Coedès Collection

The Coedès Collection offers a fascinating window into the ancient history, archaeology, and culture of Southeast Asia. Comprising books, pamphlets, reprints, and maps—primarily in French—it reflects the lifelong scholarship of George Coedès, a renowned historian and epigrapher. Coedès' groundbreaking work decoded inscriptions in languages like Sanskrit, Pali, and Old Khmer, uncovering the deep connections between Southeast Asia and Indian and Chinese civilisations. This collection captures his remarkable contributions, making it a vital resource for exploring the region’s rich and complex past.

Asia

Key items in the collection

Highlights from this collection demonstrate its historical significance and variety.

The Coedès Collection contains about 2000 books and pamphlets as well as 1022 reprints and 101 single issues of periodicals. The majority of the works are in French, but there are also books in English, Dutch, German, Vietnamese, Thai and other languages of South-East Asia.

The collection relates largely to the ancient history, archaeology and culture of South-East Asia and in particular the influence of Buddhism and Indian civilisation on the peoples of Indo-China and Thailand. There are a large number of works on Buddhism, Buddhist art, Indian philosophy, Sanskrit literature, Hindu iconography, Indian sculpture, and Chinese bronzes and pottery, as well as books on the languages, religion, art, history and government of South-East Asian countries. The collection is especially strong in archaeological surveys and monuments of Cambodia and Vietnam. In addition, there are books on exploration, travel, cartography, iconography and cultural anthropology.

Although the bulk of the works were published in the twentieth century, there are many nineteenth-century books, particularly on Buddhism. The following are examples of rare or early publications in the collection:

Annales du Siam (translated by Camille Notton, 4 vols, 1926–39)
Textes Khmers (E. Aymonier, 1878)
Le Bayon d’Angkor Thom: bas-reliefs (1913)
The Burney papers (5 vols, 1910–14)
A descriptive dictionary of the Indian Islands & adjacent countries (John Crawfurd, 1856)
Epigraphia Indica (2 vols, 1892)
Les stèles royales de Lam-Son (Émile Gaspardone, 1935)
Le royaume de Siam (Amedé Grehan, 1868)
Les annales imperiales de l’Annam (Hung Vuong, 1880)
Archaeological research in Indo-China (Olov R.T. Janse, 3 vols, 1947–58)
Voyage d’exploration en Indo-chine (Doudart de Lagree, 2 vols, 1873)
Narrative of a residence at the Capital of the Kingdom of Siam (Fred Arthur Neale, 1852)
Inventaire descriptif des monuments cams de l’Annam (Henri Parmentier, 4 vols, 1909–18)
Records of the relations between Siam and foreign countries in the 17th century (5 vols, 1915–21)
La relation sur le Tonkin du P. Baldinotti (1629)
L’empire d’Annam et le peuple Annamite (Jules Silvestre, 1889)
Le Temple d’Angkor Vat (3 vols, 1929–32)
Cours d’histoire Annamite à l’usage des écoles de la basse-Cochinchine (Truong Vinh Ky, 2 vols, 1875–77)
Over de Verwantschap en het Huwelijks-en Erfrecht bij de volken van den Indischen Archipel (G.A. Wilken, 1883).

The collection includes works by notable authors such as Henri Bergson, Leopold Cardière, Maurice Durand, Leon Feer, A. Foucher, René Grousset, Paul Guillement, D.G.E. Hall, Bernhard Karlgren, A. Meillet, Vilfredo Pareto, Henri Parmentier, Jean Przyluski, J.F. Rock, and Ngiem Toan.

The Coedès Collection includes correspondence, official records, reviews, photographs, newspaper clippings, manuscripts, typescripts, and curricula vitae of various writers and academics. Most of these materials are from the last 30 years of Coedès’s life. Many letters focus on his election to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres.

Two maps by Claudius Madrolle, published in Paris in about 1910, were received with the Coedès Collection. One is of Indo-China (3 sheets, 1:250 000) and the other is of Tonkin (1 sheet, 1:500 000).

About George Coedès

Early life and education

George Coedès (1886–1969), of Hungarian descent, was born in Paris and educated at the Lycée Carnot and L’École pratique des hautes études. His interest in Southeast Asia began early and shaped a distinguished career in the study of the region’s history and languages.

Career in Southeast Asia

In 1911, Coedès traveled to Indo-China and joined the staff of L’École française de l’Extrême-Orient in Hanoi, an institution dedicated to the study of Asian archaeology and history. By 1914, he was appointed Professor of Indochinese Philology. His work took him to Bangkok in 1918, where he became the Director of the National Library of Siam. Between 1927 and 1929, he also served as Secretary-General of the Royal Institute of Siam.

In 1929, Coedès returned to Hanoi to assume the role of Director of L’École française de l’Extrême-Orient, a position he held until 1946. After World War II, he returned to France, where he was Professor of Southeast Asian History at L’École des Langues Orientales and Curator of the Musée d’Ennery in Paris. Recognised for his contributions, he was appointed an Officer of the Légion d’Honneur in 1952.

Contributions to Southeast Asian studies

Coedès dedicated his life to the study of ancient Southeast Asia. As a young scholar, he transcribed steles and monuments across the region, analyzing inscriptions in Sanskrit, Pali, Old Khmer, Old Malay, Mon, Thai, Cham, and other languages. His research illuminated the prehistory and ancient history of Southeast Asian peoples and their interactions with Indian and Chinese civilizations.

Coedès’ scholarship culminated in several landmark publications, including:

Inscriptions du Cambodge (8 vols, 1937–66)
Histoire ancienne des états hindouises d’Extrême Orient (1944), published in subsequent editions as: Les états hindouisés d’Indochine et d’Indonésie and Les peuples de la Péninsule Indochinoise (1962) and translated translated into English with the titles The Indianized States of Southeast Asia (1968) and The Making of South East Asia (1966).

Legacy

George Coedès was a pioneering scholar of Southeast Asian history and languages, whose meticulous work on inscriptions and ancient civilizations provided a foundation for the field. His legacy endures through his writings, which continue to be essential references for the study of Southeast Asia’s rich cultural heritage.

Background to the collection

The Coedès Collection was purchased in 1970 from the Amsterdam booksellers Drijver & Koolemans NV.

The printed material in the Coedes Collection is kept together as a formed collection within Asian Collections. The books and pamphlets have been catalogued individually and the call numbers have the prefixes COE, COEq, COEf and COE pam. The reprints are arranged alphabetically by author and are housed in 24 boxes, while issues of periodicals are contained in six boxes.

The Manuscripts Collection holds the manuscripts and personal papers. John Crocker complied a listing of the collection. The two maps are housed in the Maps Collection.

This guide was prepared using these references:

Ann Nugent, Asia’s French connection, National Library of Australia news, vol. 6 (4), January 1996, pp. 6–8.
A. Zigmund-Cerbu and Jean Boisselier, Travaux de M. George Coedès: essai de bibliographie, Artibus Asiae, vol. 24 (3–4), 1961, pp. 155–86.