ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the process of ‘collecting’ rather than ‘collections’, especially with reference to museums in India, which house large numbers of Gandharan sculptures. These include the Indian Museum, Kolkata founded in 1814 with the largest collection of 1602 Gandharan objects; or the National Museum, New Delhi, which was inaugurated on 15 August 1949, two years after Indian Independence and has 688 objects. In contrast to the Indian Museum’s collection made before 1927, the National Museum continued to add pieces until 1987. Other sizable collections include those in the Government Museum, Chandigarh and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Vastu Sangrahalaya, Mumbai, though the history of the collections is different in each case. How are these differences to be understood or contextualized?
