Lot 134
Raz, Ram
Essay on the Architecture of the Hindus
Auction: India in Ink: The Library of Dr Raj Krishna | 01 October 2026 from 10am | Lots 79 to 208
Description
London: for the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, 1834. First edition, 4to (30.6 x 23.6cm), later purple cloth, xiv 64 [2] pp., 48 lithographic plates (many folding), errata leaf, ink-stamp of the Royal Society of Edinburgh to title-page, occasional spotting
Provenance
INDIA IN INK: THE LIBRARY OF DR RAJ KRISHNA
Footnote
Perhaps the first English-language work on architecture by an Indian author: ‘though it had long been known, proverbially, that the Hindus possessed treatises on architecture of a very ancient date … it remained for the author of this essay to overcome the many, and almost insurmountable obstacle to … the communication of it to the European world in a well known language of Europe’ (editor's preface). Born in Tanjore around 1790, Ram Raz joined a native regiment of the army of the East India Company as a clerk and came to attention for his translation from Marathi into English of a code for revenue officers issued by Tipu Sultan. The publication of his Essay was supported by figures included William Daniell and Sir John Soane, but according to the preface the author died before the work had gone through the press.