Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland

Fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland
Awarded for	"the encouragement of science, literature, and the arts in relation to Asia"
Sponsored by	Royal Asiatic Society
Venue	14 Stephenson Way, London
Country	United Kingdom
Presented by	President of the Royal Asiatic Society under the patronage of HRH The Prince of Wales
Eligibility	Anyone nominated by an existing fellow and with a serious interest and achievements in Asiatic Studies
Post-nominals	FRAS
Reward(s)	Use of the society's library and facilities, receipt of the society's journal[1]
Status	Currently awarded
Established	1823
First awarded	1824
Total recipients	Around 700

Fellows of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland are individuals who have been elected by the Council of the Royal Asiatic Society to further "the investigation of subjects connected with and for the encouragement of science literature and the arts in relation to Asia".^[2]

The Society has around 700 fellows, half of whom reside outside Britain. It is administered by a council of twenty fellows. The Society was established in 1823 and became "the main centre in Britain for scholarly work on Asia" with "many distinguished Fellows".^[3] Fellows use the post-nominal letters FRAS.^{[4][5][6][7][8]}

Past and current fellows include leading scholars, writers, and former politicians and governors who have made significant contributions to Asia and their respective fields. Previous Fellows have included British explorers Sir Richard Francis Burton, and Laurence Waddell, Officers of the British East India Company such as Sir Henry Rawlinson, Chief Justice of Ceylon Alexander Johnston, first Asian Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, and many more.^[9][10]

Eligibility

Fellows can be nominated by an existing Fellow, or they can submit an application for fellowship; applications are open to "anyone with a serious interest in Asian Studies", considered regularly, and processed within two months.^[1] Students are also eligible to become Student Fellows if they are enrolled in an established course of education.^[1]

Notable fellows

• Sir Jehangir Hormasji Kothari
• Henry Thomas Colebrooke
• Sir Richard Francis Burton
• Edward Byles Cowell
• Sir Alexander Johnston
• Thomas Manning
• Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson
• Brian Houghton Hodgson
• C. Sivaramamurti
• Col. Laurence Waddell
• Sir Gore Ouseley
• Sir George T Staunton
• Sir William Wilson Hunter
• Sir Stamford Raffles
• Raja Ram Mohan Roy
• Sir Syed Ahmed Khan
• Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy
• Sir William Jones
• Sir Aurel Stein
• Sir Wilfred Thesiger
• Rabindranath Tagore
• Sir Khan Bahadur Khuda Bakhsh
• Siddhartha Paul Tiwari
• Sir Jadunath Sarkar
• Diwan Bahadur S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar
• Sir Richard O. Winstedt
• Ahmad Hasan Dani
• Arthur John Arberry
• George Everest
• Ahmad Zaki Pasha
• Johann Georg Bühler
• David Marshall Lang
• Anthony Stockwell
• Elizabeth Anne McCaul Finn
• George V. Tsereteli
• Satyabrata Rai Chowdhuri
• Francis Robinson
• Clinton Bennett
• William Lancaster^[11]
• Ustad Aashish Khan Debsharma
• Albert Étienne Jean Baptiste Terrien de Lacouperie (d. 1894)
• Sushil Kumar De
• Eric Newby
• Jean Berlie
• Daphne Park
• Mary Boyce
• William Dalrymple
• Jamal Malik
• K M Baharul Islam
• Tariq Rahman
• William Sweet
• Rahul Peter Das
• Haroon Khan Sherwani
• Ronald E. Asher
• Edward Jarvis
• Michael Ridley
• Rosie Llewellyn-Jones
• Anna Suvorova
• Michael Axworthy
• Deepak Tripathi
• B. N. Mukherjee
• J. M. Gullick
• Mark Trollope, third Bishop of Korea
• Bijan Omrani
• Souhardya De
• Gordon Corrigan
• Terra Han
• Raymond Allchin
• James J Busuttil

References

1. "Membership". Royal Asiatic Society. Retrieved 24 September 2019.
2. Centenary Volume of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland 1823-1923. Frederick Eden Pargiter, Read Books, 2007. March 2007. ISBN 9781406757514.
3. A Dictionary of Buddhism, ed. Damien Keown, Oxford University Press, 2003, p. 240
4. The Oxford Dictionary of Abbreviations, 2nd edition, Market House Books Ltd and Oxford University Press, 1998, ed. Judy Pearsall, Sara Tulloch et al., p. 175
5. Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage 2011, Debrett's Peerage Ltd, p. 26
6. The International Who's Who of Women 2002, 3rd edition, ed. Elizabeth Sleeman, Europa Publications, p. xi
7. "Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland".
8. "Royal Asiatic Society". Cambridge Organisation.
9. "Charter and Rules - Royal Asiatic Society". JSTOR 25202029.
10. Ireland, Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and (1856). Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland. Cambridge University Press for the Royal Asiatic Society.
11. Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland List of Fellows, Library Associates and Subscribing Libraries, 1994, pg 19

External links

• Royal Asiatic Society
• Description of Royal Asiatic Society
• Helen Wang, "Famous and not-so-famous people associated with the Royal Asiatic Society" in Shailendra Bhandare and Sanjay Garg (eds), Felicitas. Essays in Numismatics, Epigraphy and History in Honour of Joe Cribb, Reesha Books International (Mumbai, 2011) 413–489.