Museums

Delhi

Madhya Pradesh

Maharashtra

Tribal Cultural Museum – Pune

India has the largest number of tribes and tribal population anywhere in the world. According to a recent anthropological survey of India, there are in…

Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum – Pune

           Pune’s Raja Dinkar Kelkar Museum contains the collection of Dr Dinkar G. Kelkar (1896–1990), dedicated to the memory of his only son,…

Odisha

Ratnagiri Archaeological Museum

Located a short distance from the entrance to the Ratnagiri Buddhist Archaeological Site (but not accessible from inside the site), the ASI museum was opened…

Odisha State Museum – Bhubaneswar

Established in 1932 and occupying the current building since 1960, the Odisha State Museum in Bubaneswar houses a fine collection of religious sculptures, coins, copper…

Uttar Pradesh

Sarnath Archaeological Museum

The Archaeological Museum at Sarnath is the ASI’s oldest site museum, and is one of the most important in India. Plans to build a museum…

West Bengal

Indian Museum, Kolkata – An Introduction

The inception and evolution of the Indian Museum stand as a pivotal chapter in the advancement of India’s heritage and culture. Established in 1814 within the premises of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in Kolkata, it holds the distinction of being not only the earliest but also the largest multipurpose museum in the Indian subcontinent…

Indian Museum, Kolkata – The Bharhut Gallery

Bharhut, situated in the Satna district of Madhya Pradesh, central India, gained historical significance in 1873-74 when Alexander Cunningham unearthed the remnants of a Buddhist Stupa. Constructed with brick and adorned with an exterior coat of plaster, the Stupa was located on a low rise at the base of Lal Pahar hill, half a mile…

Indian Museum, Kolkata – The Paintings Gallery

Having explored the Archaeology and Ghandara Galleries at the Indian Museum in Kolkata, my next port of call was the Paintings Gallery. This gallery broadly has two main sections, showcasing Indian Miniatures and examples of the Bengal School of Paintings. The Indian Miniature section contains a substantial number of miniature paintings ranging from Persian, Mughal,…

Indian Museum, Kolkata – The Archaeology Gallery

The archaeology gallery of the Indian Museum showcases a panorama of Indian sculptural art that celebrates the evolution of sculptural art in South Asia. The exquisite collection of sculptures exhibited in this gallery marks the transition from the Mathura School of the Kushana period to the Sarnath School of the Gupta era, followed by the…

Indian Museum, Kolkata – The Gandhara Gallery

The Gandhara region is broadly a triangular piece of rocky land surrounded by mountains, located today across three countries; southern Afghanistan, northern Pakistan, and the north-western part of the Indian subcontinent. The region is referenced in the Rigveda, Atharvaveda, later Vedic literature, the great epics, classical texts as well was the Jataka tales – suggesting…

UK

Indian Artifacts at the Ashmolean Museum – Oxford

A couple of years ago I paid a visit to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, primarily to see an exhibition on Roman Britain which contained some artifacts from Silchester Roman Town, a site I have been involved in excavating for the last 22 years. It was quite a humbling experience to be reunited with artifacts…

Indian Artifacts at the British Museum

A couple of years ago I made a trip into London to specifically see and document the Amaravati Marbles at the British Museum. The partial remains of the this stupa are located in an annex to the main Asian Gallery in the museum, and perhaps unsurprisingly I was drawn to the Indian artifacts on display…

The Amaravati Marbles at the British Museum

Also known as the Elliot Marbles, the Amaravati Marbles are a collection of 120 sculptures and inscriptions housed in the British Museum in London that were recovered from the Amaravati Mahachaitya in Guntur, Andhra Pradesh.