Thanjavur’s Saraswathi Mahal Library 100 not out

Formed during the reign of Nayaks of Thanjavur (1535-1675 AD) and enriched by the Rajah Serfoji II (1798–1832), a multifaceted personality, the Sarasvati Mahal library houses around 70,000 volumes of manuscripts made of both palm leaves and paper. The library holds the documents about the medical services of the Rajah Sarfoji who established a Dhanvantri medical centre.

When the Rajah Sarfoji, who loved books, went on a Kasi yatra, he purchased books, manuscripts, artifacts and the books that were lotted during the Thippu Sultan’s era are being preserved in the library. The Rajah Sarfoji, who is also an eminent scholar had leant many languages including English, French, Italian and Latin and enthusiastically took special interest to enrich the library with vast number of works from all renowned regions.

The library houses as many as 24,165 palm leaves manuscripts, 23,169 paper manuscripts and over 3 lakh Modi documents. All these have details about the rare herbs, documents about medicine, spiritual and astrology collections.

The library which was utilised only by the Rajah and his family members was declared as a public library by the British ruler on October 5, 1918. Since then, the library has been used by students and research scholars. Domestic and foreign researchers also make use of the documents available in the library for their studies.

At this juncture, the Thanjavur district administration has decided to celebrate the centenary year in a grand manner and asked the officials to prepare a detailed proposal for the celebration.

Though the Saraswathi Mahal Library reaches the Centenary year, the development works are on a snail’s pace. It is said, the library which is a main source for the researchers, a research centre was planned 10 years ago in collaboration with the Bharathidasan University, Tiruchy. However, the plan was dropped in due course of time as there was no special post for monitor the centre.

The digitisation of manuscripts had commenced in 2015 and in the Phase I, around 49,000 manuscripts were digitised. Rare collections of various languages including Tamil, Sanskrit, Telugu, Marathi the digitisation of rare book collections of King Serfoji were digitised. 

However, the works were still going on with snail’s pace. Meanwhile, it is said, the full time director post is still lying vacant for over 25 years and so the PA to collector has been looking after it as an additional work. Similarly, administrative officer postings are also yet to be filled. 

While the actual strength of the regular staff is 48, only 18 are presently working and only one librarian is appointed against the sanctioned strength of three. 

Above all, the pandit posting for Tamil and Sanscrit is still lying vacant. The activists blame that the library which had a fast growth during the Nayaks and Maratha dynasty has not witnessed growth after their period.