Adyar Library

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The Adyar Library and Research Center ( Adyar Library and Research Center ) is a 1886 from Theosophen Henry Steel Olcott founded library . It is located on the grounds of the Adyar Theosophical Society (Adyar-TG) in Adyar , a suburb of Chennai in India .

history

Henry Steel Olcott opened the Adyar Library on December 28, 1886. Olcott's small private collection, consisting of around 200 books in 24 languages, formed the basis of what was then called Library Olcott . On his extensive travels through East , Southeast and South Asia , Olcott acquired numerous, often rare works of Asian cultures, religions and philosophies in the following two decades. After Olcott's death in 1907, other theosophists continued the development work, and a number of donations were made to the Adyar Library and the Theosophical Society. Today the library consists of around 250,000 volumes and 20,000 palm leaf fonts . In the field of oriental studies, the Adyar Library is one of the most important libraries in the world. Naturally, a lot of space is devoted to the subject of theosophy .

Originally located in the headquarters of the Adyar Theosophical Society (Adyar-TG), the Adyar Library moved into its own building, The Adyar Library Building, on the Adyar-TG site , built by Nilakanta Sri Ram in 1966 . Old books and manuscripts are exhibited in a museum open to the public. The Adyar Library also serves as the Postgraduate Study Center in Sanskrit and Indology for the University of Madras .

The library is owned and funded by the Adyar-TG. Most of the activities are carried out by unpaid volunteers, usually members of the Adyar-TG. The University of Chicago strives for the preservation of old scripts in the Adyar Library by microfilming .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Projects on South Asia . uchicago.edu. Retrieved March 12, 2016.

Coordinates: 13 ° 0 ′ 39.1 ″  N , 80 ° 15 ′ 45.7 ″  E