About the American Institute of Indian Studies

• General Information about the American Institute of Indian Studies
• Background Information
• Into the 21st Century
• Organization and Administration
• Member Institutions
• Services to Study Abroad Programs

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AIIS Offices, Programs, and Publications

• Contacting AIIS Offices in India
• Research Centers
• Fellowship Programs and Competitions
• Advanced Language Programs
• Research and Training Programs
• AIIS Publications
• AIIS Book Prize
• Mellon Fellowships in India for East European Scholars

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Requests for Information

• How to become an AIIS Member Institution

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Junior Fellows Information

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Download Application Forms

• Applications and forms saved as Portable Document Format (PDF) files can be downloaded, read, and printed using Adobe Acrobat Reader software. If you don't already have a copy, this software is available for free at the Adobe web site.
• Download a copy of the software by clicking on this icon.
• Once you have installed the software on your computer, any of the following application forms can be downloaded:

 

Download All or Specific Sections of the Application Packet (The complete packet includes all of the documents listed below.)

• Fellowship Competition Information Sheet

 
• Application for Fellowship Competition

 
• Application Instructions

 
• Confidential Reference Form (3 forms required)

 
• Affiliate Sponsor Form

 
• Review Worksheet

 
• Project and Visa Authorization Sheet

 
• Application Checklist

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Other Related Links

• Center for Electronic Text and Image (CETI): University of Pennsylvania, www.library.upenn.edu/etext/sasia/aiis/

[Contains: overview to the AIIS South Asian Art Archive, photographs from the AIIS South Asian Art Archive]
• SARAI (South Asia Resources Access on the Internet): Columbia University, www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/area/sarai/

[Contains: Information about resources, Libraries and bibliographic resources, Electronic journals and newspapers, International directory of south Asia scholars, Resources list by country, Resources list by organization, Resources list by topic, The SARAI in-process backlog of unsorted information]
• Asian Studies WWW Virtual Library: Australia National University, coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVL-AsianStudies.html

[Contains: Asia-Pacific Global Resources, Regional Resources, Individual Countries/Territories Resources]
• Independent Scholars of South Asia:

humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/aiis/isosa/index.htm
[Contains: Accommodations, Libraries, Research, News and Notes, Links, Project, Membership]
• Project South Asia at Missouri Southern State College, www.mssc.edu/projectsouthasia
• Digital South Asia Library, a digital library focusing on the delivery of free scholarly resources for research on South Asia to the international community. Provides access to dictionaries, books, journals, bibliographies, images, maps and historical data.  http://dsal.uchicago.edu
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American knowledge of India is shaped by the American Institute of Indian Studies, a consortium of universities and colleges in the United States at which scholars actively engage in teaching and research about India. For more than thirty years, the Institute has provided fellow ship support for senior American scholars and Ph.D. candidates. It has offered on-site training in Indian languages through the superb facilities of its Language Centers. And it has extended knowledge of Indian culture through its two research centers. More than 3,500 scholars have received AIIS support. Their work has spanned fields ranging from anthropology to zoology. The results of their work has resulted in literally hundreds of books and thousands of articles, the basis of America's knowledge about India. Collections of some 2700 books directly or indirectly resulting from AIIS-sponsored research have been given to major libraries in India, including the National Library of India in Calcutta, the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in Delhi and the Adyar Library in Chennai. The listing of these books forms the core of a widely used and highly respected volume, India and America, published by the Institute. AIIS scholars also have come together with colleagues from India and often from other countries as well at major international conferences. These conferences have resulted in the publication of selected papers that often form the core of knowledge in many disciplines. Nearly fifty books have so far been published directly by the Institute, and others are under consideration by an active Publications Committee. Through its programs of research and documentation, the Institute has since 1961 endeavored to achieve an accurate and probing knowledge of India's cultures, history, languages, and present-day dynamics. Through  its own publications and those of its fellows, the Institute seeks to make the results of this research widely available and easily accessible to people in the United States and India, indeed throughout the world. Already the impact has been considerable. The Institute has been directly responsible for fostering several generations of new scholars, and its senior fellows have returned to classrooms where they have taught tens of thousands of American college students. 

The Institute was established in 1961 by a group of American scholars involved in programs of Indian studies at leading American universities. They were led by W. Norman Brown, Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Pennsylvania, who brought a long-held dream to reality with the creation of a non-governmental academic consortium to facilitate research on Indian culture and history. Funding came from various public and private sources. Under the leadership of five presidents, the Institute has flourished and is today recognized as the leading proponent of Indian studies in the United States. Its operations rely heavily on volunteer help from countless scholars in the United States and India and on a small, dedicated staff at the American headquarters in Chicago and the Indian headquarters in Delhi as well as at regional offices in important Indian cities. In the first decades of the Institute's existence, the operation has grown from the small fellowship-granting agency that initially it was. The addition of active regional offices, an internationally regarded Language Program, two major research centers, and facilities for short-term accommodation of scholars have made the Institute indispensable to American knowledge about India. Financial support for the Institute has come from a wide variety of sources. Originally, it was funded by private foundations. Prominent amount them were the Ford, Mellon, Old Dominion, Carnegie, Rockefeller Foundations and the JDR 3rd Fund. Today the Institute receives primary funding from the Smithsonian Institution, the U.S. State Department, the Council of American Overseas Research Centers, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the U.S. Department of Education. 

Governmental funding once freely available for the Institute has become increasingly difficult to obtain. Nevertheless, alternative sources and strategies have been developed to insure that the American Institute of Indian Studies flourishes into the foreseeable future. Activities in India have been consolidated in a building that the Institute constructed for its international headquarters. Located in Gurgaon, close to Delhi's international airport, this building has eliminated the payment of high rents for several buildings and duplication of effort by a dispersed staff. A modest endowment will insure the continuation of the Institute's basic operations forever. And an ongoing campaign to enhance that endowment seeks to insure that the Institute can continue its present level of activity. Funds are being sought from individuals and businesses, indeed from all those who have an interest in insuring that India's rich cultural heritage and the shared democratic experiences of our two countries continue to impact the awareness of Americans into the twenty-first century. 
 
 

This WWW server is provided by University of Chicago (February 1999 to present).
Previous Web server location: The Huntington Archive of Buddhist and Related Art, College of the Arts, The Ohio State University (January 1997 to February 1999); http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/aiis/aiishomepage.htm

Maintainer:
E. Auerbach (aiis@uchicago.edu)

Created January, 1997 by by Janice M. Glowski and Andrew LaMoreaux and incorporates Dublin Core Metadata; Last updated May 12, 2004 by E. Auerbach.   Incorporates Dublin Core Metadata.
© Text American Institute of Indian Studies

URL http://humanities.uchicago.edu/orgs/aiis/hp.htm

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