Write a brief note on Asiatic …

William Jones was a British scholar and Henry Thomas Colebrooke was a British official living in Calcutta, both were interested in studying ancient Indian Texts. They both set up an Asiatic Society of Bengal and started a journal called Asiatic Researches.

• The main purpose of the Asiatic Society was to collect the old manuscripts of India.

• They collected Sanskrit manuscripts.

• They wanted to establish a society for Asiatic studies.

• The memorandum of articles of the Asiatic society was that all the investigations will be in the geographical limits of Asia, and within these limits, its enquiries will be extended to whatever is performed by the man or produced by nature.

• The members were elected through ballot voting.

• At present, the library has a collection of 117,000 books and 79,000journals.