This overview is inspired by Maddalena Poli’s recent post, which (re-)introduces East Asian Studies resources featured in The DO. Since joining in 2022, I’ve observed a steady growth in contributions relating to Central and South Asian Studies – from database reviews to comprehensive series on training OCR/HTR models, and from traditional manuscript digitisation to AI-generated content creation. I’ve enjoyed reading these pieces, learning more about how the field is developing and, as Maddalena pointed out, identifying projects and resources that have since been taken offline and in whose place gaps remain.
The growth and diversity of contributions mirror developments within The DO as well, which has expanded from ‘Indian Studies’ and ‘Buddhist Studies’ teams to include ‘Central Asian’ and ‘South Asian’ teams (the latter now split into two separate teams due to its size!), with a ‘Southeast Asian Studies’ team added this year.
I’ve used five broad categories to structure this overview and make its navigation easier, but many overlap, so these divisions were created more for convenience than as strict boundaries. While this compilation focuses on tool and resource reviews, I would also like to give a quick shout out to interviews that have been published – conversations with scholars like Zhenou Zhou, Dagmar Wujastyk and Naomi Appleton offer interesting insights into methodologies, resources, and project developments that complement these technical reviews.
Art, Archaeology, and Musicology
- Digitizing Indian Music, by Giulia Buriola, 2020.
- Tools for photogrammetry have been compiled by Giulia Buriola, 2020.
- Digital Resources for the Study of Buddhist Art in Central Asia: a general overview, by Alice Casalini, 2022.
- Ladakh Archaeology, reviewed by Rachael Griffiths, 2023.
- Creating AI-generated images using DALL-E 3, part one of a series on generative AI by Edward A.S. Ross, 2024.
- Creating AI-generated music using CassetteAI, the second post in the series by Edward A.S. Ross, 2025.
Databases and Digital Manuscript Collections
- Digital Repository of Endangered and Affected Manuscripts in Southeast Asia (DREAMSEA), reviewed by Mark Boersma, 2023.
- Online Resources for Indian Studies, compiled by Giulia Buriola, 2019.
- PANDiT, a prosopographical database of Indic texts, reviewed by Giulia Buriola, 2020.
- Toyo Bunko Archive, reviewed by Alice Casalini, 2022.
- Documentation of Mongolian Monasteries, reviewed by Daigengna Duoer, 2021.
- Manuscripts digitised by Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA), introduced by Shruti Dixit, 2021.
- Treasury of Lives (TOL), introduced by Alexander Gardner and Catherine Tsuji, 2024.
- Oral History of Tibetan Studies (OHTS), introduced by Rachael Griffiths and Daniel Wojahn, 2024.
- Resources for Kanjur and Tanjur Studies (RKTS), reviewed by Rachael Griffiths, 2025.
- Jaina Prosopography project, reviewed by Julie A Hanlon, 2020.
- Buddhist Digital Resource Centre (BDRC), reviewed by Matthew Hayes, 2021.
- BuddhaNexus has been reviewed in a two-part series by Mathew Hayes (part one and two), 2020-2021.
- The Pote Collection of Islamic Manuscripts features in a three-part series by Shiva Mihan (part one, two and three), 2021.
- International Dunhuang Programme, introduced by Anastasia Pineschi, 2024.
- From the Land of Braj, Centre of Krishna Pilgrimage, reviewed by Adrian Plau, 2022.
- Resources relating to the partition of Punjab have been compiled by Roshane Shahbaz, 2024.
- PG Sindhi Library has been introduced and re-visited by Soni Wadhwa, 2023 and 2025.
- Sindhi Halchal Archive, introduced by Soni Wadhwa, 2025.
- Sindhi Sanchaya, introduced by Soni Wadhwa, 2025.
Research Platforms and Technical Frameworks
- Mapping Ancient Indian Urban Spaces with GIS, by Giulia Buriola, 2019.
- Resources and tools for approaching Partition Studies have been explored by Gursimran Kaur Butalia, 2024.
- Research Environment for Ancient Documents (READ): A collaborative platform for manuscript transcription and analysis. Two-part review by Christopher L. Diamond (part one and two), 2022-2023.
- Legacy cataloguing and TEI: David Pingree and Wellcome Collection, by Alexandra Eveleigh, Stephanie Cornwell, and Adrian Plau, 2021.
- Beyond Rows and Columns: Visualising Data with RawGraphs, by Rachael Griffiths, 2025.
- Secret Tantra of the Sun: Blazing Luminous Matrix of Samantabhadri An Intertextual Heatmap, introduced by Elaine Lai, 2024.
- Time and Pragmatism in the Digital Humanities: TEI and Juxta Commons for South Asian Manuscript Collation, by Adrian Plau, 2020.
- Hellenistic Central Asia through the Eyes of GenAI – Part 3: Deep Research, the final part in a series on generative AI by Edward A.S. Ross, 2025.
- Transforming the way we interact with digital (text) collections with IIIF, by Daniel Wojahn, 2023.
- CrossAsia is the focus of a three-part comprehensive series by Daniel Wojahn (part one, two, and three), 2025.
Text Processing and Language
- An overview of digital resources for Sanskrit, compiled by Udita Das, 2022.
- Sanskrit WordNet, introduced by Erica Biagetti, 2023.
- Combining Digital Resources to Investigate the Oral-formulaic Diction of Sanskrit Texts is presented in a two-part series by Erica Biagetti (part one and two), 2024.
- A Parallel Treebank of Speeches by Narendra Modi, by Erica Biagetti, 2024.
- Aksharmukha, reviewed by Rohan Chauhan, 2024.
- Training Urdu, Hindi, and Bengali models with eScriptorium, a detailed workflow presented in a three-part series by Rohan Chauhan (part one, two, and three), 2022-2023.
- A two-part series on training Tibetan language HTR models with Transkribus by Rachael Griffiths (part one and two), 2022.
- Typing in Tamil in Contemporary and Ancient Scripts, by Julie A Hanlon, 2021.
Digital Media and Outreach
- Online Ritual Web Traffic and the Hindu Diaspora, by Zach Chrisman, 2019.
- Podcasting as Digital Storytelling in Research and Outreach, by Christopher L. Diamond, 2023.
- Exhibiting the Ancient Silk Roads Virtually, by Agnes Sung, 2023.
