Guides to Collections

This page describes selected highlights of the SAMP collection.  It does not represent the complete holdings of SAMP, but rather a representative description of some of the items in the collection.  For access to all of SAMP's holdings, please search the CRL Catalog.

The Antiseptic:  a monthly journal of medicine and surgery

SAMP acquired microfilm holdings of this title.  A guide listing the included issues is available here.
Catalog Record  Guide

Archaeological Survey of India.  Circle reports

Since the middle of the 19th century, the Archaeological Survey of India has been working to explore, excavate, conserve, preserve and protect the monuments and sites of national & international importance.  Within the organization, the country is divided into a number of zones (called "Circles") for the purpose of archaeological work. 
Guide

Buchanan-Hamilton Manuscripts

Twenty volumes of survey accounts, natural history drawings, and other material of Francis Buchanan (1762-1829), held at the Oriental and India Office of the British Library.  Buchanan was a surgeon in the Bengal Service from 1794 to 1816, botanist and ichthyologist, who was employed by the Company on many special missions and on general survey work.
Catalog Record  Guide

Church Missionary Society. South India (Madras) Mission

SAMP has filmed records from the CMS archives for the South India mission, including "Letter book" papers for 1830-1865 and "Mission book" papers for 1834-1862.
Catalog Record  Guide

Confidential Publications and Home Political Files

-from Indian National Archives, Confidential Publications and Home Political Files, reels 1-19.  Filmed in 1973.
The collection consists of two major series and two publications (one on a committee appointed to inquire into the position of students in the UK and a second on Frauds in the UP Treasury) considered confidential and never released.
The first series consists of "Indian Press Reports", "Statements on the Indian press" and "Notes" on the press, all products of the British CID surveillance apparatus.  The Reports contain background on every newspaper.  Another set of reports, often printed before the Statements, surveys the tone of the press during the year in question.
The second series consists of confidential reports on Indian publications.  Many of these, non-confidential, are found in the selections from the Government of India records.  However, that public set stops after 1900.  The comments and analysis, both of religious and political trends, were considered so controversial that the publications did not circulate.  SAMP therefore has a virtually complete set, 1900-1945, which is not available in the IOL/IOR.
Catalog Record   Guide

Dastan-i Amir Hamza

The Dastan-i Amir Hamzah is an epic story featuring Amir Hamza, the uncle of the prophet Mohammed. The stories evolved from centuries of oral recitation, gradually assuming a more fixed form in the 18th century. The Newal Kishore Press edition represents one of the most complete Urdu adaptations of the tale, encompassing more than 46 volumes published over the course of 25 years. 
Catalog Record for microfilm set  Catalog Record for DVD set

Documentation of Emergency Period in India (June 1975 - March 1977)

-collected and edited by Arun Limaye
After the election of 1977 in India, it was soon realized that future historians would have a serious problem writing about the period 1975-77 since the Indian newspapers were heavily censored.  In an attempt to find out alternative sources, scholars realized that letters written by and to the political activists formed a very important source.  The Limaye papers consist of over 10,000 letters written during this period in English, Hindi, and Marathi.  The letters most notably illuminate the background of the formation of the Janata Party.
Catalog Record  Guide

India Land Settlement Reports

SAMP holds a near complete collection of available Indian Land Survey and Settlement Reports, filmed at the British Library's India Office Library.  This collection reflects an important source of material for the study of Indian rural society, particularly economic and social changes during the period of British rule in India.
Guides for Land Settlement Reports on:  Bangladesh  Bombay Presidency  Burma  India States or Union Territories  Indian Princely States  Madras Presidency  Pakistan

India Office Records. Home Miscellaneous Series

SAMP purchased this 334 reel collection containing most of the main surviving documents relating to the London administration of India and Burma before independence.  The series includes 814 volumes of documents covering most aspects of the British connection with India from the early seventeenth to the nineteenth century.  The collection is described in Samuel Charles Hill's 'Catalogue of the Home Miscellaneous Series' (available at CRL - Ref. copy Z1033.M6 H648), and can be searched through the Access 2 Archives database of the UK National Archives (search "Home Miscellaneous" for a complete listing of manuscripts IOR/H/1-IOR/H/864). 
Catalog Record  Guide

Indian Newspaper Reports (Extracts from the Native Press, 1868-1937)

Translated extracts of vernacular press in India.
Online guide to Adam Matthew collection

Indian Proscribed Tracts, 1907-1947

Periodicals and pamphlets banned by the British India government for their content.
Catalog Record  Guide

Joint IMC/CBMS (International Missionary Council, Conference of British Missionary Societies) Archives:  Africa & India, 1910-1945

SAMP purchased this collection on microfiche in collaboration with the Cooperative Africana Materials Project (CAMP).
Catalog Record  Guide

Legislative Assembly Debates

This collection covers a range of historic legislative assembly proceedings from India (Assam, Bihar, Bengal, Bombay, Central Provinces and Berar, Coorg, Kerala, Madras, Orissa, Punjab, United Provinces of Agra and Oudh), Pakistan (Northwest Frontier Province, East Bengal, Sind), Burma, and Ceylon.  Titles are cataloged individually.
Guide

Methodist Missionary Society Archives

In conjunction with CRL, CAMP and LAMP, SAMP purchased sections of the minutes, reports and correspondense in manuscript and typescript of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society and the Primitive Methodist Missionary Society, which merged with the United Methodist Missionary Society in 1932 to form the Methodist Missionary Society.  SAMP's holdings include India and Ceylon minutes as well as correspondence with the Ceylon mission.
Guide

Newspapers from South Asia

Various projects have preserved newspapers from South Asia.  Search the CRL Catalog's Newspaper scope, selecting by country.

Norman Gerald Barrier collection of South Asian political tracts

A collection of pamphlets and publications concerning political and historical topics, covering roughly 1930-1971 (bulk 1960-1971).
Catalog Record  Guide

Political Records filmed Spring 1969, selected by N. G. Barrier.

-from the National Archives of India.
Selections from Home Political files 1907-1943, Home Establishment file 1930, and Home Public files 1908-1928.
Catalog Record  Guide

Popular Literature in Hindi and Urdu

-compiled by Frances W. Pritchett
Collection on microfiche of South Asian popular literature in Hindi, Urdu, and related dialects. Consists primarily of qissah (narrative "chapbook" literature) and nautanki (folk-opera) texts, as well as other indigenous folk genres in prose and verse published from the late 19th Century to 1978
Catalog Record  Guide

SAMP Early Panjabi Imprints project

SAMP has microfilmed vernacular holdings at the India Office Library and Records, including 80 volumes (about 46,000 pages) of Panjabi tracts held in the IOL.  These 340 reels are currently uncataloged, but a guide is available for loan E-10816. 

Selected works on Indian literatures and cultures

Collection of 13 works by Garcin de Tassy primarily on Hindustani language and literature.
Catalog Record  Guide

Selections from the records of the Government of India, 1849-1937

This large series consists of 346 volumes of important records pertaining to a variety of aspects of the history of the Brisith administration in India.  The records, originally housed in the India Office Library and Records of the British Library, range from Dutch records in Madras to land revenue settlements and other matters, and deal with not only Indian territories but Burma, Aden, Tibet, and other countries adjacent to the sub-continent.  Purchased from IDC on 3032 microfiche (with other sections available on microfilm from the Library of Congress), a print index and guide to the collection is also available for loan.
Guide

South Asia ephemera collection

Available on microfiche, this is a large collection of pamphlets assembled by the Library of Congress New Delhi office.  It covers a wide range of topics and includes all countries of South Asia.  The collection is cataloged separately by title - access to the entire set can be found in the CRL Catalog.
Catalog Search

Sukumar Sen papers

SAMP has microfilmed the manuscripts of Sukumar Sen, one of the most eminent Bengali linguists and literary scholars of the 20th century.  The manuscript collection, assembled by the late Professor Sen over the course of his life, is held near Calcutta and contains many rare block prints and some sole exemplars of texts.  SAMP dispatched one of its portable cameras in the region to perform the filming. 
Catalog Record  Guide

Tracts and Miscellaneous Printed Material

9 reels of published and unpublished works 1850-1920, selected from the India Office Library by Norman Gerald Barrier.
Catalog Record  Guide

Featured: Unique Urdu and Hindi Collection

Prof. Robert Phillips, lecturer for the Program in South Asian Studies at Princeton University, teaches courses in Hindi-Urdu and South Asian Studies, and has used both South Asia Materials Project (SAMP) and CRL resources to support different research, writing, and teaching projects.

Accessing Āmukha in SAMP’s holdings offered an opportunity to incorporate the crucial - but often less-collected - genre of the little magazine into his research on Hindi modernism and a subsequent conference presentation.