Thanjavur Maratha Palace - Saraswathi Mahal Library
Saraswathi
Mahal Library or Tanjore Maharaja Serfoji's Sarasvati Mahal
Library is located in Thanjavur (Tanjore), Tamil
Nadu, India. It is one of the oldest libraries in Asia, and has on
display a rare collection of Palm leaf manuscripts and paper written in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, English and a few other languages indigenous to India. The
collection comprises well over 60,000 volumes, though only a tiny fraction of
these are on display. The library has a complete catalogue of holdings, which
is being made available online. Some rare holdings can be viewed on site by
prior arrangement.
It is
located outside the palace; it is one of the very few medieval Manuscript
libraries in the world. It is considered as one of the oldest and the best
historical libraries in India. There is a museum inside Saraswathi Mahal which
displays only selected books. The library houses more than a million
manuscripts in various languages like Tamil, Sanskrit, Marathi, Telugu and
Manipravalam. A survey conducted by Encyclopedia Britannica shows that
Saraswathi Mahal was voted as "the most remarkable library of India".
If you
are a tourist visiting the Thanjavur palace, try to hire a guide who can show
you around. There are no signboards about the various structures and it can get
confusing while navigating around the place. This is a fun place to visit if
you are a history or an architecture buff. It is definitely one of the top 10
things to do in Thanjavur.
Apart
from the library section, Saraswati Mahal has a big hall, which acts as the
museum. The statue of the Goddess Saraswati, big Tanjore painting of Rama
Pattabhishekam, few more beautiful Tanjore paintings of the other deities such
as Ganesha and Lakshmi, miniature paintings of various Tanjore Maratha Kings,
two big portrait paintings of Sarfoji II are all found in the hall.
There is
a section in the museum, which has a lot of old and rare collections that
include the ancient books on medicine, ancient Ramayana, Mahabharata and other
Sanskrit texts, manuscripts, palm leaf scripts, very small sized palm leaf
scripts, scroll scripts, the paintings of Indian cities by a Dutch traveler
done in 1795 CE, the book published in 1804 CE explaining various kinds of
punishments given by the Chinese governments in those days, old paintings, 18th
century Tanjore paintings, set of paintings depicting the resemblance between
humans and various animals and birds, etc.
History
Originally
called the Saraswathi Bhandar, the Raja Serfoji Saraswathi Mahal Library is one
of the greatest libraries in India. The Saraswathi Mahal library started as a
Royal Library for the private pleasure of the Nayak Kings of Thanjavur who ruled 1535 - 1675 AD.
The Maratha rulers who captured Thanjavur in 1675 patronized
local culture and further developed the Royal Palace Library until 1855. Most
notable among the Maratha Kings was Serfoji
II (1798–1832), who was an eminent scholar in many
branches of learning and the arts.
In his
early age Serfoji studied under the influence of the German Reverent Schwartz, and learned many languages
including English, French, Italian and Latin. He enthusiastically took special
interest in the enrichment of the Library, employing many Pandits to collect, buy and copy a vast number of works
from all renowned Centres of Sanskrit learning in Northern India and other
far-flung areas.
Since
1918 the Saraswathi Mahal Library has been a possession of the state of Tamil
Nadu. Its official name of the Library was changed to "The Thanjavur
Maharaja Serfoji's Sarasvati Mahal Library" in honour of the great royal
Marathan patron.
Efforts
The
library is open to the public; it also supports efforts to publish rare
manuscripts from the collection, as well as ensuring all volumes are preserved
on microfilm. The Library has installed computers in 1998 for the Computerization
of Library activities. As a first phase, the Library catalogues are being
stored in the Computer for easy information retrieval. It is also proposed to digitize
the manuscripts of this Library shortly.
The
Collection
The bulk
of the manuscripts (39,300) are in Sanskrit, written in scripts such as Grantha, Devanagiri, Nandinagari, Telugu. Tamil manuscripts number over 3500000, comprising
titles in literature, music and medicine. The Library has a collection of 3076
Marathi manuscripts from the South Indian Maharastrian of the 17th,
18th, and 19th centuries; this includes the hierarchy of the Saints of
Maharashtra belonging to Sri Ramadasi and Dattatreya Mutts. The Marathi manuscripts are mostly on paper but a few
were written in Telugu script on palm-leaf.
There
are 846 Telugu manuscripts in the holdings, mostly on palm leaf. There are 22
Persian and Urdu manuscripts mostly of 19th century also within the collection.
The library also holds medical records of Ayurveda scholars, including patient
case studies and interviews in the manuscripts classified under the Dhanvanthari
section.
Apart
from these manuscripts there are 1342 bundles of Maratha Raj records available
at the Library. The Raj records were written in the Modi
script (fast script for Devanagiri)
of the Marathi language. These records encompass the information of the
political, cultural and social administration of the Maratha kings of
Thanjavur.
Some of the rare books and manuscripts:
·
Dr.
Samuel Johnson's dictionary published in 1784
·
The
pictorial Bible printed in Amsterdam in the year 1791
·
The
Madras Alamnac printed in 1807
·
Lavoisier's Traité Élémentaire de Chimie ("Elements of Chemistry")
·
The
notes of Bishop Heber on Raja Serfoji II
·
The
correspondence letters of William Torin of London who purchased a lot of books
for Raja Serfoji II and the Saraswathi Mahal Library
·
The
Globe used by the raja.
·
Ancient
maps of the world
· Town
planning documents of Thanjavur including the underground drainage system, the
fresh water supply ducting system
· Pictorial
charts of the theory of evolution of man as evinced by Charles Le Brun
Library
Museum
A museum
is located in the Library building to reveal the importance of the Library to
the Public. This Museum is small but organized into sections highlighting
ancient Manuscripts, Illustrated Manuscripts, Printed copies of the Original
Drawings, Atlases, Thanjavur- style Paper Paintings, Canvass Paintings, Wooden
Paintings, Glass paintings, Portraits of the Thanjavur Maratha kings, and the
Physiognomy charts of Charles Le-Brun. These materials give an idea of the
total variety in the vast collection within the Library.
The
Saraswati Library is situated within the campus of the Thanjavur
Palace. Visitors can have a
glimpse of preserved books and can sit and read in the library premises. Better
preservation of books and facilities like air-conditioning with dehumidifiers,
redesigning of space for comfortable reading, online catalogue facility, should
have been taken up to preserve this internationally renowned treasure trove of
books and palm-leaf manuscripts.
Efforts
were made to microfilm and catalogue the contents way back in 1965 when Indira
Gandhi was Information &
Broadcasting Minister, Government of India who sanctioned the fund for the
library's development. Since then no efforts were made to scan the documents
and computerize the same using present day technology. It is also a designated
'Manuscript Conservation Centre' (MCC) under the National Mission for
Manuscripts established in 2003.
Library
Timings
|
Timings
|
Admission Free
|
|
10.00 a.m. to 1.00 p.m.
1.30 p.m. to 5.30 p.m.
|
Open on all days except National Holidays
Phone: +91 – 4362 – 234107
Fax: +91 – 4362 – 234362 – 233568
|
Library only for Research Scholars:
|
Timing: 10.00
a.m. to 1.00 p.m. & 1.30 pm. to 5.30 p.m.
|
Holidays: Wednesday
and all other Government Holidays.
