South India - Tourist Attractions - Saraswathi Mahal Library - Tamil Nadu
Tanjavur Palace is known for its fine masonry, there are two Dubar halls designed with exemplary art work. The main attraction of this palace is the Saraswathi Mahal library which houses about 30,433 Sanskrit books, rare of rarest palm scriptures and many more journals of other languages.
Saraswathi Mahal Library - Tanjore
This library is one of the oldest libraries in Asia. The collection has about 60,000 volumes and few of them are on display. The rare palm manuscripts written many eons back in various language including Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, English and many more languages can be seen here.
This library was created for the use of Royal people of Nayaks who ruled Tanjore in the year 1535 - 1675 AD. Later this library was developed by Maratha rulers. Maharaj Serfoji done a great contribution to this library and so to honour him the library name has been changed to "The Thanjavur Maharaja Serfoji's Saraswati Mahal Library".