Descriptive Bi-Lingual Catalogue of Chinese Books in the Collection of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta (An Old and Rare Book)

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It is with great pleasure I am presenting the Descriptive Bi-lingual Catalogue of Chinese Books in the collection of the Asiatic Society, Calcutta. The Society is well- known for having in its possession a large number of mss, archival materials and rare books in different languages covering the entire field of knowledge. Amongst this possession it has many valuable books and mss in Chinese language. Some of these collections are also rare even in China.
Unfortunately, however, because of lack of communication the scholarly world does not know about its existence. In recent period the Society took particular step to bring out this bi-lingual catalogue to introduce them to the scholarly world. Accordingly, Prof PC Banerjee, formerly Dy Foreign Language Advisor of the Govt. of India was appointed as Research Professor in the Society. He has prepared this Bi-lingual (Chinese and English) Descriptive Catalogue of Chinese Books which are in the possession of the Society.
There are, however, some limitations about which we are aware, but we hope the scholars who will use this volume will appreciate the problem and will not be constrained by these limitations. For preparing this catalogue Prof. P. C. Banerjee has followed a format which may not be the standard one or may have some deficiency in standardising with other catalogues of books and mss that we have in our possession or may be available in other standard libraries and museums. However, this will not affect the value of this volume.
We had to struggle hard to bring out this volume since we do not have in our country printers in Chinese language. I shall be failing in my responsibility if I do not mention the name of Mrs. Indira Bhattacharyya of M/s. Typographics who ventured to devise a suitable method and take up the responsibility for bringing out this volume. I thank Mrs. Bhattacharyya and her associates.
I shall be happy if this volume be helpful to the scholars.

The Asiatic Society has a number of very valuable works in its Chinese collections. They cover almost all subjects relating to Chinese civilization and material culture more especially in the fields of Science, History, Geography, Language and Literature, Philosophy, Religion including Buddhism/Manners and Customs, Biography. Traditional Medicines etc. As already mentioned in the Bi-Centenary Souvenir (1784-1984) of the Asiatic Society, some of these books are rare even in China. The Society's Chinese collections is more than 200 years old.
Such treasures of Chinese literature in the Asiatic Society has remained unknown to the scholars as they have not been catalogued. Moreover most of the books were kept in a haphazard manner on account of the language problem, e.g. pages of some books being clubbed with other works and particular volumes were mixed up with unrelated volumes.
A descriptive Bilingual catalogue of all the Chinese works available in the Society's collections is now offered to the scholars, giving a short note against each work numbered 1 to 92. This will give a general idea of the books and its contents. Apart from the notes, there is another heading, 'Appendix', No. A-J, which gives a short translation of the book referred to. While preparing the catalogue, it has been found useful to give both Chinese and Romanized names of each work along with English rendering so that scholars accustomed to different dialects do not face any problem. The Romanized pronunciation of each Chinese character (or word) has been given as adopted by the Government of People's Republic of China in 1958.
The preparation of this descriptive catalogue has been rendered easier with the help of Si Hai (Shanghai, 1979), Chinese to English Dictionary, Beijing, 1979, Chinese to English Dictionary by Mathews (Harvard University Press 1943), Chinese to English Dictionary by Hervert Giles (London, 1892), and other standard reference works.