The Asiatic Society is holding an exhibition titled ‘Time Past & Time Present: Treasures of the Asiatic Society’ on its Park Street premises (May 2-May 9, 11.30am to 6pm). As the title explains, the exhibition offers glimpses into the vast collection of the institution that was founded in 1784 by Sir William Jones and had pioneered several path-breaking researches in history, culture, languages and sciences of India and the “Orient” through the 19th and 20th centuries. James Prinsep, who deciphered Ashoka’s script, was associated with the society and an Ashokan inscription occupies pride of place in one of the society’s halls. The society is also home to several important manuscripts written in Asian languages, some of them more than a thousand years old. 

But if the current exhibition is only a small indication of the vastness of the society’s treasures, it also reminds us what the society once aspired to be and how obscure a role it plays in the cultural life of the city, not to mention the country or the world