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Blog post
Adam Munni Ratna, a Buddhist monk in England in 1818
The Visual Arts section has recently acquired a portrait of Adam Sri Munni Ratna, a Singhalese Buddhist monk, who accompanied Sir Alexander Johnston (1775-1849) from Sri Lanka to England in 1817-18. Raised between Scotland, Madras and England, Johnston would be appointed as the President of the Council of Sri Lanka...Roy, Malini
religion, South Asia, art, visual arts, and Buddhism
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Blog post
East India Company headquarters on Leadenhall Street
BBC One’s new period drama Taboo with actor Tom Hardy follows the story of James Keziah Delaney and his encounters with the East India Company. As the headquarters of the East India Company on Leadenhall Street was demolished in 1861 which is the present day site of Lloyds of London,...Roy, Malini
trade, South Asia, art, and visual arts
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Blog post
Battle of Panipat 1761
Panipat, north of Delhi, is the location of three historic battles that shaped Mughal history. On the battlefield here in 1526, Babur defeated the Afghan Sultan of Delhi Ibrahim Lodi, which not only ended Lodi rule but gave the Mughals a stronger foothold on the subcontinent. The second battle took...Roy, Malini
Mughal India, South Asia, art, and visual arts
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Blog post
William Beckford's albums on Hindu mythology
The English novelist and noted bibliophile William Beckford is highlighted in the British Library’s current exhibition ‘Terror and Wonder: the Gothic Imagination’. Exhibition curators (Greg Buzwell, Tanya Kirk and Tim Pye) feature Beckford’s Gothic novel Vathek as one of the earliest examples in this style. Beckford’s masterpiece expressed the ‘orientalist...Roy, Malini
Hinduism, religion, South Asia, exhibitions, and art
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Blog post
‘White Mughal’ William Fullerton of Rosemount
Scottish surgeon William Fullerton (d.1805) from Rosemount enlisted with the East India Company and served in Bengal and Bihar from 1744-66. Developing close ties with locals, including the historian Ghulam Husain Khan, he remained in the region after retiring. Although his impressive linguistic abilities brought him attention, Fullerton’s prominence stems...Roy, Malini
Mughal India, language studies, South Asia, art, and visual arts
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Blog post
The accident that befell Sir Donald Friell McLeod
Even if the attendant or station inspector had shouted ‘Mind the Gap’ (the phrase first used in 1969 at rail stations in the United Kingdom), it would not have prevented the horrific accident that befell Sir Donald Friell McLeod at the railway station at Gloucester Road in 1872. Arriving at...Roy, Malini
religion, South Asia, art, and visual arts
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Blog post
Distinctive leg-of-mutton legs and fine jewels: a new display of Indian paintings in the Treasures of the British Library
Regular visitors to the Sir John Ritblat Gallery: Treasures of the British Library, may have encountered our recent display of Natural History drawings from India next to the entrance to the Magna Carta. From 8 March 2014, a new display of Indian paintings from the Visual Arts collection will be...Roy, Malini
Hinduism, South Asia, exhibitions, and art
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Blog post
Mughal painting by Faizallah recently acquired by the British Library
In our recent exhibition and the accompanying publication Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire, we featured paintings made in Delhi as well as at the Mughal province of Awadh during the 18th century. In March, we were able to add to our collection a splendid work by the artist Faizallah...Roy, Malini
Mughal India, South Asia, and art
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Blog post
Marianne North's Visions of India
The British Library holds one of the richest archives of prints, drawings and photographs from South Asia. As Visual Arts Curator, exploring the vast collections and learning about the history of the works of art is just part of my daily activities. Although my previous blog posts have focused on...Roy, Malini
South East Asia, South Asia, and art
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Blog post
Book of Affairs of Love
Karnama-i ‘Ishq (Book of affairs of love) by the Hindu poet Rai Anand Ram Mukhlis (d. 1751) is a romance in Persian on the afflictions of a young man’s heart and the challenges he faces for eternal love. The poetical narrative is derived from an existing Hindi literary work, the...Roy, Malini
Mughal India, South Asia, and art
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Blog post
A farewell to the Mughals
British Library's exhibition Mughal India: Art, Culture and Empire closed on 2 April 2013. The last few days of the exhibition saw a record number of visitors! Since opening in November 2012, we have been surprised by the overwhelming response from the press and social media. We never anticipated being...Roy, Malini
science, Mughal India, and art
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Blog post
Open and Engaged 2019: Open Access Week at the British Library
There are opportunities and benefits for growth in open access and open scholarship when experience and knowledge is shared between Higher Education Institutes and cultural heritage organisations. On Tuesday 22nd October, The British Library celebrated Open Access Week with the event, Open and Engaged - Forging links between higher education...Miles, Susan
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Blog post
When is a persistent identifier not persistent? Or an identifier?
Ever wondered what that bar code on the back of every book is? It’s an ISBN: an International Standard Book Number. Every modern book published has an ISBN, which uniquely identifies that book, and anyone publishing a book can get an ISBN for it whether an individual or a huge...Cope, Jez
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Blog post
The Botish Library: developing a poetry printing machine with Python
In June 2020 the Office for Students announced a campaign to fill 2,500 new places on artificial intelligence and data science conversion courses in universities across the UK. While I’m not planning to retrain in cyber, I was lucky enough to be in the cohort for the trial run of...Rossi, Giulia Carla
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Blog post
Writing Tools for Interactive Fiction
Interactive fiction (IF), or interactive narrative/narration, is defined as “software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment.” The British Library has been collecting examples of UK interactive fiction as part of the Emerging Formats Project, which is a collaborative effort from all...Rossi, Giulia Carla
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Blog post
Digital Literature and Emerging Media: 10 Years of the New Media Writing Prize
On 18 July, The British Library hosted a Digital Conversations event to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the New Media Writing Prize. Digital Conversations is a series of events that explores the way in which technology is changing how we experience our life and how we communicate. New media writing...Rossi, Giulia Carla
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Blog post
Esperanto and Endangered Languages
Esperanto can be described as the language of hope, peace, and solidarity as Professor Renato Corsetti, General Secretary of the Academy of Esperanto has discussed in his previous posts for the European Studies blog. Hope remains the governing principle, as the name of the language attests (espero in Esperanto). Driven...Déri, Andrea
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Blog post
Diarists and diaries
‘But one shower of rain all this month.’ - entered John Evelyn in his diary on 29th April 1681. What would you write about April 2020 in your diary? John Evelyn (1620–1706) is one of the best-known English diarists. He is known as a diarist but he was also a...Déri, Andrea
science, modern history, curiosity, writing, and environmental science
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Blog post
Clouds: How Luke Howard linked Weather Lore and Natural Philosophy
William Wordsworth’s (1770-1850) ‘lonely as a cloud’ poem was conceived in April 1802 on a spring day walk in the Lake District. A few months later, in December 1802, a pharmacist and amateur meteorologist, Luke Howard (1772-1864) delivered a paper in London, on the dynamics of cloud formations. The two...Déri, Andrea
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Blog post
Oil, storms and knowing part 2: Pliny, Franklin and the IPCC Special Report on Oceans
This post is the second of a pair to mark the period of the 25th Conference of Parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, and is contributed by Andrea Deri, Cataloguer. In addition to seafarers, fishers in the Mediterranean Sea applied oil as Pliny the Elder and Plutarch...Déri, Andrea
science, maps, Americas, modern history, curiosity, travel, and environmental science
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