The

University of Pennsylvania Libraries The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest- ...

have one of the most important and largest collections of research material pertaining to the study of South Asia in the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

. Starting with the nineteenth century, when Sanskrit was first taught at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

, the

Libraries A library is a collection of Document, materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or electronic media, digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a ...

have collected material for the study of South Asia.

Bibliographers

The first bibliographer dedicated to South Asia Studies in the library was Kanta Bhatia. She retired in 1994, and was replaced by Dr. David Nelson. From 2011, Dr.

Pushkar Sohoni Pushkar Sohoni is an architect, an architectural and cultural historian. He is an Associate Professor and the Chair of the department of Humanities and Social Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune. Education ...

served as the bibliographer and librarian, while teaching in the Department of South Asia Studies. In 2016, he left to teach at the

Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune (IISER Pune) is an autonomous public university established in 2006. It is one of the seven Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, and was one of the first IISERs to ...

. Since 2018, Dr. James (Jef) Pierce has served as the South Asian Studies Librarian.

History of the South Asia Collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries

Prof. Morton W. Easton, Professor of Comparative Philology (1883–1912), taught Sanskrit courses at the University of Pennsylvania. He had studied Sanskrit at Yale under W.D. Whitney (1827–1894). Upon completing his dissertation on the evolution of language, Easton was awarded the first American doctorate in Sanskrit in 1872. The University of Pennsylvania was one of the first American academic institutions to offer courses in Sanskrit; already during the 1880s, the university offered a major and a minor in Sanskrit. Easton retired in 1912 and was replaced the following year by

Franklin Edgerton Franklin Edgerton (July 24, 1885 – December 7, 1963) was an American linguistic scholar. He was Salisbury Professor of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at Yale University (1926) and visiting professor at Benares Hindu University (1953–4 ...

. After Edgerton left in 1926,

W. Norman Brown William Norman Brown (June 24, 1892 – April 22, 1975) was an American Indologist and Sanskritist who established the first academic department of South Asian Studies in North America and organized the American Oriental Society in 1926. He was t ...

was appointed in his place. Brown was responsible for the creation of the Department of South Asia Studies and expanded well beyond his own Indological interests. From 1916 to 1919, Brown had held the position of the Harrison Research Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. He organized the American Oriental Society in 1926. By the summer of 1947 Brown's summer program, "India: A Program of Regional Studies" was being offered at Penn. In 1948, he established the Department of South Asia Regional Studies, the first area studies department in North America. Offerings continued to be expanded until a full program was available in the 1949-1950 academic year. He brought together a number of eminent scholars such as

Holden Furber Holden Furber (13 March 1903 – 19 January 1993) was a professor of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania from 1952 till 1973. He was the twenty-first president of the Association for Asian Studies and a scholar who specialized in ...

, Stella Kramrisch, and

Ernest Bender Ernest Bender (January 2, 1919 – April 18, 1996) was a Professor of Indo-Aryan languages and literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Bender was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on January 2, 1919, before moving to Philadelphia, Penns ...

, ensuring that the Department of South Asia Studies at Penn became, and continues as, one of the most important places in the world for serious research on South Asia in general and Sanskrit in particular. Scholars such as

George Cardona George Cardona (; born June 3, 1936) is an American linguist, Indologist, Sanskritist, and scholar of Pāṇini. Described as "a luminary" in Indo-European, Indo-Aryan, and Pāṇinian linguistics since the early sixties, Cardona has been recogni ...

Ludo Rocher Ludo Rocher (1926–2016) was an eminent Sanskrit scholar, and the W. Norman Brown Professor Emeritus of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Biography Ludo Rocher was born in Hemiksem in the province of Antwerp, Belgium on 25 Apri ...

Rosane Rocher Rosane Rocher (née Debels, born 10 August 1937) is a leading historian of Indology and a Professor Emerita of South Asia Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Born in Mouscron, Belgium, she earned MAs in Classics in 1959 and in Indo-Iranian s ...

, and Richard D. Lambert worked at Penn throughout their careers, and ensured a rich collection was developed for the libraries. W. Norman Brown was also responsible for helping to establish the well known PL 480 program which in its various permutations over the decades supplied us (and many other institutions) with literally hundreds of thousands of volumes from South Asia. During the course of the PL 480 program from 1954 to 1998, the library acquired material actively through the

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The library ...

field offices (New Delhi and Islamabad), and also through various vendors in South Asia, Europe and North America. From 2013 to 2016, the South Asia Librarian also managed acquisitions from the Library of Congress Field Office in Jakarta. The

still continues as a major vendor to supplement the activities of collecting all material including monographs, serials, film, and digital formats. Because of the history of the

University of Pennsylvania Museum The University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology—commonly known as the Penn Museum—is an archaeology and anthropology museum at the University of Pennsylvania. It is located on Penn's campus in the University City neighb ...

in the field of archaeology, the Penn Libraries also have one of the largest collection of material for archaeology in South Asia. The

American Institute of Indian Studies The American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS), founded in 1961, is a consortium of 90 universities and colleges in the United States that promotes the advancement of knowledge about India in the U.S. It carries out this purpose by: awarding fello ...

(AIIS) was founded by

, and it operated out of the

Van Pelt Library The Charles Patterson Van Pelt Library (also known as the Van Pelt-Dietrich Library Center, and simply Van Pelt) is the primary library at the University of Pennsylvania. The building was designed by architects Harbeson, Hough, Livingston & Larso ...

till it moved to its present location in Chicago. Since 1958, the University of Pennsylvania has had a Title VI National Resourc
Center for South Asia
(South Asia Center). In 1992, th
Center for Advanced Study of India
(CASI) was launched. The two centers and the Department of South Asia Studies are supplemented by faculty with interests in South Asia, in various departments and schools across campus such as Anthropology, Architecture, Comparative Literature, Economics, Education, English, History, History of Art, Political Science, Religious Studies, and Sociology.

Scope of Collection

Geographical coverage

The primary geographical coverage is South Asia which includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka with some coverage of Tibet. Materials are also acquired which cover the diasporic community of South Asians in the U.S., UK, and elsewhere in the world outside of South Asia proper. Countries in South-East Asia and Inner Asia, such as Burma and Thailand, or Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, are covered selectively, only as they relate to inter-regional research interests.

Subject coverage

The primary focus is on the humanities and the social sciences with particular strength in the areas of anthropology, archaeology, art history, classical Indology, linguistics, literature, religion, philosophy and political science. There are no chronological limits to the collection, which covers material from the prehistoric period to the present. The Libraries acquire current publications in the disciplines mentioned above as well as actively seek to collect retrospectively in areas of research interests.

Languages

The languages covered by the South Asia Collections include Sanskrit (Vedic and Classical), Prakrit, Pali, Hindi and Urdu, and has large holdings, with an emphasis on belles-lettres, folklore, history, and linguistics, in Arabic, Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Punjabi, Persian, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Sinhalese, Tamil, and Telugu. The Penn Libraries also acquire publications in several of the lesser-known languages of the Subcontinent such as Baluchi, Brahui, Meitei, Newari, Pushto, and various tribal languages and dialects. The Libraries also acquire materials pertaining to the study of South Asia in English, French, German, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, and Russian.

Special Collections

These are materials acquired by various departments of th
Penn Libraries
that are housed in th
Kislak Special Collections Center
because of their unique, rare, or fragile nature. The number of items from or about South Asia in the Kislak Special Collections Center is difficult to estimate, as it comprises ephemeral materials, manuscripts, and rare or special books; the varied formats and contents do not easily lead to quantification, and many of them do not have call numbers. Some of the significant South Asia-related collections within the purview of the Kislak Special Collections Center are mentioned.

Indic Manuscripts

Th

(Ms. Coll. 390, and Ms. Indic 1 to 39) is the largest in North America, and one of the largest in the western hemisphere. Over 90% of these manuscripts are in Sanskrit. Scholarship about the collection itself has been substantial, not to mention the texts and illustrations within the actual manuscripts, which have been used by scholars. The history of the manuscripts has been narrated in many of these publications, and can be summarized thus: "Some of the manuscripts had been acquired in chance fashion by the Library and the University Museum before 1930, but in that year, at the request of Professor W. Norman Brown (1892-1975), Provost Josiah Penniman provided a sum of money to purchase Indic manuscripts. Shortly thereafter he obtained a donation from the late Mr.

John Gribbel John Gribbel (March 29, 1858 – August 25, 1936) was an American businessman, industrialist and philanthropist. He is best remembered for his donation of the Glenriddell Manuscripts to the National Library of Scotland.''American Biography'' (191 ...

. Substantial contributions from Dr. Charles W. Burr, the Faculty Research Fund, and the Cotton Fund soon followed. The bulk of the manuscripts are the result of purchases made using these funds in India, between 1930 and 1935, under the direction of Professor W. Norman Brown." The manuscripts are regularly used in classes, and together with other manuscript and paper holdings of the University Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art, constitute an important corpus of texts in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and other languages of South and South-East Asia. Under an NEH grant, the entire collection was digitized and made openly available through th
Penn in Hand portal
the collection also received enhanced cataloging by Dr. Benjamin Fleming at that time.

George Macartney Papers and colonial material

The Penn Libraries possesses an important collection of manuscripts and documents relating to the

British East India Company The East India Company (EIC) was an English, and later British, joint-stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (the Indian subcontinent and South ...

and governance in South Asia, most notably th
Macartney Papers
comprising letters and documents that belonged to Lord George Macartney during his time as the

Governor of Madras This is a list of the governors, agents, and presidents of colonial Madras, initially of the English East India Company, up to the end of British colonial rule in 1947. English Agents In 1639, the grant of Madras to the English was finalized b ...

(1780-1786). The Libraries also holds a series of manuscripts on 18th- and 19th-century East India politics collected by the historian

(Professor, South Asia Studies, 1948 -1973). The manuscript collections for South Asia are enriched by additional travel narratives, ships’ logs, letters, and material on the military history of the East India Company, including the sieges of Seringapatnam and Bharatpur. There are also several other colonial items such as
letter
from

Wajid Ali Shah Mirza Wajid Ali Shah ( ur, ) (30 July 1822 – 1 September 1887) was the eleventh and last King of Awadh, holding the position for 9 years, from 13 February 1847 to 11 February 1856. Wajid Ali Shah's first wife was Alam Ara who was better k ...

’s secretary to the East India Company, early diaries of English officials and their wives in British India, and a series of 19th- and 20th-century photograph albums of Indian landscapes and city life, as well as rare prints and drawings of Indian scenes, buildings, and everyday life, offering scholars from diverse disciplines a unique perspective into South Asia. The voluminou
private papers of Kanji Dwarkadass
an important labor organizer and political leader, are also available. There are several dozen photographic albums from the years between the wars that have been cataloged and all of them now have finding aids.

Miscellaneous Material

In addition to well-defined collections, the Kislak Special Collections Center also has eclectic material from South Asia, such as some of the early lithographed and printed books in various scripts, early bibles in multiple languages, and postcard sets published by the Archaeological Survey of India. Amar Chitra Katha comic books are also housed in Special Collections. There is also a valuable collection of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century Judaica from India, some of which is housed in the Herbert D. Katz Center for Advanced Judaic Studies of the University of Pennsylvania. These materials include books in English, Hebrew, Judaeo-Arabic, and Marathi, and represent the Baghdadi, Bene-Israel and Cochin Jewish communities of India.

Electronic Resources

Databases

In the past decade, the number of databases purchased by the Penn Libraries has increased as more archives and products become available. Journals are the other area where electronic formats are convenient and easy to use. Several journals which were offered online and in print are now purchased only in electronic form. The purchased or subscribed databases pertinent to South Asia alone are:
''Empire Online''

* ttp://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/franklin/record.html?id=FRANKLIN_4918340&/ ''The Times of India (1838-2005)''
''History of Afghanistan Online''

* ttp://dla.library.upenn.edu/dla/franklin/record.html?id=FRANKLIN_6161404&/ ''CMIE States of India''
''India Stat''

These are in addition to the common platforms such as JStor or

EBSCOHost EBSCO Information Services, headquartered in Ipswich, Massachusetts, is a division of EBSCO Industries Inc., a private company headquartered in Birmingham, Alabama. EBSCO provides products and services to libraries of very many types around the ...

, which provide access to many of the common English-language journals and serials, such as South Asian Studies, Modern Asian Studies, or Economic and Political Weekly.
In November 2010, the University of Pennsylvania Libraries joined HathiTrust, and approximately 2 million downloadable books in the public domain have been made available through the Penn Libraries since November 2014.

Newspapers

Daily newspapers used to be received in the South Asia Reading Room from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, but now are mostly available online. For some historic newspaper collections, th
World Newspaper Archive
provides access: ''Ceylon Observer'' (1864-1922), ''Indian People'' (1903-1909), ''Kaysar-i Hind'' (1886-1890), ''Leader'' (1909-1922), ''Madras Mail'' (1868-1889), ''Pioneer'' (1865-1903), ''Tribune'' (1881-1922). The Proquest Historical Newspapers platform provides access t

(1838-2002).

Microform

A very important, but often underutilized, source of information for South Asia is the microform collection which is located on the first floor in the

. The formats are microfilm and microfiche. These sets are important because they represent important primary sources in the study of South Asia. Materials in microformats can be saved as PDFs or printed. Some of the highlights of the South Asia collections in these formats are listed below. This list is by no means exhaustive, but a quick sampling of the kinds of contents that are located in the microformat area. A detailed list of microform materials is to be found in the research guid
Major Microform Sets in the Penn Library
under the sub-heading of South Asian Studies. These are but a few of the thousands of titles available in our microformat collections, and till these resources are reprinted or republished online, this format remains unique and valuable.

Biographies

For biographical materials, there is the very large set, the Indian Biographical Archives (Microfiche 1062). This collection is a single alphabetic cumulation of approximately 170 sources published from the mid-19th to the late 20th century. These sources, gathered from around the world, provide biographies on approximately 100,000 individuals. Geographically, it covers the whole of undivided India as it was in the pre-colonial and colonial period, thereby including the countries now known as Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. It covers the period from early times to the late 20th century, and includes the lives of sages, early rulers, missionaries, civil servants from all the colonial nations, lives of nationalists and freedom fighters, and many others. Biographies of individuals from other nations, such as British, French, and Portuguese individuals, whose lives were bound up in some way with the subcontinent, are also included.

Administrative Documents

There are several important sets in microprint, the British Parliamentary Papers (1713-1913) (Microfiche 110) or details, see research guide for British Parliamentary sources and Government Documents and the Early American Imprints (Microfiche 821 and Microprint 21). This later publication contains many interesting accounts of the early American interactions with India and South Asia.

Census Data

For critical historical statistical data, the census materials are important. The Indian Census sets from 1872-1951 (Microfiche 15).

Missionary Records

The records of Christian missionaries in South Asia, and their engagement with education and healthcare, can be accessed through microform sets from the Church Missionary Society (Microfilm 4469) and other similar missions.

Manuscripts

The important Sanskrit manuscript collection, The University of Pennsylvania Indic Manuscripts (Ms. Coll. 390), was microfilmed in the 1970s, and is available in a microformat (Microfiche 965). However, later acquisitions are not part of this catalog.

Newspapers

Many historic newspapers from South Asia are kept in the microtext area. The Penn Libraries, by virtue of being a member of the

Center for Research Libraries The Center for Research Libraries (also known by its acronym, CRL) is a consortium of North American universities, colleges, and independent research libraries, based on a buy-in concept for membership of the consortia. The consortium acquires an ...

(CRL), does not duplicate their holdings, as they are available to patrons by a special arrangement. If any of the CRL newspaper holdings are required for research, they can be requested. For details of their collection, please se
CRL South Asia Holdings
Here is a list of some of the commonly used newspapers at the Penn Libraries: *''Aaj'' (1963-1996 ) Varanasi (Microfilm news 80) *''Anandabazaarapatrika'' (1963-1995) Calcutta (Microfilm news 4) *''Andhrapatrika'' (1963-1991) Madras (Microfilm news 5) *''Amrita bazar patrika'' (1962-1991, 1993-1996) Calcutta (Microfilm news 3) *''Bharat jyoti'' (1962) Bombay (Microfilm news 8) *''Blitz'' (1952-1971) Bombay (Microfilm news 219) *''Bombay courier'' (1793 - 1846) Bombay (Microfilm news 431) *''Business recorder'' (1966 - 1971) Karachi (Microfilm news 157) *''The Civil and Military Gazette'' (1886-1889, 1949-1950, 1960-1962) Lahore (Microfilm news 14) *''CrossRoads'' (1951 - 1953) Bombay (Microfilm news 313) *''Cutecamittiran'' (1963 - 1971) Madras (Microfilm news 66) *''Dawn'' (1949 - 1996) Karachi (Microfilm news 24) *''Daily jang'' (1954, 1961-1993) Karachi (Microfilm news 428) *''Deccan herald'' (1962-2005) Bangalore (Microfilm news 25) *''The Deccan Times weekly'' (1944-1950) Madras (Microfilm news 553) *''The Economic times'' (1962 - 1995) Bombay (Microfilm news 26) *''Free press journal'' (1962- 1971) Bombay (Microfilm news 2) *''The Hindu'' (1963 - 1997) Madras (Microfilm news 216) *''The Hindu weekly review'' (1962 - 1968) Madras (Microfilm news 218) *''The Hindustan Standard'' (1942-1982) Calcutta (Microfilm news 554) *''The Hindustan times'' (1962 - 1997) New Delhi (Microfilm news 30) *''Imroz'' (1963-June1971) Lahore (Microfilm news 149) *''The India gazette'', or, ''Calcutta public advertiser'' (1780 - 1782) Calcutta (Microfilm news 429) *''The Indian express'' (1962-1997, 2002-2004) New Delhi (Microfilm news 306) *''The Indian mirror'' (1886 - 1889) Calcutta (Microfilm news 144) *''The Indian spectator'' (1886-1889) Bombay (Microfilm news 142) *''The Lahore chronicle'' (1850-1868) Lahore (Microfilm news 432) *''Malayalam manorama'' (1963-1964,1966-1996) Kottayam (Microfilm news 41) *''National herald'' (1962-1994) Lucknow and Delhi (Microfilm news 45) *''Navashakti'' (1963-1971 ) Bombay (Microfilm news 46) *''New age'' (1952 - 1994) New Delhi (Microfilm news 238) *''Pakistan observer'' (1963-1971) Dacca (Microfilm news 86) *''Pakistan Times'' (1963-1996) Lahore (Microfilm news 231) *''People's age'' (1945 - 1949) Bombay (Microfilm news 313) *''People's war'' (1942 -1945) Bombay (Microfilm news 313) *''Pioneer'' (1886-1889, 1933-1948 ) Allahabad (Microfilm news 91) *''Pioneer mail and Indian weekly news'' (1911-1931 ) Allahabad (Microfilm news 92) *''Star of India'' (1942 - 1949) Calcutta (Microfilm news 64) *''The Statesman'' (1962-1970 1981-1995) Delhi (Microfilm news 65) *''Statesman'', or, ''Friend of India'' (1941-1943) Calcutta (Microfilm News 649) *''The Statesman weekly'' (1964-1965) Calcutta (Microfilm news 237) *''The Times of India'' (1949-1966, 1990-1991, 1992-1995) Bombay (Microfilm news 71) *''The Times of India''(1966-1989) New Delhi (Microfilm news 71)

Audio and video material

Audio and video collecting have changed dramatically since the internet has made access to such media material extremely easy. There is no fixed policy on collecting audio or video from or about South Asia, but it is now largely dictated by student and research interests among the university community.

Video collection

While there is an effort to purchase many of the critically acclaimed titles in cinema, that interest is also largely driven from Cinema Studies. In terms of audio, gifts and approval plans are largely responsible for an increase in collections. All titles in the collection are available through th

(VCat). The video collection has been growing steadily over the past decade. We continue to actively collect documentary films and cinema that is difficult to access, particularly if requested by faculty and students. A small fraction of our titles continue to be on VHS tape. As of 2015, the languages most represented in the video collection by title are Hindi (1,258), Bengali (186), Kannada (162), Urdu (150), Tamil (127), Telugu (88), Marathi (42), Malayalam (40), and Pushto (40). The Penn Libraries also have video holdings in languages such as Vietnamese (24), Bahasa Indonesia (21), Sanskrit (19), Bhojpuri (6), Kashmiri (5), among others.

Audio collection

The audio collection is largely on audio tapes, and is not actively collected. Dr. Allyn Miner led the first and only performing arts component attached to a South Asia Studies department in the United States. Material is acquired largely on request. Till the landscape of copyright regulations and reformatting is understood, and until issues of stability and reliability of media formats in South Asia are addressed, video and audio acquisitions continue to be ad hoc and driven by demand only.

South Asia Art Archive

The South Asia Art Archive at the

was set up in W. Norman Brown's office in 1979 as a national facility, open to all who are interested in the study of Indian art. The holdings of the South Asia Art Archive currently consist of around 115,000 black-and-white photographs (classified by period and region), site and museum indexes, and ca 4,000 color slides. (In addition, the University has a teaching collection of more than 15,000 South Asia slides, most of which are online at the Fine Arts Image Collection. By agreement with the

and the Smithsonian Foreign Currencies Program which funded the AIIS Gurgaon Center, photographs added to the Gurgaon archive are also added to the archive in Philadelphia, keeping the archive current.

South Asian Studies Seminar Room

The seminar room for South Asian Studies is located in the Van Pelt Library, and has a small reference section containing approximately 2,500 titles. Current atlases and maps are also maintained in the reading room. An area within the room is dedicated to serials, and contains about 50 popular and academic journals in 12 languages. The space is regularly used for classes pertaining to South Asia, and also for special events and lectures. The Seminar Room is also used for accessing Special Collections material under supervision for groups of students, by special arrangement. The Seminar Room also has four carrels and sixteen lockers, which are charged to graduate students who work on South Asia with permission of the South Asian Studies Librarian. Similarly, classes can be scheduled with permission.

Partnerships and Consortia

The South Asian Studies Librarian is a member of the Committee on South Asia Libraries and Documentation (CONSALD), and the South Asia Materials Project (SAMP). The

are in several regional and national consortia, including

Borrow Direct Borrow Direct is an interlibrary loan service that allows member university students, faculty, and staff with library borrowing privileges and active e-mail accounts to borrow books directly from the libraries of the other member universities. The ...

and E-Z Borrow. Th
South Asia Center
at Penn, and th
Center for Advanced Study of India
have a large number of affiliated fellows, academics from the region and around the globe, who use the South Asia collection for their research.

References

{{Authority control University of Pennsylvania Libraries in Philadelphia