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The Indian Antiquary

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James Burgess CIE FRSE FRGS MRAS LLD (14 August 1832 – 3 October 1916), was the founder of The Indian Antiquary in 1872 and an important archaeologist of India in the 19th century.

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17-511: The Indian Antiquary: A journal of oriental research in archaeology, history, literature, language, philosophy, religion, folklore, &c, &c (subtitle varies) was a journal of original research relating to India, published between 1872 and 1933. It was founded by the archaeologist James Burgess to enable the sharing of knowledge between scholars based in Europe and in India and was notable for

34-536: A journal of original research relating to India. It was designed to enable the sharing of knowledge between scholars based in Europe and in India. The journal was a private venture, although no contributor or editor was ever paid for their work and the editors often had to support the publication out of their own pockets. Burgess was the first editor and he continued in that role until the end of 1884 when failing eyesight forced him to hand over to John Faithfull Fleet and Richard Carnac Temple . The late nineteenth century

51-611: The Antiquary ceased publication in 1933 with volume 62, number 783 (Dec. 1933), two years after Richard Temple's death in 1931 when it was edited by C. E. A. W. Oldham . Several early volumes of the journal were reprinted by Swati Publications in Delhi, 1984. The New Indian Antiquary was published between 1938 and 1947, and the Indian Antiquary (described as the "third series") between 1964 and 1971. (Volumes 14 to 62 of

68-484: The Epigraphia Indica over the first fifty years of publication, but having the illustrations produced abroad was not without its disadvantages. On one occasion during World War I, enemy action meant that expensive plates had to be sent from London three times before they reached Bombay safely. Another area where the Antiquary led was in recording folklore and folktales. Its publication of Punjab folktales

85-487: The high quality of its epigraphic illustrations which enabled scholars to make accurate translations of texts that in many cases remain the definitive versions to this day. It was also pioneering in its recording of Indian folklore . It was succeeded by The New Indian Antiquary (1938–47) and the Indian Antiquary (1964–71). The Indian Antiquary was founded in 1872 by the archaeologist James Burgess CIE as

102-655: The journal, which was based heavily on folklore, was that it considered its subjects in the context of the popular culture of the present day rather than dwelling on the past. Chaube became much involved in Notes and Queries and proved himself to be a methodical collector, collator and translator whose specialism was local custom that was not recorded in Sanskrit works. He subsequently claimed to have assisted with much information in Crooke's Popular Religion and Folklore , which

119-418: The original Antiquary were described as the "second series".) The journal had an archaeological and historical focus, and in the late nineteenth century that naturally meant that epigraphy (the study of inscriptions as writing rather than as literature) would be one of the principal subjects covered in its pages. Indeed, the Antiquary was the premier source of European scholarship on Indian epigraphy until

136-538: The original title of Punjab Notes and Queries . Although intended for the British audience in India, as were numerous other such publications of the time, it was Indians who provided almost all of the content for the revised Notes and Queries format that Sadhana Naithani believes demonstrates "the emergence and growth of that brand of ethnography for which Crooke should be better known and in which he differs from most other colonial ethnographers." The defining feature of

153-556: The social preoccupations and prejudices of their indigenous informants". She notes this as an opinion shared by Shahid Amin , who had voiced it in his introduction to the Oxford University Press reprint of Crooke's A Glossary of North Indian Peasant Life , published in 1989. However, Christopher Bayly interprets the views of Amin differently, believing him to be saying that informants such as Chaube "... were simply providers of fact; they did not really influence

170-717: The twentieth century and the official Indian government journal of epigraphy, the Epigraphia Indica , was published as a quarterly supplement to the Antiquary between 1892 and 1920. The Antiquary was printed at Mazgaon , Bombay, by the Bombay Education Society and later the British India Press, but illustrations were produced in London by the firm of Griggs who were known for the accuracy of their work. A high standard of reproduction

187-959: Was Secretary of the Bombay Geographical Society 1868–73. He was Head of the Archaeological Survey, Western India, 1873, and of South India, 1881. From 1886 to 1889 he was Director General, Archaeological Survey of India . In 1881 the University of Edinburgh awarded him an honorary Doctor of Letters (LLD). He retired to Edinburgh around 1892. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1894. He won its Keith Medal for 1897–99, and served as their Vice President 1908 to 1914. He died on 3 October 1916, at 22 Seton Place in Edinburgh . Ram Gharib Chaube Ram Gharib Chaube

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204-618: Was an Indian scholar who assisted William Crooke in various ethnographic researches during the period of the British Raj . Chaube was from the eastern North-Western Provinces and an intelligent scholar with a BA from Presidency College in Calcutta. His first collaboration with William Crooke appears to have been in 1892 when he provided information for North Indian Notes and Queries . Crooke had recently taken control of that journal from Richard Carnac Temple and had renamed it from

221-529: Was essential so that scholars could work on the epigraphic material without needing to see the originals. Illustrations in the Antiquary were used by scholars such as Bhandarkar, Bhagvanlal Indraji , Georg Bühler , John Faithfull Fleet , Eggeling and B. Lewis Rice to decipher important inscriptions, and in many cases their translations remain the definitive versions to this day. Over one thousand plates were included in The Indian Antiquary and

238-505: Was first published in 1894, quickly sold out and was then re-issued as a two-volume revised and illustrated edition in 1896. Chaube resented that his input was not acknowledged by Crooke. His contribution to Tribes and Castes of the North Western Provinces , published in 1896, was only briefly acknowledged in two footnotes. The relative contributions to the latter have been described by Chandrashekhar Shukl: "While Chaube

255-526: Was going places collecting information, Crooke used to sometimes delve into collecting tit bits." Crooke did, however, pay Chaube well and, although he was himself an employee of the Raj, he did so from his own pocket. Sandra B. Freitag sees the relationship between Crooke and Chaube as "... a key example of the inter-related processes by which British decisions over what to emphasise [in their amateur studies of social science] were given their substance by

272-569: Was marked by a great increase in the number of local historical societies in India and a similar increase in the number of Indians who could speak and write English, to the extent that by the 1920s the entire journal could have been filled with work by Indian contributors. Volumes for 1925 to 1932 were published under the authority of the Council of the Royal Anthropological Institute (1933, not). The first incarnation of

289-591: Was the first attempt to classify the events on which folk tales were based and the pioneering work on north Indian folklore of William Crooke and Pandit Ram Gharib Chaube was printed in its pages. James Burgess (archaeologist) Burgess was born on 14 August 1832 in Kirkmahoe , Dumfriesshire. He was educated at Dumfries and then the University of Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh . He did educational work in Calcutta , 1856 and Bombay , 1861, and

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