Royal Asiatic Society to host Collections Evening in London on May 7

Event features talks on Malay manuscripts, Edo-era art and Zoroastrian archives, with access offered in person, online

The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland will return to London on May 7 to host its annual RAS Collections Evening, featuring rare manuscripts, Japanese Buddhist art, and Zoroastrian archival materials.

The 2026 edition will include three expert talks exploring the Society’s collections from India, Malaysia, and Japan, followed by viewing sessions for attendees both in person and online via Zoom.

The programme will open with a conversation between Farouk Yahya on The Maxwell Collection and Local Private Libraries in the Peninsula during the 19th Century.

 

 

 

 

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The session will examine Malay manuscripts and printed works collected by William Maxwell, alongside a discussion on the role of private libraries in shaping literary circulation during that period.

The second presentation, The Creek Beneath: The Palimpsest of the Faulds Album, will be delivered by Niyu Lin. It will focus on the Society’s Edo-period Faulds Album, a concertina-style collection of Buddhist imagery, highlighting the layered calligraphy and artwork embedded beneath its surface.

The final session will centre on the digitisation of the Edward William West archive, with presentations by Almut Hinze, Peter Cornwell, and Myriadne Wang. The speakers will showcase the online publication of 55 notebooks from the archive and explore Zoroastrian texts produced in north-west India.

Founded by the Sanskrit scholar Henry Thomas Colebrooke in 1823, the Society later received a Royal Charter from King George IV in 1824 to promote the study of science, literature, and the arts related to Asia.