Mahmud Tarzi (1886-1933) as an instrument of
Library in 1753. The collection expanded through the propaganda to introduce the idea of a national
centuries to include a vast variety of material in all Islamic identity.
possible subject fields.
Most of the earliest literature originating from
what is now Afghanistan was written in Persian,
although the national spoken and written language of
present day Afghanistan is Pashto. Early Pashto
literature is little known outside Afghanistan. There is
nonetheless a remarkable collection in the British
Library ranging from religious studies to poems.

Sirāj al-akhbār [BL: Per SW2]

3. PICTORIAL MATERIAL
Visual material on Afghanistan is of as much
importance as the textual material in the British
Library. The images are in the form of miniature
paintings, photographs, and watercolours or
lithograph prints, all held by the Prints & Drawings
Tārīkh-i Vaṣṣāf [BL: Ms.Or.15379]

40 SAALG Newsletter
Section which inherited these impressive collections India Company Army or by the British government. It
from the former India Office Library. was quite common in those days for some Indian
Army officers to be excellent draftsmen or artists,
3.1. PERSIAN MINIATURES recruited specifically by the army either to draw
Examples of these illustrations can be found in some routes and charts for military planning, or to record
of the Persian manuscripts produced by authors or the events as war correspondents before photo-
artists who came from the part of the land now known graphy was invented.
as Afghanistan. One of the most famous examples is
the illuminated manuscript Khamsa of Nizami, in
which a miniature painting depicts the battle of two
rival tribes. This was painted by Kamal al-Din Bihzad,
one of the leading painters of the 15th century, under
the patronage of Sultan Husayn of Herat.

Khyber Pass (1840). Watercolour landscape by James

Atkinson (1780-1852) [BL: WD1347]

Like many of the amateur artists of the Indian Army at

that time, James Atkinson’s official title was
Superintending Surgeon; he served with the Bengal
Medical Service. This landscape was painted during
the First Afghan War around 1840. It is one of the
twenty-four drawings later made into lithographs and
published with the title “Sketches in Afghaunistan”. 38
The Khyber Pass was said to be the only overland
route through the mountains between Northern Asia
and the Indian plains. It cuts through the Hindu Kush
Mountain range in the North West Frontier Province
of today’s Pakistan. It is 33 miles long; the narrowest
point is said to be only three metres wide. Therefore it
Battle of the Tribes, watched by Majnun. Painted by Bihzad is a very treacherous place for any battles.
(1493). In Persian Mss: Khamsa of Nizami
Exoticism, synonymous of anthropological curios-
[BL: Add.25900, f.121b]
ity, was one of the main themes of Oriental studies in
3.2. WATERCOLOURS AND LITHOGRAPHS
The so-called “Western drawings” refer to, by
definition, the drawings of Afghanistan by Western 38
J. Atkinson, Sketches in Afghaunistan (London 1842).
artists, mostly amateur artists employed by the East
Note the archaic spelling of Afghanistan.

41
the 19th century, reflected in numerous drawings of Cameras began to be employed for journalistic
human figures in different attires and poses. purposes in the Indian Army around the 1850s. Many
The subject of the following portrait was Begum photographs taken in the late 19th century still retain
Jan, described as a high-caste lady in Kandahar. a remarkable quality and they provide an invaluable
James Rattray (1790-1862), like Atkinson, was a visual documentation of the most complex and
British artist who followed the Indian Army into intriguing period in the modern history of Afghanistan.
Afghanistan during the First Afghan War (1838-40). John Burke, like his artistic predecessors, was an
His immaculate study of the costumes of different apothecary (pharmacist) by trade and served with the
tribes of Afghanistan and his drawings of the scenery British Indian Army in Afghanistan during the Second
were published in London in 1848, 39 about thirty Afghan War (1878-80). He was at first rejected for
years after Elphinstone published his scholarly work the role of official photographer but nonetheless he
on the peoples and history of the same country. produced a substantial number of photographs
Rattray held a high opinion of Afghan ladies who, documenting the war. He was later recognised as a
according to him, had more power over their professional photographer. His main rivals were the
husbands than most other women in the East. He better known Bourne and Shepherd.
also believed that Afghan ladies certainly had more
freedom than their Indian counterparts, as he had
seen them throw off their burka or veils in secluded
spots and thoroughly enjoy themselves in pleasure
excursions into private gardens, bazaars, etc.

Major Cavagnari and Afghan sardars (1879)

[BL: Photo 487/73]

Lady of rank engaged in smoking by James Rattray (1840s) Above is a photo of Major Cavagnari and Afghan
[BL: X717] sardars or chiefs taken at Jalalabad by John Burke.
Cavagnari was the British Resident in Kabul in 1879.
3.3. PHOTOGRAPHS He was killed by Afghan rebels at the British
Residency shortly after this picture was taken, in the
39
J. Rattray, The costumes of the various tribes, portraits of middle of the Second Afghan War in September
ladies of rank, celebrated princes and chiefs, views of the 1879. The savagery of the event provoked the anger
principal fortresses and cities, and interior of the cities and of the British government, which immediately
temples of Afghaunistaun (London, 1848).

42 SAALG Newsletter
despatched a punitive column led by General Roberts to provide a few samples of different genres to whet
from India. Kabul was quickly taken by General the appetite of readers. Regrettably, the collections
Roberts and the war ended a year later. are so vast that it is impossible to describe every type
Sher ‘Ali Khan, Amir of Afghanistan, played a of material in this short space. To gain a more
significant role in the Anglo-Afghan relationship in the thorough knowledge of the British Library’s
Second Afghan War. This portrait photograph was collections on this subject, including those of
taken by a more commercially-oriented photographic contemporary Afghanistan, one has to study the
studio, Bourne and Shepherd. Samuel Bourne lived separate catalogues and lists available in the Asian
in India from 1863 until 1870. Apart from portraits of and African Studies Reading Room or from the
eminent personalities and the peoples of the various Internet. I include a list of further readings and
ethnic groups or professions of Afghanistan, he also websites which will explain in more detail the content
produced a magnificent collection of landscapes and of each category of material.
architectural views of the Indian subcontinent.
FURTHER READINGS
Handlist of Islamic manuscripts acquired by the India
Office Library 1938-85. Sims-Williams, U. (London:
India Office Library and Records, 1986).

Supplementary handlist of Persian manuscripts,

1966-1998. Waley, M. I. (London: British Library,
1999).

Miniatures from Persian manuscripts: catalogue and

subject index of paintings in the British Library and
the British Museum. Titley, N. M. (London: British
Library, 1974).

Persian paintings in the India Office Library: a

descriptive catalogue. Robinson, B. W. (London; New
York: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1976).

British drawings in the India Office Library. Archer, M.

(London: HM Stationery Offfice, 1969).
Sher ‘Ali Khan, Amir of Afghanistan
(1825-1879) [BL: Photo127/44]

CONCLUSION
The above is a summary of the main collections on
the art, literature and social sciences of pre-20th
century Afghanistan. The intention of this summary is

43
A brief guide to sources for the study of Afghanistan alprints.html
in the India Office Records. Hall, L. (London: India for information on prints, drawings and photographs
Office Library and Records, 1981). of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections of the
British Library
WEBSITES
www.bl.uk/collections/afghan/introduction.html www.collectbritain.co.uk/galleries
for information on India Office Records relating to for images of Afghanistan
Afghanistan

www.bl.uk/collections/persian.html
for information on British Library collections of
Persian manuscripts and printed books

www.bl
.uk/coll
ections
/orient

44 SAALG Newsletter
 The Bala Hissar & city of Caubul from the Citadel.

AUREL STEIN’S KASHMIR LEGACY: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE WEBSITE

S. N. PANDITA
KASHMIR BHAWAN CENTRE
[Based on a paper delivered at the 74th Conference of SAALG,
the Kashmir Bhawan Centre, Luton, 9 December 2005]

I am delighted to have been part of the beautiful scholars who were working there. More than this,
conference on Sir Aurel Stein and thank the Stein was fascinated by Kashmir. It was his
Libraries and Archive Group, the British Library and adopted home. In Kashmir, he made many friends,
the Kashmir Bhawan Centre for the opportunity to lived amidst its people and worked with local
put before them the results of a few initial steps scholars. He kept many retainers at his camp, lived
taken on a long journey – the development of a at many camp sites and in various bungalows, and
website dedicated to Stein’s Kashmir legacy. There it was here that he compiled and wrote most of his
is no dearth of material on the life and work of reports on Central Asian explorations. It was in
Stein. This provides enough resources for there to Kashmir, too, that he experienced his proudest
always be some new study of his great moment in life – the knighthood. To recall his own
achievements. While the iconic Central Asian words, and I quote, “It will always be a gratifying
image of Stein is well-known and sufficiently remembrance for me to associate its receipt with
studied, his life and labours in Kashmir have drawn Kashmir where most of my work as far as it
relatively less attention. Before embarking on his concerns Indian soil has been done.” In fact,
Central Asian career, Stein worked as a classical interspersed with journeys into Central Asia,
Orientalist and Sanskritist for twelve years (1888 to Europe and America, Stein spent more than fifty-
1900), during which period his main area of focus five years in Kashmir, which is best described in his
was Kashmir. While his edition of the Rājataraṅgiṇī own words, and I again quote, “How grateful I must
and its translation into English remain as the feel to the kindly Fate that allowed me to do so
crowning glory of his labours there, many other much of my work for the last fifty-five years in
aspects of his life and achievements in Kashmir Kashmir.”
also bear great importance.
Amongst these are Stein’s archaeological tours
in Kashmir, his collection of Sanskrit manuscripts,
his interest in Kashmiri language and literature, and
his association with, and help to, other Western

45
 team of Dr Vijay Dhar, Dr S. N. Ganju, Mr Shuban
Kotwal and Mr Surinder Koul, with the fullest
cooperation and support of the Bodleian Library
(the foremost credit for which goes to Dr Gillian
Evison) and funds granted by the Heritage Lottery
Fund, began a project to create a website on
Stein’s Kashmir legacy. The first step was to
identify visual and printed material in the Stein
collection at the Bodleian Library, as well as other
possible sources, detailing Stein’s native links in
Kashmir. As Stein and my grandfather were very
close friends until the end of their lives, it is a
matter both of family pride and of personal
satisfaction for me to be associated with the
endeavor to map Stein in Kashmir. Besides being
an attempt to shift focus from Central Asia to
Letter from Stein to Pandit Nityanand Shastri Kashmir, the project is in a way a tribute to Stein’s
July 7, 1921 great work in Kashmir.
I would now like to put before you some
interesting features of this journey and a general
outlay of the website that is in the making.
The major content to be hosted on the website
includes some Sanskrit manuscripts from Stein’s
collection, together with their translation into
English. The selection is based on the
contemporary relevance of the manuscripts to
modern times. Identification of the manuscript of
Rājataraṅgiṇīsaṃg̣raha Gadyarūpa, written by
Pandit Sahib Kaul, for example, explodes the myth
that the practice of writing history in Kashmir in the
tradition of the Rājataraṅgiṇīs ceased after the
advent of Mughal rule with Akbar’s conquest of
Kashmir. Sahib Kaul’s Rājataraṅgiṇī covers
Kashmiri history up to the time of Maharaja Ranbir
Letter from George A. Grierson to
Pandit Nityanand Shastri Singh’s rule in Kashmir. This manuscript holds
April 7, 1936 great promise and is key to understanding
It was with these facts in mind that two years ago Kashmir’s recent past. In the manuscripts of
the Kashmir Bhawan Centre, through its inspiring Purātanmandira Saṃgraha, Tīrtha Saṃgraha, and

46 SAALG Newsletter
Haramukuṭagaṅga lie the secrets and tales of the deals with the ancient governance and financial
archaeology, ancient history and cultural traditions structure of Kashmir and is based on the best
of Kashmir. Their study will indicate a modern manuscript on the subject, was translated with a
outlook into the archaeological preservation of commentary in Sanskrit by the eminent Kashmiri
ancient remains in Kashmir. The study of the scholar Pandit Sahaz Bhat. At Aurel Stein’s
manuscript of the Sarada shrine, one of the initiative, it was sent to Paris for publication under
landmarks in the great cultural legacy of Kashmir, the auspices of the Asiatic Society. However, due
enables us to relive the great glory of one of the to the eruption of the First World War, its
most important presiding deities of Kashmiri publication was interrupted midway. Hence its final
society. It would be highly desirable to attempt to fate needs to be determined. A printed edition of
have the shrine notified as a heritage site. the Lokaprakāśa based on this rare manuscript will
Many of the other Stein papers accessed in the bring credit to the scholarship of Kashmir and will
Bodleian archives are also invaluable in the context redefine its historical past.
of the history and scholarship of Kashmir. Amongst It is well known that, while editing the Rājata-
these papers, the more salient and important ones raṅgiṇī, Aurel Stein undertook many antiquarian
relate to Aurel Stein’s revised manuscript of the tours in Kashmir to establish the historical
Rājataraṅgiṇī with photographic illustrations. authenticity of Kalhana’s work by geographical
Evidence indicates that Stein had the publication of verification. During these sojourns, he made
an illustrated Rājataraṅgiṇī in mind from 1922 and numerous archaeological studies of various
he carried the burden of its publication until the monuments and ancient temple sites. A few of
very end of his life in 1943. This manuscript, which these were in fact discovered by Stein, as no
was kept in a bank locker at the Imperial Bank, mainstream archaeologist had ever gone to these
Srinagar (now called the State Bank of India), was off site locations before. The preliminary report on
later sent to Oxford University Press for publication. these sites, which Stein submitted to Raja Amar
Today it remains in the confines of the aborted Singh in 1891, and Stein’s subsequent
publications of the Oxford University Press, since recommendation of 1896 are fascinating
the cost of its publication remained unresolved documents that reveal many rare facets of
between the Kashmir Darbar and the Oxford archaeology in Kashmir. They also detail acts of
University Press. vandalism and identify the vandals. They show the
The manuscript of the revised edition of the need for the protection of these ancient sites for the
Rājataraṅgiṇī is not alone in bearing importance for preservation of Kashmir’s past. Stein’s
retrieval. Equally significant is the manuscript of recommendation to the Darbar on these issues can
Lokaprakāśa — the great work of the 11th century safely lay the ground rules for the protection of
Kashmiri polyhistorian, Kshemendra. The monuments in today’s troubled Kashmir. They
Lokaprakāśa joins the Rājataraṅgiṇī (the political define historical concern and social necessity. It
history of ancient Kashmir) and the Nīlamatapurāṇa was from the antiquarian collection obtained by
(the cultural history of ancient Kashmir) to complete Stein during his archaeological tours in Kashmir
the trilogy of Kashmir’s past. This work, which that the nucleus of the Pratap Museum, Srinagar,

47
was built. The rich collection preserved here makes of Kashmiri traditions and his profound interest in
it one of the most important museums of the world. its folklore. It was fascinating to discover Kashmiri
Another very important aspect revealed in the letters written in the Devanagari character, as well
Stein papers pertains to anthropometrical studies in as Sanskrit ones in Sharada, from Kashmiri
Kashmir and the exploration of the racial and scholars to Stein. These reveal the efforts he took
linguistic determinates of Kashmiri society. Stein to learn to write and speak Kashmiri.
had recommended to the Government of India that It may be stated that there is hardly any ancient
these studies should be undertaken by the Asiatic temple site, sacred spring or pilgrimage centre in
Society of Bengal. Further research on this front Kashmir that is not preserved in Stein’s photograph
holds an important key to lasting peace in Kashmir. collection. Included are photos of the temples at
The papers in general illustrate Stein’s Sarada, Paraspura, Pattan, Shankaracharya Hill,
fascination with – and great love for – Kashmir and Martand, Pandrethan, Hari Parvat, Vangath and
her people. As well as drawing attention to the Avantipur etc., and sacred springs and pilgrim
Valley’s great beauty, they shed new light on his spots like Vecar Nag, Naran Nag, Kounsar Nag,
life there. It emerges that he had plans and Gangabal Lake, Jethyeir Nag and Ishber Nag as
permission to build a bungalow at Mohand Marg they stood a century ago. The rich collection of
and also one in the foothills of the Zabarvan Range these photographs has been listed for inclusion in
adjacent to Pari Mahal on the shores of Dal Lake in the website. Further photos show the camp sites
Srinagar, that he held a ration card and was issued and villas Stein occupied in Kashmir – those which
a British Indian passport indicating his domicile in survive today could be attractions for heritage
Kashmir. Besides enriching Stein’s biographical tourism in Kashmir – whilst others feature his
account, the papers also extol the achievements of Kashmiri helpers, correspondents and scholarly
Stein’s Kashmiri correspondents, revealing the associates. No other record of these faces seems
social, personal and scholastic relationship he had to have survived in any other photographs. With
with them. The import of these accounts will these images much comes to life about the recent
rekindle in many Kashmiris a sense of pride in their past of present day Kashmir.
ancestors. Discoveries of their attainments are The format of the website is now fixed and will
bound to bring a change of outlook to the history include 1) Introduction: Preamble, Launch brief,
and process of harmonization in Kashmir. Stein’s Aims and objectives, Institutional support,
self-kept records bear names and references to Research input, Promoters, 2) Kashmir: Legend
many ordinary local Kashmiris. Their identities are and literature, Landscape, People, Language and
determinable and such facts, when made public, script, History and chronology of rulers, 3) Aurel
will bring pride and grace to their descendants by Stein: Career profile, Distinctions and honours,
linking their ancestors to this great man’s life and Major publications, Patron of Kashmiris, Important
achievements. Such records are important from dates in Kashmir, 4) Sanskritist: Stein en route for
both a human and a social angle. And finally, the India, In search of the Rājataraṅgiṇī, the Royal
papers amply show Stein’s keen desire to promote Jammu Catalogue, Antiquarian tours, 5) Pilgrim to
the Kashmiri language, his intense understanding sacred abodes: Archaeology of ancient Kashmir,

48 SAALG Newsletter
Tributes to Sanskrit, 6) Manuscript treasures:
Facsimiles, together with their translation into
English, 7) Kashmiri Scholarship: Profiles of native
collaborators, Tributes and memoir notices to
native Kashmiri scholars, 8) Scholarship between
Kashmir and the West: Role in preparation of the
Dictionary of Kashmiri Language, Hatims Tales,
edition of the Mahānāya Prakāśa, translation of the
Spanish classic Don Quixote into Kashmiri and
Sanskrit, edition of Mahābhārata and the Leiden
edition of the 6th century Kashmiri text
Nīlamatapurāṇa, Views on education, Role in giving
Kashmir its first technical institute, 9) Stein in
Kashmir: First visit, Mohand Marg, Camp retreats
and bungalows, Camp retainers and assistants,
Knighthood, Last journey from Kashmir, Memorial
stone, Unfinished tasks.
This is a project of huge potential. As well as
being of far-reaching public interest, the completed
website 40 will be of great importance both socially
and historically.

40
The website is expected to have been completed by
June 2007.

49
 Sir Aurel Stein’s dogs – Dash V and Spin Khan – with Dr Ernest Neve

50 SAALG Newsletter
 [BL: Photo 392/33(4)]

AUREL STEIN AND KASHMIR

DR FRANCES WOOD
CURATOR, CHINESE, THE BRITISH LIBRARY
[Based on a paper delivered at the 74th Conference of SAALG
the Kashmir Bhawan Centre, Luton, 9 December 2005]

The achievements of Sir Aurel Stein are so were nearly 7000 documents to be moved, this
enormous and so broad in scope that you could absorbing task took some time. In the 1980s
say there is an Aurel Stein for everyone. For another great Stein project developed: the
Kharosthi scholars it is the Stein of Niya who must conservation and cataloguing of the remaining
be most significant and for Tibetan scholars, Chinese documents from Cave 17, which
perhaps it is Stein at Miran. My Aurel Stein is first eventually brought the total up to almost 14,000.
of all “Chinese” Stein and my first close This project involved long visits from Chinese
acquaintance with “Chinese” Stein dates back to conservators and Dunhuang specialists, most of
1977 when I joined the Chinese section of the whom remain great friends. And following the
British Library. I spent the whole of my first Chinese project, similar conservation and
summer there moving the Chinese scrolls from cataloguing developments have been carried out
Cave 17 at Dunhuang from their blue cardboard on other language and script groups within the
storage boxes into new wooden cabinets that had Stein collections in the British Library.
been specially designed to house them. As there

51
Throughout my almost thirty years of looking after
sponsoring the conference was established by a
the Stein Chinese collections, there have been
noted coin-collector, Professor Ikuo Hirayama.
numerous occasions for reflection on different
Stein began researching Central and South Asian
aspects of the man and his work. In the early-
coinage before embarking on his first jobs as
1980s we organised a small exhibition in the four
registrar of Punjab University and principal of the
ancient display cases in the old King’s Library in
new Oriental College in Lahore in 1887. With
the British Museum, in the area then reserved for
Lahore as his working base, attracted both by its
the display of oriental books and manuscripts. The
natural beauty (“the green paradise of Kashmir”)
intention of the exhibition was to set out the great
and its ancient culture, he began to spend
variety of materials, languages and scripts
contained in Stein’s Central Asian collections and
it was my first foray into the area beyond Chinese.
In 1985 many Stein manuscripts and artefacts
from the British Museum were included in the joint
British Museum-British Library exhibition,
“Buddhism: art and faith” and I learned a great
deal about the non-Chinese Stein material from
working with Wladimir Zwalf on the exhibition
catalogue as his extremely lowly editorial
assistant.
When preparing for the Silk Road Coins and
Culture conference which was held in the British
Museum in 1993, I looked at Stein’s early career,
in particular his research into coins, for the
foundation

his vacations in Kashmir. In his study of ancient

Kashmiri literature, he was following the lead of
his teacher in Vienna, George Buhler, and he
gained a new teacher in Srinagar, Pandit Govind
Kaul. The extent to which Stein was indebted to
Pandit Govind Kaul is evident in the tributes he

52 SAALG Newsletter
pays to him in the prefaces to his Catalogue of the summer of 1899, separated from me at the time
Sanskrit manuscripts in the Raghuntaha Temple by the whole breadth of India …”
Library of His Highness the Maharaja of Jammu
and Kashmir (Bombay and London, 1894) and his
Kalhaṇa’s Rājataraṅgiṇī: a chronicle of

the Kings of Kaśmīr (London, 1900). There, Stein

described Govind Kaul: “This accomplished
Kaśmīrian scholar, who had already assisted me
in collecting some of the critical materials
embodied in my edition of the Sanskrit text of the
Rājataraṅgiṇī, the later Chronicles and other
Kaśmīrian texts requiring constant reference, and
by similar labours he lightened for me the great
burden of mechanical work which is inseparable
from such a task. The identification of Kalhaṇa’s
numerous allusions to stories contained in the
Mahābhārata and Purāṇas is mainly his work. I
am also indebted to his aid for a preliminary
collation of the Lahore manuscript of the Chronicle
which has enabled me to improve the critical
constitution of the text underlying the translation.”
The detail with which Stein describes his
After Pandit Govind Kaul’s death, other assistants
indebtedness indicates the significance of the
were to follow, but from 1888, Kashmir became a
Pandit’s contribution and Stein continues, “It is a
constant fixture in Stein’s life. Though he spent
source of true sorrow to me that this faithful
time in Srinagar and travelled quite widely, in
assistant of my labours is no longer among the
search of manuscripts and ancient monuments, it
living. Paṇḍit Govind Kaul died at Srīnagar in the

53
was the alpine meadow of Mohand Marg that The significance of Kashmir to Stein was
became his favourite place. Whenever he could, enormous. Camped on Mohand Marg with his dog
he spent summer there and it became the closest and servants to take care of him throughout the
thing to “home” for him as an adult. What is summer, he recovered from his winter expeditions,
particularly interesting is that Mohand Marg was wrote them up and continued his work on Kashmiri
only a meadow. Stein camped at Mohand Marg, literature and folk tales. Sitting at his table on the
as he camped when he was on his long and grass under the trees, he wrote long letters to the
arduous expeditions into Central Asia. Compared group of friends and relations with whom he
with the hardships of camping in freezing deserts, remained in close epistolatory contact all their
Mohand Marg was a comfortable encampment lives, though they rarely met. Mohand Marg, high
with a kitchen tent, but everything had to be in the mountains, beautiful but without modern
carried up there and carried down at the end of conveniences for it was only a meadow, with
the season and when he was seventy-six, he tents, was perhaps a deterrent to potential visitors,
reported on the summer ascent, “My legs … felt but for Stein, it was his retreat.
the stiff climb a bit … I allowed myself three hours
to do the 3000 feet.” One of my favourite Stein
photographs is of Mohand Marg. It shows Stein’s
table with a jar of flowers, placed on the grass in
the shade of a tree, with a black and white terrier
asleep beneath it. Mohand Marg must have been
a fine place for his dogs (mostly terriers and all
called “Dash”) with rabbits, rats and marmots to
chase, although Dash IV, known for “his plucky
hunts among rocks and ravines” gave Stein a
fright when he vanished for a night after losing his
foothold and falling.

54 SAALG Newsletter
 CENTRAL ASIAN MANUSCRIPT FORGERIES: NEW CORRESPONDENCE
BETWEEN
AUREL STEIN AND RUDOLF HOERNLE
URSULA SIMS-WILLIAMS
[Based on a paper presented at the 71st Conference of SAALG, the British Library, London, 26 November
2004]

In the field of Central Asian studies, forged Rudolf Hoernle, Aurel Stein and, more recent
documents and artefacts are unfortunately all too scholars also. 41
common, with faked manuscripts appearing on the The search for Central Asian antiquities,
art market with frequent regularity. It is interesting particularly written ones, began with the discovery
to note, however, that this is not entirely a modern of the so-called “Bower” manuscript, 42 a 5th-
phenomenon, with well documented examples of century medical birch-bark manuscript in Sanskrit,
forgeries dating from as early as 1895. In the found by treasure-seekers in 1889, together with a
context of the discovery and decipherment of “mummified” cow and two foxes, in a stupa near
previously unknown scripts and languages from Kucha. Its true significance as by far “the oldest
Central Asia at the end of the 19th century, it is not
surprising that the enterprising entrepreneurs who
41 For a more detailed account of many aspects of these
created these forgeries met with considerable
forgeries, see Ursula Sims-Williams, “Forgeries from
success, temporarily deceiving experts such as
Chinese Turkestan in the British Library’s Hoernle and
Stein Collections.” Bulletin of the Asia Institute 14 (2000
[2003]), pp. 111-129.
42 Named after Lieut. H. Bower who purchased it early in
1890. It is now in the Bodleian [MS. Sansk.c.17)].

55
Indian written book that is known to exist” 43 was
first announced to the scholarly world in 1891 by
the Sanskritist A. F. Rudolf Hoernle (1841-1918),
then Principal of the Calcutta Madrasah.
Such was the interest aroused by Hoernle’s
report that the super-powers soon became
engaged in a competitive hunt for further
archaeological and manuscript finds, 44 with the
Russians and the Government of India emerging
as the main contenders in this cultural aspect of
the “Great Game.” The Government of India not
only supported the Central Asian expeditions of Sir
Aurel Stein, but also collected material on its own
account through its political agents in Kashmir and
Kashgar. Between 1895 and 1911, it sent 33
consignments of manuscripts to Rudolf Hoernle for
decipherment. These manuscripts formed what
became known as the Hoernle Collection or the Islam Akhun photographed with Stein’s dog Dash
British Collection of Antiquities from Central Asia, in Khotan in 1901
now kept in the British Library, London. [Stein, Ancient Khotan (Oxford 1907), p. 508]

43 A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, “Remarks on birch bark ms.”

Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal (1891), p.
64.
44 A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, The Bower Manuscript
(Calcutta, 1893-1912), p. ii: “Professor G. Bühler,
having seen the report of the discovery in the
Proceedings of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, at once
announced it in an early issue of the Vienna Oriental
Journal for 1891, p. 103. The Russian Archaeological
Society, having thus their attention attracted, addressed,
in November 1891, a request to Mr. Petrovski, the
Russian Consul General in Kâshgar, to endeavour to
collect similar manuscript treasures.”

56 SAALG Newsletter
 A genuine 8th-century Khotanese document probably from Dandan Uiliq [BL:

Cursive Brahmi script forgery “discovered” in October 1895. According to its discoverer, Islam Akhun, this
manuscript was found in the remains of an iron box buried in mud in a hole in the wall of a structure at Kok Gumbaz.
Many of the characters resemble those of the Khotanese document above. The cursive Brahmi script, however, was
used exclusively for secular documents on single sheets or rolls and never in the palm leaf-shaped pothi
manuscripts which contained Buddhist religious texts written in formal Brahmi “sutra” script [BL: Or.13873/57]

Hoernle’s first publication of manuscripts in the recognisable scripts and included material in two
British Collection appeared in 1897. 45 Most were in completely new languages: Tocharian and
Khotanese - which Hoernle was to play a major
part in deciphering. However a considerable
45 A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, “Three further collections of
number were “written in characters which are
ancient manuscripts from Central Asia.” Journal of the
either quite unknown to me, or with which I am too
Asiatic Society of Bengal 66, pt. I (1897), pp. 213-60.

57
imperfectly acquainted to attempt a ready reading
in the scanty leisure that my regular official duties
allow me. I thought, however, that even a
mere publication of specimens of the original
manuscripts would be welcome to Oriental
scholars. 46
The manuscripts in this latter category came in
a number of different shapes and sizes and were
written in a variety of scripts. Some were single
sheets, but others had been bound in the style of a
primitive codex. They all subsequently proved to
be forgeries. The British Library now has some 41
specimens of forged codices and collections of
manuscript sheets, mostly from the Hoernle
Collection. They can be divided into five basic
types of scripts resembling Brahmi, Aramaic,
Uighur, Arabic/Persian, and Chinese.

46 Op. cit.: p. 250.

58 SAALG Newsletter
 Map based on Hoernle’s map of 1899 showing the sites supposedly visited by Islam Akhun 1895-1897 in italics, together
with their correct locations as established subsequently by Stein.

By 1899, when Hoernle published the first part of information about the sites and the circumstances
his Report, 47 the British Collection included many of the finds through George Macartney and Stuart
more examples, in addition to 45 block-prints, all in Godfrey, the Government of India’s
unrecognisable scripts. They were nearly all representatives in Kashgar and Ladakh. Hoernle
discovered by Islam Akhun, a treasure-seeker published these details together with an analysis of
from Khotan, and came from a number of different the blockprints, which he divided into nine different
sites, some well-known, such as Yotkan (old sets according to the texts they contained. 48 The
Khotan), and Ak Safil, a deserted fortress in the British Library has altogether 61 blockprint
desert northeast of Khotan, while others were less forgeries. They are mostly in a Cyrillic/
well documented: Karakol Mazar, Kok Gumbaz, Brahmi/Kharoshthi type of script, sometimes
Kara Yantak and Aktala Tuz to the west of Khotan, resembling one more than the other. Blocks of text
and Yabu Kum and Kiang Tuz to the east. At are repeated, sometimes quite randomly, and
Hoernle’s request, Islam Akhun provided often upside down. Some of the blockprints also
contain sketches. The paper is generally an
unevenly textured felt-like paper of varying
47 A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, “A report on the British
thickness. Many volumes appear damaged by
Collection of Antiquities from Central Asia, part I,”
Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 68, pt. I, extra
no. (1899). 48 Op. cit.: pp. 64-110.

59
burns. They are mostly in a “western” style codex
format and have been fastened with copper pegs,
twists of paper, and thread. Some, however, are
more like an Indian pothi, but with a copper peg
acting as a rivet instead of a piece of string.
Considering the large number of
undecipherable manuscripts and blockprints and
the peculiarity of their scripts, Hoernle was already
in 1897 suspicious that they might be forgeries. In
1898 he received a letter dated 8th April from the
Reverend Magnus Bäcklund, a Swedish
Missionary in Yarkand, who reported that he had
been informed that the books were modern and
that “after being printed, the sheets are hung up in
the chimney in order to make them look old. They
are now burnt in parts and covered with soot.
When they have assumed as a dark colour as
seems to be suitable, the soot is wiped off and the
papers are nailed together into a book and taken
out into the desert, where they are buried in the
sand. Having remained there for some time they Blockprint forgery dating from around 1897, purchased
are “discovered” and brought out into the market in by Gul Muhammad, a well known Kashgar merchant, for

order to—make fools of the Europeans.” 49 RS 40 and sent to Capt. Godfrey. Several blocks of text
can be seen repeated randomly at different places on
the page. Several of the letters, Hoernle thought,
resembled characters in the Kharoshthi alphabet [BL:
Or.13873/52]

Hoernle, however, was not convinced by such

accounts. The question of forgery was still an open
one. He conceded that some of the blockprints
were probably modern, but considered them
copies of older formulaic collections of prayers and
incantations which served the same purpose as
prayer-wheels or prayer-flags. As for the
manuscripts, Hoernle’s overall view in 1899 was
that they were genuine. Stein and the Iranian
49 Op. cit.: p. 59.

60 SAALG Newsletter
scholar E. W. West had confirmed that at least one 1900. His letters do not survive, but according to
of the scripts (“Pahlavi” see below) was genuine. Hoernle’s register, they described a “well-
Hoernle’s examination of the paper led him to preserved stūpa in Kashgar.” After leaving
believe that it did not all come from Khotan. To Yarkand, Stein stopped on the way to Khotan at
solve the problem of the diversity of scripts by the Guma, on 5th October, with a view to investigating
hypothesis of forgery, he concluded, “is only to further the sites at which Islam Akhun and others
substitute one riddle, and a harder one, for had found the numerous manuscripts and
another. How can Islām Akhūn and his blockprints that Hoernle had described in his
comparatively illiterate confederates be credited articles of 1897 and 1899. Stein wrote again from
with the no mean ingenuity necessary for Khotan on November 12th – another letter which
excogitating them?” 50 does not survive – presumably reporting to
Hoernle’s concluding plea in the introduction to Hoernle his failure to find corroboration for Islam
part I of his 1899 Report was for a scientific Akhun’s supposed ancient sites. Hoernle,
archaeological expedition to be made to Central however, did not receive this letter until early in
Asia, which would independently investigate “these 1901, 54 by which time he had already sent part II
sand-buried sites near Khotan.” 51 Stein had of his Report to press. 55 Hoernle’s reply of 25th
corresponded with Hoernle about such an February is unfortunately lost.
expedition as early as June 1898, 52 but his plans
did not come to fruition until the end of May 1900.
Meanwhile Hoernle was still working on part II of
his report on the British Collection, in which he
made considerable advances with the
decipherment of Khotanese, but was still
unsuccessful in interpreting the manuscripts in
“unknown characters.”
New correspondence between Stein and
Hoernle has recently come to light, which
describes Stein’s progress in unravelling the truth
about the Khotan forgeries. 53 Stein first wrote to
Hoernle from Yarkand on September 22 and 24th
54 Hoernle’s letter to Stein of December 17th was,
according to his register of correspondence [IOR MSS
50 Op. cit.: p. 62. Eur F 302/13], a reply to Stein’s of September 22nd and
51 Op. cit.: p. xxxii. 24th.
52 IOR MSS Eur F 302/13: entry for 25 June 1898: 55 J. Bloch to Hoernle, 17 Apr. 1901: reply to Hoernle’s
“Priv., from Dr. A. Stein, respecting projected exploration letters of 15 Feb, 10, 18 and 27 March. “The first
in Khotan.” installment of your MS. has arrived safely and is with the
53 IOR MSS Eur F 302/51. Press.” [IOR MSS Eur F 302/51].

61
 “Pahlavi” forgery, one of thirteen books which Macartney sent to Hoernle in 1897 together with pottery, coins, and other
objects from Khotan and the Takla Makan. Hoernle wrote: “In December last [1897], when I had the opportunity of showing
them to Dr. Aurel Stein, who has made Iranian scripts and languages a special study, he at once recognized the Pahlavi
script in verse. He even read some portions of it, though, of course, as will be readily understood by those who know the
difficulties of reading unknown texts in Pahlavi, it was not possible for him, at such short notice, to determine what the
purport of the text might be.” (A. F. Rudolf Hoernle, “A report on the British Collection of Antiquities from Central Asia, part
I,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 68, pt. I, extra no. (1899), p. 63) [BL: Or.13873/72]

Stein wrote again from Dandan Uiliq on January Tibetan and Chinese records also duly present
3rd 1901 (letter missing) and on March 11th from themselves. Only the ‘unknown scripts’ with which
Camp Bilangan, Keriya Darya. Here he went into Kashgar and Ladakh were so liberally supplied for
some detail about his discoveries at Niya and some years seem now to have vanished. When
Endere, adding: “After what I wrote to you in my returning to Khotan I shall endeavour to find out
last letter, you will not be surprised to hear that I what has become of them, – and those who
failed to discover the slightest trace of any books manufactured them.” Hoernle’s anxious reply of
or MSS ‘in unknown characters.’ Brāhmī, May 15th, the day after he received Stein’s letter,
Kharoshṭhī, ‘Central Asian Brāhmī’ texts on is unfortunately lost.
parchment, wood and paper have come to light in
greater number than I could have hoped for.

62 SAALG Newsletter
Stein’s final letter to Hoernle from his first
expedition was written at Kashgar on May 25th.
Thanking him for his letters of December 19th,
February 25th and March 27th, which he had only
just received, he wrote about his plans for the
future, and his discovery of a large vihāra, reliefs,
and sculptures at Rawak, before recounting his
eventual interview with Islam Akhun in Khotan on
April 25th. 56 Stein wrote “I cannot enter in detail
into your remarks about the forged MSS. and
prints with which Islam Akhun’s factory supplied
Kashgar, Ladakh and Kashmir since 1895. It Letter from Stein to Hoernle from Kashgar, dated 25

would be too great a task to enumerate all the May 1901 [BL: IOR MSS Eur F 302/51]

evidence which has accumulated as to these

forgeries. …Turdi’s finds, mostly scraps in Brahmi Hoernle replied on June 27th to Stein, care of H.

and Chinese, are genuine; whatever Islam Akhun S. King & Co, Pall Mall. It was possibly this letter

supplied, is manufactured. The sites which he that Stein referred to when he wrote to his brother

mentioned to Macartney and others as his Ernst on July 4th that Hoernle “had accepted the

findplaces, are either fictive localities or mere undeniable [and] wants to have his report about

‘Tatis’, i.e. completely eroded sites of villages the deciphered forgeries destroyed.” 57 On July

where the loess is covered by potsherds and 9th: Stein wrote again to his brother from

similar hard débris but where the survival of Hoernle’s garden “Understandably, he is very

papers is a physical impossibility.” Islam Akhun deeply disappointed by Islam Akhun’s forgeries,

had made “at last a clear breast of it, and but to my satisfaction has recovered and I am

acknowledged (what everybody else among his spared a painful discussion.” 58 Hoernle had by

friends knew) that he had never been beyond now received the proofs of the second part of his

Aksipil, and told in detail how he commenced first Report and gave them to Stein on July 17th,

to write and then to print his ‘old books’.” together with a revised manuscript introduction.
Stein’s reply of July 22nd shows his desire for
caution: “As my own report is not yet written and
as in my preliminary account it will scarcely be
possible to deal in detail with what I may well call
56 Stein’s interview with Islam Akhun is described in the negative results of my tour, it is doubly
detail in his Ancient Khotan: detailed report of necessary that the statements as to forged and
archaeological explorations in Chinese Turkestan. 2
vols. (Oxford, 1907), pp. 507-14; also in his Preliminary
report on a journey of archaeological and topographical 57 Jeannete Mirsky, Sir Aurel Stein: archaeological
exploration in Chinese Turkestan (London, 1901), pp. explorer (London, 1977), p. 197.
64-8. 58 Ibid.

63
genuine pieces of the “British Collection” as far as attained.” 59 Hoernle has been unfairly criticised for
they are made on my authority, should be precise his conclusions which in hindsight may seem
and carefully considered. I am anxious mainly that rather naïve, but the main difference between him
nothing should be stated that I might subsequently and later scholars, is that he was prepared to
on giving my own detailed account be obliged to publish the forgeries without understanding them,
modify or criticize.” Stein was no doubt recalling in the hope that someone else might be more
the disastrous consequences of his false successful.
identification of the “Pahlavi” forgeries in 1897.
Stein’s intervention in 1901 put an end to Islam
Akhun’s forging activities, though in fact it is
unlikely that much had come out of his workshop
after 1898 when people first began to be
suspicious. However in the early 1930s a glut of
forged Brahmi paper manuscripts again appeared
on the market. Sold alongside genuine 8th and
9th-century Khotanese documents from the
Dandan Uiliq area, they were purchased by many
Europeans, most notably by Stein on his fourth
expedition to Central Asia between 1930 and
1931, and by Nils Ambolt, who was part of Sven
Hedin’s expedition between 1927 and 1935. This
time scholars were more cautious. Photographs
were widely circulated, but they remained
unpublished. For a time the Iranist H. W. Bailey,
who was editing the Khotanese documents of the
Hedin collection, regarded them as being “in a
script which, for distinction from normal Khotanese
handwriting, I call script II. This writing represents
a form of the usual Brāhmī script of Khotan so
modified and at times so disjointed as to suggest
either careless copying or even copying by a
scribe unfamiliar with the script ... So different is
this hand that it was a task of difficulty to work out
the reading of the texts and after repeated
attempts complete success has not been

59 Unpublished report [Ancient India & Iran Trust,

Cambridge, Bailey Archive/155].

64 SAALG Newsletter
 OPENING THE CHEST OF NEPAL’S HISTORY: THE SURVEY OF B. H.
HODGSON’S MANUSCRIPTS IN THE BRITISH LIBRARY AND THE ROYAL
ASIATIC SOCIETY, LONDON
DR RAMESH K. DHUNGEL
RESEACHER, HODGSON MANUSCRIPT PROJECT, SOAS - CNAS/TRIBHUVAN UNIVERSITY
[Updated version of a paper delivered at the 72nd Conference of SAALG, the British Library, London, 26
November 2004]

INTRODUCING HODGSON from the control of the Gorkhali authority of Nepal.

Brian Hodgson was a long-serving British diplomat About a year later, in 1820, he was promoted to the
in Nepal. After an initial educational training at position of Assistant Resident Representative and
Haileybury College in England, he travelled to transferred to Nepal. He was not expecting to work
Calcutta in 1818 and continued his oriental studies in Nepal long-term, at least not during those early
at Fort William College, Bengal (Calcutta). The days of his diplomatic service. On the contrary, he
focus at Haileybury was on preparing young was ambitious to attain a higher and more
Englishmen for employment overseas, particularly challenging position in Calcutta or elsewhere and in
with the East India Company, and during his time 1822 he was transferred from the Residency in
there Hodgson achieved Distinction in Bengali Nepal to the Persian Department of the Foreign
language, as well as in several other subjects Office in Calcutta as Acting Deputy Secretary.
including classics and political economy. He had Although there was ample scope for promotion
begun his study of the classical languages of India from this job, his weakening health did not allow
with the intention of earning an Honours Degree, him to remain on the plains, particularly in and
but he was unable to complete this due to ill-health around Calcutta, and he was advised by well-
relating to a liver complaint. However, his time at wishers and doctors either to return to England or
Fort William College afforded him good exposure to to move to a hill station. Unable to afford the
Sanskrit, as well as the opportunity to gain former, he decided to go back to Nepal.
proficiency in the Persian language. 60 Hodgson arrived in Kathmandu at the
Hodgson was just nineteen years old when he beginning of 1824, accepting the job of postmaster.
was appointed Assistant Commissioner in Kumaun, This was a post considerably lower than that of
an area recently taken by the East India Company Assistant Resident or

60
Rajendra Lal Mitra, The Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of
Nepal (Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal, 1882); William
Wilson Hunter, Life of Brian Houghton Hodgson: British
Resident at the Court of Nepal (London: John Murray,
1896 (Indian reprints available)), p. 32.

65
 Ellenborough to the lower post of Assistant Sub-
Commissioner in Simla that he resigned from the
British Indian Civil Service. 61
At least during the initial stages of his posting as
a diplomat in Nepal, this was not the job of
Hodgson’s choice. He had accepted it only
because of his health and financial situation, and
had sought advice from friends and well-wishers as
to whether or not to continue with the appointment.
He received timely counsel from one of his
experienced friends, William Butterworth Bayley, at
that time a Member of the Supreme Council of the
Governor-General of India. Bayley seems to have
been a source of inspiration for Hodgson,
particularly with relation to plans for pioneering
studies of Nepal and Himalayan subjects. W. W.
Hunter quotes Hodgson in his biography:

Dr Ramesh Dhungel poses before a portrait of Brian

Hodgson, which is currently hanging in the Board Having listened attentively to my statement
Room of the British Library (seeking advice) Bayley replied: “true,
Nepal is in every sense peculiar, and in the
Deputy Secretary in the Foreign Office. Yet for him, present quiet times you can learn little
leaving the East India Company’s service had not there. But we have had one fierce struggle
been an option – his salaried income was the main with Nepal, and we shall yet have another.
source of livelihood for his large family of three When that event occurs there will be very
sisters, three brothers and parents in England. special need for local experience. Go back
Since his previous post was at this time occupied and master the subject in all its phases,
by somebody else, he had to wait for more than a and then, despite your youth and the many
year before getting it back in 1824 and he went on men your seniors in the service who will try
to hold this position until 1829, when he was to get the embassy, you will have a fair
promoted to Acting Resident. In 1831, Hodgson chance of succeeding.” 62
was appointed British Resident to the Kingdom of
Nepal and he served in this capacity until late 1843,
when a harsh decision taken against him by
Governor-General Edward Law (the Earl of
Ellenborough) forced him to leave. So deeply did
he feel the insult of his appointment by 61
Hunter, pp. 232-233.
62
Ibid., p. 94.

66 SAALG Newsletter
Bayley was also the one to prepare for Hodgson a Here, proper care and arrangements for their
questionnaire, comprising of 36 questions, for the education were made under the guardianship of
study of “military tribe in Nepal.” 63 Hodgson’s sister, Fanny, who was established and
It was in a state of confusion, anger and influential due to her husband’s position as
frustration that Hodgson voyaged back to England, Provincial Governor in Arnem.
where he found himself unable to let go of his The happy life of Hodgson and his family in
passion for research on Nepal and the Himalaya. Nepal appears to have turned to tragedy after his
He decided to go back to India and continue his enforced departure. Custom dictated that he was
endeavours in oriental studies, and in 1845, after unable to take his beloved Meharunnisha back to
less than a year in England, he sailed to Calcutta England, even had he wanted to, and he was
and attempted to return to Nepal. The British compelled to leave her behind in Kathmandu. At
authorities, however, denied him permission to do the same time, he was unsure as to what he was
so in a private capacity on the grounds that he had going to do with his future. His mistress might well
served there in a position of prestige and power for have been the reason why he later wanted to
more than two decades. Finally, he decided to return to Nepal as a private researcher. In addition
settle in Darjeeling, where he continued his to this, he had to cope with the deep pain of losing
research, returning to England for good in 1857. both his children at a young age – Sarah dying
Hodgson seems to have been celibate until the from tuberculosis in Holland in 1851, Henry in
age of thirty-two. By 1833, he was involved in an Darjeeling in 1856, probably from lingering malaria.
affair with a local Muslim lady – possibly the widow Even though they were “brown in colour” and
of a Kashmiri trader based in Kathmandu – with had been born from the womb of a “non-white” or
whom he had two children, a son and a daughter. “brown” woman, Hodgson had been eager to give
Until 1843, Hodgson appears to have enjoyed life his children a European elitist kind of an education
as though married and settled. Both of his children and social exposure. He encouraged Henry to stay
were being raised in the lavish environment of the in England. Henry, however, did not find it a
Residency, whilst his mistress, Meharunnisha suitable or particularly attractive place to be and
(derogatively nicknamed “Musī -dwāre” in several decided to go back to India and become a
official documents) was with him, taking care of the zamindar. He finally returned there, arriving in
children and household. Although Hodgson and Calcutta, in 1853. 65 Thus between 1845 and 1849,
Meharunnisha faced criticism for their relationship, Henry was in Holland, moving to England by 1849
they were as husband and wife. Hodgson took both or 1850. He was already in England by the time of
his children with him to England and, prior to the official visit there of Nepal’s Prime Minister
leaving England for India in 1845, to Holland. 64 Jangabahadur and had a meeting with him. He
also benefited from Jangabahadur’s special help

63
Hodgson MSS 09/17/107-144. Darjeeling 1820-1858, (London: Routledge Curzon
64
David Waterhouse (ed.), The Origins of Himalayan (Indian reprint available), 2004), p. 10.
65
Studies: Brian Houghton Hodgson in Nepal and Ibid., pp.13-14.

67
(possibly both financial and social), something of their links with Hodgson? This is a serious
which Hodgson very openly acknowledges in a question, but it remains unanswered because of a
letter to Jangabahadur. This special help was later lack of proper historical evidence. A personal letter
reciprocated by Hodgson when he arranged, and from Hodgson’s son, Henry, addressed to his
perhaps even sponsored, the English education of mother has been found, but it is difficult to say
Gajarajsing Thapa, Jangabahadur’s son-in-law, in whether this was to his own mother or to his
Darjeeling. 66 Around 1855, when Hodgson’s son stepmother, Anne Scott. 70 The letter, sent from
Henry was staying at Titaliya or Khersang for somewhere called Meneherpur (Manoharpur?),
health reasons, arrangements were also been doesn’t have a complete date, but gives the day
made for him to give Gajaraj English lessons. and time of writing as “8 a.m. Saturday”. This may
Garjaraj himself reports to Hodgson in Darjeeling be the name of a local place in the area called
about his progress in learning English from Titaliya near Khersang, where Hodgson’s friend, Dr
Henry, 67 from which it can be understood that Campbell, had suggested that Henry should stay
Henry Hodgson was Captain Gajarajsing Thapa’s for health reasons. 71 Anne had married Hodgson in
English tutor from the time of his arrival in 1853 and went to Darjeeling with him later that
Darjeeling until his death in 1856. year. Another interesting question regarding
Little is known about what became of Meharun- Hodgson’s family life is why, having left
nisha. She appears to have been in contact with Meharunnisha in Nepal, he didn’t marry for about a
Hodgson until around 1853. 68 It seems that in 1846 decade, and why it was only in 1853 that he
she was exiled from Nepal for her involvement in a married Anne? Was he simply not interested in
conspiracy before, during or immediately after the getting married whilst Meharunnisha was still alive
Kot-massacre of 1846. The list of people executed until around 1852-53? Did his decision to marry
or punished after the massacre includes her Anne signify Meharunnisha’s death? All these are
nickname as one of those convicted of conspiracy important questions, but are again unanswered
and ousted. 69 It is therefore possible that she because of an absence of proper evidence.
visited Hodgson in Darjeeling whilst she was in
exile. It is also interesting why she, a low-caste HODGSON MANUSCRIPTS ON NEPAL AND HIMALAYAN
woman, escaped capital punishment. Did Hodgson STUDIES

intervene in some way, or were Jangabahadur and It is well-known that Brian Hodgson was a man of
his party uneasy about this particular case because versatile calibre and incomparably painstaking
character. His position as a brilliant master of
research on Nepal and Himalayan studies is
66
Ramesh Dhungel, “External intervention brought by
indisputable. He has been credited with being the
internal court-conspiracy” (text in Nepali), Himal Khabar
pioneering researcher/ scholar in numerous areas
Patrika, no. 142 (27 Feb.-13 March, 2005), pp. 64-68.
67 relating to Nepal and the Himalaya. It would seem
Hodgson MSS 22/06/104-105.
68
Hunter, p. 86.
69 70
P. S. Rana, Rāṇājīharuko saccā itihās (Kathmandu, Hodgson MSS 22/06/149.
71
2003). Hodgson MSS 22/06/110.

68 SAALG Newsletter
that his sudden dismissal from the job in merely reporting for British colonial interest. After
Kathmandu left his future research plans badly he settled in Darjeeling, he appears to have been
affected, whilst in Nepal, too, the King and one of more of a disciplined research scholar than a
the two major factions of the ruling elite missed him colonial officer.
terribly. There were basically two main reasons Hodgson also seems to have greatly missed
why this faction were affected: 1) they were his close association with Buddhist Newars. Pandit
deprived of a major source of knowledge and Amritananda had already died by the time he left
learning, and 2) they had lost the support for their Nepal and, even before he arrived in Darjeeling,
political power that they were getting, as well as Hodgson was in search of another learned Newar
other benefits, direct and indirect, from British Buddhist Pandit who could translate Newar and
India. 72 Sanskrit Newar texts on Buddhism and Nepali
Hodgson’s dismissal from Nepal also had a history. Although his early publications were on the
negative impact on his grand project of writing a fauna of Nepal, Hodgson claims that he had begun
comprehensive history of Nepal. Through his to collect information on Buddhism as soon as he
unpublished manuscripts, as well as published arrived in Kathmandu in 1821. 73 Despite his best
sources, we can assess that in Darjeeling (1845- efforts, however, he doesn’t appear to have found
1858) Hodgson’s studies were confined mainly a Newar Buddhist translator to work as his
within the periphery of Himalayan languages, research assistant whilst in Darjeeling. 74 Thus we
ethnography and flora and fauna. It seems that can interpret Lord Ellenborough’s forceful action of
during his time in Darjeeling, his long-term sacking Hodgson from the position of British
research projects relating to studies of Nepali Resident as a travesty for the future of Nepali
history and Buddhism were left virtually untouched. historical and cultural studies. The vast body of his-
In Kathmandu (1920-1943) Hodgson conducted his torical material collected by Hodgson in Nepal and
studies with two main purposes in mind: 1) to Darjeeling remained unused for almost two
report on Nepal and Tibet as a colonial agent, and centuries.
2) to lay the foundations for his own scholarly Having examined the Hodgson collections at
expertise. Bayley’s suggestion to Hodgson had the British Library and the Royal Asiatic Society, it
been based more on the colonial ambition of is now known that besides being the co-discoverer
acquiring information and gaining command over of Mahayana Buddhism and a pioneering
various remote parts of the world than on
disciplined, scholarly study. Hodgson heeded
73
Bayley’s advice, yet even during his diplomatic Waterhouse, p. 255; B. H. Hodgson, Essays on the
Languages, Literature, and Religion of Nepal and Tibet,
service in Nepal, his studies went far beyond
Together with Further Papers on the Geography,
Ethnology, and Commerce of those Countries (London:
72
King Rajendra’s letter to the Governor-General and Trubner (first Indian publication of 1971 and reprints
Guru Ranganath’s letter to Hodgson from the Royal available), 1874), p. 35.
74
Asiatic Society Collection; Bhaktabir Khabas’s letter, Ranganath’s letter to Hodgson in Darjeeling, deposited
Hodgson MSS Vol. 56, f. 2. at the RAS, London.

69
contributor to the field of the study of flora and – Kathmandu, Bhaktapur and Patan – and the
fauna – focusing on the birds and mammals of the expenses of the royal family and the military.
Himalayas, as well as plenty of other things – Volume 72 is the literary text of
Hodgson was also the first researcher to be in a Ḳriṣṇacaritopākhyānanāṭaka (in Hindi), and
position to collect original historical material. This volumes 73-75 are ethnic languages and
included medieval and modern inscriptions, dozens vocabularies. Volumes 33-34 and 82-83 are
of chronicles and historical accounts and other unpublished Newari dictionaries, vocabularies and
written documents from Nepal. He was the first grammars written for Hodgson by Khardar
person to gain access to the great record book Jitmohan and Pandit Amritananda. Volumes 84-92
(baḍāḍhaḍḍa) of the Royal Palace, as well as to contain Lepcha and Limbu language material.
the records of the inner apartment (bhitri-khopi). 75 Volumes 93-102 are Persian and Urdu manuscripts
Out of 106 volumes of Hodgson manuscripts (translations and originals). Volumes 103 and 104
(in boxes and scrolls), 104 volumes have been are again chronologies and genealogies.
found, all of which have been read and catalogued. In my opinion, the best way to introduce the
Files containing volumes and item label data have British Library’s Hodgson collection would be as
been created by employing the xml.editor program. “an uncategorised encyclopaedic 18th/19th century
Volumes 1-23 of the manuscripts are in record of Nepal and some other Himalayan
English; volume 24 contains manuscripts in both territories.” It is difficult to place the manuscripts
English and Nepali and the manuscripts in volumes within a limited scope of subject categories, yet
25-74 are mainly in Nepali, although they also despite this, one might tentatively group them as
include some Sanskrit, Hindi, Newari, Tibetan, follows:
Hindi/Hindustani, Avadhi (written in Kaithi Script)
and other ethnic languages. After volume 74, the diplomatic correspondence, Nepal’s politics
manuscripts are mainly in Lepcha and Lumbu, and administration, the military system, the
whilst volumes 93-104 are primarily in Persian and land system, agriculture, geography,
Urdu, the majority being translations and natural resources, routes and trails,
summaries of Sanskrit and Nepali originals. revenue and taxation, trade and
Regarding scripts, besides Latin, Nagari, Kiranti commerce, state expenditure, ethnic
(Sirjanga), Lepcha, Tibetan, Prachalit, Newari, studies, Buddhism (Newari and Tibetan),
Persian, and Kaithi, there are also a few examples Buddhist art and iconography, traditional
of Ranjana, Bengali and Mongolian/Chinese. Buddhist and Hindu architecture, the
Of the volumes written in 19th century Nepali, Nepali legal and judicial system, border
volumes 39-60 are dominated by local chronicles problems and disputes, Himalayan and hill
and genealogies. Volumes 61-71 contain revenue languages (including grammars,
accounts, taxation and state expenditure, covering dictionaries, vocabularies, epigraphy-script
details of the land tax of three of the Valley’s cities and alphabets), Sanskrit-Buddhist literary
texts, genealogical accounts, chronicles,
75
Hodgson MSS vol. 55/12/78-90. institutes or social reforms by different

70 SAALG Newsletter
 rulers, general and historical accounts of Hodgson’s personal and official life. This volume
Nepal, prominent temples and deities, includes material eulogising Hodgson, letters with
accounts of military campaigns and the royal seal, official letters from prime ministers,
territorial expansion (including details of chautariyās and kājis (courtiers or high-ranking
wars with Tibet and China), original and officials), state orders, etc. A large number of these
copies of academic correspondence, are in Nepali, but there are also letters and
copies of Sanskrit and Newari inscriptions, certificates in European and other Indian
palm-leaf manuscripts and medieval and languages, i.e. English, French, Hindi, Kaithi.
modern royal orders (lālamohar and Amongst this material, manuscripts detailing
sanad). internal court conflicts in Nepal are of particular
importance, as are letters such as farewell eulogies
Besides manuscripts, the collection also includes to Hodgson by King Rajendra and Crown Prince
copies of Hodgson’s published articles, together Surendra, a letter to the Governor-General
with notes on the articles and other related requesting Hodgson’s reinstatement as Resident to
material. Nepal, and letters from the Prime Minister and
In order to gain a better understanding of the Commander-in-Chief Jangabahadur, and his son,
Hodgson manuscripts at the British Library and to Captain Gajarajsingh Thapa.
enable cross-checking, a couple of days were Apart from the work of cataloguing the
devoted to examining the manuscripts deposited at Hodgson manuscripts, many previously unknown
the Royal Asiatic Society, as well as those at the facts relating to Nepali history and cultural studies
Bodleian Library, Oxford. It is now known that in and the history of relations between Nepal and
many cases, the manuscripts held at the Royal Britain have been explored through the current
Asiatic Society, the Bodleian Library, the Kew project. The most significant of the findings from
Royal Botanical Gardens and a few other places, Hodgson’s boxes are: several unknown historical
including the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, are accounts, genealogical accounts, two dictionaries
very complementary to those at the British Library. (Pandit Amritananda’s and Khardar Jitmohan’s),
Similarly, most of the sketch drawings and textual the Newar grammar of Pandit Amritananda,
descriptions of original art objects collected by Amritananda’s field report from Bodhgaya,
Hodgson and now deposited in various places, correspondence between Hodgson and academic
including the Royal Asiatic Society, the Natural contacts, documents relating to the royal social
History Museum, and the Library of the Zoological reforms of Siddhinasimha Malla, Vishnu Mall,
Society, London, can also be found in the British Ranabahadur Shah and Rajendravikram Shah,
Library’s collection. Hodgson’s note on the Ashokan pillar, dozens of
Besides five-or-so boxes of manuscripts of a early Sanskrit and Newari inscriptions from the
general nature at the Royal Asiatic Society, there is Kathmandu Valley and palm-leaf manuscripts from
also a very large bound volume known as the late-medieval Nepal. Amongst the most important
“autograph book”, which contains a couple of details to have come to light are those relating to
hundred important original manuscripts relating to Hodgson’s personal and professional life – his

71
family, his research assistants, informants and field and funded mainly by the Leverhulme Trust (2003-
workers, his methods of gathering information and 2006), with the additional support of Michael Palin
his dispute with other scholars relating to research (2006) and the British Library (2007).
credit (Alexander Csoma de Koros, 76 for example)  Until September 2005, the main focus was
– as well his place within Nepal’s politics and his on reading, translating and summarising
relations with Nepali learned elites. Equally manuscripts in languages other than Sanskrit,
significant are further details relating to subjects as Nepali and Tibetan, i.e. Persian, Urdu, Lepcha and
diverse as the history of P. N. Shah, the authentic Newari. In the case of Urdu and Persian, the task
antiquity of the Limbu script and the Newar was an unusual one. Not only did I have to work
theatrical tradition, with special reference to the with the person hired for this, but I also had to write
performance of the Kaṃśabadhanāṭaka. – with extra speed – summaries for the content of
One of the most regrettable facts to have each item. Although the Urdu/Persian manuscripts
emerged from this project relates to the distortion in the Hodgson collection are written in three
of the manuscripts’ provenance. There were different types of script, the language employed
various changes in the India Office Library between makes them extremely difficult to understand even
the date when the manuscripts were acquired and by an expert, for whom the heavy use of Hindu and
the time at which they were processed in the early Buddhist philosophical terms and concepts, and
20th century. Also, serious mistakes were made in sometime even sentences, causes problems. A
the so-called “re-classification” and permanent further complication is the addition of Sanskrit,
binding of the manuscripts. Rather than employing Newari, Nepali and Hindi words. A total of 11
people with the appropriate language expertise, volumes containing over 200 items and 1000 folios
this re-classification was done according to size. of Urdu/Persian manuscripts were to be read and
This in itself caused more damage to the order of summarized within 15 working days. From
the manuscripts than any of the dispersion and January-March 2006, I spent much of my time re-
admixtures which occurred from 1864-1919 and working and completing the details for the volume
has become the main problem in reading and using and item level descriptions of the entries for these
the collection. Although the manuscripts at the manuscripts.
Royal Asiatic Society have not been bound into  From April-May 2005, I concentrated on
volumes, their provenance, too, has been distorted. entering the content summary of translated Lepcha
In many cases, this makes it difficult to understand manuscripts. About 60% of these were translated
their historical relevance and importance. in Sikkim and Nepal from January-March 2005.
The remaining 40% were so difficult that they had
PROGRESS REPORT ON THE HODGSON MANUSCRIPT to be left in Sikkim to be studied by an expert with
CATALOGUING PROJECT the ability to read and understand the most ancient
 The Project is conducted by the School of form of the Lepcha script and language. In many
Oriental and African Studies, University of London, cases, they also had to be rewritten for a better
reading and understanding of their content. I even
76
Hodgson MSS.vol. 97. had to employ a Lepcha lecturer to go into the

72 SAALG Newsletter
remote villages of Sikkim and find a reader of remarks. To date, I have received editorial
ancient Lepcha with whom to work. Fortunately, comments on approximately 60% of the
the summaries and translations of these difficult cataloguing work completed so far. Digital images
Lepcha manuscripts arrived safely from Sikkim. In of selected manuscripts have been taken by library
the meantime, I consulted another scholar of the technicians and will be adjusted and added to the
Lepcha language in the Netherlands and October- final version in February 2007.
November 2005 were spent in verifying the work  The British Library has provided funds for
done by the latter, as well as the native translations the Project to be extended for another 6 months,
arriving from Sikkim. taking it to June 2007. Efforts are being made to
 In June and July 2006, I worked with a find funding for a further year (July 2007-June
Newar expert from Nepal on the task of reading 2008) with the intention of including the catalogue
and translating Newar manuscripts written in the of Hodgson manuscripts deposited at the Royal
Nagari or Newari script. I entered the resulting Asiatic Society.
details of content in August and September 2006.
 Technical work relating to languages, dates,
references, etc. has been in progress since
December 2005. This now focuses on the
rewriting of content, the preparation of a final list of
references, bibliography and glossary, the
introductory text, as well as editorial

73
 PUBLICATION OF THE PUNJAB GOVERNOR’S REPORTS
LIONEL CARTER

At present I am engaged in publishing in their Autonomy (8173045682), covers the years 1936-
entirety the fortnightly reports which the Governors 1939. Unlike the majority of Provinces which were
of the Punjab sent the Viceroy from late 1936 under Congress rule during these years, the
(when the series began) until the end of British rule Government of the Punjab was run by a Unionist
in August 1947. The volumes are being published coalition Ministry and in many respects business
in India by Manohar and besides the actual reports continued as it had done in the old days. The
they also include other important documents which Premier was a distinguished Muslim, Sir Sikander
the Governors or their Secretaries sent to New Hyat Khan, who was also a major statesman on the
Delhi. all-India stage. His activities dominate the first
The series of Governors’ Reports was started volume and of particular interest are his negation of
because both the Viceroy and the India Office were a pact with M. A. Jinnah in October 1937 and his
concerned that they would receive insufficient talks with Congress in the summer of 1939 aimed
information on developments in the eleven at bringing about a constitutional settlement.
Provinces of British India as a consequence of new The second volume in the series, Strains of War
constitutional arrangements established by the (8173046263), documents the years 1940-1943.
1935 Government of India Act. Procedures had The Punjab now became of crucial importance in
long been in place whereby the Secretariats of the the Second World War. It was the largest source of
Provincial Governments sent the Home recruits to the Indian Army and also a major
Department in New Delhi fortnightly appraisals of supplier of food in India. Sikander again had a part
local developments. However with the beginning of to play in the various constitutional discussions
Provincial Autonomy early in 1937, it was clear that which took place but one has the feeling that his
the new Cabinets made up of politicians would star was beginning to set. Nonetheless his sudden
greatly influence the content of the appraisals. death from a heart attack in December 1942, aged
What the Viceroy and India Office now required fifty, was a major tragedy. Had he lived, he may
were frank, confidential and personal reports on the well have eased some of the heartbreak of partition
situation by the Governors themselves together even if he had been unable to prevent it. His
with reflections on general trends. We have, successor as Premier, Nawabzada Khizar Hyat
therefore, a series which reveals some of the Khan, quickly established himself.
deeper official thinking of the last days of the Raj. The third volume carries the title Last Years of
So far two volumes have appeared in the the Ministries (817304662X) and takes the record
Punjab series and a third will be published shortly. from 1 January 1944 to 3 March 1947. These were
The first volume, entitled The Start of Provincial momentous years for the Punjab when, following a

74 SAALG Newsletter
split between the Unionists and Jinnah’s Muslim
League in 1944, the League went on to win the
allegiance of the vast majority of the Punjab’s
Muslims. In elections in early 1946 it secured 75
seats in an Assembly of 175 seats and was the
largest single party. Notwithstanding this fact,
Khizar continued to lead a coalition now made up
largely of Congress and Sikh members with just a
handful of Unionist Muslims. The eleven months
that this Ministry held office were marked by
extreme communal tension and, ultimately,
violence. It fell early in March 1947 and for the
remainder of British rule the Punjab was
administered directly by the Governor.
The Punjab series can be purchased from
Manohar Publishers, 4753/23 Ansari Road,
Daryaganj, New Delhi, 110 002, India. (E-mail
[email protected]). In the UK, it is
distributed by Motilal (UK) – Books of India, P.O.
Box 324, Borehamwood, Herts, WD6 1NB. (E-mail:
[email protected]). It is envisaged that two
further volumes will be needed to complete the
series.

75
 NEWS

THE BRITISH LIBRARY sacred texts held by the Library, as well as those
lent by other institutions, this will look at the
1. Dipali Ghosh retired as Curator for North Indian production, interpretation and use of sacred texts,
Languages in December 2005. She is greatly exploring points of commonality and difference
missed by colleagues in the South Asian section, between and within these religions. It will also look
as well as by the many visiting scholars who at the different aspects of faith today.
benefited so much from her tireless cataloguing, Over the summer of 2007, a small exhibition in
advice and research during the seventeen years in the British Library’s Folio Society Gallery entitled
which she held the post. We wish her a long and Banned: the printed backdrop to South Asian
very happy retirement. Independence will mark the 60th anniversary of
freedom from British rule for India and Pakistan.
2. Members of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Drawing upon the British Library’s rich collection of
Collections (APAC) contributed articles highlighting books and ephemera in South Asian languages
specific treasures within their collections to A and English banned by the Government of India
Cabinet of Oriental Curiosities, a volume to under the Indian Press Act of 1910 – and
commemorate Graham Shaw’s career of over thirty interspersed with relevant India Office records,
years at the British Library and his continuation as drawings and photographs – this exhibition will
APAC’s Director. Organised and edited by provide an alternative take on the Indian freedom
Annabel Teh Gallop, the Head of APAC’s South movement during the final crucial decades leading
and South East Asian Collections, this was up to 1947.
published by the British Library in 2006 and is
available at the British Library Shop. 5. Cathy Collins, Programme Administrator of the
Endangered Archives Programme, reports that the
3. Reference Services in the APAC Reading Room following projects relating to South Asia continue to
have been reduced from a working team of 7 to progress well:
one of 5. The team’s work continues to be much
appreciated. The first of Tim Thomas’ Family - Survey, conservation and archiving of
History Study Days this year is scheduled for pre-1947 Telegu printed materials and
Saturday 17 March. paintings in India.
- Archiving texts in the Sylhet Nagri
4. Sacred, a major exhibition on Judaism, script.
Christianity and Islam, will be on display in the - Preservation of historic and rare Nepali
British Library’s Pearson Gallery from 27 April-23 monographs and periodicals.
September 2007. Featuring the finest examples of

76 SAALG Newsletter
 - Preserving Marathi manuscripts and 2. The future of the study of the Middle East, South
making them accessible. Asia, East Asia, and the Ancient Near East in the
- Endangered Urdu periodicals: University of Cambridge, including the restructuring
preservation and access for vulnerable of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, is to be
scholarly resources. discussed in the University's Senate House on
- Digital documentation of manuscript 23/1/2007.
collection in Gangtey.
- The digital documentation of 3. Oral History Archive: Digitisation Project. The
manuscripts at Drametse and Ogyen Centre was awarded a Resource Enhancement
Choling. Grant by the AHRC, with which it plans to digitise
and transcribe
For further details on any of these, please see the
EAP website:
http://www.bl.uk/about/policies/endangerarch.

Leena Mitford

THE CENTRE OF SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES, UNIVERSITY

OF CAMBRIDGE

1. We regret to report the very sad news that the

Centre's Director, Dr Rajnarayan Chandavarkar,
died suddenly on 23 April 2006, whilst attending a
conference in the States. In addition to having been
Director of the Centre of South Asian Studies, Dr R.
S. Chandavarkar had been Reader in History and
Politics of South Asia, and Fellow of Trinity College,
1979-1983, 1988-2006. For an excellent potted
biography of his career by Subho Basu and
Douglas Haynes, please see the Economic and
Political Weekly, May 27, 2006, p. 2061-2063. Dr
Gordon Johnson (his predecessor as Director of
the Centre) was appointed Acting Director until 31
December 2006. Professor C. A. Bayly has been
appointed Director as from 1/1/2007.

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the Centre's 400 tape-recorded interviews and sceptic that the best way to crack a walnut
thereby archive them for posterity. Project was to throw it at a picture, he
outcomes will include a web-searchable database demonstrated this on the framed portrait of
and webstreamed interviews. Ivan Coleby, chief George VI hanging in the entrance
researcher on the project, would welcome shattering the glass to the horror of the
communication with any interested researchers, assembled diners.
archivists or librarians. Please email the Centre's
Archivist, Kevin Greenbank, on kmg23@-  His successor was Colonel A. J. M. Kilroy,
cam.ac.uk. It is envisaged that the project will take O.B.E. Whenever he addressed Assamese
three years to complete. civilians he would include a warning
against excessive expenditure on
4. Centre of South Asian Studies. Occasional marriages. “My own marriage”, he would
Papers series (ISSN:1476-7511), 6 issues for just confide, “cost less than twenty pounds.” At
£18. Forthcoming issues include papers by the end of his speech on one occasion he
William Gould, A. R. Venkatachalapathy, Sean asked his Assamese interpreter: “Did you
Lang, Yunas Samad and Eleanor Newbigin. tell them about my marriage expenses?”
“Oh Sir!” was the reply, “I could not tell
5. Sydney Bolt's memoir, of wartime India, Pseudo them such a shameful thing.”
Sahib, was published on 5 December 2006 by
Hardinge Simpole Publishing: Rachel Rowe
http://www.hardingesimpole.co.uk
Copies are available from the Centre of South THE LIBRARY OF THE INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF

Asian Studies, Cambridge. Please see the Centre's MUSLIM CIVILISATIONS, AGA KHAN UNIVERSITY
website for details: (INTERNATIONAL) IN THE UK
http://www.s-asian.cam.ac.uk
Delegates at last summer's SAALG conference in The Library will be hosting the 76th Conference of
Cambridge enjoyed listening to Sydney Bolt SAALG in January 2007. Further details will
reminiscing about his time as a Communist on the therefore be included in the next Newsletter.
Burma front. The following anecdotes are taken
from his memoir: Stefan Seeger

THE NATIONAL LIBRARY OF SCOTLAND

 When the Japanese threatened to invade
Assam a group of Indian Army officers was 1. The NLS are almost ready to launch a new
despatched to prevent civilian panic. Their website, “A medical history of British India: a
founder, Colonel Billy Short, was too collection of official documents”. This will contain
original to last. In the dining room of the volumes from our India Papers collection, digitised
Delhi Gymkhana Club, having told a last year with a £19,000 grant from the Wellcome

80 SAALG Newsletter
Trust. The site will be aimed at the academic study distance of the British Library, SOAS and the
of the history of medicine, but should also interest Wellcome Library, is proving more convenient than
social historians, and anyone interested in Empire, Bayswater (our previous home) for many of our
or colonial history. We were also recently awarded visitors.
a further £62,000 grant from the Trust, to digitise
more material from the collection, this time to Over the next few months we will be continuing to
include items on the health of the army, reports sort the library collections – the books are on the
from medical institutes and medical teaching shelves, but not necessarily in the right order! – and
establishments, and the supply of medicines in looking at ways of funding the retroconversion of
India during the colonial period. our catalogues over the next few years so that our
new library system includes records for all our
2. On 23-26 July 2007, the University of materials – books, journals, manuscripts, paintings
Edinburgh’s Centre for South Asian Studies and and drawings, personal papers, photographs – in a
School of History & Classics will be holding a single catalogue.
conference to mark the 150th Anniversary of the
Indian Uprising of 1857. 2. The RAS has a new website too, with more
information about the library and all the Society’s
Jan Usher other activities, at :
www.royalasiaticsociety.org.

ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY LIBRARY Kathy Lazenbatt

1. During the summer of 2006 the RAS moved

from its temporary office near Kings Cross into its SCHOOL OF ORIENTAL AND AFRICAN STUDIES LIBRARY
new premises at 14 Stephenson Way, near Euston.
Building work has been ongoing since we moved 1. SOAS is in the process of a strategic review and
in, so it was some time before we could install the the Library will have to respond to changes and
library, and that process is still not quite complete. developments in the direction of the School’s
The new building has provided us with secure teaching and research.
storage for all the collections – something which Marina Chellini and Nicholas Martland,
was impossible in our old premises at Queen’s representing the Library, are involved in ongoing
Gardens. Material is brought to readers in the first discussions with SOAS South Asia academic
floor reading room, where we can accommodate up colleagues about the South Asia collections in the
to 8 readers at a time, which is double the number Library. All parties have acknowledged that there
we could have in the Queen’s Gardens reading are different needs and priorities, as well as
room. Since the library re-opened in late October financial and staffing constraints. We are therefore
we have had a steady stream of visitors. As we had discussing the appropriate size and subject
hoped, the new location, within easy walking coverage of the languages we collect.

81
 National Endowment for the Humanities for the
2. In late 2006 the Library received a consignment South Asia Union Catalogue program. The new
of Nepali publications. This included linguistic and project will create an electronic catalogue of
literary works, but also material covering politics, publications produced during the 19th and 20th
development studies and anthropology, reflecting centuries in eastern India, Bangladesh, Bhutan,
current research interests. and colonial Burma, covering a range of South
Asian languages that includes Assamese, Bengali,
3. The Library continues to acquire English, and Burmese, English, Oriya, Persian, Sanskrit, and
other European language material, published both Urdu. The Centre for Studies in the Social
in South Asia and also in the UK, elsewhere in the Sciences, Calcutta, will take the lead in the
EU and North America, on a broad range of subcontinent as the database is produced.
subjects. We are maintaining and developing our The Catalogue will fill a much-needed gap in
traditional areas of interest, such as linguistics, scholars' ability to find materials about South Asia.
literature, history, art and archaeology, religious At present, scholars must rely upon hard-to-find
studies, anthropology, politics and economics. We printed bibliographies to assess what materials
are also developing the collections in newer areas were published. After determining that a printed
of interest such as film and media studies edition exists, it is even more difficult to locate a
(including a collection of South Asian films on video copy unless it is held by a major research library.
and DVD), development studies, gender studies, Once the Catalogue is completed, however,
diaspora studies (with particular emphasis on scholars will be able to query a single database
South Asia communities in the UK); and South and determine what materials exist and where
Asian literatures in English. publications are available. Special emphasis will be
given to the representation of holdings in South
4. In January 2007 Mr Burzine Waghmar was Asia because the combined strength of the
appointed part-time cataloguer for South Asian collections in the subcontinent vastly outstrip those
languages. Mr Waghmar has expertise in a range in the United Kingdom and the United States. All
of South Asian and central Asian languages and is disciplines in the humanities will benefit in clearly
initially concentrating on cataloguing a backlog of measurable ways from this project through the
Urdu language material as well as assisting in greater number of publications made visible and
selecting Urdu material for acquisition. improved efficiency in locating the texts important
to scholars. The South Asia Union Catalogue may
Nicholas Martland have an impact upon South Asian studies
comparable to that of the English Short-Title
Catalogue for the study of the Anglophone world. A
SOUTH ASIA UNION CATALOGUE minimum of 140,000 unique bibliographic and
20,000 new authority records will be created and
The University of Chicago recently received a three contributed to the Online Computer Library Center
year grant of approximately $250,000 from the at the end of project.

82 SAALG Newsletter
James Nye

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