Faculty of Asian Studies, The Australian National University

Professor Arthur Llewellyn Basham, was an historian and a scholar of Asia. The Basham Lectures is an ANU annual Public Lecture Series given in his memory.

A guru of South Asian history, Arthur Llewellyn Basham epitomized the otherwise intangible notion of Oriental Civilizations. His classic work, The Wonder that was India, published before he came to Canberra, is an encyclopedic survey of the subcontinent before the coming of the Muslims in the sixteenth century, ranging in subject matter across language, literature, religions, government, and the arts.

Joining the ANU in 1965 as Professor of Oriental (later Asian) Civilizations, he served as Dean of the Faculty of Asian Studies from 1968 to 1970. In 1971 he presided over the world's famous conference of researchers on Asia, the International Congress of Orientalists.

Professor Basham retired from the University in 1979, but maintained his connections as a Visiting Fellow on several occasions during the early 1980s. He died in Calcutta in 1986.

The Basham Lectures

• Polity in Transition: India after the 2004 general elections: The Basham Lecture, ANU Public Lecture Series 2005, given by Professor Mahesh Rangaranjan
• Pakistan and India: Political Legacies from the Colonial Era The Basham Lecture, ANU Public Lecture Series 2002, given by Professor Anthony Low, former Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University.
• India: a new beginning: The Basham Lecture, ANU Public Lecture Series 2000, given by Dr. Richard Shand, of the Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University.
• The Role of the Laity in Modern Thai Buddhism: The Basham Lecture, ANU Public Lecture Series 1995, given by B.J.Terwiel, of the Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University.