Saraswathi Mahal Library.
Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu,
india
613009

The Thanjavur Maharaja Serfoji's Sarasvati Mahal Library is one of the few medieval Libraries that exist in the world. It is an unbounded repository of culture and inexhaustible treasure-house of knowledge built up by the successive dynasties of Nayaks and Marathas of Thanjavur. It contains very rare and valuable collection of manuscripts on all aspects of art, culture and literature The Encyclopaedia Brittanica in its survey of Libraries of world mention this as "the most remarkable library in India. " 

Besides books and manuscripts, the Library possess beautifully decorated Thanjavur style of paintings on wood, glass, canvass, more than 5000 folios of illustrated manuscripts, paintings on paper, drawings, maps and atlases, metal engravings, sketches and other interesting materials of rare, smallest, biggest are available. 

      In an academic point of view, the Library possesses some very interesting specimens of literary and artistic importance.

     These have been roughly classified as

• Objects of interest on paper.
• Illustrated paper manuscripts.
• Oldest paper & palm leaf manuscripts
• Drawings and pictures believed to be Indian.
• Smallest drawings
• Palm leaf manuscripts.