Abstract Ever since the days of Warren Hastings, the first Governor-General of India, and the foundation of the Asiatic Society of Bengal in 1784, a succession of English scholar-statesmen in India took a keen interest in ancient Indian learning, including arts and antiquities. Despite this early awareness about the significance of Indian antiquities, until the 1850s serious studies were severely handicapped by the absence of faithful pictorial records of archaeological remains and inscriptions. By 1855, however, the East India Company was directing ‘attention to photography as a means by which representation may be obtained of scenes and buildings, with the advantages of perfect accuracy, small expenditure of time and moderate cash’1. The company also desired the Government of Bombay ‘to discontinue the employment of draughtsmen in the delineation of antiquities of Western India, and to employ photography instead’2. The company further recommended that the use of photography in making such records be generally employed throughout the country.

• 1. India Office Records: E/4/829. India and Bengal Despatches Vol. 90. Public letter No. 22 of 1855, para. 3. Quoted in RAY DESMOND, 'Photography in India during the nineteenth century', India Office Library and Records 1974, p. 17.
• 2. Op. Cit.