Saraswathi Mahal Library - Tanjore

One of Asia's oldest libraries is this one. There are over 60,000 volumes in the collection, although only few of them are on display. Here you can view the rare palm manuscripts written in many different languages, such as Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, English, and so on.

This library was built for the royal Nayak family, who governed Tanjore from 1535 to 1675 AD. Maratha monarchs later developed this library. The name of the library has been changed to "The Thanjavur Maharaja Serfoji's Saraswati Mahal Library" in honor of Maharaj Serfoji, who has greatly contributed to it.

The library has computerized its activities and supports publishing rare manuscripts from the collection while ensuring the preservation of all volumes on microfilm. The majority of the manuscripts (39,300) in total are written in Sanskrit and include works in the fields of music, literature, and medicine. They are written in scripts like Grantha, Devanagari, Nandinagari, Telugu, and Tamil. The majority of Marathi manuscripts are written on paper, while some were written on palm leaves in Telugu script. The collection includes 22 Persian and Urdu manuscripts, most from the 19th century, and 846 Telugu manuscripts, the majority of which are on palm leaves. Scholars of Ayurveda have medical records in the library as well, including case studies and interviews with patients included in manuscripts under the Dhanvantari division.

This museum has sections for each category, like highlighting ancient manuscripts, illustrated manuscripts, printed copies of the original drawings, Thanjavur-style paper paintings, canvas paintings, wooden paintings, glass paintings, and so on.

The Saraswathi Mahal Library is not only noteworthy for its historical and cultural importance but also as a hub for maintaining and encouraging India's rich intellectual history.