Fellows of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland are individuals who have been elected by the Council of the

Royal Asiatic Society The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, commonly known as the Royal Asiatic Society (RAS), was established, according to its royal charter of 11 August 1824, to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the en ...

to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science literature and the arts in relation to Asia". The Society has around 700 fellows, half of whom reside outside Britain. It is administered by a council of twenty fellows. The Society was established in 1823 and became "the main centre in Britain for scholarly work on Asia" with "many distinguished Fellows". Fellows are entitled to use the honorific

post-nominal letters Post-nominal letters, also called post-nominal initials, post-nominal titles, designatory letters or simply post-nominals, are letters placed after a person's name to indicate that the individual holds a position, academic degree, accreditation, ...

FRAS. Past and current fellows include leading scholars, writers, and former politicians and governors who have made significant contributions to Asia and their respective fields. Previous Fellows have included British explorers Sir Richard Francis Burton, and

Laurence Waddell Lieutenant Colonel Laurence Austine Waddell, CB, CIE, F.L.S., L.L.D, M.Ch., I.M.S. RAI, F.R.A.S (29 May 1854 – 19 September 1938) was a Scottish explorer, Professor of Tibetan, Professor of Chemistry and Pathology, Indian Army surgeo ...

, Officers of the British East India Company such as Sir Henry Rawlinson, Chief Justice of Ceylon Alexander Johnston, first Asian Nobel laureate

Rabindranath Tagore Rabindranath Tagore (; bn, রবীন্দ্রনাথ ঠাকুর; 7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941) was a Bengali polymath who worked as a poet, writer, playwright, composer, philosopher, social reformer and painter. He resh ...

, and many more.

Eligibility

Fellows can be nominated by an existing Fellow, or they can submit an application for fellowship; applications are open to "anyone with a serious interest in Asian Studies", considered regularly, and processed within two months. Students are also eligible to become Student Fellows if they are enrolled in an established course of education. The Society also awards a maximum of five Life Fellowships each year worldwide. These are distinct from regular fellowships, but do not affect honorific post-nominal letters of the fellow.

Notable fellows

* Sir Jehangir Hormasji Kothari *

Henry Thomas Colebrooke Henry Thomas Colebrooke FRS FRSE (15 June 1765 – 10 March 1837) was an English orientalist and mathematician. He has been described as "the first great Sanskrit scholar in Europe". Biography Henry Thomas Colebrooke was born on 15 Jun ...

* Sir Richard Francis Burton * Edward Byles Cowell * Sir Alexander Johnston * Thomas Manning * Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson * Brian Houghton Hodgson * Col.

* Sir Gore Ouseley * Sir George T Staunton * Sir William Wilson Hunter *

Sir Stamford Raffles Sir Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826) was a British statesman who served as the Lieutenant-Governor of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is ...

* Raja Ram Mohan Roy *

Sir Syed Ahmed Khan Sir Syed Ahmad Khan KCSI (17 October 1817 – 27 March 1898; also Sayyid Ahmad Khan) was an Indian Muslim reformer, philosopher, and educationist in nineteenth-century British India. Though initially espousing Hindu-Muslim unity, he ...

* Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy *

Sir William Jones Sir William Jones (28 September 1746 – 27 April 1794) was a British philologist, a puisne judge on the Supreme Court of Judicature at Fort William in Bengal, and a scholar of ancient India. He is particularly known for his proposition of th ...

* Sir Aurel Stein * Sir Wilfred Thesiger *

* Sir

Jadunath Sarkar Sir Jadunath Sarkar (10 December 1870 – 19 May 1958) was a prominent Indian historian and a specialist on the Mughal dynasty. Academic career Sarkar was born in Karachmaria village in Natore, Bengal to Rajkumar Sarkar, the local Zamindar ...

* Diwan Bahadur S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar * Sir Richard O. Winstedt *

Professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professo ...

Ahmad Hasan Dani *

Arthur John Arberry Arthur John Arberry (12 May 1905, in Portsmouth – 2 October 1969, in Cambridge) FBA was a British scholar of Arabic literature, Persian studies, and Islamic studies. He was educated at Portsmouth Grammar School and Pembroke College, Cambr ...

* Ahmad Zaki Pasha *

Prof. Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an academic rank at universities and other post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin as a "person who professes". Professors ...

Johann Georg Bühler *

David Marshall Lang *

Anthony Stockwell * Elizabeth Anne McCaul Finn *

George V. Tsereteli *

Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri (1935–2016) was an Indian political scientist, political historian and international relations expert. He was a senior research fellow in international relations at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, Univers ...

Francis Robinson Francis Christopher Rowland Robinson CBE, DL, FRAS (born 23 November 1944 in Barnet) is a British historian and academic who specialises in the history of South Asia and Islam. Since 1990, he has been Professor of History of South Asia at the ...

Clinton Bennett Clinton Bennett (born 7 October 1955) is a British-American scholar of religions and participant in interfaith dialogue specialising in the study of Islam and Muslim-non-Muslim encounter. An ordained Baptist minister, he was a missionary in Bang ...

* William LancasterRoyal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland List of Fellows, Library Associates and Subscribing Libraries, 1994, pg 19 * Ustad Aashish Khan Debsharma *

Albert Étienne Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie Albert Étienne Jean-Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie (23 November 1844 – 11 October 1894) was a French orientalist, specialising in comparative philology. He published a number of books on early Asian and Middle-Eastern languages, initial ...

(d. 1894) * Sushil Kumar De * Eric Newby * Jean Berlie * Daphne Park *

Mary Boyce Nora Elisabeth Mary Boyce (2 August 1920 – 4 April 2006) was a British scholar of Iranian languages, and an authority on Zoroastrianism. She was Professor of Iranian Studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) of the ...

* William Dalrymple * Prof.

Jamal Malik Jamal Malik (born 1956) is a List of Pakistanis, Pakistani-born Germans, German professor of Islamic Studies and the chair of Religious Studies — Islamic Studies at the University of Erfurt, Germany. Malik was born in 1956 in Peshawar, Pakistan ...

K M Baharul Islam K M Baharul Islam is presently the Chairperson of Centre of Excellence in Public Policy and Government at Indian Institute of Management Kashipur. He served as the Dean (Academics) during 2019-2021 at the same institute. He was elected as a Fel ...

* Prof. Dr Tariq Rahman * Professor Dr

William Sweet William Sweet (born 1955) is a Canadian philosopher, and a past president of the Canadian Philosophical Association and of the Canadian Theological Society. Biography Sweet was born in St. Albert near Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and studied ...

* Professor Dr Rahul Peter Das * Prof.

Haroon Khan Sherwani Prof Haroon Khan Sherwani (1891–1980) was an Indian historian, scholar, and author. Maulana Azad National Urdu University had created Centre for Deccan Studies in his honor. Education Haroon Khan Sherwani was educated in Aligarh Muslim Univ ...

* Ronald E. Asher * Edward Jarvis * Michael Ridley *Dr. Rosie Llewellyn-Jones * Dr. Anna Suvorova *

Michael Axworthy Michael George Andrew Axworthy (26 September 1962 – 16 March 2019) was a British academic, author, and commentator. He was the head of the Iran section at the British Foreign & Commonwealth Office between 1998 and 2000. Personal life and fam ...

* Deepak Tripathi *

B. N. Mukherjee Bratindra Nath Mukherjee (1 January 1932 – 4 April 2013) was an Indian historian, numismatist, epigraphist and iconographist, known for his scholarship in central Asian languages such as Sogdian. He was a Carmichael Professor of Ancient Ind ...

* J. M. Gullick *

Mark Trollope Mark Napier Trollope (20 March 1862 – 1930) was the third Anglican Bishop in Korea from 1911 until his death. Born on 28 March 1862 and educated at Lancing College and New College, Oxford, he was ordained in 1888. After a curacy at Great Yarmou ...

, third Bishop of Korea *

Bijan Omrani Bijan Omrani is a British historian, journalist, teacher, barrister and author of Persian descent. His work ranges from Classical scholarship to current affairs across Asia. Early life and education Omrani was born in York, England, in 1979. ...

Souhardya De Souhardya De (born 2004) is an Indian writer, columnist, and podcaster, from Midnapore, West Bengal. He is a columnist for the ''Sunday Guardian'' and a recipient of the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, a civilian award for Indian citizens ...

* Gordon Corrigan *

Terra Han Han Terra is a Korean-born inventor and musician. She has invented a 24 stringed musical instrument called TeRra, in the style of a traditional kayageum, incorporating artificial intelligence. She started taking piano lessons at the age of four ...

References

{{reflist

External links

Royal Asiatic Society

*

Helen Wang Helen Kay Wang (; ; born 1965) is an English sinologist and translator. She works as curator of East Asian Money at the British Museum in London. She has also published a number of literary translations from Chinese, including an award-winning t ...

"Famous and not-so-famous people associated with the Royal Asiatic Society"
in Shailendra Bhandare and Sanjay Garg (eds), ''Felicitas. Essays in Numismatics, Epigraphy and History in Honour of

Joe Cribb Joe Cribb is a numismatist, specialising in Asian coinages, and in particular on coins of the Kushan Empire. His catalogues of Chinese silver currency ingots, and of ritual coins of Southeast Asia were the first detailed works on these subjects ...

'', Reesha Books International (Mumbai, 2011) 413–489. Asiatic Society