The title page of the first edition.

When the Association of British Scholars began work a few years ago on its Madras-Chennai – A 400-year Record of the First City of Modern India, two of whose three volumes have come out, with the third expected to be released early next year, its avowed intention was to capsule the history of 50-plus activities in the city, like Medicare, Education, Art etc., so that students and researchers could develop detailed findings on each subject. The ABS had hoped that the set of volumes would go into school, college and public libraries apart from those of individuals interested in Madras. That hasn’t quite happened, to the disappointment of both the ABS as well as the publishers, Palaniappa Brothers. It may yet happen – and if it does, it will provide the foundation that scholars need to develop a greater fund of knowledge about the city.

These thoughts occurred to me the other day when, as Editor of the Madras series, I happened to read the preface of one of the earliest and most significant collections of information on India. The first edition of the Cyclopaedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia – Commercial, Industrial and Scientific – came out in 1857. It was edited by Edward Balfour, surgeon, Madras Army, and printed at the Scottish Press in Madras. Twentyeight years later, its third edition was published in THREE volumes by Bernard Quaritch in London, by which time Balfour was described in detail as an author, founder of the Madras Muhammadan Library, the Government Central Museum, Madras, and of the Mysore Museum, Bangalore. Much additional information had been added by Balfour, who in this edition, was acknowledged as the author. Balfour was one of the most distinguished Britons to serve in India. But there has been no bigger contribution to India that he has made than this Cyclopaedia which has been the basis for much knowledge about India – and the neighbouring countries it has influenced – being generated in considerable detail. And that is what Balfour’s first Preface had hoped for – as had the ABS’s hope about 125 years later.

That preface of Balfour’s to the first edition is a classic – and is, so, published below.

– The Editor

* * *

THE Preface

Whilst we find books of reference in most departments of Science and Literature in connection with European countries daily becoming cheaper and more abundant, those who investigate or seek for information regarding the resources of British India, or any of the scientific and economic subjects connected with Eastern countries, still meet with much difficulty and hindrance, owing to the necessity of consulting numerous authors whose works are scarce or costly. And as some inquirers are without the pecuniary means of procuring all the requisite books and journals, or find it impossible to procure them at any cost, whilst others want leisure or opportunity for such extensive research, it is evident that progress in these branches of knowledge would be greatly facilitated by collecting and condensing this widely dispersed information, thereby enabling future inquirers to gain some acquaintance with the results of the investigations made by the many diligent and laborious individuals, who have devoted a great portion of their time to collecting information over the vast area of Southern Asia.

My avocations while employed in India, more particularly in the past seven years, have rendered necessary for me a collection of books of reference relating to India and the East, somewhat more numerous and varied in character than private individuals generally possess; whilst my employment as Secretary to the Madras Central Committees for the Great Exhibition of 1851, the Madras Exhibition of 1855, the Universal Exhibition held in Paris in 1855, and the Madras Exhibition of 1857, combined with my duties (since 1851), as the Officer in charge of the Government Central Museum, have brought under my notice a rare variety of Eastern products and subjects of interest; and thinking that, before quitting the countries in which I have dwelt for nearly a quarter of a century, I might with advantage leave to my successors in a portable form, the notes made on the products of the East that have come under my notice, combined with an abstract of the useful information respecting them contained in my books, I have been led to show the results in the present shape.

A work of this aim and character might doubtless fully occupy the life-time of several men of varied attainments; and this Cycolpaedia of India and of Eastern and Southern Asia may therefore be regarded only as a first attempt towards the kind of book the want of which has been long and generally felt. But although fully conscious of its incompleteness in many respects, yet, I trust it may still be received, with all imperfections and omissions, as a useful and opportune addition to Asiatic Literature at least by those who recognise the justness of the saying of Emmerson, that “the thing done avails, and not what is said about it: and that an original sentence, or a step forward, is worth more than all the censures”1 which may be made by such as are disposed to find fault, or who would demand in a work of this kind a degree of perfection unattainable on a first trial.

The book is merely a novelty in form, the matter it contains being as old as our first possessions in India: it is simply a compilation of the facts and scientific knowledge, which authors and inquirers have been amassing and communicating since then, to one another and the public. But, “in our time, the higher walks of literature have been so long and so often trodden, that whatever any individual may undertake, it is scarcely possible to keep out of the footsteps of some of his precursors”2; and this Cyclopaedia I therefore avow to be but an endeavour to make generally available, in a condensed form, the information acquired by those who have in any way investigated the natural or manufactured products of Southern Asia, or have at any time made its arts or natural history the subjects of inquiry. Some of those whose writings I have made use of have long since gone to their account, but many a labourer yet alive may find the result of his labours embodied here; and I have done this freely, because even those from whose writings I have most largely drawn, will acknowledge that the quaint old lines of Chaucer3 still apply with full force; viz. that,

“Out of the old fields, as men sayeth,

Cometh all this new corn fro’ yeare to yeare

So out of old books, in good faith,

Cometh all this new Science that men lere.”

Indeed, I have rather sought to collect and condense accurate and well ascertained facts, than to present novelties; for originality is but too often unconscious or undetected imitation. Byron, years ago, remarked that all pretensions to it are ridiculous; and a wiser one than Byron has told us, that ‘there is nothing new under the sun.’ But if there be nothing absolutely new in this work, I hope it may yet be found to contain much which to many was unknown before; and which want of books, leisure, or opportunity, may have debarred them from learning.

The Cyclopaedia is not intended to comprise the whole science of Botany, nor that of Medicine, or Zoology; nor to instruct in all the matters useful in Commerce or the Arts; but, whether examined for information or amusement, the botanist, the medical practitioner, the naturalist, and the merchant, may perhaps each find something in it, which, from his engagements, he did not know before, or though once knowing may he have again forgotten. In both cases, the work may prove useful, since old thoughts are often like old clothes; put away for a time, they become apparently new by brushing up. It would have been better, perhaps, had a work of this kind been undertaken years ago, or even now were it made the joint effort of several persons: indeed, to render it in any way complete, would call for the resources at the command of a Governement rather than of individuals; but we cannot have everything at the time we wish, nor in the way we wish, and it is better to have someone undertake it and do it the best way he can, now, than to postpone it to some further indefinite period.

With a view therefore of laying a foundation as a starting point for future inquirers I now make the commencement of a work, towards which I hope to receive from many quarters aid and support as I proceed: being thereby enabled either to produce future enlarged and improved editions of the work myself – placing it, as I hope, within the reach of all – or seeing that task taken up hereafter by younger men, with more time and opportunity than are now before me. A dinner of fragments is often said to be the best dinner; and in the same way, there are few minds but might furnish some instruction and entertainment, from their scraps, or odds and ends of knowledge. Those who cannot weave a uniform web, may at least produce a piece of patchwork4; and any items of information sent to me will be very acceptable.

There is another difficulty which inquirers in this country have had to meet and struggle with; I allude to the many languages and dialects in use in India and Eastern Asia, and consquently the variety of scientific, national, or even local names, by which the same thing is known. The only means of overcoming this difficulty was to frame a copious Index of contents; for Pope has well said that.

Index Learning turns no student pale,

Yet holds the eel of Science by the tail.

This Indexing will add to the bulk of the book, but greatly also to its value as a work of reference; and will be carefully completed.