Museum · Kolkata, West Bengal
Indian Museum, Kolkata
Founded in 1814, the oldest museum in India and among the largest. The art and archaeology galleries hold collections of international importance.
See first
- The Bharhut railings and gateway, with their Brahmi inscriptions
- Gandhara sculpture
- Mughal and other Indian miniature paintings
- Pattachitra scrolls
- The copy of the Ashoka lion capital
The museum grew out of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. In February 1814 Nathaniel Wallich, a Danish botanist who had been taken prisoner at the siege of Serampore and then released, offered the Society his own collection and his services as curator. The Society accepted. The present building on Chowringhee, designed by W. L. Granville, was completed in 1875.
It has six sections, art, archaeology, anthropology, geology, zoology and economic botany, across thirty-five galleries. For art, start with Bharhut. The museum holds the complete railings and gateways of the Buddhist stupa from Bharhut in Madhya Pradesh; the bare mound is still there. The carved panels are labelled in Brahmi, so the sculpture tells you, in writing, what you are looking at.
From there: Gandhara, the miniatures, the painted scrolls. Leave the mummies for another day.
