The Indian Museum (formerly called Imperial Museum of Calcutta) is a grand museum in Central Kolkata, West Bengal, India. It is the ninth oldest museum in the world and the oldest, as well as the largest museum in Asia, by size of collection. It has rare collections of antiques, armour and ornaments, fossils, skeletons, mummies and Mughal paintings. It was founded by the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Kolkata (Calcutta), India, in 1814. The founder curator was Nathaniel Wallich, a Danish botanist.
It has six sections comprising thirty five galleries of cultural and scientific artifacts namely Indian art, archaeology, anthropology, geology, zoology and economic botany. Many rare and unique specimens, both Indian and trans-Indian, relating to humanities and natural sciences, are preserved and displayed in the galleries of these sections. In particular the art and archaeology sections hold collections of international importance.
It is an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The present Director of the Indian Museum is Dr. Sayan Bhattacharya, the youngest-ever to head the centuries-old museum.
Contents
History
The Indian Museum originated from the Asiatic Society of Bengal which was created by Sir William Jones in 1784. The concept of having a museum arose in 1796 from members of the Asiatic Society as a place where man-made and natural objects collected could be kept, cared for and displayed.
The objective began to look achievable in 1808 when the Society was offered suitable accommodation by the Government of India in the Chowringhee-Park Street area.
On 2 February 1814, Nathaniel Wallich, a Danish botanist, who had been captured in the siege of Serampore but later released, wrote to the council of the Asiatic Society for the formation of a museum out of his own collection and that of the Asiatic Society in Calcutta, volunteering his service as a Curator wherein he proposed five sections—an archaeological, ethnological, a technical section and a geological and zoological one. The council readily agreed and the Museum was created, with Wallich named the Honorary Curator and then Superintendent of the Oriental Museum of the Asiatic Society. Wallich also donated a number of botanical specimens to the museum from his personal collection. In 1815, Mr William Lloyd Gibbons, Asst Secretary and Librarian, was appointed Joint Secretary of the Museum.
After the resignation of Wallich, curators were paid salaries by the Asiatic Society ranging from Rs 50 to Rs 200 a month. However, in 1836, when the bankers of the Asiatic Society (Palmer and Company) became insolvent, the Government began to pay the salary of the Curator from its public funds since a large part of the collection was that of the surveyors of Survey of India.
A temporary grant of Rs 200 per month was sanctioned for maintenance of the museum and library, and J. T. Pearson of the Bengal Medical Service was appointed curator, followed shortly by John McClelland and, after the former's resignation, by Edward Blyth.
In 1840, the Government took a keen interest in geology and mineral resources, and this led to an additional grant of Rs 250 per month for the geological section alone. In 1851 when the Geological Survey of India came into being with the advent of Sir Thomas Oldham, a rented building at 1, Hastings Road now K N Roy Road, the present site of the New Secretariat became its office. The geological collection of the Government of India 'Museum of Economic Geology' at the Asiatic Society, were then transferred to this site in 1856. The Asiatic Society geological collection were however held back with the condition that it would be handed over to the GSI once a Museum for all its collection came into being. It was way back in 1837 that Sir James Princeps, then-Secretary of the Asiatic Society, had written to the Government asking for a Museum paid for by the state. A movement for a full-fledged Museum was thereafter keenly pursued over a decade, and later, with Sir Thomas Oldham, then Superintendent of the Geological Survey of India, at the helm, it gained momentum.
Collections
Egyptian
It currently occupies a resplendent mansion, and exhibits among others: an Egyptian mummy. The mummy gallery is being currently restored.
Indian
The large collection of ancient and medieval Indian artifacts include the complete railings and gateways of the Buddhist stupa from Bharhut (the bare stupa is still at Bharhut, near Satna, Madhya Pradesh). The Bharhut panels are unique in that they are inscribed in the Brahmi script. The museum has a collection of the remains of the slightly later Amaravati Stupa. There is a large and representative collection of Buddhist and Hindu sculptures of the medieval period, especially those from Bengal, Bihar, and Odisha.
Also preserved are Buddha's relics, a copy of the Lion Capital of Ashoka from an Ashoka pillar (original in the Sarnath Museum) whose four-lion symbol became the official emblem of the Republic of India, fossil skeletons of prehistoric animals, an art collection (including sculptures featuring Gandhara art, Indian miniature paintings, pattachitra, lithographs), rare antiques (including Terracotta artefacts from 3rd century BCE to 12th century CE), and a collection of meteorites.
The Indian Museum is also regarded as "the beginning of a significant epoch initiating the socio-cultural and scientific achievements of the country. It is otherwise considered as the beginning of the modernity and the end of medieval era".
Natural history
The museum has four galleries dedicated to natural history, namely the botanical, insect, mammal and bird galleries featuring a large number of taxidermied specimens as well as skeletons. There are also two fossil galleries, one featuring vertebrate fossils from the Shiwalik region, the other featuring mostly invertebrate fossils along with some marine reptile fossils and the egg of a sauropod dinosaur.
Administration
Administrative control of the Cultural sections, viz. Art, Archaeology and Anthropology rests with the Board of Trustees under its Directorate, and that of the three other science sections is with the geological survey of India, the zoological survey of India and the Botanical survey of India. The museum Directorate has eight co-ordinating service units: Education, preservation, publication, presentation, photography, medical, modelling and library. This multipurpose institution with multidisciplinary activities is being included as an Institute of national importance in the seventh schedule of the Constitution of India.