South and Southeast Asian literature comprises works written originally in English by writers who either were born in or identify themselves culturally with India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Fiji, and the Southeast Asian diasporas. The collection focuses on literature written during the late-colonial and postcolonial eras.

The site offers bibliographic information and digital facsimiles for selected collections of manuscript codices, texts, documents, papers, and leaves held by Penn's Rare Book & Manuscript Library as well as those privately owned by Lawrence J. Schoenberg (C'53, WG'56).
Penn holds over 2,000 Western manuscripts produced before the 19th century; medieval and Renaissance manuscripts comprise approximately 900 items, the earliest dating from 1000 A.D. Its holdings of Indic manuscripts is the largest in the Western hemisphere with more than 3,000 items. The Lawrence J. Schoenberg Collection emphasizes secular topics, especially science and mathematics, and includes tablets from the 21st to 18th centuries B.C.

The Foreign office files for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan consist of the British government’s records for these countries from shortly before the Indian partition (1947) to 1980. The collection covers historical events from the standpoint of British officialdom, including: the Indian independence (1947), the formation of Pakistan (1971), the Kashmir wars, (1947-8 and 1965), the China-India conflict (1962), and coups in Pakistan (1958 and 1977), Afghanistan (1973, 1978 and 1979), and Bangladesh (1975). The collection also covers issues such as economic and industrial development, trade, migration, diplomatic travels, education, administrative reorganization, conflict over language, aid, political parties, agriculture, and the media.

India, Raj & Empire comprises diaries and journals, official and private papers, letters, sketches, paintings and original Indian documents containing histories and literary works on the subjects of Indian history, politics, and society. The collection focuses on the 18th and 19th centuries. The collection includes the writings of Governors-General, Commanders-in-Chief, Indian princes, soldiers, traders, missionaries, explorers, historians and authors of literary works, indigo farmers and tea and coffee planters.

This resource brings together manuscript, printed and visual primary source materials for the study of 'Empire' and its theories, practices and consequences. The materials span across the last five centuries and are accompanied by a host of secondary learning resources including scholarly essays, maps and an interactive chronology.

Access to primary source documents from the India Office Records at the British Library in London. Containing royal charters, records of council meetings and resolutions, correspondence, legislation, lists of personnel, printed books, etcetera. This resource charts the history of British trade and rule in the Indian subcontinent and beyond from 1595 to 1947, including administrative and ecclesiastical appointments; agriculture; charters and the Company’s relationship to the English/British Crown; courts and legal affairs, including legislation; diplomacy, treaties and ambassadorial expeditions; finance and debt; the machinery of government; pay and pensions for Company servants and their families; railways; trade; warfare and military matters. These provide insight into the internal workings of the Company as well as that of its "factories", or trading posts, across Asia, the Middle East, and parts of Africa, including letters sent and received, official trading diaries, accounts of the Company's embassies to rulers, proceedings of provincial councils and revenue boards, military documents and account books.

Check out these, specifically:
-Afghanistan in 1919: The Third Anglo-Afghan War
-Afghanistan and the U.S., 1945-1963: Records of the U.S. State Department Central Classified Files
-Indian Army and Colonial Warfare on the Frontiers of India, 1914-1920
-India-Pakistan Conflict: Records of the U.S. State Department, February 1963-1966
-Indochina, France, and the Viet Minh War, 1945-1954: Records of the U.S. State Department, Part 1: 1945-1949
-The Hindu Conspiracy Cases: Activities of the Indian Independence Movement in the U.S., 1908-1933
-U.S. Relations and Policies in Southeast Asia, 1944-1958: Records of the Office of Southeast Asian Affairs

The most important history of Afghanistan ever written (originally written in Persian), Sirāj al-tavārīkh or The History of Afghanistan. It was commissioned as an official national history by the Afghan prince, later amir, Habib Allah Khan (reigned 1901-1919). The author, Fayz Muhammad Khan, better known as "Katib" (The Writer), was a scribe at the royal court. For more than twenty years, he had full access to government archives and oral sources and thus presents an unparalleled picture of the country from its founding in 1747 until the end of the nineteenth century. The roots of much of the fabric of Afghanistan's society today--tribe and state relations, the rule of law, gender issues, and the economy--are elegantly and minutely detailed in this immense work.