Rare reads

the fort william collection of 742 rare books and 199 manuscripts is an eye-opener.

Fort William of Kolkata is generally associated with the establishment of the British trading company in the subcontinent. Few know that after the defeat of Tipu Sultan, the British set up a college inside it on July 10, 1800, to commemorate the victory. The objective was to train civil servants of East India Company in their administrative and commercial duties.

And where there is a college, there is bound to be a collection of books. So there was, and this invaluable collection of archival material is currently on display at the India International Centre. The National Archives has put up this exhibition in collaboration with the Noor International Microfilm Centre of Iran. These freshly-bound volumes are a repository of oriental knowledge, particularly philology, the study of languages. But the 742 rare books and 199 manuscripts also deal with a range of esoteric subjects — from religion, language and literature, medicine and astrology, to travel, geography and even biography.

The composition of the faculty of this college during the 30 years of its active life also indicates the nature of its scholarly pursuits. Most of its tutors were clergymen who taught Hindi, law, Sanskrit, Hindu law, Persian, grammar, Latin, English, and thus the collection has several volumes dealing in these subjects. Printed mostly during the late 19th century, there are original works by Persian and Arabic scholars, as well as translations from sources such as the Greek versions of the New Testament.

The collection is an eye-opener into the nature of scholarship prevalent at the time. One of the earliest acquisitions on display is the Aras-Buzurgan in English and Persian, which has the obituary of pious Muslims from the beginning of Islam to the mid-19th century. Among other works with a European association is the Shabistan-Khayal, a German-Persian treatise on the definition of Imam and Islam.

Quite a few volumes are dictionaries and grammar books in Arabic. There are also in-depth studies of the language, such as Al Mathal al Sayer, a tome on the rhetoric and philosophy of Arabic — evidence that the young civil servant in the making was encouraged to make deeper forays into the language rather than just get by with grammatical correctness.

Perhaps what stirs the imagination are the travelogues and chronicles of customs of the time. Mujahil-i-Afriqiyah in Arabic is a travelogue on Africa, describing its people, traditions and culture. Similarly, Ganj-i-Danish is a description of life in Iran and Iraq by one Muhammad Taki Hakim. Sadly, the volume, written in Persian, lies bound on the display shelf.

Even the Kitab-al-Hind, edited by Edward Trubner and including essays on India’s religion, philosophy, astronomy and culture, remains a closed book for the viewers.

Of more contemporary feel are works that deal with the prose writings of Ghalib, and an autobiography of a courtier from the Nizam’s court, titled the Sikandar Namah Bahri. The Ain-i-Akbari and the writings of Sadi, too, find place on the shelves.

A look at the places where these volumes were printed depicts the global nature of knowledge dissemination in that era. A large number came from printing presses in Cairo, while others came from Beirut, Tehran, London and Calcutta. But there are hardly any decorative elements, although there are generous margins on the sides of the pages. Incidentally, the practice of footnotes providing information below a page, or even wood-cut illustrations, is not noticeable.

Sourcing and reconditioning the volumes too has surely been a difficult task, evident from the glass case of moth-eaten volumes that still need to be reconditioned.

But surely there could have been larger translations for modern readers who want to examine what lies hidden in the pages of these precious scripts?

(The Fort William Collection is on display at the India International Centre till January 19)

(Subhra Mazumdar is a Delhi-based freelance writer)