Article/Essay
 26 Oct 2012 Article/Essay
Ludovico di Varthema

Since the time of Mohammed, non-Moslems have not been permitted to enter the holy cities of Mecca and Medina. To this day, only the followers of the Islamic religion are permitted to pass the stone gates which stand 15 miles outside Mecca. In spite of this ban (or perhaps ... Read More
 26 Oct 2012 Article/Essay
Article:
Italian traveller Varthema’s rare 16th-century journal in Capital
By Pallavi Pundir
Indian Express, New Delhi, Thu Oct 18, 2012

In the early 1500s, when Italian traveller Ludovico de Varthema reached West Asia, he decided to head southeast from Persia. Varthema reached Diu in 1504 ... Read More
 25 Oct 2012 Article/Essay
Photo Essay:
In pictures: Itinerary, first 'travel best-seller' on India
BBC News, 25 October 2012

A copy of a seminal 16th Century work on India is on display at the National Archives building in Delhi. Organisers say Itinerary - by Italian adventure traveller Ludovico De Varthema - is the firs... Read More
 5 Aug 2012 Article/Essay
Robert Wight and the Illustration of Indian Botany
The Hooker Lecture - Read at the Linnean Society of London, 8th December 2005
By Henry Noltie

Extract:
In 1824 Wight’s broader interests and anatomical training were recognised, when he was appointed to the medical superintendence of the Pu... Read More
 4 Aug 2012 Article/Essay
Article:
The BAKHSHALI MANUSCRIPT
By J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland

The Bakhshali Manuscript is an early mathematical manuscript which was discovered over 100 years ago. We shall discuss in a moment the problem of dating th... Read More
 3 Aug 2012 Article/Essay
Article:
A History of Zero
By J J O'Connor and E F Robertson
School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland

Extract:
One of the commonest questions which the readers of this archive ask is: Who discovered zero? Why then have we not written an article on zero as on... Read More
 3 Aug 2012 Article/Essay
All for Nought
By accident, it records the oldest "0" in India for which one can assign a definite date..
By Bill Casselman
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

What the Gwalior tablet shows is that by 876 A. D. our current place-value system with a base of 10 had become part o... Read More
 2 Aug 2012 Article/Essay
Ancient Indian Mathematics – A Conspectus
By Professor S.G. Dani
Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai

India has had a long tradition of more than 3000 years of pursuit of Mathematical ideas, starting from the Vedic age. The Sulvasutras (which included Pythagoras theorem before Pythagor... Read More
 1 Aug 2012 Article/Essay
"It is high time that the full story of Indian mathematics from Vedic times through 1600 became generally known. I am not minimizing the genius of the Greeks and their wonderful invention of pure mathematics, but other peoples have been doing math in different ways, and they have often attained t... Read More
 31 Jul 2012 Article/Essay
THE STORY OF THE INDIC COSMOLOGY AND THE CELESTIAL TIME KEEPERS
By Kosla Vepa
Indic Studies Foundation

Introduction:
In order to understand the Indic approach to history, one must understand the cosmology and the calendar of the Hindu. The calendar and the cosmos have always played a large part ... Read More
 25 Jul 2012 Article/Essay
The extraordinary world of Ex-Libris Art:

Sometimes ex libris is more valuable than the book containing it.

Ex libris, meaning ‘from the library of’, or ‘from the books of’ is a Latin expression concerning the artform of bookplates - stamps or labels inside books that identify the owner. Ex lib... Read More
 25 Jul 2012 Article/Essay
Peering Into the Exquisite Life of Rare Books
By Jennifer Schuessler
New York Times, July 23, 2012

For five weeks each summer Rare Book School brings some 300 librarians, conservators, scholars, dealers, collectors and random book-mad civilians together for weeklong intensive courses in an a... Read More
 25 Jun 2012 Article/Essay
The Last Atelier: Ghulam Ali Khan

The last great atelier of Mughal painting revolved around the family of one man, Ghulam Ali Khan. The artist described himself in an inscription on one of his most celebrated pictures, as “the hereditary slave of the dynasty, Ghulam Ali Khan the portraitist, res... Read More
 21 Jun 2012 Article/Essay
Article:
Indian Cosmology - Reflections in Religion and Metaphysics
By A. K. Chakravarty
Published by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi - 1995

The exact origin of astronomical studies in India is not known to us though it is fairly clear that it eventually formed part of anci... Read More
 13 Jan 2012 Article/Essay
How to Identify Old Books
By Tracy Stefan

To identify an antiquarian or "old" book you must determine it's bibliographic identity and publishing history. You must calculate the edition of the book and verify the author's bibliographic information to determine whether or not it is antiquarian.... Read More
 26 Aug 2011 Article/Essay
Book Collecting
By Allen and Patricia Ahearn

Book collectors start as readers. This may seem obvious but is important to keep in mind, for the majority of book collectors collect authors or subjects that they are currently reading or have read and enjoyed. In fact, perhaps "enjoyed" is really no... Read More
 1 Jul 2011 Article/Essay
Review Essay
Plain Tales From British India
Two new books exemplify the polarised debate: one claims the British Empire was comparable to slavery and fascism; while for the other, the Victorian administrators of the Indian Civil Service, far from being oppressive exploiters, in fact "represented ... Read More
 25 Sep 2010 Article/Essay
Rajaraja Cholan, the Great Chola king built The Bragatheeswarar (Peruvudaiyar) Temple, also known as Big Temple. "In the twenty-fifth year of Rajaraja Cholan (A.D 1009-10) on the 257th day of the year the king handed over the copper pot for the finial at the top of the Vimana". It weighed about 2... Read More
 9 Sep 2010 Article/Essay
COMPANY PAINTINGS OF INDIA -
By the late 18th century, the British emerged as the dominant power in India, encouraging middle-class young Englishmen to join the East India Company as civilians and soldiers. The newcomers were fascinated by the variegated landscape of the country, its magnificent... Read More
 2 Sep 2010 Article/Essay
ROBERT MELVILLE GRINDLAY (1786-1877) was that peculiarly English product, the gifted amateur. He was born at St. Mary-le-Bone, then a village near London and, to put the event into historical perspective, it occurred two years after the passing of Pitt's India Act and two years before Warren Hast... Read More
 30 Jan 2010 Article/Essay
William Dalrymple writes " I first heard about the great early Victorian travel writer FANNY PARKES when I was given a first edition of her book, WANDERINGS OF A PILGRIM IN SEARCH OF THE PICTURESQUE, by an old lady who in many ways resembled Parkes, and whose life had been greatly influenced by h... Read More