Museums of Anthropological Survey of India

The distinction between museum as a 'place' and as an 'idea' may be useful. As a place, it is a community of material objects systematically exhibited over a physical space, covered or open-air, or both, with an objective to know about the subject to which the exhibits belong. As in a book, where its different chapters are organically integrated, in a similar way, different displays in a museum bear kinship among them. A storyline connects all of them together, which is not left to the imagination or the intuitive faculty of the viewer. Rather, it is spelt out in words, as succinctly as possible. The museum is, therefore, a blend of material objects and short and crisp written texts about them, sometimes displayed as plaques. A museum is not an antique shop, which may be a disparate collection of objects, some real, while some replicas of the original, primarily for sale. A museum might also have such a shop, where information about the collections, mementoes bearing the insignia of the museum, and objects for sale may be kept.…