LibGuides: South Asian Studies: Primary Sources

Colonial Indian History

Empire Online This link opens in a new window
A broad range of original documents from Western colonial empires; includes a lot of information on South Asia.
India, Raj and Empire This link opens in a new window
"Explore the history of South Asia between the foundation of the East India Company in 1615 and the granting of independence to India and Pakistan in 1947, through the wonderfully rich and diverse manuscript collections of the National Library of Scotland (Adam Matthew)." It includes original manuscript material, comprising diaries and journals, official and private papers, letters, sketches, paintings and original Indian documents.
Eighteenth Century Collections Online (1701-1800 - ECCO) This link opens in a new window
Based on The English Short Title Catalogue, this collection includes the holdings of the British Library as well as those from more than 1,500 university, private, and public libraries worldwide.
Early English Books Online-- Text Creation Partnership (EEBO-TCP) This link opens in a new window
Searchable and downloadable handmade transcriptions of thousands of texts from the Early English Books Online database.
Times Digital Archive (London), 1785-2019 This link opens in a new window
"This historical newspaper archive allows researchers an unparalleled opportunity to search and view the best-known and most cited newspaper in the world online in its original published context (Gale)." Fondren owns access to the Times Digital Archive 1785-1986, 1987-2013 and 2015-2019. Current issues of The Times Digital Archive are available from Nexis Uni and Newspaper Source under JN "Times, The (United Kingdom)" and are also searchable in Gale NewsVault.
Guardian (the) and The Observer - Historical Newspapers This link opens in a new window
The Guardian (1821-2003) and its sister paper, The Observer (1791-2003) provide facts, firsthand accounts, and opinions of the day about political, business, sports, literary, and entertainment events from the past 200 years. The Guardian and The Observer have been digitized from cover to cover, with full-page and article images in PDF format.
U.K. Parliamentary Papers This link opens in a new window
The U.K. Parliamentary Papers consists of the following modules:
● House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 18th Century, 19th Century and 20th Century (1688-2004)
● House of Lords Parliamentary Papers (1800-1910)
● Hansard (1803-2005)
● Eighteenth Century Parliamentary Papers Collection, which is comprised of: 1) Harper Collection of Private Bills (1695-1814); 2) House of Commons Sessional Papers (1715-1800); 3) House of Lords Sessional Papers (1714-1805); 4) Journals of the House of Commons (1688-1834); 5) Journals of the House of Lords (1688-1834); 6) Local and Personal Acts (1797-1834); and 7) Parliamentary Register (1780-1796).
House of Commons Parliamentary Papers via C19 This link opens in a new window
C19 Index includes bibliographic records for the entire collection of 19th century Parliamentary Papers (79,527 papers), based on Chadwyck-Healey's Subject Catalogue of the House of Commons Parliamentary Papers, 1801-1900 by Peter Cockton. Coverage of the 'long 19th century' is provided with an additional 19,423 bibliographic records for the period 1901-1919. (See also House of Commons Parliamentary Papers Fulltext) (1800-1899).

Imperial Gazetteer of India (1908-1931)

British Library Newspapers This link opens in a new window
These archives contain mid-eighteenth-to-mid-twentieth-century regional and local British newspapers from the British Library (Gale). Rice University owns access to: Part I: 1800-1900 (national and regional papers); Part II:1800-1900 (local newspapers); Part III: 1741-1950 (national and regional papers); Part IV: 1732-1950 (local newspapers); Part V: 1746-1950 (northern regional newspapers); and Part VI: 1783-1950 (Ireland).

Digital Colonial Documents
A collection of rare seminal documents which were influential in the formation of the notions of nation, state and culture in India during the colonial period.
Statistical Abstract Relating to British India, 1840-1920

East India Company, 1599-1947 This link opens in a new window
This database consists of the India Office Records from the British Library, London. Containing royal charters, correspondence, trading diaries, minutes of council meetings and reports of expeditions, among other document types, this resource charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1599 to 1947 (Adam Matthew). Fondren owns access to Modules I-V.
Module I: Trade, Governance and Empire, 1600-1947. This collection consists of India Office Records A-D, covering classes IOR/A, B and D, and comprises the foundational charters of the Company plus the minutes and memoranda of its various central administrative organs. This is material generated by the East India Company’s London headquarters and top-level material sent back by Company servants overseas and pertains to the governance of the Company and its territorial possessions.

Module II: Factory Records for South Asia and South East Asia, 1595-1830.This collection consists of India Office Records G, 641 volumes from 7 factories or factory groups in east Asia, the Middle East and Africa, dated from 1608-1870. It also includes volumes from IOR/R/19, Records of East India Company and India Office Agencies in Egypt (1832-1870).

Module III: Factory Records for China, Japan and the Middle East, 1596-1870. This collection consists of India Office Records G, the sub-classes of Factory Records which were not published in Module II, covering the Company’s activities in China, Japan, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt, St Helena and South Africa. It includes correspondence relating to Napoleon Bonaparte’s exile to St Helena and Sir Harford Jones, envoy to Persia.

Module IV: Correspondence: Early Voyages, Formation and Conflict. This collection consists of India Office Records E, correspondence between the East India Company, the Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, the Company’s various settlements, and European houses of agency.

Module V: India Office Records E; Correspondence: Domestic Life, Governance and Territorial Expansion (1600-1859) This collection includes correspondence between the East India Company and British government departments, and the East India Company’s Bombay and Madras Presidencies, in addition to the Home Correspondence series (IOR/E/1) containing letters between Company officials and merchants, traders, officials and members of the general public.

South Asia Digital Collection
The South Asian Digital Collection features selected books, serials, and manuscripts related to the present-day countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. All items in this digital collection are freely accessible online. This digital collection includes items in South Asian languages (e.g., Bengali, Hindi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Urdu) as well as items relevant to South Asia in English, French, German, and other languages. Researchers will find materials about colonialism in South Asia; vernacular literature; religion and philosophy; grammar and linguistics; the rebellion of 1857; American and European accounts of travel in colonial India; and many other subjects in the broad field of South Asian studies.

Archival Sources

National Archives of India

Online Text and Image Collections

Digital South Asia Library
A project of the Center for Research Libraries, this Website provides access to information about contemporary and historical South Asia – including full-text documents, statistical data, electronic images, cartographic representations, and pedagogical resources for language instruction.

Digital Library of India

SARAI: South Asia Resource Access on the Internet

Savifa
An electronic platform for publishing and archiving academic literature in the field of South Asian studies. Contains a large collection of periodicals in the vernacular languages of India.

Sacred Texts
Link to dozens of freely available online editions of sacred texts from the Eastern and Western religions, including (but not limited to) Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, and Taoism.

The Tibetan and Himalayan Library
Information relating to the Tibetan plateau and southern Himalayan regions.

ARTstor
ARTstor is a rich digital library that offers coherent collections of art images and descriptive information as well as the software tools to enable active use of the collections. It includes approximately 300,000 images covering art, architecture and archeology.

South Asia Open Archives Initiative
South Asia Open Archives is a free open-access resource for research and teaching - a rich and growing curated collection of key historical and contemporary sources in arts, humanities and social sciences, from and about South Asia.