South and Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology Index (Volume Four)

Volume four contains 1344 records on South and Southeast Asia selected out of 1800 records from the ABIA South and Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology index database.

Volume four has been compiled by the ABIA project team at IGNCA New Delhi. It includes all form of scholarly publications, ranging from survey works to small hut important articles, in composite books and journals published in India between 2006 and 2011, Subjects include pre- and protohistory, historical archaeology, ancient art history, modern art history, material culture, epigraphy and palaeography, numismatics and sigillography.

The bibliographic descriptions (with the original diacritics), keyword, and annotations have made this reference work a reliable guide to recently published scholarly work in the field.

Asha Gupia, MA (Hindi), MLISc, Diploma in Russian language from University or Delhi and M.A (Economics) from Kota Open University, She has also obtained Post Graduate level programme on ELIS (Effective Library Information System) from University of Manchester, UK. She is working with IGNCE since 1987. Bibliographic compiled and in-house published under her editorship include: Prof. Vasudeva Saran Agrawala. A bibliography Survey to his Published Works, 1994; An Annotated Bibliography on zorastrian Studies, 1998; A Select Bibliography on Shadow puppetry, 1998 and Bibliography on Mahabharata, 2011. She is presently working as editor of IGNCA’s ABIA project.

ABIA stands for Annual Bibliography of Indian Archaeology that was published by the Kern Institute in Leiden during 1926-73. The ABIA is a unique and ambitious scheme of annotated bibliographic compilations on Indian arts and archeology, which used to be brought out annually by a group of Dutch scholars from the early part of the twentieth century. Though suspended for about a decade in the late eighties and early nineties, this pioneering effort was revived in 1995 mainly through the efforts of scholars from the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), the Netherlands.

In 1996, the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden put forward a proposal to resume the bibliography. The new bibliography is called ABIA South & Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology Index, briefly ABIA Index.

In ABIA Project, Indian activities started with Prof. S. Settar, Karnatak University, Dharwad, India, in 1998. In July 2002, Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts was able to associate itself with the ABIA project and assisted in getting the required entries from Indian publications. Mou was signed between Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, New Delhi (IGNCA) and Postgraduate Institute of Archaeology, Colombo (PGIAR) in October 2002 to continue the work.

In 2007, Dr. K. K. Chakravarty, as the Member Secretary of IGNCA in New Delhi, India, took over the Chairmanship and the responsibilities of the coordinating office of the ABIA project from Prof. Nimal De Silva of the PGIAR, Colombo, Sri Lanka for the next five year period.

IGNCA is an autonomous institution under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. The basic work of the ABIA Programme undertaken by IGNCA, India was:

1. To continue to publish a selection of high quality research annotations from the project's bibliographic database for the ABIA Index Volume 4;

2. 2. To collect and process the Indian publications from 2000 onwards;

3. To convince more countries of South and Southeast Asia to join the ABIA project.

During the third five-year term (2007 to 2011), bibliographic data were acquired and processed in the IGNCA, India and added to the local ABIA database. Volume 4 covers mostly Indian publications and some publications from Southeast Asian region. This was decided in the 12th annual workshop held in Sri Lanka in 2012.

Just as in the preceding volume, ABIA South and Southeast Asian Art and Archaeology Index, volume 4 covers publications in print. Records have been selected on the basis of certain qualitative criteria. The main criterion is whether the publication has immediate relevance for current research/new research. Excavation reports, conference proceedings, articles in periodicals, felicitation and commemoration volumes etc. have been included. Another selection criterion is based on the decision taken in the 10th workshop held in New Delhi, India in December 2009, i.e., not to annotate all records. However, the material that is not annotated is made sufficiently accessible through full bibliographic descriptions and keywords.

In order to widen the scope of the project the Chair at IGNCA, India has attempted to invite more countries to join the ABIA family, both in South Asia as well as in Southeast Asia.

ABIA in IGNCA, India

With regard to the publications of Southeast Asia, an IGNCA team visited Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia to find institutions, scholars who could contribute bibliographic data of their country on a regular basis. In the absence of any institution, scholar from Southeast Asian region, as Chair, IGNCA purchased some publications and these were annotated in ABIA India coordinating country office. These were also included in the volume 4.

Finally, release of ABIA Index, volume four has been possible due to cooperation and hard work of the team of ABIA Project. They include editor, annotators, assistants and officials.