Digital Text Collections of Heidelberg University Library and CATS Library
The FID4SA presents collections of texts relevant to South Asian studies from the holdings of both libraries, which are made available online through digitization and improved indexing.
Among the appr. 300,000 volumes in the collection of the CATS Library / Dept. South Asia are also rare publications from the 18th to the early 20th centuries. Selected works from the collection have been digitised and made publicly accessible in the digital collections of Heidelberg University Library. A special focus lies on the digitisation of historical travelogues as well as on the works of German Indologists from the 19th century.
The Naval Kishore Press (NKP) was founded in the north Indian city of Lakhnau in 1858 by Munshi Naval Kishore (1836-1895). Over the next four decades the press developed into one of the most important publishing companies in India. In terms of content, the publishing portfolio covered a wide range – literature in regional languages, school books, conduct and advice literature, religion, and classical Sanskrit literature. Selected works from the NKP collection have been digitised and made available as editable full-text versions (in Devanāgarī script and Latin transliteration).
The Hiteshranjan Sanyal Memorial Archive comprises a large collection of textual and visual materials with a focus on Colonial Bengal. In 1993, the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC) began filming and digitising early colonial-era Bengali journals. This unique collection also includes rare Bengali books and Assamese magazines and books. Based on a memorandum of understanding between the CSSSC and the South Asia Institute of Heidelberg University, part of this collection is now presented in the digital collections of Heidelberg University Library and made publicly accessible via the Open Access Repository of the FID4SA.
Books from Bengal
Early Bengali Books, 1800-1850
Early Bengali Books, 1851-1900
Early Bengali Books, 1901-1950
English Books from British India
Periodicals and Newspapers from Bengal
Periodicals and Newspapers from Assam
The first issue of Hicky's Bengal Gazette was published in Calcutta on January 29, 1780. In addition to reports on the life of British society in Calcutta, the newspaper also dealt with critical, sometimes sarcastic news coverage on the British colonial government. After a lawsuit against the editor James Augustus Hicky (1739/40-1802) for defamation, the publication of the magazine was discontinued on March 30, 1782.
This is a digital archive of all existing issues of the English language newspaper "Himalayan Times" published by Suresh Chandra Jain in Kalimpong (West Bengal, India) in the years 1947 to 1963. The newspaper was digitised as part of the project "Kalimpong as a 'Contact Zone': Encounters between Tibet and Western Modernity in the Early 20th Century" (Cluster "Asia and Europe in a Global Context", University of Heidelberg) under the direction of Prof. Dr. Birgit Kellner and Dr. Markus Viehbeck.
Published between 1834 and 1840 under various titles, this journal contains descriptions of historical sites and monuments in India. Richly illustrated with engravings by William Daniell (1769–1837), among others.
Published between 1834 and 1840 under various titles, this journal contains descriptions of historical sites and monuments in India. Richly illustrated with engravings by William Daniell (1769–1837), among others.
The first issue of this important Hindi literary magazine was published in Allahabad in 1900 by the Indian Press. Under the editorship of the writer Mahavir Prasad Dvivedi (1903-1920), Sarasvatī became one of the most influential Hindi literary journals of the early 20th century.
Founded by Hugh Nevill (1847-1897), a Ceylon Civil Service officer, this periodical published mainly articles on Sri Lankan culture and history. Probably no more than three issues were published.
Further Text Collections
The range of digital research materials is constantly increasing. Here we have put together a selection of particularly recommendable digital source collections on South Asia for you, which are constantly updated by the FID4SA team.
Research project "Documents on the History of Religion and Law of Pre-modern Nepal" | Heidelberg Academy of Humanities and Sciences
The project makes accessible a corpus of documents and texts relevant to the history of religion and law in pre-modern Nepal. This corpus has so far been dealt with only partially, and the aim of the project is to make it available in printed and digital form.
The rare historical corpus material, which originated between the interactive poles of India and Tibet and between Hinduism and Buddhism, is unique in terms of content and also of the volume of it. It was preserved on microfilm by the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP) of the Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft (and others) but has only been partially catalogued and evaluated. It includes temple documents (edicts, land grants, contracts, deeds of donation, letters, etc.), legal documents (verdicts regarding moral conduct, letters granting absolution, caste regulations), and, to a much lesser extent, narrative or eulogical texts on local shrines.
The Endangered Archives Programme primarily funds digitisation projects to record and preserve the content of archives. Each year, the EAP awards grants to researchers to identify and preserve culturally important archives by digitising them on-site without the archival material having to leave the country of origin. The EAP archive now lists more than 80,000 projects on South Asia.
The “Gundert Portal” is the result of a DFG funded project that started in 2016 at Tübingen University Library. The aim of the project is to catalogue, digitise all the textual material that is part of the Hermann Gundert legacy. It is now available worldwide in a freely accessible portal. The Hermann Gundert legacy at Tübingen University Library contains printed and lithographed books and pamphlets in Malayalam, Kannada, Tulu, Tamil, Telugu, Sanskrit and other languages as well as Indian manuscripts including palm-leaf manuscripts, copies of texts and notebooks in various languages by Hermann Gundert and his missionary colleagues.
To the Gundert-Portal
South Asia Open Archives is an open-access resource for research and teaching - a rich and growing curated collection of important historical and contemporary sources in the arts, humanities and social sciences from and about South Asia, in English and South Asian regional languages.
Since 2019, the Texts Surrounding Texts project has digitized and catalogued hundreds of Tamil and Sanskrit manuscripts from the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF) and the Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg (SUB), focusing particularly on South Indian palm-leaf manuscripts.
To the project Texts Surrounding Texts
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