Dr. Pramod Kumar Mohanty

After a general introduction to the South Asian collections at the V&A, I mainly devoted my time in the UK to refer to both printed and unprinted documents relating to my study mainly at the British Library and partly in other places like School of Oriental and African Studies in London and the Centre for South Asian Studies at Cambridge University. At the British Library I referred to the vast collections on early printed vernacular texts in Oriya like missionary writings, writings by Oriya litterateurs like poetry, textbooks, novels, drama, documentary on contemporary towns, advertisement in contemporary books and journals etc.;memoirs by missionaries, travellers and administrators; private papers like photos, letters, diaries and manuscripts; maps; paintings; police records etc. I explored similar categories of document and printed book at SOAS and in Cambridge. Overall the trip was very fruitful.