In January 1784, Sir William Jones sent out a circular-letter to a selected number of British residents of Calcutta with a view to establish a society for the Asiatic studies.

At his invitation, 30 British residents met in the Grand Jury Room of the Supreme Court (in Calcutta's Fort William) on 15 January 1784.

The Memorandum of Articles of the Asiatic Society, prepared by Jones said:[2] The bounds of investigations will be the geographical limits of Asia, and within these limits its enquiries will be extended to whatever is performed by man or produced by nature.Notable early members were Charles Wilkins and Alexander Hamilton (the cousin of the American statesman).

Initially, the Grand Jury Room of the Supreme Court was used for the meetings of the members, who had to pay a quarterly fee of two mohurs.

Harrington, then vice-president, selected the corner of Park Street and Chowringhee Road (present location) for the Society's house.

The French architect Jean-Jacques Pichou[3] made certain modifications to it and constructed a two-storeyed building at the site.

], the library of the Asiatic Society has a collection of about 117,000 books and 79,000 journals printed in almost all the major languages of the world.

The first accession of importance was a gift from the Seringapatam Committee on 3 February 1808 consisting of a collection from the Palace Library of Tipu Sultan.

Since 1849, the Society has printed Bibliotheca Indica, a collection of rare and unpublished works belonging to or treating of Oriental literature and containing original text-editions as well as translations into English, and also grammars, dictionaries, bibliographies, and studies.

The Society, however, still has a museum of its own which possesses a rock edict of Asoka (c. 250 BCE) and a significant collection of copper plate inscriptions, coins, sculptures, manuscripts, and archival records.

Some masterpieces, like Joshua Reynolds’ Cupid asleep on Cloud, Guido Cagnacci's Cleopatra, Thomas Daniell's A Ghat at Benares, and Peter Paul Rubens’ Infant Christ are also in the possession of this museum.