Asian Research Library Series 7 A catalog of the materials donated by the University of Tokyo integrated area studies on South Asia (TINDAS) to the Asian Research Library

This catalogue compiles bibliographic information for 461 materials donated to the Asian Research Library from the collection assembled by the University of Tokyo Integrated Area Studies on South Asia (hereinafter referred to as TINDAS).
 
From fiscal year 2016 to 2021, the National Institutes for the Humanities, the inter-university research institute corporation, organized the “Integrated Area Studies on South Asia,” comprising six centers. TINDAS was among these centers, and this collection consists of materials donated upon the conclusion of its activities in fiscal year 2021.
 
The activities of TINDAS are reported in detail in Issue 34 (2022) of Minami Ajia Kenkyū, the journal of the Japan Association for South Asian Studies. According to the report on page 19, TINDAS has conducted activities with the objective of situating the current economic development of South Asian countries, particularly India, within the context of long-term historical changes and to provide a comprehensive explanation of the nature of South Asian development. To advance these activities, TINDAS established three research group—“economic development”, “historical change” and “education and society”— — as well as a coordination group to promote collaboration between them.
 
The donated materials reflect the three research themes of TINDAS, the majority of which pertain to the modern and contemporary history, economy, education, and society of South Asia. Many of these materials are not held elsewhere in Japan and they include key resources for research in their respective fields. Examples include Economic Developments in India, a major series on the history of Indian economic development, The People’s Linguistic Survey of India, and The Administrative Atlas which uses maps to show administrative divisions in the 2001 and 2011 Indian censuses. These are all essential resources for researchers in these fields. The Asian Research Library hopes that these TINDAS materials, including the examples above, will be used by students and researchers.
 
Japanese academia has recently been grappling with the serious issue of materials being collected by faculty members with long research careers or large-scale academic projects being dispersed or flowing overseas. This is because of the rejection of donations due to constraints on library space, budget limitations, and staff shortages. This results in the loss of domestic academic assets. As many of these research activities are funded by the public to varying degrees, the problem is even more serious in terms of national asset loss. In this context, the importance of housing these TINDAS materials in the Asian Research Library rather than dispersing them extends beyond merely enriching a single library collection. Although the Asian Research Library has limitations in terms of what it can accomplish alone, we are committed to contributing to the preservation of materials and transmission of scholarly knowledge.
 

(Written by KAWASAKI Yutaka, Assistant Professor, The University of Tokyo Library System / 2025)