now lives close to the "Lower Circular Road", which came after the Circular Road. And speaking of the Maratha Ditch, it was at that time our family led by Raja Daibikinandan Rai (my 7th ancestor) moved for safety from Anarpur to land they had been given in Behala since the early migration of Brahmins from UP... But there the famed dacoit Raghu Dakat gave notice to them to surrender their gold and jewels which he would arrive to collect (I cannot at all guarantee it was Raghu Dakat himself or someone of his ilk and have been unable to ascertain his dates but that has been the lore). Daibikinandan decided to put up a fight and did so, was cut on the arm by a scimitar and died bleeding at the site. The dacoit got the gold and jewels anyway, and the family fell to being toll-pandits for two generations until revived by the enterprising Umbika Churn Rai (c. 1827-1902)...

...As is mentioned in the little British Library introduction (above), the Princep's were a family who maintained direct links with the sub-continet, from the early decades of the eighteenth century right on through until the middle of the twentieth century. There were several other British families (notably the Plowdens and the Rivett-Carnacs) who also sent several generations of their men folk, son after father, out to India to serve in one capacity or another, for the better part of two hundred and fifty years. What is unusual about the Princeps is that many members of this family made names for themselves in fields other than the military or the civil service.... ( Nb. Perhaps the most distinguished scion of the clan was Sir Henry Thoby Princep who was Judge of the Calcutta High Court and a member of the Viceroy's council in the 1870s). The artistic Edward Princep was one of eight brothers, seven of whom spent the majority of their life in India. Edward's uncle, as mentioned above, was James Princep ( 1799-1840)~ a famous orientalist and scientist, after whom Princep's Ghat in Calcutta is named (and by which name it is still known, I believe ?) . James Princep, of course, was very much of the ' Jonesian ' school, that our fellow RBSI member, Dr Pal likes so much to rail against ! As an employee of the Calcutta mint he had a natural interest in numismatics and spent a great deal of his spare time collecting and codifying the coins of ancient India. I forward here an extract from James Princep's biographical entry in the 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography', that provides further details of his significant contribution in the field of archaeology: " In 1832 [ James Princep ] succeeded Wilson as secretary of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, and he brought new vigour to the society's meetings and publications. In the same year he became editor of a new monthly title, The Journal of the Asiatic Society... To this new journal Prinsep contributed articles on chemistry and mineralogy, and above all on Indian antiquities, into the study of which he now wholeheartedly threw himself. As a result of both his own labours and his encouragement of others, Prinsep's seven years as editor of the Journal was one of the most fruitful periods of ancient Indian studies. Coins and copies of inscriptions were transmitted to him from all over India, to be deciphered, translated, and published. He reduced to order the complex dynasties and dating systems of pre-Islamic India. His ' Useful Tables ', published in 1834, stands as a monument to his labours in this field. Prinsep's greatest achievement was to decipher the hitherto unreadable scripts of the most ancient of Indian inscriptions: the results were published in a series of papers in the Journal in 1837–8. These scripts were the Brahmi used on the pillars at Delhi and Allahabad and on rock inscriptions from both sides of India, and also the Kharosthi script in the coins and inscriptions of the north-west. He demonstrated that the pillar and rock inscriptions were put up by the emperor Asoka Maurya, whose dates could be approximately fixed through his references to contemporary kings of western Asia in the third century BC. They allowed the first verified correlation of Indian history and archaeology with those of the Western world. In consequence of these discoveries Prinsep was elected a corresponding member of many of the learned societies of Europe." Whatever thoughts we might entertain about men such as James Princep today ,and whatever opinion we might hold of the relevance or otherwise of their work ~ I would like to think that most of us can appreciate their industrious, inquisitive and pioneering approach to the world and the time which they inhabited.

James Princep was a great man in Bengal's history, and yes is still remembered by the city.

Yes, Prinsep's Ghat is still Prinsep's Ghat. Calcutta doesn't let go of the old names as easily as the politicians would like her to. :) Circular Road...so is that the Lower Circular Road of today then?

And...apropos of my comment on another view of Calcutta...THIS road HAS changed! One can't think for the traffic! :)

No the Circular Road was AJC Bose Road going north, Lower Circular Road where La Marts is came later as I recall...

Rimi B. Chatterjee

Kuheli Mukherjee

Is there any collection of the translations of ancient Indian edicts made by the great scholar James Princep?

Asad ~ Here is the Googlebooks link to James Princep's " Essays on Indian Antiquities, Historic, Numanistic and Paleographic", this edition (1858) also seems to contain his earlier work "Useful Tables". It might serve as a ' useful ' ( ! )starting point in a quest for the type of information you are searching for. Regards etc. http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=tFg_AAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Many thanks, Julian. It must have been an amazing job of translating those ancient edicts without computers. About 3 weeks ago, I was in India looking at Ashoka' pillar in Feroze Shah Kotla (in Delhi) and was wondering how on earth could anyone decipher those ancient inscriptions. James Prinsep must have been a brilliant person. Thank you for the reference.

Yes, indeed, Asad... PrinSep's (I note that I have been misspelling his name with a 'C', throughout the post above !) intellectual abilities are all the more remarkable in light of the fact that he recieved very little formal education as a young man... Not only did he have a brilliant mind, he seems to have been an entirely decent and popular fellow with all whom he came into contact. His early death (aged 41) was widely mourned. Here is an extract from his obituary from the aptly titled ' Colonial Magazine' (December, 1840) : " Of his intellectual character, the most prominent feature was enthusiasm, a burning, irrepressible enthusiasm, to which nothing could set bounds [which led him] to apply his powers to a greater range of subjects than any human mind can master or excel in. To this enthusiasm was fortunately united a habitude of order, and power of generalization, which enabled him to grasp and comprehend the greatest variety of details. "

Britain sent to India many of her finest sons (and a few daughters too, Annie Besant being most eminent among them)...I started a blog a few years ago https://indobritishcivilisation.wordpress.com/wp-admin/index.php which however has had zero posts thus far...

The blog is going nowhere so I have instead created an FB group https://www.facebook.com/groups/260169500702542/..

https://www.facebook.com/groups/260169500702542/ has now got plenty enough of interesting material to get the ball rolling...