Oriental Manuscript Library, a part of the
University of Kerala, is located at
Kariavattom in
Thiruvananthapuram. Started in 1938, most of its collections are from the palace library of the erstwhile Travancore rulers. And others are from the
Namboothiri residences and private households in Kerala. There are about 65,000 works including manuscripts, transcripts and printed books in the library and majority of them are in the form of palm-leaf manuscripts. Some among the collection are 13 Sanskrit plays of Bhasa, Aryamanju Sreemula Kalpa (a Buddhist work), Kautilya’s
Arthashastra (Malayalam Commentary),Saraswati Kanthabharana (Interpretation of Panini’s work), the
Mahabharata and manuscripts in other Indian and foreign languages.
