Indian Cultural Studies

Abstract

IN the discussion which followed Mr. Barger's lecture at the Royal Society of Arts on November 30 (see, p. 1046) interest in the future of the India Museum at South Kensington and the position of Indian studies in Great Britain will appear to have eclipsed the claims to attention of the lecturer's pioneer archaeological work in Swat and Afghanistan. The importance of the question raised in his concluding remarks will be accepted in palliation. The anomalies and obstruction to development arising from the lack of cohesion and co-operation among the eight or ten organizations in London associated with Indian studies were characterized with wit and acumen by Mr. F. J. Richards, and echoed by each subsequent speaker in the discussion ; while these criticisms were endorsed by Sir Richard Winstedt, who described briefly such steps, inadequate as they admittedly are, as it has been possible to take to meet these deficiencies in some measure by the provision of lectures in Indian art and archaeology at the School of Oriental Studies, an institution, which, it is to be noted, already has wide commitments in other directions. On one point, which for some time past has been regarded with dismay among those interested in Indian cultural studies, Lord Zetland, who was in the chair, was able to reassure his audience. The risk, he said, that the collections of the India Museum might be dispersed, is at an end; and indeed, there is a prospect that the Indian sculptures at the British Museum (Bloomsbury) may be transferred to the India Museum at South Kensington.