The Religious Architecture of Bengal website currently hosts two archive portals. The Hitesranjan Sanyal collection, based at the Hitesranjan Sanyal Memorial Archives at the Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, is hosted at hrsarchive.cssscal.org. The George Michell archive, courtesy George Michell and Amit Guha, is hosted at gmarchive.cssscal.org. Both are built on Omeka. You can go directly to the database or access the archives through the search function, interactive maps, and a district-wise directory provided below.
By way of understanding the database’s vocabulary and logic: each photograph is listed as an “item”, with its own metadata, and photographs pertaining to a single temple or mosque are clubbed under a “collection”. Collections, i.e. the temples, are placed within “parent collections”, i.e. the district in which they are located.
The identification of photographs on the web-archive is based on Hitesranjan Sanyal’s notes on the backs of photographs and Manaswita Sanyal’s recollections. Effort has been taken to avoid errors as far as possible but given the resource limitations, site visits and verification have not been possible. Users may submit suggestions and rectifications here. After vetting, the metadata will be accordingly updated, acknowledging the individual contributor.
The archive has been built keeping in mind different queries that users may ask of the collection. Apart from temple names, villages, and districts, the search function can also be used to locate specific motifs (e.g. birds, Ravana), specific types of temple architecture (e.g. Charchala, Atchala), elements of temples (e.g. base friezes, arches), and so on. Users may also choose to search specific collections, i.e. districts or temples, or narrow down their searches to specific fields of the metadata.
You can access the interactive map here. The map currently displays a few examples. It is work-in-progress, and we rely on the participation of specialists and enthusiasts to gradually populate it with accurate GPS locations.
If you are travelling to a temple listed in this archive, all you have to do to contribute is to get a GPS location reading on your phone. This can be done quite easily:
1. Turn on your phone’s GPS
2. Open Google Maps
3. Long tap on your current location (usually a blue dot), till a red location marker appears
4. Tap on the red location marker, choose the Share option, and email it to us at <hrscollectioncsssc@gmail.com> or send us a message here along with the name of the temple or mosque; or you can copy the GPS location (e.g. 23.071845739188497, 87.32682908402495) and send it to us along with the name of the temple or mosque
Contact:
The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
R-1 Baishnabghata Patuli Township
Kolkata 700094
Phone: Tel: +91 33-24625795/24368313/24627251
Jadunath Bhavan Museum & Resource Centre
10 Lake Terrace, Kolkata 700029
Phone +91 33 24666472
© The Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta, 2022
