Page:Fifty years of the Indian Antiquary.djvu/9

 FIFTY YEARS OF THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.

The Indian Antiquary was founded as a monthly Journal in January 1872 by the late Dr. James Burgess, C.I.E., LL.D., at his private risk, and its fiftieth year of existence was completed with the 640th issue for December 1921, many of the annual volumes having contained more than twelve numbers.

The objects and scope of the Journal are explained in two preliminary notes by Dr. Burgess in Vols. I and XIII respectively. It was intended to provide a means of communication between the East and the West on subjects connected with Indian Research, and a journal to which students and scholars, Indian and non-Indian, could combine to send notes and queries of a nature not usually finding a place in the pages of Asiatic Societies. The main aim was to promote and encourage research. From this aim the Journal has never swerved, though the high class of the communications sent to it has always been beyond the original forecast, while the number of Europeans and Indians joining to assist each other has increased as time went on.

After a while Dr. Burgess's eyesight became so troublesome that he decided to give up the Journal and it was taken over on the 1st January 1885 by the late Dr. J. F. Fleet, C.I.E., Ph.D., Indian Civil Service, and Captain R. C. Temple, Indian Army (now Lieut. Col. Sir Richard Carnac Temple, Bt., C.B., C.I.E., F.S.A.). It was conducted by them at their joint risk and under their joint editorship for seven years, when Dr. Fleet retired, and Captain (then Major) Temple carried it on at his own risk alone and as sole editor-proprietor from the 1st January 1892 till the completion of the half century in December 1921, and still so conducts it. From the 1st January 1911 to date Professor D. R. Bhandarkar, M.A., of Calcutta University, has been joint-editor with Sir R. C Temple. Dr. Burgess died in October 1916, at a great age and Dr. Fleet in February 1917, and it is a matter of pathetic interest to note that Dr. Fleet's last contribution, in January 1917, was an obituary notice to Dr. Burgess. The late Mr. A. M. T. Jackson, M.A., of the Indian Civil Service, a great friend of the Indian people, would have been a joint-editor but for his untimely death, in December 1909, by the hand of a misguided political fanatic.

The chief feature of the Indian Antiquary in the first twenty years of its existence was all along the reproduction and publication of Inscriptions, adequately edited from the originals themselves. The Inscriptions published were largely sought out or collected and reproduced mechanically by a staff directly employed by the proprietors and trained by them, and some were also supplied by Government agency. During these twenty years