Sanjay Teng

Sanjay Teng
Name	Sanjay Teng
Birth date	1974
Birth place	Mumbai, India
Occupation	Historian; Curator; Author
Nationality	Indian
Alma mater	University of Cambridge; University of Mumbai; University of Oxford
Notable works	The Maritime Silk Routes; Archives of the Deccan; Port Cities of the Indian Ocean

Sanjay Teng Sanjay Teng (born 1974) is an Indian historian, curator, and author known for scholarship on Indian Ocean networks, colonial urbanism, and archival preservation. He has held academic and museum posts at institutions across South Asia and Europe, produced monographs and exhibition catalogues, and advised heritage bodies, international museums, and university presses.

Early life and education

Teng was born in Mumbai and educated at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, the University of Mumbai, and later at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford. He completed undergraduate studies in history at St. Xavier's College, Mumbai, a master's degree at the University of Mumbai, and doctoral research at King's College, Cambridge under supervision connected to the Centre of South Asian Studies, Cambridge. His doctoral thesis engaged archives from the British Library, the National Archives (United Kingdom), and repositories in Goa and Hyderabad (India), bringing him into contact with curators at the Victoria and Albert Museum and the British Museum.

Career

Teng began as a research fellow at the Indian Council of Historical Research before moving to a curatorial post at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sangrahalaya in Mumbai. He later served as visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, lecturer at the University of Oxford's Faculty of History, and associate professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Teng has collaborated with the World Monuments Fund, the Getty Research Institute, and UNESCO on heritage surveys. He curated major exhibitions for the National Museum, New Delhi, the Tate Modern, and the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge, and held editorial roles with the Cambridge University Press and Routledge.

Major works and contributions

Teng's monograph The Maritime Silk Routes examined trade networks connecting Calicut, Aden, Muscat, Malacca, Macau, and Venice, drawing on sources from the East India Company records, Ottoman Archives, and Portuguese documentation from the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo. His edited volume Archives of the Deccan brought together studies of princely state records from Hyderabad (India), the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Marathas, and the Aga Khan collections. He authored Port Cities of the Indian Ocean, a comparative study linking Surat, Goa, Colombo, Kochi, and Mombasa with material from the Dutch East India Company and British Raj periods. Teng's work on archival methodology influenced digitization programs at the National Archives of India, the British Library, and the Library of Congress. He contributed to catalogues for exhibitions on the Mughal Empire, the Bhakti Movement, and the Portuguese Empire and published articles in journals including the Journal of Asian Studies, Modern Asian Studies, and Comparative Studies in Society and History.

Awards and recognition

Teng received the British Academy Newton Fellowship for research on maritime networks and was awarded the Infosys Prize in the humanities category. He has been a fellow of the Royal Historical Society and was granted a prize by the Asiatic Society, Mumbai for contributions to regional history. International honors include a research prize from the Gerda Henkel Foundation and a curatorial award from the International Council of Museums (ICOM) for an exhibition linking South Asian port cities.

Personal life

Teng divides his time between Mumbai and Cambridge and is associated with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences as a visiting researcher. He is married to a scholar affiliated with the School of Oriental and African Studies and has participated in collaborative projects with colleagues from the University of Pennsylvania and the National University of Singapore.

Legacy and impact

Teng's interdisciplinary approach bridged scholarship at the British Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and regional archives in Kolkata and Chennai (Madras), influencing curatorial practice and archival digitization across institutions such as the National Archives (UK) and the State Archives of Goa. His work reshaped narratives about Indian Ocean connectivity, informing museum exhibitions at the Tate Britain, policy reports for UNESCO, and academic syllabi at the University of Cambridge and Jawaharlal Nehru University. Teng's methodologies continue to be cited in studies of the Mughal Empire, Maritime Silk Road, and South Asian urban history.

Category:Indian historians Category:1974 births Category:Living people