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THE THANJAVUR MAHARAJA SERFOJI’S SARASWATHI MAHAL LIBRARY Saraswathi Mahal Library is located in Thanjavur, Tamilnadu, India. It is one of the oldest libraries in Asia and has on display a rare collection of palm leaf manuscripts and papers written in Tamil, Hindi, English, Telugu, Marathi 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. 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 patronised 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

CHOLA (CHOZHA) DYNASTY The  Chola (Chozha) Dynasty was a Tamil thalassocratic empire of southern India and one of the longest-ruling dynasties in world history. The earliest datable references to the Chola are from inscriptions dated to the 3rd century BCE during the reign of Ashoka of the Maurya Empire. As one of the Three Crowned Kings of Tamizhagam, along with the Chera and Pandya, the dynasty continued to govern over varying territories until the 13th century CE. Despite these ancient origins, the rise of the Chola, as the ‘Chola Empire’, only began with the medieval Cholas in the mid ninth century CE. The heartland of the Cholas was the fertile valley of the river Cauveri. They unified peninsular India, south of the Tungabhadra and held as one state for three centuries between 907 and 1215 AD. Under Rajaraja I and his successors Rajendra I, Rajadhiraja I, Rajendra II, Virajendra, and Kulothunga Chola I, the dynasty became a military, economic and cultural powerhouse in South Asia